Chapter 13: Immortal Jerks
By the time Anubis' illusion disappeared, the god himself was keeping an eye on the male demigods, the crazy teenager, and the cautious Avengers. Hawkeye and Black Widow were probably the only mortals smart enough to double-check the tower's safety and leave them alone while Maui and Bacchus silent drank the latter's homemade scotch. Stark was cleaning up the remains of his bar, destroyed by the critical Bacchus and Banner had just come back from the lab.
"Fury's coming by tomorrow. I'm afraid he wants a word with you…" He admitted.
"The mortal can whine all he wants, I'll make sure I'm too drunk to even care…" Bacchus took a large sip of scotch and slammed his glass hard on the coffee table. Each broken shard enlarged and morphed into a new glass that automatically refilled itself with scotch. Anubis indifferently shrugged as he grabbed one of the glasses for himself.
"I'll do my best to not kill him," Maui said.
"Fury or him?" Stark asked by pointing at Bacchus.
"Already tried to, it didn't work."
"Isn't this nice?" Bacchus sneered. "The world is about to end again and you actually make me smile when you talk about how you tried to kill me. Remember when you hit me with that tequila bottle back in Aguascalientes?"
"It was in the 1600s, back when it was still Nueva Galicia. Intoxication can't kill the divine demigod of wine but the biggest tequila bottle of the times caused you to see pink elephants!" Both demigods chuckled at the humor.
"Yes, and while you were busy feasting on the first tequila during your vacation there like a bunch of drunk college boys, millions of mortals died from the different exposures that came from the egocentric, white-dominated Europeans." Anubis made his dark comment before sipping his scotch, effectively shutting up the two. Aaricia, meanwhile, kept her eyes glued on her phone. "Feeling alright, Mini Bowie?"
"Does anyone care?" Aaricia asked.
"Only me." Anubis finished his glass. "You realize I can't vouch for you anymore? Koryanna will be beyond pissed when she finds out what you did."
"I'm conscious."
"You're taking this pretty well for somebody who will be grounded for the next decades of her life leading to retirement," Anubis nodded.
"Come to think of it, that reminds me." Tony glared at Aaricia. "Can you remind me why you stole from the tower? You buy drugs behind the Snow Queen's back?"
Bacchus snorted. "Yeah, kid. What were you going to use the money from that fiftieth-rate booze collector? Another spa treat? A yearly delivery of Finnish coffee? Loki's head on a platter?"
"No!" Aaricia shoved her phone back in her pocket. "I intended to save up on that electric sports car Kory spotted in Oslo!"
"Kid!" Maui exclaimed in shock. "PLEASE don't tell me that an electric car is what you're going for as a birthday present for Kory!" He got up from his seat and walked forward so she could see his exasperated expression. "Tell me THAT was not what you were going for!"
"It's not what I was going for. Happy?" Aaricia asked sarcastically. Her retort got chuckles from both Bacchus and Anubis.
"Let me see if I get this straight…" Banner raised a hand. "You steal Tony's stuff included, to immortals… because you want to get presents for your sister?"
"Duh."
"Why?"
"Can't a sister do something amazing for her amazing big sister?" Aaricia shrugged. "I mean, that's the point of birthdays, ain't it? You spend 364 days a year giving to others, and for just one day, they got to return a year's worth of adoration to you. And trust me, for everything she's gone through and done… she deserves the nicest things." Her blue eyes deviated to her fidgeting fingers.
"And… she doesn't ask where you got the money?"
"Oh, she tells Kory that I gave her the cash." Anubis raised his hand smugly. "I've been rolling in gold since the time of the pharaohs and I'm the ever-benevolent god of mummification! Obviously Kory believed it every year. 'Yeah, Anubis gave me some money because I wanted to give you something special!' THAT was better for Kory to handle than how she'll react in a few hours when she finds out you used money from sold stolen goods!"
"My sister's a demigoddess! It's not like some handmade greeting card would be worthy enough for her!" Aaricia got on her feet.
"I agree with ya. And what speaks better than a 2012 Renault Zoe from a first-class car dealership in Oslo to say how much you love her?"
"It was fjord blue!" Aaricia said as if it were obvious. "And Norway is getting into electric cars for environmental safety! Kory's half-Jotun, do you know how she and the other Frost Giants care insanely about global warming?"
"More than what humans are willing to commit, that's for sure." Bacchus took a sip of scotch."Why do you think the nybergynnere Frost Giants from the Andes are pissed? Or the Canadians and Russians?"
"I THINK…" Tony walked over to pat Aaricia on the shoulder, "that what your drunk buddy is trying to tell you is that the next time you want to get your old sis a nice present, don't steal cash. Honestly, if you had told ME, I would just help you buy the ride. OK, Missy Ziggy Stardust?" Aaricia gave a mere nod and went back to her seat. "Anybody hungry? I might be in the mood for Chinese…"
"Already placed the orders." Anubis waved an iPhone with a jackal designed golden phone case. "Three immortals' worth of food from the NYC markets. And no need to thank me boys, I got Italian and Filipino."
"Thanks for considering the kosher menu for the girls," Maui said sarcastically.
"I didn't have to. I can smell Kory's homemade goulash from here. You guys honestly thought that Kory would be anywhere near the Avengers for dinner tonight?"
"Because she cooks for twelve people all the time or because she's prone to emotional eating?" Aaricia got up from her seat. "I'd better check to make sure she doesn't empty out Steve's kitchen. Unless she cloned the ingredients."
"You'd think she'd run a Michelin-stars restaurant with her cooking, but it would close on the first day." Anubis chuckled.
"That's mean." Aaricia pushed the elevator button to go down.
"Don't play smart, kid. I'm referring to the fact that humans would never tolerate a sorceress' cooking."
"Steve would." The doors opened, revealing Thor to step out of the elevator.
"He's Steve." Anubis raised a finger. "Only one tolerating, sympathetic human in a cesspool on unsympathetic bastards. Now go enjoy the goulash and whatever will happen next as Kory decides how to ground you for the rest of your life."
"And people where Kory gets her nastiness from." Aaricia shook her head and went inside the elevator, her shoulder bumping against Thor.
"My apologies," he said.
"Shut up." Aaricia pushed the button and indifferently looked on, hands in her pocket as the doors closed in front of her.
"Did I miss something?" Thor asked.
"Besides finding out that Loki was handled and I was robbed by a teenager who wanted to give your niece a car?" Tony shrugged. "Nothing much."
As Tony talked, Thor glared at Anubis. The god obviously entertained himself, his legs and fingers crossed as he watched the scene. Thor didn't know if the god said anything but giving away that Anubis practically tormented Loki through an active illusion and outright admitted that Kory worked with or for him… didn't sound like a good idea. He especially didn't know how the Captain would react if he found out, if Thor was to believe what Anubis said about his ally and his niece being friends. He shook his head and held on to the Tome of Ikolson that he brought upstairs with him. Unfortunately, Anubis picked up its presence. He teleported from his seat to appear right behind Thor and snatch the tome from him.
"Return that!" Thor went to grab it, only for Anubis to teleport by the bar. "It doesn't belong to you!"
"Nor does it belong to the House of Odin. It belongs to the House of Ikolson, and since I am Koryanna's patron god, I am entitled." Anubis smirked as he opened the tome.
"I am the Tome of Ikolson."
"And here we go again," Tony rolled his eyes as the tome started talking again. "This is gonna get old."
"Clearly you've never been to the Libraries of Alexandria. My brain nearly died from the know-it-all talking records." Bacchus rolled his eyes while he and Maui got up to have a closer look.
"Greetings, Anubis Sethson. It is an honor to share the knowledge of the house of the current Ikolson descendant favored by you. How may I provide you knowledge of the House of Ikolson?"
Anubis smirked. "The blood pact between Kory and Aaricia. They cut their palms and shook on it when they became sisters. Kory was very careful to make sure that it was only her mortal blood that went into Aaricia's."
"The receiver is thus affiliated with the family, thus why her blood unlocked me. But she isn't considered affiliated enough for me to record her."
"I know," Anubis nodded. "It's the tragic thing with tomes of legacies, isn't it? Collecting the histories of the born descendants but not of those married or adopted into it."
"Unless the legacies brought from the additions had impacts on the born descendants. Was there something you were looking for? Do know that I cannot give you information from the missing pages."
"Just one thing. The ancestry of François Ikolson. I'm highly conscious that the Ikolson family had divine ancestry in Freya and Toutatis, but I was curiously if you knew anything about the less… pagan ancestry. Maybe… Israel?"
The Tome took some time to answer. After some seconds of silence, it finally answered. "It's a challenging question when it comes to matters of monotheism. Are you asking about the non-pagan ancestry of the extinct side of the family or the non-pagan ancestry of your protégée?"
"What do you think, genius?" Bacchus snapped.
"Be nice, Rager Pants. It's a sentient collector of knowledge from Koryanna's family," Anubis said quietly.
"I respect your politeness, your Excellency. Are you more interested in the direct or spiritual heritage?"
Anubis pondered. "Both."
"Well, the information that will fascinate you is that 98% percent of the women who have married into your protégée's family were either direct or spiritual descendants of the Tribe of Levi. Does this information satisfy you?"
"It does. Thank you for your time." Anubis put the tome on the counter and looked at Bacchus and Maui with a toothy smirk. "It looks like you two owe me some cash."
"Moron…" Both muttered as they went through their pockets and pulled out wallets full of cash.
"The Tribe of Levi…" Banner said. "She has a lot of crazy ancestry…"
"What's that?" Both Thor and Tony asked.
Banner scowled at Tony. "Jesus, Tony, do you ever read? Just because I study gamma radiations doesn't mean I don't read books during my spare time. And Thor, how do you not know this?"
"He's a barbarian that came after the BCs, what did you expect?" Anubis said. "If you people weren't so invested in modern tech, you'd know more about the basic foundations. The Tribes of Israel formed the first Israelite Nation. Each started with the twelve sons of Jacob, they each had their purpose and patch of land, and have assimilated into communities. When the tome said that most of Koryanna's great-great-something grandmothers were either direct or spiritual descendants, it means her ancestors were either direct descendants of Levi himself or Levites."
"And Levi is…" Tony pressured on.
"Tony, you're hopeless." Banner sighed. "In the Bible, it's said that Levi was the great-grandfather of Moses. The Tribe of Levi was said to have been carried on by the descendants of Moses' brother Aaron. It was primarily associated with priests."
"For decades, I was rather confident at the possibility that Koryanna was connected to that Tribe." Anubis got off his seat to walk around a bit. "Even before her demigod awakening, it seemed evident that she had the aptitude of such connections. Her God let her live. He always gave signs for when he found mortals that were worth living, regardless of their backgrounds. Very unlike the mortals who persecuted them BECAUSE of the backgrounds."
"For a pagan god, you seem convinced." Banner frowned.
"Don't get me wrong. Gods are superior to mortals but we are most certainly not superior to Him. Capital H him." Anubis stopped to look out the window. "He created this world and universe… and whatever were his reasons, it's up to everyone to interpret it. It's not his fault or ours if millions in the past thought that force, torture, persecution, and death were the best resolves to spread his messages."
"That's pretty morbid," Tony commented.
"Would a less morbid explanation be more convenient?" Maui asked.
"Please," Thor said.
"It's been both rumored and proven that all mortals have at least one-sixth of their DNA that was received from some divine connection, either because they're connected by blood or because of spiritual connections," Maui explained. "Take Bacchus. Obviously, his dad his Jupiter, his grandparents are the Titans Saturn and Rhea, and his great-grandparents are Ouranos and Gaea, the oldest concepts of sky and Earth. But take his mother Semele. Mortal woman. Her father Cadmus was apparently the grandson of Poseidon and her mother was Harmonia the goddess of Harmony. So, in a weird sense, because of his mother, Bacchus' uncle is also his great-grandfather and his mother-in-law is a goddess!"
"Don't forget Ariadne," Bacchus pointed out.
"Oh yeah! Your wife!" Maui chuckled. "Ariadne, the princess of Crete who helped Theseus in the Labyrinth? Her dad Minos was a demigod son of Zeus and her mom Pasiphae was the daughter of Helios, Saturn's nephew! You might as well say that Bacchus married his own mortal cousin because that's how fucked up genetics are! And I don't have that kind of problem because none of my parents are biologically related to one another!"
"Story of our lives…" Bacchus shrugged.
"And let's not forget the lovely incest combination of my parents and uncle and aunt." Anubis let out a sarcastic smirk.
"So long story short, we're all related?" Tony waved his hand.
"If you're that creepy, sure." Anubis shrugged. "We're just more superior than you."
That threw off Tony. "Excuse me?"
"What? You should have seen it coming!" Anubis chuckled. "I mean, Thor might treat you as allies, but he certainly doesn't treat you as equals. To Asgardians, humans are lower than Frost Giants… and Frost Giants are already considered as monsters, an Asgardian's own dog would actually be seen as worthier to sit at its master's table. On Earth? Well… humans are beneath immortals, immortals are beneath gods, and demigods are just the neutral party on the line between mortals and immortals and said party is considered worthy enough to be in a god's social circle."
"Is that how you treat your own friends?" Thor gestured at Bacchus and Maui.
"Business friends, nothing more." Bacchus gestured between himself and Anubis. "Plus, all the other gods have been so corrupted by humanity's vices, they stopped showing their faces' in public. I don't even know where Jupiter is."
"And there's not really a great amount of demigods left anyway," Bacchus shrugged. "Either they committed suicide or they never had their awakening or the humans persecuted them. Anyway, besides the Big Guy, there hasn't been any talk of gods breeding with demigods lately."
"And my dad was NOTORIOUS for being a walking baby factory." Bacchus groaned.
"Don't you and your wife have children?" Thor asked Bacchus.
"We do. But because of the expansions and the wars, we had to limit the visits. They're still hiding out in the Mediterranean. We only get to see them during my end-of-the-decade rager parties. Ariadne and I had an especially hard time contacting them during the Greek War of Independence, the 1967 coup, the 2010 debt crisis, the Fascist Regime, and the Armenian Genocide."
"And whoever I know in the Pacific is just too busy. Let's leave it there," Maui said.
Tony, Banner, and Thor looked at each other with a hint of misery. Hopefully Cap had better luck with Loki's daughter than they were with those immortal jerks.
Meanwhile
If anything, Steve had a much better time than his allies upstairs.
Despite being a sort of magic-user, Kory refrained herself from using it for mundane activities like cooking. It was a miracle he even had in his kitchen the ingredients she needed for her goulash and the kitchen was now filled with the aroma of sauteed vegetables and boiling stock. Even though it was a small quantity, it smelled like a feast for twelve.
"My mother cooked the best meals when I was little." Kory cautiously stirred the mixture in the pot. Her cooking was taking longer; despite Tony adding some 'modern features' to speed things up on Steve's old-fashioned stove, Kory kept the temperature at its lowest and her distance from the stove far enough so that her unfolded arm could stir. "Primarily Kosher menu or Norwegian dishes. When we went to Jerusalem for my bat mitzvah… she almost burst… Granted, at the time, it was unrestful due to some… civil unrest, but we did run into some folks on pilgrimage. Other Jews coming to the Holy city for the wall… Hannukah… We met some Hungarians, Germans, and other parts of Europe at the hotel we stayed at with the Berkovitz. She talked a lot with them since they didn't hate her so much. Exchanged recipes…"
"They didn't care that she was raising you on your own?" Steve asked.
Kory stopped stirring to finally add in the floured beef. She gave it some tapping before doing so. "Not their business. As far as they knew, the Lord was blessing me by letting me become a woman in the Holy City. The Berkovitz? They thought of it as forgiveness."
"You know, when you brought up that name, it caused me to think." Steve went through his cabinets to pull out some plates. "I think I knew a Berkovitz myself. I don't remember his first name, but he was part of the super-soldier program in the training camp I was in. When I was being filled in after my time in the ice, I heard he died in service."
"So have I heard." Kory nodded silently as she stirred her goulash. "Isaac and Rebecca Berkovitz were my grandparents' friends. They REALLY didn't take it well with my mother having me out of wedlock to some possibly pagan gentile. They thought I had to be corrected from a mistake to something useful…" Kory shook her head. "They tried fleeing to Sweden a month before I lost my mother… I'm still not sure how it happened, but they got… They couldn't make it to the border…" Frost was beginning to grow on the wooden spoon she had been using for stirring.
"Kory…" Steve realized that Kory must be growing a storm inside.
"They did bring up an American cousin… of course he couldn't save them, none of those arrested in Tønsberg could! Merchants, blacksmiths, homemakers, clerks, managers, students, pupils, businessmen, machine operators… They were all rubbed off… My mother died… And I lived…" The Frost was now spreading all over the counter, icicles growing on the edges like ivy.
"Kory."
"I tried to finish myself off… God, why did the Lord let me live? Why do I see millions of ghosts… screaming at me?" It was fortunate that Aaricia happened to stumble into the kitchen and quickly ran to pull Kory away, hugging her in the process. The process must have worked; the frost thawed and disappeared.
"Føler deg bedre?" Aaricia asked. (Feeling better?)
"Min situasjon kommer til å gjøre meg sint." Kory groaned. (My situation is going to drive me mad.)
"Maybe I should cover the rest of the goulash." Aaricia patted Kory on the back. Once again, Steve being Steve, he pulled out a stool for Kory to sit on. Taking seat, Kory wound up freezing the stool into a perfect ice sculpture while Aaricia took charge of the goulash, rising the temperature a bit.
"Post-traumatic stress disorder and survivor guilt, huh?" Steve asked quietly.
"I'm going to have a hard time, aren't I?" Kory asked miserably. "I didn't ask for any of this…"
"I'm aware…"
"And I'm surrounded by a bunch of trigger pushers!" Kory growled for a few seconds. "Excluding you, of course…"
"The eyepatch guy from SHIELD is coming tomorrow." Aaricia stirred the goulash.
"Nick Fury?" Steve asked.
"Who names their kid Nick Fury?" Aaricia chuckled.
"Gee, I don't know. Who calls their kid Koryanna Evangeline Lottie Lokisdottir-Ikolson?" Kory asked drily. "Literally, why would you call your kid 'maiden full of grace and good news, vigorous, the daughter of Loki and the great-who-cares-how-many-greats-granddaughter of Ikol'? WHY?"
"Because your mother thought it suited you. I don't disagree with her." Steve's sincerity must have done a number on Kory. Either because he said something nice about the demigoddess's late mother or because he gave out a compliment, whatever the damn reason was, it caused Kory to relax a bit and let out a blush. With the goulash getting close to ready, Aaricia managed to find some bowls. "I'm feeling better," Kory said quietly, "but I don't think I'll be able to handle an interrogation. Pestering questions drive to triggers being touched and touched triggers… Let's just say I'm not an expert at letting go of my anger. And knowing what happened here with Loki…"
"I'll talk to Fury when he comes in," Steve said. "The man isn't one of the sincerest I know…"
"How can he not be sincere?" Kory asked while Aaricia filled the bowls with goulash.
"The first time we caught Loki, we found out that SHIELD was planning on using the Tesseract for weapons of mass destruction. Back in the war, I had to fight against HYDRA, a Nazi scientific division gone rogue that wanted to use the Tesseract for the same reason." Steve looked at Kory. "They…"
"Attacked the Tesseract's location in my hometown, I'm conscious." Kory sighed. Aaricia put out the goulash bowls in front of them and went to grab utensils. "I waited in the rubble. I held on to my mother's corpse… I just cuddled her in the darkness, waiting for them to leave… My insides froze, just like that." Kory snapped her fingers. "The pain of my body rivaled the pain in my heart. I didn't know what was happening. I didn't connect the dots at first. All I could understand that the Norwegian cold… suddenly became less cold. I did feel it but it didn't make me shiver. When things quieted down, I saw that one of the church's monks came back from out of town. He saw the carnage and went to check the holy ground. I followed him, carrying my mother in. When I got in, I begged for shelter and for an area to bury my mother… even though I wasn't supposed to be outside."
"He attacked you, didn't it?" Steve gave a taste of the goulash and found himself liking it.
"To be fair, it was dark when I got in. He thought I was out at the wrong time and place, so he did let me in… initially." Kory shook her head. "Next thing I knew, he panicked when he saw me for real and he grabbed a torch. 'Frostgigant! Jotun! Gyte av ymir!' He shouted at me. I didn't understand why he was calling me a Frost Giant, a Jotun, or a spawn of Ymir. I held out my hand to protect myself…" As if to demonstrate, Kory cautiously raised her right hand and put it in a defensive pose. "And the next thing I knew… the monk was gone. All I saw were destroyed chunks of ice, but when I saw that the ice looked oddly human and a nearby broken mirror revealed my appearance… I panicked."
"And that's when you stumbled onto that wall of Yggdrasil the World Tree." Aaricia paused in eating the goulash to explain the rest to Steve so Kory could catch a break. "The ruins of the church are still there but cultural guides just say it was destroyed during a bomb. They never brought up HYDRA like you did. A few years after she adopted me, Kory showed me the Yggdrasil wall in the ruins. They had a small area near the roots where they hid the Tesseract. Apparently, because the Tesseract was handled by Nordic gods and since a bunch of humans hid it in an artistic representation of what they thought connected the Nine Realms, the Tesseract's leftover residue somehow gave a view on truth."
"I thought the Tesseract could only open portals or even increase energy," Steve frowned.
"Well apparently its residue increased the energy in cultural history," Aaricia sassed. "After all, its leftover effect on the wall opened a portal to Kory for the truth about her paternal heritage."
"A magic wall… told Kory that her father was Loki and that she was actually half-Frost Giant," Steve said in disbelief. "You must be joking."
"I know, right?" Both sisters said sarcastically in unison before Kory went back to silently eating while Aaricia continued.
"So obviously, Kory freaked out. It was horrible timing! Kory was so freaked out, she just carried her mom over her shoulder and ran straight home! Apparently people didn't freak out when they saw a Frost Giant running through the streets of Tønsberg with a dead body because they were all traumatized by the attack, she might as well have been a hallucination! So Kory went home, she buried her mother in her garden, and for months, she didn't step out of her house unless she had to get out for food."
"I stopped my black-market business…" Kory muttered.
"Ya even took up crossdressing to pass off as a Norwegian man to get food and get a gun." Aaricia turned to Steve. "She took up hunting and fishing during the war. Helped her earn some money by selling it since Norwegians and Jews equally starved. She wound up turning her basement into a bunker and discovering at her same time that the Ikolson family that stayed in Norway since the Middle Ages were properly paranoid."
"What do you mean?" Steve asked.
"A whole network of catacombs and secret tunnels where my Christian relatives would bury their own and hide centuries' worth of treasure and money." Kory muttered. "The hoarders. Way after the war, I managed to make a fortune by selling the relics and antiquities and converted the coins into actual cash. It's why I have such a fortune now."
"And the force field around your house kept anyone from stealing, even after the three years you spent away from home." Aaricia nodded. "You ever heard of the SS Donau, Steve?"
"Sounds like a German ship," he said, finishing the goulash.
"It was. Until it was bombed, it was notorious for deporting what was left of the Norwegian Jews." Aaricia shook her head. "Kory was hiding out in her house and she managed to avoid getting arrested when they came to Tønsberg. Kory told me she was so certain that people thought she and her mother died when HYDRA attacked… but then there was the town drunkard."
"The town drunkard."
"Look, I don't know how the bastard still managed to land himself on booze even after he lost his job!" Kory raised her hands and got off her stool to pace around a bit. "I'm out selling elk in December 1942 and the guy just happens to be there, ranting about how he needs vodka, some Germans plan to arrest him for disturbing the public, and it's when he starts ranting about an 'ice blue girl with red eyes' and a German with an odd pin started asking him questions about it. 'Gets slippery when it goes near the Ikolson house.' That's what the drunkard said."
"But I thought your house had a force field," Steve said.
"It's still there. The force field keeps off anyone uninvited."
"And you thought HYDRA knew you were a Frost Giantess?"
"How should I know, Steve? My only main resource at the time about my non-human heritage was some wall about a magic tree!" Kory stopped in her pacing. "You think I wanted to let the Germans experiment on me? I couldn't risk it! I took what I could and fled Tønsberg. I tried going through the Valdres district because I figured that they wouldn't think of finding me scaling the mountains all the way north to Sweden…" She shook her head. "I don't want to continue."
"I understand. And trust me, it's a good thing you didn't get caught by HYDRA."
"What were they trying to do with some Rubix cube from outer space?" Aaricia cleared the empty dishes.
"Weapons of mass destruction. Red Skull, the leader of HYDRA, tried to bomb major cities with them. When I stopped him…" Steve shook his head. "Well, you know…"
Aaricia and Kory exchanged some grimaces. "God Almighty…" Kory sighed. Aaricia quickly shoved the dishes into the dishwasher.
"Maybe I should check if my phone's out of batteries." It was perhaps the lousiest excuse she could come up with, but Aaricia used it to flee out of the kitchen.
"Kory…" Steve began.
"Do I make you uncomfortable?" Kory started blurting out.
"What? No!"
"I'm just checking, Steve! I mean, I'm half-Jotun! The statement's bound to get redundant at this point, but that last thing I need is to make you uncomfortable or scared! Frozen for seven decades and nearly done for by those Jotunheim hooligans! And my nature is putting you into trouble with aliens again!"
"It's not your fault, Kory." Steve got off his stool. "And you already know that if you were really that worried about me being uncomfortable, you wouldn't be yourself." The words had a different impact than he intended. Kory wound up looking at her reflection in the kitchen mirror and instinctively turned into her human form. "That's not what I meant!"
"Steve, I don't know how to be accepted! That's the way things are!"
"I accept you. Why can't you accept that?"
Kory just sighed, her attempt at calming down successful. "You told me that you wanted to try understanding. I appreciate you, I really do, but in the end, it's just you. You're just one man. I'm sure you're the type of guy that still manages to give rousing speeches to bring people to his cause, but even one noble mortal can't bring down the legacies of persecution, discrimination, and hatred that parasites the world since creation and still continues today." She shook her head. "And I told you back in DC that you can't change nearly a century of crowd hatred and self-hatred. Anything of what I am throws off people, mortal or immortal, and if it's not what I am… They make their own conclusions."
Kory began making her wait out. Steve tried to stop her by gentling putting a hand on her shoulder, successfully stopping her in her tracks. She was facing the direction of the door while he faced the opposite. "You may have given up, but I never do," Steve said, using the same calm tone she had used. "You can keep pushing me out, but I'll still push my way in. You can easily tell me to just give up on you, but you'll find out the hard way that when I set my mind on something, I can do this all day."
Kory's hand gripped over the one he had on her shoulder. Steve felt the nails threatening to scratch. "I've broken the bones of folks with necks thicker than the Hulk's when they don't take 'no' for an answer," her voice got into a warning tone. "Do you really want to cross that line?"
"Do that, and you'll just convince everyone that you're exactly what they hate," he responded back. "And I prefer to help my friends rather than leave them crawling under the barbed wire."
"That would be a mountain in my case." Kory managed to push his hand away and turn to glare at Steve. "You'd only go three feet before the cuts got through your suit and cut you back to reality!" Her green eyes stood out with her anger as she held out three fingers.
"I'd still go through." Steve began to get frustrated as well. "Are you really that stubborn?"
"Did you just… I don't believe it!" Kory began pacing around the kitchen before finally storming out, rambling in another language. "Ir zogn eyn shtarbik az zeyn abjektivz tsu bashitsn ir zenen umzist, er nokh pushiz! Tsi di imbesiles dervartn mir tsu lernen zey vegn vos es mitl tsu zeygn aleyn? Ikh ken nisht afilu… Ir visn vos? Ikh bin gegangen tsu bet baren tsulib!"
Steve waited until he heard a door slamming to finally step out of the kitchen. No sign of ice was present in the hallway, but he was surprised to find Aaricia leaning on the wall by the kitchen's doorway.
"Did I upset her?" Steve asked nervously. He almost got the response he expected when he heard the sound of furniture breaking.
"She'll be fine," Aaricia said. "After an argument, she usually steps aside to break stuff privately. Then I check on her when she's crying her heart, cuddles follow, and I sleep with her until morning. Tomorrow, she'll be depressed, and if people piss her off… You might want to tell Mr. Stark to suit up." The teenager properly stood up. "She screams a lot in Yiddish when she's angry. She basically said 'You tell one mortal that his objectives to protect you are futile, he still pushes! Do these imbeciles expect me to educate them on what it means to be alone? I can't even... You know what? I'm going to bed for fuck's sake!"
"Aaricia, what can I do?" Steve sighed. "How do I help her? She's pushing me out!"
"When you woke up in the 21st century, did you immediately accept the help of those who tried to help you?" Aaricia casually asked.
"No." Steve grimaced as he remembered waking up in a fake 1940s hospital room, courtesy of SHIELD trying to break the news as gently as possible. He'd also been stubborn for weeks about using technology.
"Exactly! Kory acts like one of those abused dogs that got abandoned by their owners into the streets, brought into a shelter, and don't really warm up to the shelter workers or new families until WEEKS, maybe MONTHS, have passed!" Aaricia shook her head. "I got Kory into WORLDBUDDIES because I hoped that she could make a friend among the humans that she could relate with. Give her a light of warmth. Don't get me wrong, Anubis, Maui, and Bacchus are fun for the sake of fun, but they're the toxic friends that shouldn't have such an influence on your sensitive sister who suffers from trauma, self-hatred, and self-esteem issues. And her mortal therapist's downright pathetic." She sighed. "Look, I can't be her mortal morality pet all the time, OK?"
"Is that how she treats you?"
"Like a pet? No. Pets don't get spoiled the way she spoils me. Does she treat me like I'm the only thing she really loves in her current state of existence and if I disappear, she'll break for good? Yeah." Aaricia sighed. "Her mom and Abimbola were the only ones who really gave Kory what she needed. When both died, Anubis banned her the luxury of suicide."
"Since when is suicide a luxury?"
"In his eyes it is," Aaricia said. At the end of the hallway, the sounds of furniture destruction ended. "Look, we'll talk more about it today. I'll take care of Kory. You get some sleep, OK?"
"OK. Thanks, kid." Steve smiled a bit.
The two cringed a bit when they heard loud sobbing coming from the guest room. "Uh… So I know Mr. Stark probably hates my guts right, but can you tell him that we need 30 different types of Ben & Jerri's ice cream packs for breakfast? Jumbo size."