Notes: I'm excited for the next few chapters! Things are changing up a bit, I hope you all enjoy this chapter!

Chrysanthemums Say You Have My Fidelity

"You've been quiet, Thor."

The rain surged down outside, crashing against the windows of the Avengers complex with impressive strength - it sounded almost like hail, but Amelia knew better. Her hair was still damp and her glasses somewhat misted from where she had narrowly avoided getting caught in the downpour on her rush home from work.

She'd been dashing around the corner when the drizzle began, knowing she had only moments before the black clouds above decided to burst, and now she felt vaguely uncomfortable in her not-quite-wet, not-quite-dry clothes, a slight shiver slithering up her spine every now and then.

The God of Thunder sat across from her at the kitchen island, his chin resting in one hand, and the Venti Pumpkin Spice Latte she had bought him in his other - he'd very recently taken a liking to them, and thus had asked Amelia almost every day for the past week to bring him one back on her commute from work - but at the present time, Thor seemed preoccupied with his thoughts. Usually he consumed the sugary, hot beverage within minutes, but it still sat in his hand, probably lukewarm by now, and paired with the sudden onset of storming weather outside, Amelia was smart enough to discern that he was most definitely troubled by something.

"Sorry, Amelia", Thor spoke up, an apologetic smile pulling at his lips, "I have a lot on my mind."

Amelia nodded in understanding; lowering her gaze to stare at the way Thor's fingers rotated the cardboard sleeve around his cup absentmindedly. She had a pretty good idea of what had brought on the god's gloomy mood.

"Is it to do with Loki?" She asked tentatively. It was her understanding that Thor and Loki had begun sparring with each other again at the beginning of the week - and every day since - so it stood to reason that Thor had experienced Loki's detrimental demeanour firsthand.

Thor blinked, looking up from his beverage in surprise, before a sheepish look fluttered over his features; he averted his mismatched eyes to the kitchen counter and cleared his throat, "Uhm… well… I suppose I have been concerned about Loki's behaviour, but it wasn't the main thing on my mind…"

Amelia frowned, having trouble dissecting the oddly bashful look on the god's face. Of course - she should have known by now that it was never practical to make assumptions when it came to the Asgardian brothers, but now she was more than curious as to what was actually bothering Thor, especially given the awkward body language he was now displaying.

"Oh", Amelia murmured, tilting her head as her eyebrows rose, "Anything I can help with?"

Thor laughed - a reserved chuckle that vibrated in his throat - and there was a tinge of nervousness to it that piqued Amelia's interest, "Ah, no, I don't think so."

He didn't elaborate at first, but after a few moments of silent scrutiny on Amelia's part, Thor gave a sigh and conceded despite his apparent embarrassment over the subject of his thoughts.

"I'm not quite sure how to put this without sounding…" he trailed off into another sigh, and the air around them suddenly felt very uncomfortable, "Ever since Jane and I broke up, I feel like I've been missing something…"

Oh. Amelia bit the inside of her lip as the realisation hit her. Thor was lonely.

Clearing her throat, Amelia spoke, "Oh, um, well… why don't you… uh, you know, go out and find a nice girl…"

A skeptical spark appeared in Thor's eyes and he shook his head, "No, it's not that simple. I don't just want a - a fling, as you humans call them. I want something more permanent", he really seemed torn up about not having a romantic partner in his life, and the earnestness in Thor's voice brought a small, sympathetic smile to Amelia's face. "The only problem is…"

"The problem is, you're Thor", Amelia finished off, and the God of Thunder exhaled an amused huff before he rolled his shoulders and leaned in slightly to speak a little quieter.

"Yes. It's difficult to find somebody who doesn't want to sleep with me just because I've saved the world-" he paused for a moment, clearly counting in his head, "-four, five times?" It was rather comical that even Thor had lost count of how many times he had saved Earth from evil forces.

"Well", Amelia looked deliberately thoughtful, "Can't say I can relate", she offered in jest by way of breaking the tension - in all truthfulness, Amelia would love to be able to tell people that she's saved the world, but as it happens, the world didn't grant her any sort of superpowers or genius-level intellect to do that with - she probably wasn't the best person to give dating advice anyway.

Amelia leaned over the counter, laying her hand on Thor's forearm in a comforting gesture, "Hey, look, you'll find someone. And anyone would be lucky to have you, y'know, even if you weren't an incredibly attractive hunk." The God of Thunder smiled in both amusement and appreciation of her words.

In the corner of her peripheral, Amelia spotted movement, and her gaze flitted to the entrance of the living quarters where Loki now stood, sporting a dark glare in their direction. As their eyes met, Loki retreated and disappeared out of sight, prompting Amelia to stand suddenly, wavering on whether to follow after him of just leave him be. It was the first time she had seen him wandering about outside their room without the training room being his intended destination. Had he been looking for her? She couldn't imagine Loki felt comfortable enough to sit around in the communal room given the presence of all the other Avengers in the compound, so he had to have come for a good reason.

Thor straightened up, having seen Loki for only a moment upon turning his head at Amelia's stiff behaviour, and a grim look overcame him. "I'm unsettled by Loki's behaviour."

Amelia quirked an agitated eyebrow, a bleak expression befalling her, "Well yeah, he thinks we're all imposters." Loki's beliefs about this reality had not faltered in any way - he still thoroughly seemed to believe that Amelia was not truly Amelia, but at the very least, he had stopped making an effort to completely avoid her overall. He still slept on the couch in their room, refusing to move any closer even after Amelia had tried to encourage him to come to bed.

"I mean in our sparring sessions", Thor clarified, pausing to take a sip of his Pumpkin Spice Latte, which must've gone distastefully cold by now, but he didn't seem to mind, "I've been assisting him in building up his magic energy as a training partner but… he's disconnected. There's just something… empty in his movements. I struggle to explain it", his lips pulled into a deep frown, "He doesn't see me as his brother. I'm just a punching bag to him."

Amelia chewed on her bottom lip, absorbing Thor's words with dismay - it wasn't just her who was having trouble reaching through to the God of Mischief. Convincing Loki of the truth was going to have to be a group effort - if only Amelia knew what it would take to persuade him.

"How is he treating you?" Thor asked out of nowhere. Amelia blinked, focusing her gaze on him to find that he'd pulled the plastic top off of his Starbucks cup and was watching the contents swirl around as he swished it.

Her hesitance to speak was louder than words, and Thor peered up at her from below his brow, a cautious but dangerous look in his eyes, "He's not abusing you, is he?"

"No", Amelia immediately shook her head, "No. He's not", she breathed a sigh, "He's just… my presence does nothing but irritate him. The other day, I was brushing my hair and humming to myself, he was reading in the corner of the room, and... he just told me to shut the hell up."

It had upset her greatly at the time. She'd fallen quiet at once, pausing in her attempt to tame her wild tresses, shocked that he would demand such a thing - if her soft singing had ever bothered him before, he'd never addressed it - and her eyes had stung with tears as she stared at herself in the mirror. In the end, she had blinked the tears away and continued to wrestle with her locks in utter silence.

Now that she thought about it, she may have just made a big deal of nothing in her mind, "I know it doesn't really sound bad, especially not in comparison to what you've noticed about him, but he's never snapped at me for humming before. It's just been… a lot of that. No attention or regard, he tries to blot me out and pretend I'm not there."

Amelia had tried her best to be patient and understanding with Loki, but it was so difficult to be pushed aside like she was nothing.

Thor tightened his grip on the cup in anger, causing it to collapse in on itself and splash cold coffee all over his hand. Amelia jumped as he quickly stood, grumbling in displeasure, and in one swift movement, the god poured the remaining liquid in the sink, threw the cup away and swept up a hand-cloth to dry his fingers. "Don't let him treat you like that, Amelia", Thor stated with resolution as he scrubbed the coffee from his hands, "Stand up for yourself. Be firm with him."

Amelia's eyes widened and she snorted, "Are you kidding me? I've lost my edge, I'm not as intimidating as I used to be", she joked. She had never been intimidating in her life. "I don't think I could be firm if I tried."

Thor shook his head, though her jest brought a shadow of a smile to his face, "You don't have to be intimidating… just persistent."

Amelia cocked her head, deliberating on Thor's words. Perhaps she had been too lenient with the God of Mischief - her gentle suggestions always made Loki scoff instead of having the desired effect. She needed to stop asking and start telling.

Loki seethed as he marched away from the living quarters, keeping his eyes and ears peeled for the billionaire CEO. He'd been looking for Stark, but instead he'd found his brother and Amelia having a sweet little conversation over a cup of coffee, far too close to each other for his liking. He'd only seen the back of Thor's head, but Amelia's expression had been glaringly saccharine, something that evoked a strong proprietorial feeling in his chest when directed at anyone other than himself.

Instead of causing a scene, he bit down on his anger and left immediately - what did it truly matter? It wasn't really happening, it was just Hel's way of making him suffer more, and he'd already decided he wouldn't allow it this time. Amelia could spend as much time as she wanted with Thor, it didn't bother him in the slightest.

Loki stepped into the elevator and punched the button that selected Stark's lab as his destination, clenching his fists by his side as he waited for the steel doors to close at a maddeningly slow speed, and to then descend just as languidly.

"Stark", the god hissed as the doors opened upon finally reaching his destination, and stepped into the bright, silvery room that was filled with various monitors and machinery that Loki did not care for in the slightest, "Stark."

Tony's head popped up from behind a monitor at the far end of the room, his face the picture of surprise, along with a sliver of caution, over the fact that Loki had apparently decided to pay him a visit; he fiddled with something on the touch screen before him and then stood, casting a prudent sideways glance to Banner, who had turned his head in nervous curiosity.

Stark regarded Loki with nonchalance and a sprinkle of the usual charm that came when referring to his fellow Avengers with ridiculous nicknames, "Can I help you, Mr Wiseau?" Loki didn't want to even acknowledge where this particular epithet had come from.

"I'm leaving the compound for a short while", Loki went straight to the point.

Stark's eyebrows rose up and again he shared a glance with Banner - if Loki didn't know for certain that there was no psychic link between them, he may have assumed they were having some sort of telepathic communication.

"I don't know, Loki…" the billionaire began, "I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea of you leaving the Tower just yet."

"I wasn't asking", Loki retaliated, crossing his arms over his chest, "I was just informing you to ensure that you don't interrupt my evening by chasing after me." He ground his teeth together - just being in the man's presence was enough to disturb his stress levels.

Tony did not look impressed, nor did he look acquiescent to allowing Loki this little piece of freedom. He let out a sigh, his hands falling on his hips in consideration, "If you hurt anyone, Loki, we're dragging your ass back here and locking you up." The lack of a degrading nickname revealed the seriousness of his statement, but it only brought forth a scoff from the God of Mischief, and nothing more.

Loki turned, leaving the lab, and stalked all the way to the exit, passing Steve Rogers on the way. The Captain stared at him, apprehensive and distrustful as Loki walked by, and Loki returned the eye contact with an unblinking glower.

The rain outside had weakened to a light drizzle, and Loki transformed his clothes as he stepped out of the foyer - the silken green of his Asgardian linens becoming the sleek black suit he used as his Midgardian attire, plus a formal coat of the same dark shade. He conjured an umbrella with twist of his forearm and took his first few strides into the fresh, misty air.

He hadn't left the Tower since waking in the infirmary; the chilly breeze that accompanied the rain felt wonderful against his skin, and Loki took a few moments to just stand still and breathe. Within the compound, if felt stuffy and dusty, but out here, the smell of rain against the pavement left him feeling pacified, at least to an extent.

Bestowing a glance down the street, Loki began to walk.

Using the umbrella as a tool to hide his face from civilians, Loki walked to Amelia's old apartment building and circled the perimeter. After that, he trekked to Central Park and sat on the bench by the pond for ten minutes, before making his way to the now-closed florist Amelia worked at, and finally to the pier at the edge of the city where he had first divulged his dark secret to the woman he loved.

He ingested every detail. Every carefully placed brick, every paving slab, every flower bed, every tree, street light, pedestrian crossing, newsstand, everything and anything that could have been wrong - standing out like a sore thumb - but nothing was wrong. It was all right - everything was perfectly in place, rendered to perfection as he remembered it.

Loki stared across the water, his eyes settling on the land across from Manhattan, over the large bridge - how far did it go? Was this artificial reality infinite? Would it continue to exist no matter how far he walked, or would there come a point where the illusion would shatter, and he would fall off the edge and further into the madness of Hel?

The God of Mischief turned around, staring back at the city that had become his home on Midgard. There were other ways he could break the illusion; he didn't have to walk indefinitely when he could just level the entire metropolis with a devastating blast of magic - killing all in his path until Hel decided 'okay, that's enough', and plucked him out of this delusion, dropping him seamlessly into another.

Or, he could locate the nearest bridge and jump off it. Although, the last time he purposely jumped from a high place, Hel had warped the very ground beneath him - a harrowing experience for the god in and of itself. He much preferred the deceptive 'peace' of this world while it lasted when compared to what it could be.

Loki inhaled a deep breath, exhaled a noisy sigh, and allowed his feet to lead him back the way he came.

By the time the god returned to the Avengers Tower, it was quite late; he didn't run into anybody as he swept through the halls soundlessly, locating the elevator and riding it to his floor. When he entered his and Amelia's room with soft footsteps, he paused, looking down at the woman where she lay on her back, her lips parted ever so slightly.

He could tell from the way her chest rose and fell at an unsteady pace that she wasn't actually asleep, and was in fact pretending. The pulse in her neck jumped when he stepped closer to the bed and stared at her. Her eyelids twitched but did not open, and Loki gave an audible huff of amusement. She wasn't fooling anyone.

Regardless, he didn't bring attention to it and stripped out of his damp clothing to change into more comfortable sleep attire. With his back turned, he could feel Amelia's eyes on him, so he purposely did not look her way.

When he laid back against the couch, she finally spoke up.

"Come to bed, Loki", her voice was soft, and held a pleading lilt.

"No", Loki said simply, and fell asleep some time later.

It was impossible for Amelia to sleep that night; she'd spent the whole evening worrying about where Loki had gone upon learning that he'd left the Tower, and when he finally had arrived home, breaking into the early hours of the morning, she had lost her nerve and pretended to be asleep instead of doing what she had planned to do - to tell Loki to quit sleeping on the couch.

Then, of course, she'd regretted not coming out with the assertion the moment he'd walked in through the door, and had tried one pitiful attempt to get him to lay down beside her - and of course it hadn't worked.

So she laid in silence for several hours, shifting every so often to stare at Loki's motionless form curled up on the couch where he slept, and let her mind wander in the far-from-peaceful quiet of the night.

At least, until Loki inhaled sharply and rolled onto his back, his face contorted in distress.

Amelia knew in an instant that he was experiencing a nightmare, it was all too clear - she remembered the vivid signs of discomfort, the way she often jolted awake with his sudden movements and choked noises to find him clutching tightly at bedsheets or throwing his arms up defensively against some invisible force.

This time, Loki's fist was grasping at the material of his nightshirt in the centre of his chest, his knuckles turning white from the tension in his grip. His eyes were rigidly shut, brow furrowed as he drew in faltering, cut off breaths interjected with stifling gurgles of what sounded like pain.

Amelia rose from the bed, cautionary and frightfully aware of how suddenly he could awaken and lash out.

"Loki", she called out to him gently, "Love, it's a dream."

He did not awaken, but let out a suffocating whine that preceded a whimper; Amelia stepped closer, kneeling down beside the couch, and touched his head as she spoke his name again, trying to cease his attention and pull him from the nightmare slowly.

Loki coughed out a strangled 'no', and struggled to breathe deeply - quick and shallow breaths escaped his throat that were simply not comforting enough. A weak cry of pain passed his lips, and in the same moment, tears lined Loki's tightly shut eyes, revealing the emotional nature of his nightmare.

"Shh, Loki. Wake up, I'm here-"

"Amelia…" He sniffled her name as his eyes cracked open, glossy and clouded, and Amelia's immediate instinct was to flinch as he released his shirt and made a grab at her.

But his hand merely cupped her cheek with compassion and tenderness; she sunk gently against his palm after a tentative moment, pressing her own hand to the back of his - it was the first time he had touched her with anything other than hostility or disdain since waking from his coma, and her heart leapt into her mouth.

"I'm here", she whispered, pouring all the love and solace into her voice that she could possibly muster, "It was just a nightmare, love."

And then, clarity. His eyes opened wider, gaze sharpening as he remembered where he was, and then he tore his hand back, pushing her away before wiping his wet face with the sleeve of his shirt.

"Get away", he hissed as Amelia fell back on her ass, momentarily stunned at the speed with which his mood drastically changed.

"Loki, please-"

"No", the hostility had returned, snatching away that brief tranquil moment that Amelia had tried to hold in place. The God of Mischief averted his gaze, hiding his face from her with malcontent.

"Loki."

He shook his head, laying down again, actively facing the back of the sofa as he tried to ignore her, but Amelia didn't let him - not this time.

She grabbed him by the shoulders, forcing him to look at her, "Come to bed, Loki."

His eyes shut wearily and his fingers enclosed around her wrist in warning, "I said no, I'm not going to-"

Amelia jolted him with a rattle of his shoulders, "Just get in the goddamn bed. This couch is not comfortable enough for sleeping; you're forcing yourself to curl up on it every night and it's not helping because you like to sleep stretched out, I know that for a fact. The more relaxed your body is, the less nightmares you'll have, so stop being a brat and just get in the bed."

Loki stared up at her, vaguely startled by the forcefulness in her voice, and for several moments Amelia expected him to respond negatively again. The fingers on her wrist tightened… and then he released her and sat up, nudging past her as he stalked over to the bed and slipped under the covers without a word.

Amelia's lungs expanded as she took a breath of victory at this development.

Good.

She rounded the other side and returned to her side of the bed, reaching over to give Loki's shoulder a reassuring squeeze, but upon contact he tensed.

"Don't touch me", he whispered, so Amelia retracted her hand and settled down against her pillow, wondering how exactly she was going to sleep without inevitably rolling over to Loki's side to subconsciously seek out his warmth.

Well, regardless of that, it was still progress.

Notes: PLEASE do leave me a review! Even if it's just a few words, all the reviews make me smile!