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"Why do you wear green?"

"Because."

"Why are you here?"

"Because," Loki answered through gritted teeth, sinking his fingers into the arm of the sofa to refrain from hitting the annoying child running around him in circles.

"Why do you answer all of my questions with because?"

"Because!" He was proud of himself for NOT shouting, but leaned forward to glare dangerously at the child for good measure. Unfazed, Phil looked at him in equal annoyance.

"Because is not an answer!"

"FINE! Because you are an annoying little child who won't stop asking me stupid questions!" Loki shouted back and Phil just looked at him, nonplussed.

"I just want to know more about you," he said slowly, looking at Loki carefully.

"If i answer your questions, will you stop asking me more?" the Norse god said, rubbing his head to get rid of the migraine he was developing.

"Maybe." Loki glared at the evasive answer.

"Fine," he responded, throwing his arms in the air and sitting back on the sofa, crossing one leg over his knee and giving the boy a level look. "Ask away."

Phil seemed to think.

"Why aren't you back home in Asgard?"

"Uh, h - how did you know that i was..." Loki began, taken aback.

"Kinda obvious. I over heard the others talking about Loki and Bifrost and stuff like that. Loki was a Norse God and Norse Gods live in Asgard. So are you from Asgard?" Loki paused and looked at the purely curious boy.

"I'm...yes. I'm Loki from Asgard," he replied finally. It wasn't a complete lie. "Anything else?"

"Why do you wear green all the time?"

"I...don't know. I like the color." Phil nodded and continued.

"Why are you here?" Loki stopped: he was stuck. "Who are you running from?"

"I - " he faltered and stopped. "I'm actually here because i need some help. I...messed up with my life, and...I'm looking to start over." Phil smiled.

"Like me." Loki shook his head.

"No. You're not responsible for your life being messed up. Others messed your life up. I messed up my own," he said gently, his anger melting away so quickly he had forgotten it was even there. Dang it, he liked his angry mode. And who was this little child who could dispel his anger so easily? It made him sick just for a split second to think that he had nearly killed this man. Then he told himself that Coulson had it coming. "What else do you want to know?"

"Do you like Earth?"

"It's...not my favorite planet that I've ever been to," Loki answered carefully.

"So you've been to other PLANETS?!" Phil practically shouted, excited. "What's it like? Who'd you meet? What's it smell like? What - "

Shoot me now...Loki thought to himself as the small chatterbox still spewed question after question at him.

"I have been to several, none of them nice places at all," he answered coolly and Phil stopped talking.

"Then why'd you go there?" he asked in a "stupid!" tone. "Why'd you go places that weren't nice?" Loki rolled his eyes. This kid was too curious and thought too logically for his own good.

"Because i thought i could fit in there when i couldn't fit in other places," he answered ambiguously and Phil rolled his eyes.

"Why can't you be more specific?" he whined, flopping down cross-legged on the ground.

"Because I'm the god of mischief and lies," Loki countered. "I'm entitled to some level of ambiguity." Phil made a small noise of aggravation and laid down on his back to stare up at the ceiling, counting the lights. He rolled onto his stomach and looked at Loki.

"I'm hungry." Loki stared at him baffled and taken aback.

"How am i supposed to know what to do?"

"I don't know, you're in charge," Phil responded, still looking at him.

"Well, when was the last time you ate?" the god asked, hoping it was one of those things where kids just ate all the time. Phil shrugged.

"I don't know." The god's eyes widened.

"You don't know? How can you not know when you last ate?"

"Because i haven't eaten since i woke up in that weird room," Phil answered with some heat. "And i don't even know why i was in there!"

"Calm down, will you?" Loki snapped back and stood up, walking away from the startled boy on the floor. "And don't talk to me!" Phil sat up and walked after the god, keeping his distance, but following none the less. Loki walked up to the thing that mortals called...what was it? a defibrillator? refibrigator? something like that. He opened it and raised his eyebrow. How was he supposed to know what was supposed to be eaten by a five year old? Loki turned around and saw that the child had pulled himself up onto one of the bar stools and was sitting quietly, looking at him.

"What do you eat for breakfast, well late breakfast as it is now?" Phil shrugged.

"Eggs? Cereal?" Loki had no idea what this cereal he spoke of was, but he definitely knew what an egg was. Huginn and Muninn, Odin's spy ravens, would lay eggs occasionally. He picked up the small egg from the tray on the side of the refrigerator - THAT'S what it was called, he remembered now - and placed it before the boy tentatively. Phil raised an eyebrow at him and looked up and down between the confused, uncomfortable god and the egg before him.

"I can't eat that," he said finally, bursting out into a fit of giggling, the Norse god saw.

"It's an egg," Loki said, in an obvious tone, standing there in his armor still and hands behind his back.

"Yeah, but i can't eat a raw egg," he said slowly as though speaking to an idiot. Loki rolled his eyes.

"Then, what do you do with eggs?" he asked in the same tone.

"Well, cook them obviously," he responded slowly. "You know how to cook right?" Loki glared at the child.

"Of course i do!"

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10 minutes later...

The Norse god hissed in frustration as a fifteenth egg shattered in his hand over the metal skillet that the boy had identified for him as a frying pan. The only reason he knew it was a frying pan? He and his friend played baseball with them once when they couldn't find his bat. And his mother had subsequently yelled at him for using her frying pan for such an unconventional purpose.

"You really don't know how to cook do you?" Loki ignored Phil as he twirled around in circles on the bar stool. The world spinning in a funny, yet wonderful sensation, the boy stopped himself from moving and looked up in time to see Loki putting a match to the oil in the pan. "YOU DON'T PUT THAT THERE YOU'LL - "

A loud whoosh was heard and the flames spurt up out of the frying pan making the god jump and Phil stiffen, sitting straight upright on the stool, eyes wide. An awkward silence stretched out between them and Phil released a slow breath.

"That...was SO COOL!" he cried and Loki looked around at him, alarmed at the child's propensity to like dangerous things. "Can we do it again? After we eat?"

"I can't cook!" Loki protested. "I keep trying, i'm likely to blow the whole tower up!" Phil looked at him confused.

"But if you're a god, don't you know everythi - "

"We don't use this complicated process in Asgard! How on earth am i supposed to feed you?!"

"J.A.R.V.I.S?" Phil asked looking up, smiling.

"Yes, Agent Coulson?"

"Can you talk Loki through how to make scrambled eggs?" he asked, spinning around again. "He's a god and he can't figure it out," he teased underhandedly and said god glared at the child. Loki looked at the mess before him and sighed.

"Certainly. You take the egg and place it on the..." the AI's voice started and Phil had the biggest laugh attack, and subsequent "laughter cramp" as he would later call it, in his life as he watched the scene before him.

15 minutes later...

"Fine! Here's your stupid egg!" Loki spat and slid the plate over to the child walking over to the bathroom to wash all of the nasty yolk off of his fingers and rid himself of the stupid smell that came with that food. Honestly, it made him want to throw up. When he came out, he stopped, looking around in mild concern.

"Coulson?" he asked, noting the empty plate sitting in the sink. "Coulson, right now i really am not in a gaming mood. Where are you?" He heard a slight giggle from the hallway and walked over that way. "Coulson?" No answer. "what a nightmare this will be when you're an adult again..." he muttered turning around and walking back into the main sitting area, sitting down on the couch and grabbing the first book he saw. Some strange book called Breaking Dawn...these were chess pieces on the front. Maybe it was a strategy novel? Oh well. Might as well entertain himself with something.

By page 15, he couldn't even begin to comprehend why this...this abomination was in the tower and then realized that Pepper might read them. Or...wait. He began flipping through the book and noticed all along the bottom corners of each page, someone had been drawing humorous interpretations of what happened throughout the book. Okay. Maybe this was here because Natasha and Clint were working on it. Yep. that was definitely Natasha, he surmised from what Clint had told him during the attempted world domination fiasco. Who else would draw a pregnant woman that looked like that? He sighed, shook his head and let his hand idly float over the page as he fought the temptation to burn it to ashes. It would be so simple...and not to mention putting a poor tree out of its misery.

Then again, if he did, he would probably get killed by the two assassins so he contented himself with hurling it across the room. To entertain himself, he held his hands out in front of him and squinted at the space between, watching with accomplishment as ice grew between his palms. Then, he felt a rush of fearful adrenaline and snatched his hands away from it as they turned blue, the ice crashing to the floor and shattering.

"No. I'm not going to be like them," he whispered and his skin turned back to its "normal" shade.

"You're...blue..." came a scared voice and he saw Phil standing there staring at him wide eyed and terrified. "You're not Loki, then."

"No, I am Loki. I am, see?" the god responded, standing up. Phil started and took a step back.

"You're an alien. Are you one of those that the others went to go fight?" he asked, rapidly growing more and more scared. Loki rolled his eyes.

"No. They are the chitauri. I am Loki."

"No. No, you're not," Phil said, backing away and running to try and get bedroom to get to the vents like Clint told him. He gave a small yelp though as Loki materialized in front of him, skidding to a stop. The god raised an eyebrow.

"Still convinced that I'm not Loki? I can do magic if that's what you're thinking makes me " Phil just stared at him wide eyed.

"No?" Loki sighed in annoyance and walked off to the kitchen and grabbed a glass from the counter, coming back and setting it in Phi's hands.

"Watch the cup," he said seriously and put his hand on it. In the blink of an eye it was gone and Phil jumped, looking up at him.

"WOW!" he said excitedly, running off around the room trying to find it. "Where'd you send it? Where is it?" Loki couldn't help but give a small laugh at the sight of the baffled child running around trying to find the elusive cup.

"Why don't you go to your room, Phil," Loki said pointedly and Phil stopped and looked around at him, baffled. Then an incredulous but wondrous look appeared on his face adn he ran off down the hall, and Loki began mentally counting down. 3...2...1...

"WHOAH! HOW'D YOU DO THAT?!" And the patter of feet came back at him down the hall as Phil returned, cup in his grasp. Loki smiled slightly as the boy handed the glass back to him. "How'dyoudoithow'dyoudoithow'dyoudoit - "

"Fine!" Loki laughed and the boy stopped bouncing around in front of him. "I'm not really from Asgard. I'm from Jotunheim, and I'm actually a Frost Giant. My people have a past in magic."

"So...that was real magic?" Phil asked, awed, looking up at him. Loki made a small scoffing noise.

"what you call magic, we call science, son of Coul," he replied and walked forward to the room where the piano was, light emanating from him and turning his armor into the simple green and black clothing he had been wearing in Germany. "What do we do now?" Phil looked at him and outside.

"I'm bored. Can we go outside?" Loki looked at him concerned.

"I don't think going outside may be the best idea. I'm a god who has no idea how this world works and you, well...that's another story."

"Pllllleeeeeeeaaaaaaaaassssss seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee - "

"Fine!" Loki snapped, throwing his hands up. What else was he supposed to do? Phil smiled and ran to the elevator, dragging the Norse god along with him. this was certainly going to be interesting...

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"What on earth is that?"

"That's a taxi. Don't you have taxis on Asgard?" Phil asked loudly over the din of the traffic and other people looked at them strangely, parents pulling their children away from the tall, dark haired man.

"I think that's him," he heard a few people whisper and he looked down at his charge to see if he had heard. But the child was still staring around himself in pure curiosity at the allure the outside, city world held. Childhood innocence.

Loki only wished that lasted forever.

"Excuse me," came a rough voice and a calloused hand spun Loki around, making the god draw himself up to his full height in defense. "You know, you look a lot like a man we had here some months ago." Around them, people were slowing down to stop and stare. Loki shifted on his feet and looked around to where Phil last was. the child was vanishing in the crowd.

"Hey, look at me!" the man snapped and Loki looked back around to the man. "You know who I'm talking about?"

"No, I'm afraid you don't. An unfortunate look alike I'm afraid," Loki turned back around and was about to walk off when the man grabbed his arm and twisted him back around.

"I was IN Stuttgart, moron!" he shouted again and Loki tensed, looking down at the man. "I recognize that voice. You are him." Loki jerked his hand away and looked the man levelly in the eyes.

"You are...mistaken. It is simply an unfortunate mistake that i look like the man who tried to take over your world recently." With that he turned around and began pushing through the stopped crowd to get to Phil. This was not good.

"YOUR world?! It's our if you were HUMAN!" the man shouted and Loki began walking faster, grabbing Phil's hand as he saw the boy about to vanish into the copse of trees by the park. Phil started and turned around, smiling when he saw who it was.

"Phil, this was a bad idea we need to go," he said, looking over his shoulder to find the man approaching them still.

"Hey, Loki, what's taking you so long?" the boy asked innocently within earshot of their opponent and the man began running towards them.

Crap.

"Run," Loki said softly, grabbing Phil's hand and tearing off into the crowd practically dragging the confused child after him.