We all blacked out, when we hit the Devil's Anus. It was a weird comfort, the knowledge that you weren't the only one having an awful headache and felt like a grandma for fainting. (Of course, no offense to grandmas.)

But I was still the last one awake.

But, you know. That's life. I was kind of getting used to being the weakest person in the room. Or at least the physically weakest person. I was still confident I had more emotional strength than Loki. Seriously, he had the emotional range of a deranged five year old that liked to set ants on fire.

But sometimes even that seemed...tempting to me. Because although I never woke up from a nightmare with a scream in my mouth like he does-oh how he would deny it, it was as if I had caught him with a hand down his pants-I just couldn't sleep.

It wasn't as if I had some clear reason why. I just couldn't. Every time I dozed off, it felt like someone electrocuted me, and my heart was suddenly racing. It probably didn't help that I was so sad in the night, too. I missed my family like crazy. Sometimes, past midnight when I couldn't sleep, I would look down the window and wonder if I jumped I would be back in my world again.

I never did carry it out, of course. I was too much of a coward to try. The thoughts of the last moments, the thoughts of the pain, and the thoughts of just death; it made me step back. And shudder. And stare at Loki, who always slept so fitfully but rarely escaped his nightmares.

He was the living reminder that I wasn't crazy. That I was real, he was real, and this world was real, in some sense since I was here and he was also here.

And that life was simple; one faked death after another, until a final one that I could stop. Keep him alive for a movie longer, never mind the TV series. Keep a lot of people alive for just a movie longer. I don't know what would happen if Infinity War was prevented, but the writers would probably come up with another apocalypse that I wouldn't know of this time, and we would all truly die.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Those maybes were becoming the bane of my existence. I had to admit, the control-freak me hated the situation I found myself in. But the control-freak me hated everything including myself, so I wasn't going to succumb to its dark thought not yet. Maybe later.

Ugh, again with those maybes.

Death would surely be a kinder fate, with this much thinking involved in my life? My brain felt like bursting, time after time, after time and-

Bipolar was a bitch.

"We're almost there," Valkyrie interrupted my musings, and I looked at her. I wished I was older, for obvious reasons. I was always wishing that these days. Back in my world, I had wished for the opposite. I wished I would never get older, because I knew what came in later life. Studying, studying, then trying desperately to make money. Now, money wasn't anyone's worry, was it?

"What's the plan?" Loki looked expectedly at me, and I looked expectedly at Valkyrie. She made a face.

"I've been to Xandar like twice."

"I've never been to Xandar."

"...We don't have any plans, do we?"

I paused. "We'll be fine. We just need a tiny stone, how hard can it be?"

And yes, it turns out to be easier than expected, but still harder than what I would have liked. But then, I would have liked for the stone to just be lying down on the ground right in front of where we landed our spaceship, so...

So the deal is this; the stone's in the Repository, which is in the center of the military/police force that is the Nova Corps, and the three of us agrees that asking for it is not going to work. And apparently, I've been watching too many action movies, because I fully expected we were going to have to fight a full-front battle to get to the stone. Nope. Just knocking out an old lady will do.

We lied in wait for the Commander of Nova Corps, a white woman with white hair that I recognized from the Guardians of the Galaxy movie. As soon as she got out of cameras' sight, Loki punched her in the face, probably having no qualms with hitting old ladies. Then Val tied her up, left her in a closet somewhere and Loki became that woman.

She, well he looked at me. "How do I look?"

"Creepy," I answered. "This feels very creepy." He rolled his eyes, and it was weird to see a Loki expression on a woman.

Then he snapped his fingers and Val and I also started to look like the standard Nova Corps guards. It didn't change the way I felt my body, being an illusion, but the residue of magic on my skin tingled. It wasn't uncomfortable.

We walked inside the building in which held the Repository. Loki nodded at the guards standing in front and they nodded back, and I admired the way he was able to pull off his magic. Since I had tried to do it myself and knew it was hard as heck, I couldn't see his magic detachedly like when I was watching the movies. Well, I couldn't see anything detachedly anymore. It was a scary thought, but this no longer was just a fictional world with fictional characters.

And sentiment was good, because it powered me to do the things I had to. Motivation, I guess. I snorted, thinking of the song Motivation, then frowned as it got stuck in my head. I hated earworms. I had to sing it to get it out.

But no way was I going to belt out Normani dressed like a Nova Corps guard. How weird would that look to aliens? Maybe they would drop everything to stare at me and it would cause a great distraction for us to get the stone? Hah. Nice try, Regis. You're not singing in front of everyone.

"Prime Rael," A familiar looking man said, stopping us. I felt like I knew him, but couldn't for the death of me figure out his name. Meh. He looked like a John. "I thought you went home," John frowned slightly, and Loki waved a hand dismissively.

"I needed to check on something," He lied smoothly. "I'll be out in a moment."

"Well, I'm going home." John shrugged. "Good night, Irani." Then he walked away.

"That was easy," I muttered, when he was out of our sights.

"Too early to say that," Val muttered back, and we strode down the corridor.

We had gotten the map of this place in a bar yesterday, with a good deal of threatening and a great deal of pain. Let's just say that Loki and Val made a very good Bonnie and Clyde. Huh. Where did that leave me? As their weirdly Asian kid?

Oh god, I did not want to think of Loki as a dad. I beat that thought back with a big mental stick.

There were few people still inside the building, and none of them seemed to care much about us. Nobody intercepted as we stopped in front of the Repository, then used to passcard Val had swiped from Irani Rael and entered.

Aisles of artifects, some magical and some not towered above us. I tried not to gawk at the sights in front me, because Loki and Val didn't even falter at that gigantic skull of something that looked like a dinosaur. A freaking dinosaur. I had to almost run to catch up.

In the depth of the Repository, there was another room, one guarded by two guards who were dressed exactly the same as me and Val. Loki smiled that signature smile, stopping in front.

"Prime Rael," One of the guard said, his face unreadable behind the visor. But he sounded a bit irritated. "What is-"

Immediately Loki stroke, knocking his staff away and wrapping an arm around the guard's neck. Val moved simultaneously, slamming the other guard into the wall and striking continuously, until he went down. I winced, watching with morbid fascination as the two guards slumped bonelessly.

Loki patted the guard down, found the key in the pocket in the alien's vest, and opened the door. He looked at me and I walked in, scanning the safe-like box in the middle. No obvious booby traps, and I pushed apart the hatch and swiftly grabbed the orb inside.

I couldn't help it, I did that clishe movie moment where the villains stares at the diamond/object of power and smile devilishly. I had the power stone. Thanos, go fuck yourself.

I pocketed the orb-it was smaller than I thought it'd be-and grinned hopelessly at Loki. He looked unimpressed, but I could see his lips doing that twitching thing, that definitely wasn't him trying not to smile. Right.

"Let's go," Valkyrie dragged the bodies inside the second room, and unlike someone, didn't try not to smirk. "They'll be on us in a minute, tops."

"Not a minute. More like twenty seconds," Loki rebounded, and I frowned.

"Are you two guessing, or is this some kind of knowledge only experience grows?"

"This is knowledge that idiots lack," His pace fastened, and I scrambled to keep up.

"I'm not an idiot."

"No, you're not." I looked at him, incredulous, and he smiled. "You're a dimwit."

"Smiling doesn't make insults okay," I grumbled as we passed back through the Repository gate, Val in the lead.

"Then I won't, next time."

"No insults?"

"No smiles," And the alarm started ringing. I grimaced, and made an effort not to clamp my ears because it was extremely loud.

Loki snapped his fingers and he turned himself into a mundane looking man, and we started running for real, passing by the numerous guards who were headed the other direction back to the Repository.

But no one tackled us, no one asked questions, and we were out the building a moment before the doors slammed closed, the building on a lockdown. It was breathtakingly exciting, but all very anticlimactic. Probably because it wasn't scripted.

Screen writers managed to make problems out of thin air, seriously. Loki and Val were lucky I was here to do random unscripted things. Like sing Normani. I'ma break you off, let me be your motivation.

"...Why are you singing?" Loki said, as if I had committed a serious act of atrocity not just simply hum a tune. He had a look of horror in his eyes. He was such a drama queen.

"Celebratory," I retorted. "We got the thing we came here for."

"And let's get out of here," Val took a swing of her flask-how did she bring that to a robbery?-. "I need a drink."

I frowned. "You are having a drink."

"This isn't going to last forever. I need to have a drink constantly, weird one." She started walking, a particular drunken swagger in her movement. I shook my head, but couldn't help the smile breaking out. I really needed to stop letting everyone think I'm weird. I mean, it was true, but they didn't know that, did they?

Maybe. Maybe not.


A/N: One down, five to go.

Thank you all for reading:) I never thought I'd reach 100 followers. My mind is blown.

아엠 쏘 어썸 하하하하하 유어 올쏘 어썸 개학은 안 하는 건 가보다...러브러브

Everyone, you guys are amazing. Have a great life.