A/N: Jeez. I keep saying that I'm gonna update sooner but then I don't. I'm so sorry :( Thank you all for being patient with me, and I hope that I do better in the future. That will be my New Years resolution. :)
Be sure to leave any suggestions/comments in the review section below and I hope you enjoy this chapter!
The night before,
Queens Church of God
10:30pm
Loki stared at the large statue of Christ, studying the church from the farthest pew. A few ornate candles lit the otherwise dim, empty space, providing a quiet ambience. The mahogany bench beneath him creaked as he stood. He had always been fascinated with Midgard's many religions, but never really understood the Human's fixation with God. To his knowledge, no creature like that existed.
The low light reflected against delicate stain glass, casting soft patterns of colors on the ceiling. It was high and arched, with small stone detailing sprinkled on an otherwise boring gray surface. The church was quite beautiful, he realized while taking in the grandness of it all. The buildings on Asgard were stunning, but in a more futuristic and modern way. This place was the essence of old, a crumbling picture of how life used to be.
Loki pondered what Peter had told him, feeling the uncomfortable and foreign swell of concern in his chest. This arguably evil man was at the same school, offering education to innocent children. Children like Peter Parker. He could only imagine how frightened the child must have been to bear this by himself.
"Why must he be burdened alone?" He asked, not really sure who he was talking to. "He's done nothing to deserve it."
"Are you speaking to the Father?"
Loki started and spun to the voice. A short, round woman with curly graying hair was sitting on a pew across the aisle from his. When did she come in? He was not usually so easily surprised.
He blinked at her question. "Why would I be speaking to my Father?"
She chuckled, looking with admiration at the statue in the front of the church. "Not your father. His." She gestured a hand.
Loki only felt more confused, wondering what the object of worship had to do with anything. "Why would I be speaking to His father?
She smiled, eyes and mouth wrinkling. "Young man, do you know about God?"
"I know that…" he chose his words carefully. "Others worship him."
The woman nodded, hair bouncing up and down. "And what do you worship, young man?"
If only she knew that he was more than 500 years older than her. He had lived a thousand of her lifetimes... and yet, this was the first time anyone asked him that. Loki knew about gods; in fact, he was one. He knew about Valhalla, the heaven of warriors. He knew about Hel… all too well, actually.
"I believe what I have seen," he decided.
She stood, a knowing glint in her twinkling blue eyes. "And you've seen a lot, haven't you Loki?" Before he could even open his mouth to speak, she continued, "I may be an oldie, but I do watch the news."
"Do you mean to call the authorities? Not many midgardians take a particular liking to me." He folded his arms in front of his chest, getting ready for a quick escape.
"No. I don't take a particular liking to authorities." She winked. "Do you know what faith is? Belief in things not seen. I'm not here to convert you. We can have faith in many things that have nothing to do with religion; faith in objects, faith in ideas… faith in people," she paused and looked up into the high ceiling. "Faith in ourselves. Do you have faith in yourself, young man?"
The woman looked directly into his eyes, her question ringing in the silence. For a moment their eye contact held.
"Food for thought," she said, breaking the trance and sitting back down on the pew. "Your eyes are green."
Loki was a little shocked at the statement. "Yes, I know."
"Funny," she chuckled, even though he didn't pick up on anything humorous. "I could have sworn that they were blue on TV."
xXx
Walking into Midtown High, Loki had never felt more uncomfortable. Hundreds of teenagers swarmed the front doors, forming one of the things he hated the most: crowds. It seemed like they were all looking at him, and it made his skin crawl.
From beside him, Peter said, "Are you sure you want to do this? I know you don't love people."
Loki brushed his black hair back. Short hair was infuriating. Do this for Peter, he reminded himself. Do this for your friend.
"I've battled creatures beyond human imagination. High School is nothing."
Just then, a girl with long curly hair ran up to Peter. She grabbed his hand, then turned to look Loki up and down. He inferred that this was Michelle, or MJ, who was dating the boy.
"Who's this?" She asked, nodding at Loki.
"Oh! This is… Hjalmar Fredrickson," Peter began, going over their predetermined background story. "You can call him Mar. He's a transfer student from Norway; he's staying at the Tower with me." Loki was reminded how good of a liar he was.
"Cool," MJ said, quirking her mouth into a small grin. "Do you speak Norwegian? You sound kind of British."
"Um, he-" Peter started, mind working to figure out a quick white lie. Before he finished, Loki spoke.
"Ja, det gjør jeg. Dette er språket mitt, pike." There was a stunned silence. "Yes, I do, but I was adopted, so the accent doesn't quite match."
"That's really cool." Her small smile widened. "I only speak a little bit of Spanish."
"También hablo español," Loki responded, finding satisfaction in their surprised faces. He had learned many languages while he was young, including a few of the most common Midgaurdian dialects.
"I didn't know you spoke Spanish!" Peter's brown eyes were wide. His mouth hung open a little.
"I speak many languages," he smirked. "Norwegian, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Hindi, French, Arabic, and a bit of Portuguese." He opted to leave out the languages that didn't exist on Earth, but including those, he spoke more than 15 fluently.
MJ looked impressed, and Peter looked completely shocked. "When did you learn all of those?"
"I've always enjoyed studying," Loki replied. "And I had a lot of time, as I was… homeschooled."
There was an awkward silence as Peter gaped. Finally finding his words again, he nodded and gestured to the school.
"Well, um. Let's go in." The small group headed forward through the crowd. Peter turned to his girlfriend. "He has the same schedule as I do, so we'll see you in math."
"Sounds good. See you later. Mar." She nodded at him and ran off down a different hallway. Once she was gone, Peter spun to Loki.
"Dude! You didn't tell me you were a genius!" He had an excited grin on his face. "That's so cool!"
Loki had never been called a genius. No one had ever tested or compared his knowledge to anything, so he assumed that it was normal to learn what he had. "Hm. I suppose when you live for over a thousand years, you run out of things to do. I wouldn't call it genius."
"A- a thousand years?" Peter's mouth hung open again. "You've lived for... a thousand years…" his voice trailed off into a whisper of astonishment.
"Thor is nearly 500 years older than me," Loki stated. "I'm pretty young."
A bell rang, bringing the kid back into focus. "That's the warning bell."
His friend was confused. "For what?"
"For class," Peter answered with a smile. "Ready for the school system?"
xXx
As it turned out, the school system was mostly useless knowledge that Loki already knew. He hadn't bothered to bring a backpack as a pencil satisfied most of his needs. Peter was shocked that he knew Trig, and Loki didn't have the heart to tell him why.
When they were little, Thor had taunted him during studies of the 9 realms, saying that there was no way he could learn the Midgaurdian concept of "math". Despite their mother claiming that it was irrelevant to study, Loki mastered college level Algebra purely out of spite. Sitting in the hard desk staring at a Trigonometry worksheet, the memory made him smile. Better to just let Peter think he was smart.
"Mr. Fredrickson, anything funny you'd like to share with the rest of the class?" The teacher, Mr. Simmons, was a large male with a red face and sweaty hands. His glare showed a distaste for students that Loki thought teachers should never had. Peter had told him about this man, complaining that he liked to pick on students for no apparent reason.
Loki tilted his head, keeping his expression even despite the glances of other students. "No. Why would I?"
Shockingly, the man's face got redder. "Is this class a joke to you? Don't expect me to go easy on you because you're an exchange student."
"I don't," he responded nonchalantly. His cool attitude only infuriated the teacher even more.
"Since you're so high and mighty, what's the answer to number two?" The question was phrased as a challenge, and Loki took it as such.
He smirked before answering. "If P is the position of the passenger, and the height of the passenger is given as h=1+25+y=y+26, y depends on the angle of rotation A," he paused to point at the diagram on the board. "Sin(pi/2 - A) = y/25 which gives y = 25 cos(A). Angle A depends on the angular speed w as follows: A = w t where t is the time."
As Loki spoke, the teacher was glancing quickly down at a paper in his hand, then back up at the problem. "The angular speed w is given by w = 2pi / 36 = Pi / 18 (radians/second). We now substitute to find h as follows: h(t) = 25 cos( (pi/18) t) + 26 , where t is in seconds and y in meters. That's the answer." Keeping a satisfied smile on his face and ignoring Peter's surprised face from beside him, he added, "Sir."
xXx
Loki leaned against the wall, waiting for Peter to return from the bathroom. He discovered that the high school ran on A/B schedule, so they didn't even have gym until tomorrow. He was constantly and continuously amazed by Earth's education. They seemed to make everything unnecessarily complicated.
Someone cleared their throat next to him, snapping him out of his thoughts. A boy with curly black hair stood with his arms folded. His chin was raised to seem haughty, but Loki doubted he was as confident as he appeared.
"Hey, new kid," the boy said snidely. "You seem cool. Why do you hang around with a loser like Parker? There are much better people at this school."
Loki blinked slowly, twirling his pencil across his fingers. "Oh? And who would those people be?"
The tone of his voice was low and almost threatening, which caused the other boy to lose his smirk. He unconsciously took a half-step backwards.
"Uh, Me," he answered, trying to keep his voice even.
"You," Loki repeated, eyes narrowing. "And who would you be?"
"Flash Thompson."
Ah. So this was the one. He knew that this boy had been bothering Peter since they started high school, and his mood soured.
"Hm. And what makes you think I would enjoy your presence for longer than this miniscule interaction that is your pathetic attempt at a conversation?"
Flash's mouth hung open, which Loki took as permission to continue. "The answer is I wouldn't. So, if you would kindly leave?"
The boy struggled to find a response. "W-whatever, dude. You're lame anyways."
He turned and all but ran down the hall and a few students that were listening laughed.
Peter walked out of the bathroom a few seconds later, stopping to stand next to Loki. "Dude. You have to be the smartest person I've ever met. I wish I could've gotten Mr. Simmons' face on camera." He laughed brightly. "No one's ever left him speechless like that before. It was good."
Loki smiled. "As fun as that was, I won't be as knowledgeable in…" he looked down at the folded piece of paper with his schedule and shook his head. "Computer science. Earth's technology continues to evade me."
"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get it. You can study my notes!"
"Alright." Loki nodded and attempted to be excited. "I can do that."
"Sick. Well, are you ready to head home?"
The idea of Tony Stark or, Valhalla forbid, Thor seeing him in this form sent an unpleasant shudder down his spine.
"I have to return to my apartment first to… change. Then I will meet you at the Tower."
Peter's contagious smile didn't waver. "Sounds good. The bathroom is empty if you wanna… get there a bit quicker."
The teenager waited at the entrance of the restroom until he saw the reflection of a green flash on the floor before heading outside to find MJ. Peter had to admit, he felt much better coming to school with Loki, and the idea of going to his gym class seemed less daunting. He allowed himself to hope that it would all work out, despite the sticky clumps of hot anxiety in his stomach.
"It'll be okay," he whispered to himself. "It'll all be fine."
A/N: Thanks for reading! Side note: I formatted Peter's school like mine, so basically he has half of his classes one day, and the other half the next day. It's called an A/B schedule… I wasn't sure if everyone would know what that meant. :D
REVIEWS:
Beachgirl25: teehee I tried to write a scene where Loki scares Flash. :) Thanks for the review!
DarylDixon'sLover: thank you so much!
xSapphirexRosesxFanx: yeah, I kind of imagined Tony getting Loki enrolled in High School. Haha, I hope that you liked the chapter!
Sillysammijo: aww thank you! I hope you like the chapter. :D
See you next time!
-katilange