Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing/critiquing my stories. :D

This chapter will be long, so bear with me XD And you'll get a front-seat row to Victoria's dark past. (Which is the explanation why she acts/talks like an immature kid.)

I don't own any of the characters, except Victoria, Anthony, and Wendy (I had to re-edit this because I accidentally put Sophie/Sophia XD). I own the plot in these, but not the super original one. That's Marvel's :D

Hope you enjoy!

Loki's POV

From the corner of his eyes, he watched Victoria as she started the automobile's ignition. He did his best to drink in her every single detail without making it obvious.

She was undeniably pretty, with her choppy blonde waves that framed a slightly childish face. For a female at age twenty-three, she was tall at 5' 9" and athletic. Slightly muscular even, as if she randomly lifted heavy weights in her spare time.

There was a rather charming aura that she exuded, causing everyone to be attracted to her like moths to a flame, even though she was slightly rough and foolish at times. Annoying, even. It was like she was the sun in the universe, and all everything revolved around her. Ugh, he thought. Like Thor.

And then there were her eyes. It was like a pair of dark blue orbs set in white marble.

Cruel. Unfeeling. Frozen. Dead. Just like him.

Those eyes didn't match her at all, and it was eerie just looking straight into them. Sure, she could mask whatever beneath her charming ways through her teenager-ish immaturity and rashness, but there was definitely something foreboding lurking within those irises. Was it sadness? Was it anger? Or maybe even both?

Either way, those eyes haunted Loki. It made him all the more curious about this interesting mortal.

"What do you do for a living?" he asked as she began to drive out of the parking lot.

"What do I do for a living?" She glanced at him briefly before checking the rearview mirror. "Well, I'm a corpsman in the U.S. Army. Nearly half a year ago I was in the battle zone in the Middle East. I was deployed there for six months, deployed to the US for six months, then sent back again. The squad I was in got attacked on my second tour there…" she paused and ran her hand through her blonde waves. "I was one of the very few survivors, and because I got shot, I received the Purple Heart Award. Useless shit if you ask me. I wasn't able to save my friends. I saw my friends die."

Loki watched her as she blinked hard and pushed some stray strands of hair out of her eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, letting the words roll out as simply as he could let them.

A short laugh that almost sounded like a sob came out of Victoria's lips as she made a turn by the bend, taking a right. "Thank you. But I'm over it now."

He continued to watch her out of the corner of his eyes. He wanted to say, "No you're not over it yet. You're still sad. You need help." But he remained silent. He had always been observant of people – noticing how they lived, acted, reacted, and felt. He knew what went through their minds, and through years of expert observation could easily calculate their next moves.

But he didn't know how to offer compassion. After all, he wasn't one fit to do so. He was the god of mischief, who lied through his teeth to get what he wanted. Empathy wasn't that familiar to him. It's not like he was a loved individual within the confines of his home in Asgard.

Everyone regarded him as an individual who always had something evil hidden up his sleeve.

"So. What're you going to do now?" she asked after a painfully long space of silence.

"I need to find a way to return to Asgard," he replied. "With the Bifrost broken, it's going to be a bit harder than summoning Heimdall."

"Who?"

"The gatekeeper of the Bifrost. But-" He grimaced at the thoughts that were forming in his head.

Sure, topical wounds were healed as well as the fractured bones, but he hadn't regained all of his strength that was needed to get back home. Some of his magic was working, but without full strength, it could only be used to a bare minimum.

Loki continued, "But I need your help."

"All right. Food and shelter and whatnot. But in exchange for what? Three wishes?" she asked, glancing briefly at the god of mischief.

His heart began beating faster when she looked at him – it was almost as if she was suspecting something. "If you want, then so be it," he said slowly, as if considering that she may use those three wishes against him someday. "Three wishes if you like, albeit it may seem a bit too much in comparison to what I ask for in return."

"Dude. You've got a monstrous appetite. The bills will soon add up on the tab, you know."

Victoria's POV

"But wait – I need his help! I need to pry information from him!" Jane protested as she followed me through the house. "I need to find a way to-"

"Get to Asgard?" I finished, crossing my arms over my chest. "Jane, please think rationally, since you're the scientist. Balance everything out. We are not goddesses, nor are we dead. We don't fit in that place. You are a mortal, Jane."

She looked at me with a sad and embittered look on her face, and I realized I had just poked at a wound. I had just implied that she's not worthy to be with Thor. Ouch.

I sigh and put my arms around my cousin. "Look, Jane. Loki is offering three wishes in return for our helping-"

"Wait, wait, wait. Weren't you the one who wasn't believing him earlier?" she asked, her eyebrows furrowed deep into her forehead. "Besides, we can't fully trust him. When Thor was leaving, one of the Norse warriors said that trouble was brewing because of Loki. We can't fully trust him."

True. The guy was the god of mischief after all.

Darcy (who still acted quite immature) and Wendy ran through the kitchen, screaming and laughing as Anthony chased them through the first floor. I watched them quietly as I stood in front of Jane, wondering what I should think next.

The weekend was almost over, I told my cousin. I definitely had to return Anthony and Sophie soon, or else the smart-pants people would be sensing that I did something stupid to the two and send me to another idiotic anger or OCD counseling. I was honestly getting sick and tired of it. It was so pointless. Then it would just be more pills.

Returning Anthony to the State Adolescent Center wasn't that much of a problem. I could visit him everyday if I wanted to, easy.

But Wendy had a different story – ever since…well, ever since she was born, it was hard to see her at least even once a week. I was actually "grateful" that the foster family taking care of her actually let her stay with me for a whole weekend. Looking at her, laughing and smiling now made me smile, but deep down inside it made me sad, as if a lot of uncomfortable memories were coming back.

Stupid. I thought. That's the past. Most of it was your fault. Get over it. So I pushed the emotions back down.

Loki's POV

Victoria breathed out a large puff of nicotine, leaning back her head as she swung her dangling leg across the tree branches. It was a rather clear night, with the full moon out and the stars sparkling in the distance. Some constellations she could make out, like the Andromeda that Jane taught her before. Now that she thought about it, those weren't exactly constellations. They were the other realms.

"Care if I join you?"

She looked down immediately at the direction of the voice, only to see Loki, dressed in a simple black tee and jeans. He actually looked adorable, looking up at her with a faint smile; thanks to the moonlight, a twinkle of mischievousness could be faintly seen in his green eyes.

Snap out of it. He's the god of mischief. He's a liar.

Victoria took in another drag, then let it curl out slowly from her mouth. "Sure. C'mon up."

In a few seconds, he was up on the same branch, sitting side-by-side with Victoria. His pale skin seemed to glow unnaturally from the beams of light offered by the full moon above. "Can't sleep?"

He nodded. She couldn't blame him. There were just some nights when you were just homesick and you couldn't manage to find sleep. The sleeping quarters in Asgard must have been grandeur in comparison to the beds they had here.

"That's bad for you," Loki muttered, gesturing to the cigarette that was hanging loosely from her pink lips. "And you can burn down a tree with that." She flashed him a sheepish grin and rubbed the back of her head.

"I'll be careful. Besides, I just happen to do it when I'm stressed. I'm not really a smoker, anyways."

The two of them sat quietly on the large tree branch; Loki stared quietly into the distance, Victoria puffed smoke without a sound. "Are those two your children?" he asked suddenly.

Victoria choked on her cigarette at his question and stared at him dumbly, taken aback at his question. "N-No. Well, Anthon-"

"It is fine with me if you do not want to speak about it," he said in an unbelievably gentle tone. "If I've hurt you by prying, I beg for forgiveness." Odd, he thought. It came out a bit more wholehearted than he wanted it to sound.

"It's okay." She brought the cigarette to her lips. Loki looked at her, not from a sideways glance, but looked on fully at her pretty face. It was so sad, much unlike her arrogant and immature behavior earlier on. It was infuriating, really.

She sighed. "I feel like I need to let it out anyways. If I don't, I'll probably explode or do something drastic." After a while, she began her story.

"I was twelve years old when my dad left, and Anthony was practically a baby. My dad just disappeared into nowhere, and up to now I don't know what happened to him. I hope he's dead," she added bitterly. "My mom fell into a depression and became a drug-addict. She was constantly high, and so I had no choice but to become the man of the house and to earn a living for my family. It was hard, going to a crazy public school, working in a low-paying crappy place, and living in the slums. The slums was a shithole. There were always fights going on and raids."

She paused. "I worked in a fast-food joint when I turned sixteen. One of my co-workers there, Jason Grant, kept hitting on me. Don't get me wrong, he was really cute, but I didn't like his attitude and I made it clear I didn't like him at all. There was this one time that I fainted on duty, from exhaustion, and he took me to the back where I could get 'some fresh air.' I was conscious already when he took me to the back, but I was still weak. He pinned me to the ground and covered my mouth with a dirty rag. He raped me."

Victoria leaned heavily against the tree trunk, staring off into the distance. "He was put into a juvenile delinquency. I found out some time afterwards later that I was pregnant, and I couldn't abort the kid because I was underweight at the time. I would've died if I had terminated my pregnancy. And I'm glad I didn't, because I wouldn't have Wendy."

Loki gazed at her mournfully, then stared at her pale legs dangling there beneath her, lost for words. "What did your mother do when she found out?" he asked in a voice that was barely audible.

A cracked, sarcastic laugh let her lips as she looked at him. He saw her dark blue eyes plainly in the faint light, glittering like sapphires. Like the pools of fresh water that glistened in the gardens of Asgard during the night.

"She was as high as a kite. What could she have done?" she muttered bitterly. "Then when I gave birth, I lost custody for my own kid. I don't really get it that much, cos I don't really get law and shit like that…but…they said that since I was still a minor and that my family didn't have a really nice past, I needed to work with a clean record for five years to gain custody of Sophia. In the meantime, a foster family took care of her. I would've given her to Jane, but at the time she was busy with her life and school, so I couldn't possibly burden her."

"And that's why you entered the army?" he asked curiously. She nodded, smiling faintly.

If Thor or one of the Warriors Three had been here to hear her recount her horrible tale, they would've been moved to tears not only to the drama, but that she chose to fight for her country.

"Yeah. I signed up in Texas, where the recruiter was. Then I became a corpsman. After working super hard and well for three and a half years, I got sent to Afghanistan." She threw her head back and let out a big puff of smoke. It was perfectly round.

"I believe I told you that story in the car…anyways, when I came back, I had post-traumatic stress disorder. Everytime I heard something loud or something that sounded like the dropping of bombs or gunfire. I'd get nightmares about my friend who'd died; I saw their guts spilling open and the blood. I'm a corpsman so I don't get fazed by gruesome stuff, but if you're wounded and the people around you are helpless because you can't move, it's really sickening. Makes you feel like it's your fault they died."

Loki breathed in and out quietly, stealing glances every now and then to look at the pretty blonde girl. So maybe this was why she acted so immature sometimes. Almost as if she never had a chance at childhood.

"I lashed out at the foster family because they wouldn't let me see Sophia," she said slowly. "They sent me to see a counselor for anger management and they gave me meds. I don't take them. And the state added more years to Sophia's custody. Now I'll finally have her when I turn 28. Five more fucking years," she said bitterly, throwing the cigarette far.

He would have chided her for randomly tossing the cigarette, but she was too wrapped up in her anger that he didn't dare break her concentration. He pondered what she would be like as a real housewife. Would she still be angry like she was?

"So that's my story. And I'm over it now, like I said before. "

Loki tilted his head to the side. He had detected a slight twinge of something out of place in the story. His mind had tasted the imbalance lurking in it. "Hold on a moment. Did I not hear you address both Anthony and Sophia as both your siblings?"

Victoria stiffened under his gaze. "Only my mom, Anthony, Sophia and Jane know about this." Something inside him snapped when she said those words.

"Why don't you publicly address her as your child? Your story is not horrible enough to make you embarrassed about your daughter." His voice was firm and cold as the words flowed freely from his mouth. "Do you not think that it is shameful you do not publicly claim your daughter?"

Loki was angry now – almost feeling the same bitterness he felt when Odin told him the truth. That he was a descendant of the evil and dreaded race of Jotunheim.

"Loki, I-"

"Why are you so ashamed to admit it?" he snapped angrily, glaring at her.

Suddenly, she looked like a child. Defenseless, helpless, and lost. Then her delicate and pretty features hardened once more to the point that Loki had to summon up all of his courage not to shiver in her prescence.

"You wouldn't understand because you're not human, Loki. Even if you're a frost giant, you're still a prince of Asgard. You're a fucking god, for cryin' out loud. I fucking act foolish and stupid to fake the pain and anger that's welled up for the past years." She rubbed the back of her head and sighed. Her deep blue eyes focus up at the sky below as if searching for Asgard.

For a second, Loki thought she was going to punch him. He really wouldn't have minded. He knew what he had said was way too much and had opened up an old wound in her.

Then she did something that he never would have predicted.

She had grabbed the cloth of his shirt, causing him to involuntarily move forward. His lips crashed against hers, and for but a brief moment, time stood still. He couldn't remember who he was, where he was. Everything was just a blur as he kissed back gently in contrast to her forcefullness. He didn't even know what was. The whole world's existence was just sealed into those few seconds.

A short amount of time, though it was, he noticed every little detail about Victoria – a little mole on her right temple, the warmth and taste of tobacco in her mouth, the feel of long and thick lashes brushing against his eyelids, the scent of lavender bath soap that lingered on her skin, the warm touch of her little nose brushing against his.

Then in an instant the minute dream was over.

She had roughly pulled away, face tinged red and panting.

Victoria shot him a glance of scorn that once again prodded at his curiosity. "I need to go to sleep now. I have to drive the two back."

Loki watched her as she hopped off the tree branch and landed on the soft grass in one fluid motion, almost as stealthily as a cat's. His green eyes never left her slim figure as she walked back to the house.

"What an interesting mortal."

Ha. So there's her story. . .

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/HotxBuns