I REALLY DO NOT OWN ANYTHING MARVEL. EXCEPT COMICS AND BOOKS AND DVD's AND FUNKO POPS AND… Ok, let me rephrase. Wait, that'll take too long… let me sum up:

I do not own any of the Marvel characters or storylines. I do own *this* story and *this* OC.


Loki detested being transported. The feeling of being carried, as though he was nothing more than dead weight, was a jarring grate on his senses. On Asgard he chose to teleport himself where he could, when he couldn't do that, he would ride his own horse. When that was not feasible, he would walk. Since having been dragged on the back of Thor's mount and paraded through the city as any common criminal, he despised the lack of control being transported gave. True freedom was being able to go wherever he wanted, however he wanted, whenever he wanted.

Though there were some advantages to riding with this girl, in her carriage. The first couple of hours were spent in relative silence. Early on she had inquired if he needed anything, but after he deferred she let him alone with his thoughts. He spent some time laying back and resting his eyes. Oh, he was still awake, but he found that people tended to lower their guard if they thought him asleep. Instead, he took surreptitious peeks at the vehicle, the route they took, the passing scenery, and at her.

The vehicle was powered solely by the magelet's energy. Under the hood glowed faintly blue under the seams and seals, reminding him of the neon lights young car enthusiasts would install to highlight their "ride". Instead of sticking to the busy paved highways she drove a more circuitous route - through mostly unused roads that took them through fields, forests, over streams. When a town or city was nearby she painstakingly drove around it, cutting as far afield as possible. Even more interestingly, if a car came near she visibly tensed and Loki could almost taste the energy radiating off of her body. A few hastily whispered words and a flick of her fingers and Loki surmised they were invisible to the naked eye. Once the car was in the distance she would relax, whisper another few words and keep moving onwards.

Through the fine slits of his eyes, Loki watched her as she drove. Her hair was dark in the night, only the copper highlights glittering silver with the infrequent passing of lights. Her skin was almost translucent, nearly glowing in the moonlight. As a driver she was sure and confident, never once questioning her route. She also sang the whole time, her voice was low and quiet - it was barely perceptible to him. He wished - again - that the wretched cuffs Stark had created were no longer on his hands. With a simple spell he would have been able to hear what she was saying clear as a bell. Unfortunately, he was relegated to watching and straining to catch a few words, and listening to the rise and fall of a faint melody that was both comforting and unfamiliar to him.

"I know you're awake." He lifted one eyebrow as Rift glanced his way, then turned her eyes back on the road. "I can feel you watching me."

He chuckled to himself, preferring to bait her by still pretending to sleep.

"For being the God of Lies, you're particularly bad at playing possum." Her eyes narrowed as she watched him continue to lay quietly. "Fine. Play possum. But I'm going to need to stop soon - I need a bite to eat before the next leg. Also," she grimaced slightly "nature calls."

"Humans are a foul breed." Loki sneered, finally giving in.

"No arguments there. Buuuuut since I'm not quite human, I like to think I've crossed that line and gone to 'wholly disgusting'." She shrugged. "No one has quite figured out what I am - which, by the way, makes angsty soul-searching in my adolescent years more difficult than most." A bright grin lit up her face. "I *may* have, accidentally, kinda-sorta set a few folks on fire during those times for calling me human. To be fair, they were also calling me a whore and a spellbegger, so it's not like 'human' set me off so much as their very existence on this planet."

"Control issues, magelet?" Loki asked, nonchalantly examining his nails.

"Yeah... I was a powder keg back then. I guess I am still, but at least I know that I am. That whole 'invincibility of youth' thing kinda looses its charm when you blow up a chunk of continent over an argument over table salt."

"Yes, I can see where that would be problematic."

She shrugged. "Diner food ok? There's a place down this road that's got some decent gnoshies."

"So long as there is something reasonably palatable, it will suffice." Loki smirked. "What, pray tell, is a 'gnoshie'?"

"Oh, uhm... food. Grub. Calorie-ridden morsels of awesomeness that you politely trowel into your food-hole." She turned the car down a dirt-ridden path, getting it out of sight of the highway, before she pulled it over to the side and stopped. "Ok, here's the deal. I can't drive this to their lot - the energy alone would fry all of their equipment. So I'm gonna leave it here, and we're gonna have to walk for a bit. It's just down that street and over the hill" She eyeballed him. "You ok with stretching your legs?" Without waiting for a response, she closed her eyes and held the jewel at her neck and began to whisper. The car sank and began to deteriorate right before Loki's eyes, back down to the flat tires, rusted-out exterior, and torn interior.

"I believe you've left me with few options."

She shrugged and smiled at him. "Sorry, Loki Laufeyson, Prince of Asgard, but you'll only be escorting a mere semi-mortal to dinner tonight."

Loki cringed when heard the reference to his title in Asgard, but curiously it did not fill him with the same blinding rage as it once had. Preferring to indulge the curious creature to his side instead of dwell on that little nugget of self-reflection, he smiled and exited the car. Rounding the back, he held a hand out to her, bowing down in the most precise courtier manner of Asgardian society. "My lady?"


Rift shivered. Damn, but that prince could be charming when he wanted to. It was the smile, she decided, which did it. The hint of Cheshire cat mixed in with pure amusement that made her go a wee bit wobbly. "Gee, you treat all your would-be kidnappers that way?" she asked, hoping the darkness hid the blush that crept up her cheekbones.

"Having never been put in the position to choose between sitting in a Midgardian prison to rot or have dinner with a would-be kidnapper whose beauty rivals that of the stars, I doubt I would know." he said as he helped her out of the car's rusted remains.

"Ooookay." Rift pulled her hand out of his and stepped away from him, giving herself space to think, to speak. "Let's get one thing straight here, Trickster. As much as I appreciate your fantabulous charms, and I do, you're wasting your time."

"Why is one passing complement to beauty a waste of time?" Loki looked genuinely curious.

"Because we both know you don't mean it. I'm a lot of things - stupidly powerful, decent at magic, etcetera etcetera etcetera - but I'm not smart. I'm not funny. And I am definitely not a thing of beauty that 'rivals the stars.' So let's just drop that before it starts." She turned and stalked around the front of the car into the nearby trees, the blue aura of energy highlighting her exit. "Give me a minute. I've got to ground again before we go for dinner." She hoped he would stay with the car, and that the blue aura that had built during her outburst hadn't shown Loki the tears streaming down her face.


Dinner was a quiet affair. The café had in fact been just down the road as Rift had said, and still open even though they stumbled in the wee hours of the morning. Florescent lighting drained everything of color, but could not rob the interior of the smell of breakfast on the griddle. A hearty smell of bacon, coffee, and something with blueberry - pancakes or muffins, it was hard to tell - permeated the small eatery. The booths were covered in a red plastic leather, and the walls were adorned in a faded, peeling wallpaper. The tables were an old formica mix, though the bar where Loki and Rift sat was resin-coated with records and CD's lining the bottom. The stools were the same red plastic-leather, worn, but functional. Small knicknacks of birds decorated the café as well - shoved onto every available shelf, nook or cranny available. Elbows on the counter and holding a cup of coffee, Rift looked at the walls (really anywhere but Loki) and sighed. This wasn't home, but it was a sign she was close.

"More coffee?" the waitress, Trudy, asked.

"Please." she held the mug out quietly. "Thank you."

"Need me to get some of these plates out of your way?"

Rift nodded quietly. For his part, Loki quietly waved his hand, at the empty plates.

Trudy piled the plates with an efficiency that spoke to her many years working in the café. "Anything else you need, hon?" she asked Rift. She looked concerned, like she wanted to ask more.

"Not right now, thank you." Loki said quietly. After quickly perusing the menu, his eyes had never left Rift's face. At first it was unnerving; now it was damned irritating. Trudy nodded quietly, took one last look at Rift, then hauled the plates back into the kitchen.

"I give up!" Rift turned to him, facing him dead-on as soon as the Trudy was out of earshot. "What? What on earth is so fascinating?"

Loki's eyes warmed a bit, and he smirked without malice. "I was wondering, magelet, if you really hide your scars as well as you think."

"... what do you mean?"

"You're a fascinating puzzle. You exude confidence in any number of difficult situations. But give you a hint of a compliment and you collapse like a card tower." He leaned closer, and his voice took on a rough undertone. "What broke you, little magelet?"

Rift began to shiver. The cold she held at bay crept in, and she put the coffee mug down and began to hug herself. Deciding not to skirt Loki's accusations with false bravado, she whispered, "I don't want to talk about it."

Surprisingly, Loki just nodded and sat up straight again. "All right magelet. That is your choice. But know this," he said, his voice becoming firmer as he reached out with one hand, pulling her chin back towards him until her eyes met his, "it will be discussed."

She nodded quietly, and tried to collect herself. "We're about an hour out. I probably could have waited to eat until we got there, but I burned a lot of energy getting you out. Cass'll be happy I'm not trying to eat the house down to the foundations when we get there." Standing up, she called out, "Trudy! We're headed out!"

Trudy bustled through the swinging kitchen door again. "Ok, hon. Sure you don't want anything for the road?"

"Nah... two omelets, a plate of bacon and a stack of pancakes is enough to tide me over for now. I'll be home soon, and Cas'll prolly want to have breakfast soon."

"Ok, well let me know." Trudy eyeballed Loki meaningfully. "You." She pointed a finger at him. "You make sure you take good care around those girls, you hear me?"

Loki stood, shocked. Recovering swiftly, he smiled charmingly and asked, "Should I be worried, madam? After all, the lady is obviously in charge here." His eyes cut back over to Rift, glimmering with amusement.

Trudy nodded at his words, but folded her arms across her chest. She turned back to Rift. "Tell Cass I said hello."

"Will do." Rift headed towards the door, then turned suddenly. "Hey Trudy, you have any pomegranates?"


Some time later, Natasha and Clint returned to Avengers tower. They were bruised, bloodied, and covered in a clear gel-like substance which squished onto the floor wherever they stepped. Hawkeye was listing to the right a bit and favoring his left leg, and Natasha was holding together a gash on her right forearm. Both had made it only halfway through the living area before they heard Tony speak.

"Remind me again to fix the in-elevator showers." Tony said, standing at the bar to the side.

"Tony, nobody liked taking showers in the elevator." Banner said, sitting on the couch and studying his tablet.

"Pish-tosh, everyone like a good shower wash!" Tony said, raising a glass in mock salute.

Natasha grimaced. "How many of those has he had?" Her voice was steady, but her face was pinched, still in pain.

Bruce shook his head. "You don't want to know." He put the tablet down on the table, and turned to Natasha and Clint. "So, how'd the Deadpool trip go?"

"Never again mention that name."

Natasha shook her head, and patted Hawkeye on the shoulder with her good hand. "It's ok, Clint." She turned back to Bruce and Tony. "It was... interesting. We didn't get much out of him. A firefight started with a pack of robot-ninjas before we could really get anything good out of him. But he did say one thing: you'll find what you seek when you find the Rift."

"You realize he's bonkers, Nat."

"He is, Bruce. But that was... surprisingly sane, for him."

Hawkeye huffed, then shuffled out muttering something about a shower or shower of arrows, it was hard for Tony to catch.

"Okay. Well, we got a few good leads here too. There's a guard we're going to hunt down in the morning... er... later on, in daylight hours. Thor's gone to spend some time with Dr. Foster, but he's also going to head back to Asgard and see if they've got any more information there. And Tony and I devised an algorithm to track the energy signature of our mystery invader... before he started drinking, I swear." Bruce held his hands up innocently to Natasha's glare as Tony laughed in the background.

"Fine. I need a shower too, after I get patched up." she headed to the elevators, then turned and raised an eyebrow to Bruce. "You coming? Someone's got to run the skin grafting machine."

"Oh, uh... yes. Sure. Yes." Bruce clumsily gathered his books and tablet, then headed after her. Tony stayed at the bar, watching them get into the elevator with clearer eyes than he'd had before and a small smile.

"You go, Banner." he said quietly, and downed his drink.


Loki pondered his next move and how to continue to gain Rift's trust all the way back to the car. He held four pomegranates in his hands - Rift claimed that she would taint them if she carried them. She smiled when she had said it, and Loki felt the untruth even as it fell from her lips. His anger at her lie dissipated quickly, though. Having her hands free did allow her to dance on the way back to the car, which was a delightful and enlightening experience.

As they crested the hill past the diner, Rift took her shoes off, slipped them into her back pockets and stepped onto the grassy embankment, close to the trees. She smiled, took a deep breath... and began to dance towards the car. Her body shimmered faintly blue again, but this energy felt different - less fiery, more peaceful and grounded. The ground appeared to rise and fall to her steps, the air played with her hair, twisting and twirling it, and Loki swore that when she jumped the air caught her and held her aloft longer than gravity allowed. She laughed and played, happily dancing through the dark of early morning, back to the magically-powered car, with Loki in her wake.


Rift had stopped dancing by the time they reached the car. Having to bottle up so much energy when she was at the diner was almost painful. She had to keep herself and Loki cloaked from any search as best she knew how, so she had to keep a small spell up. She didn't have to hide her physical form - not from Trudy or her husband Gabe, both of whom she'd befriended long before - but she still had to mask Loki's features enough so Trudy wouldn't recognize him. Those stupid magic-blocking-wrist-cuffs were still on Loki's wrists, and working any sort of glamour on him took extra care so she didn't shock the shit out of him. And then she had to keep everything as low-level as possible to keep Trudy and Gabe's electronic equipment running as smoothly as possible. It didn't pass Rift's notice that Trudy's watch had stopped - again - serving her. Hopefully Cass would be able to set it to rights, or she'd be buying Trudy her third watch that year.

The relief Rift had felt once she left the diner was glorious. Her belly was full, the diner was safe, and Loki was still with her (having not been absconded by aliens, or running off mid-meal, or anything else weird.) Her relief caused her energy to surge; it ran through her and she just ran with it, dancing and twisting and twirling with the earth and the air as her partners.

And now, standing at the car with the Asgardian God of Mischief, Lies, and horned helmets, Rift was mortified.

As her feet touched the earth again, she awkwardly pulled her shoes back out from her pockets and slipped them on. "Erm... sorry about that. And here, I'll put the pomegranates away." She plucked them from Loki's hands, darted around to the back of the car, and kicked the trunk open. She muttered to herself while she was in the trunk, and the car quickly began to reform into its pristine condition.

"Do you often travel by dance?"

Slamming the trunk lid back down, Rift decided to bait him, just a bit. "Often. I find it's only the classiest way to travel. Why, don't you travel by dance in Asgard?" Her eyebrow raised a bit as she asked.

"Not often. Though there are few who would be able to command the very earth and air to dance with them as well - which, I suppose, is why it hasn't caught on."

"Oh, that's not a command. That just... happens." she shrugged, and moved to the driver's side.


Loki stepped in front of her, blocking her path. "There are many things that just happen, magelet, but so much just happens around you. It's hard to tell where reality ends and your imagination begins. Do you not ever long to force things to do your bidding? To bend reality to your will?"

Rift's eyes turned cold when she looked at him. "No."

"Not once, magelet? Not ever?" Loki's voice was hard, and his eyes searched hers deeply, looking for answers, demanding the truth.

"Not for me. Not once. Not ever."

Loki weighed her words, her voice, her eyes. He felt the truth in her words, and the underlying pain. Something was broken, just beneath the surface. For Rift to learn to control her power, she was going to need to heal the broken parts of her soul first.

"Interesting, magelet. Very interesting indeed." Loki nodded, then opened the door for her, bowing as she sat down. "My lady." he said, as he shut the door quietly. He got to his side of the car, sat down, and nodded to himself.


Silence permeated the car as it started, and the wind pushed through the trees, their branches waving fondly goodbye as the car drove away.

During the rest of the drive, Loki thought. He thought about his thoughts, which were clearer now than his last months on Asgard. He thought about his emotions, which while still volatile, were more controllable now than before the Rainbow Bridge. He thought about his will, his body, his mind. He realized it was fully his to control, for the first time in... months? years? How long had he been in the black abyss with the Other? With Thanos? How long did he fall sway to their control? He couldn't place when he'd lost his free will, but it was after a mountain of abuse at the Other's hands.

This girl was the key, somehow. The vicious beating he'd taken from the Hulk helped him regain his faculties, but just being in the presence of the magelet for the past hours had severed the screaming rage that constantly buffeted his mind. He smiled, he frowned, he laughed, he thought. All on his own. His feelings, his emotions, his words.

Glorious.

Woe betide anyone who came between him and this creature who stole him his freedom.


Author's Note

Guys. Guys. Guys! Thank you so much for all of your likes and support and reviews and stuff. Seriously, I squeal like a kid on crack every time I see another follow or review. (Not that I know what a kid on crack sounds like, I swear.)

So, I feel like I should apologize for the story being slow. It is taking some time to get where I want them to go…. Maybe if I were more experienced, my characters would listen to me more? Oh, well. Stay tuned to the next chapter: I promise, more explosions, more action. More Avengers v. Team Riki… Oh, please don't let "Riki" stick.

Super-special thanks to my sister-from-another-mister, Mayflowrs, for putting up with my insane ramblings. Seriously, the only reason this story is almost sane is because she talks me off ledges. Y'all should buy her a pony or something.

Thanks again for reading, guys. You all are awesome.