The rolling scenery of golden fields, green hills and small villages was scurrying down below as the Quinjet sped over an idyllic English countryside that bathed in orange and red of the setting sun. The gigantic glaciers of Greenland had left far behind ages ago. And trusting him that much, Emma had dared to close her eyes and doze, while Loki had been flying the jet over the great Atlantic Ocean.

They had continued their talks, Emma telling him about the phases of her uneasy but colorful life, and Loki sharing with her his juiciest tricks from his younger age that used to drive Asgardians insane and thus earning his title as the God of Mischief.

"Just to let you know; I hate snakes," Emma said with an uneasy smile after hearing that she hadn't been the only one Loki had tricked with the serpents. "It was a good trick, though. But please, don't do that again."

Loki gave her an apologetic smile. "I am sorry about that. And all that followed..." Loki admitted that he had been too hard on her in their earlier collision. She was a lovely creature, and the more he had learned about her, had only strengthened his feelings. "Except the kiss," he continued hesitating, feeling himself like an ungainly teenager. "I am not sorry about that."

Emma felt her pulse rising, her eyes locked with his, the memory of his heated kiss returning to her and the one she had given him. She could barely speak. They haven't really talked about that seriously. "Neither am I." She swallowed. "I liked it."

She couldn't believe that she had said that aloud. She knew perfectly well that he was out of her league in so many ways. For a start; he wasn't even from this planet. And he wasn't what he appeared to be. He was – in his own words - a king and nearly a god. And he was so hot that he could have had any woman he would have wanted. He probably wouldn't have given her a second look if she wouldn't have been the only woman who stumbled onto him. On the other hand, he seemed to have some serious identity crisis and unsolved mental issues, and he had developed a very bad habit to take down anyone who dared to step on his way. A normal person would have run a mile from him. He was such complicated being, and yet Emma had found a side of him she was fond of. It was more than that. She didn't want to admit it even to herself but she desired him. The feeling was insane for so short-lived acquaintance but they had stuck up together for that whole time.

As if he would have been reading her like an open book, Loki gazed at her with hungry eyes, sharing that desire. He took note the way she kept looking at him. It was a mixture of affection and poorly concealed longing. It was the look he'd used to see so many times on Asgardian single ladies when they'd looked at Thor. There had been a time he could have killed just in order to receive such admiring gaze, instead of feeling himself invisible on his brother's side. But now, Emma making eyes at him, he felt like he was the only man in the world.

"Perhaps, we should land here for a while. It looks beautiful. Might be worth to take a closer look," he said in a soft voice, as if he would have been talking about the countryside, but he kept gazing at Emma in a quite different intention in his mind.

And Emma could read between the lines that he wasn't a damned interested about the scenery; he wanted to continue where they had left off with their kissing. A lot further if she had understood him correctly.

"Sure," Emma sighed, not so sure was it wise at all. Either way, she was in trouble with him already. Why not share a sunset like that with him, for once in her life feeling herself truly living instead of being afraid of a touch. Who knew how much time they had gotten left, the S.H.I.E.L.D. on their tail. They were like old-fashioned outlaws being on the run, like Bonnie and Clyde. That didn't end well! "I wouldn't want to miss a sunset like that."

Loki gave her a small, slightly bewildered smile. With her consent, he slowed down the aircraft's speed and begun to look for a perfect spot for admiring the sunset. He knew it was madness. He should have concentrated on greater matters, but he simply wanted her. This wasn't him. This was being too irrational for his reticent nature. He must have taken a more severely damage on his way on Earth that he had thought.

"You know what I am and you have seen what I have done. You do not fear me?" he asked, just wanting her to say it. She knew what he was; she had seen him in his Jotun form. He wanted her to say it aloud. This time he didn't want to force her into anything she wasn't willing to do.

"You can do a lot of scary things I admit, but I've seen you have a heart. I'm not afraid of you, and I want to believe in you," Emma said quietly.

"Then you would be the only one." Loki heaved a sigh with a sad smile. "Telling the truth, even I do not believe in myself, of what I am. My true parentage is… it is disgrace. None of them I know would ever accept my Jotun heritage. Except Frigga…"

"You shouldn't give a damn what others thinks about you!" Emma said abruptly but in an encouraging way. She found it hard to believe that he would have worried about what others might think about him. "I know it all too well that we can't choose our parents or the way we're raised. Everything leaves a mark. Sometimes it feels like some of our lives were fucked up before they've even begun, no matter what we try. But what you can do is not to let the others to determine what you are." Emma stared into his eyes, her smile turning into a careful, considering look, hoping she wasn't encouraging him too much to do something crazy like taking over the whole planet.

With puckered up brows Loki let out a small chuckle. "You are such a vulgar poet. But, I guess there is truth in your words. Before, I used to know exactly who I was, living a life already planned out for me. But now, now no-one holds me back."

"I would like to remind you that here on Earth the rest of us are just mortals. You don't have to go too hard on us."

"We have both had to endure more than enough because of what we are. Maybe, we are not that different after all, Emma Morgan."

"I guess so. Please, just call me Emma. It kind of creeps me when you keep saying my whole name."

"Very well, Emma. But it is not your real name, is it? Why have you chosen it?"

"It was my grandmother's name. She was the smartest and kindest person I knew. I sort of wished that I could have kept her with me with her name, reminding me of what I used to be before turning into what I'm now. How come, you don't see me as a freak of nature?"

Loki gave her a sympathetic look. "I have just found out that I am a Frost Giant. It would be ill to judge you."

"What ever have happened to your 'I am a god, you dull creature' –attitude?" she asked, poorly imitating his dark voice.

"I have never said that!"

"You said that to Peter. Or something pretentious like that."

"I had just been tossed into a freezing hell and he was behaving like an idiot," Loki admitted giving her a glance, and she nodded with a grin. "But, I like these little conversations of ours, Emma. You are different than anyone I have ever met."

"I can say the same about you." She was in silence for a moment like she would have realized something momentous. "I just realize, I don't even know your last name, if you have one. Do you, Loki of Asgard?"

"Odinson," Loki said automatically, feeling a stab in his heart, knowing that it really wasn't his true name. It didn't identify him anymore as the son of the king of Asgard.

"Loki Odinson," Emma tasted the name. "It has a nice ring to it."

Loki managed to keep a straight face recalling her drunken lamenting. "Well, unlike your mother, now you would know the full name of the father of your future offspring," he jested.

Emma frowned. "Ah, you know, now wouldn't be the best time to make jokes like that."

"I am only being sincere, Logan's daughter."

"How did you...? Oh no," Emma hissed, looking suffering. "Please, tell me I didn't pour my heart out to you while I was drunk."

"Oh, that you did. I learned a quite lot about you. More than I would have cared to know actually." He found a perfect spot for landing far ahead on a high hill, distant enough from all settlement and perfect for admiring the sunset. "There. A perfect spot."

Emma closed her eyes in embarrassment. Oh shit! Was she completely deranged and retarded of even thinking about making out with that trickstering alien? Was she deranged of even thinking about thinking it? What if they weren't compatible in the physical level? And her lack of experience wasn't going to do any good. Maybe he would settle for kissing. That had been so good. "Let's find a pub or something. I think you need to buy me a drink first."

Loki laughed, biting his lower lip, knowing what only a drop of alcohol had done to her. He loved her sense of humor. At least he hoped she was joking. He really liked the way she made him laugh.

"Um… Not that I'm curious or anything, but is there Mrs. Odinson waiting you back home? Or, anyone special?"

Loki cast a confused look at her as he was dropping the jet's altitude. "There is a paradox in your question? How can a woman be son of Odin?"

"I meant are you married. Here when a couple gets married it is a custom that woman takes her husband's last name. I know. It's a stupid custom and should be banned."

Loki's eyebrows lifted in curiosity. "I am unmarried. And no, there are no special one waiting me back in Asgard."

"Oh?" Emma bit her lips, unable to fight the blush that colored her cheeks. Now who was being too eager? "That's hard to believe."

"And why is that?" Loki asked, enjoying of seeing her getting embarrassed, finding her growing interest towards him pulsating. He would have loved a good compliment.

"Well…" Emma grimaced after getting herself cornered with her own cleverness again. "Are all Asgardian women blind? Or perhaps they are simply toothless ogres and you haven't yet found what you're looking for?"

A broad grin spread on Loki's face. That was a compliment enough, cloaked in a thrown back question. "Oh, they are all hideous creatures… unlike you. Who knows, maybe I have just found what I have been looking for all my life," he said giving her a long, significant glance, his voice turning softer, his beautiful emerald eyes stealing all her attention. A small appealing uncertainty returned to his face as he watched her. "Maybe you were the reason I had to go through a hell just to get here. And I would have done it all again a smile on my face if I had known it would lead me to you."

He knew he had chosen the rights words when Emma returned his gaze in a bashfully interested way, looking deep into his eyes like trying to see was the trickster telling the truth, her breathing shivering.

The sun was setting, creating a perfect moment in a world where were just the two of them. The time was ripe and they were craving to touch each other. They were drawn into a sweet embrace just to hold and to kiss one another with such a sudden passion as if it would have been dictated by a raw force of nature. And when Emma kept gazing at him with her tenderly longing blue eyes Loki wished he could have slammed the damn jet on the ground on that very moment and snatched her in his arms.

The magic of the small moment was broken when they both noticed the reddish sky darkening all of a sudden and grey storm clouds gathering high on the sky, casting huge shadows over the green, flourishing land. It looked like a storm rising and fast, veiling the last rays of the red sun.

Emma heaved a small disappointed sigh. "Isn't this just my luck? Must be that typical English weather, huh?" she said, pulling herself together after his sweet words that had made her drowning into his gaze. He surely had a way with words.

"No!" Loki growled in disbelief, staring at the blackening thunder clouds, the lightnings striking ominously all around. He knew it could only mean one thing. One very annoying thing!

"Please, don't freak out now! I don't really give a damn about a sunset. We've already done that in Greenland," Emma tried to calm him down, sensing that scary side of him returning.

Loki turned his angrily confused gaze at her, a sorry look seizing his eyes. "Please, forgive me."

"It's okay. It's not your fault, Loki."

His dark brows curved down into a sad, apologetic frown. "I am afraid it is."

Just as he had said that a lighting struck nearby and they felt something heavy hitting on the top of the aircraft, giving it a shake. Loki managed to keep the plane steady, gritting his teeth in a building up anger. The alarm sign of "Stealth mode failure" started blinking on the small screen in the front panel.

Emma glanced up in a fright, wondering had someone threw an elephant at them. "What the hell was that?" she cried out, trying to dig deeper in her seat, pulling her seatbelts tighter.

"That, I believe is, Thor!" Loki growled, wondering what the hell was Thor doing on Earth, now of all times. How had he even gotten there with out the Bifrost? Loki rolled his eyes annoyed. Of course Odin would have mustered up all his powers to send Thor after him, but the old king wouldn't have done a thing to safe his life.

Emma looked at him shocked. "Thor?"

"Yes!"

"As your brother Thor?"

"Yes! The one and only. Hold on!" Loki told her and pulled the speed nearly to maximum, flipping the aircraft upside-down, hoping to shake off their unwanted passenger. He sensed a small jerk on the plane as the extra weight dropped off, and couldn't helped but to grin, turning the aircraft back on the right way around.

Emma felt like she was ready to throw up after that surprise spin. "I take it we won't be landing anytime soon?" she panted, holding tight on the armrests. So much for snuggling together in a sunset!

Loki shook his head, rage filling him inside. "I will have to..."

He was interrupted rudely as the whole aircraft rocked by a huge impact with a monstrous metallic, smashing sound. It was like something had exploded on the back of the Quinjet. The massive hit tore up a large hole on the rear hatch when Thor made his way into the jet uninvited. "Loki!" Thor's rough and angry voice carried over a clap of thunder.

In a fright Emma stared over the seat at the big, blond warrior with a mighty hammer, his red cape waving wildly in the violent draft on the back of the opened aircraft. "So, that's Thor?" she murmured uneasily. That didn't look like a projection or an illusion like Frigga had been. She had liked his mom better.

Loki fought to keep the jet steady and glance quickly over his shoulder, seeing his brother standing there in the cabin with a sour face. "Take the wheel!" he said to Emma in a dark tone and jumped up, rushing to meet the unwanted visitor, pulling out his dagger.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me!" Emma cried out, watching the supernal brothers colliding into a fierce fight inside the cabin too small for their showdown. The whole aircraft rocked from side to side and Emma saw it wiser to do as Loki had asked her, unbuckling her seatbelts and moving on the pilot's seat, trying to get the hang of the controls.

Thor blocked another Loki's hit and lifted his hammer between them two. "I am not here to fight you, brother!" he growled. He hadn't come to continue where they had left off on the bridge.

Flared up Loki stared into Thor's eyes, feeling the same rage as he did before Thor smashed up the Rainbow Bridge. "Then you have come into a wrong realm!" Loki stated in fury, shaking his head and shoving his dagger on Thor's side with one quick move like a strike of a serpent.

Thor grunted in pain and with the opportunity given Loki pushed his brother towards the rear of the jet, escorting him out the same way he has come in. But not giving up so easily Thor grabbed a hold of his brother's arm, pulling Loki with him and out through the open hole.

"Loki!" Emma cried out his name in panic, seeing him falling off from the jet nearly a mile high above the ground with the blond warrior.

She couldn't believe they would survive such a fall, and she was gasping for air in the draft and in a great anxiety. She stared at the controls of the jet, her hands squeezing on the control wheel. She wasn't sure if she would even survive, flying a broken aircraft in a storm. How was she supposed to help him? She could have taken a parachute and go after him but it was simply too late for that. "Oh no, no, no! Don't do this to me! Loki!"

All the way down Loki and Thor kept fighting and falling through the air. As they both finally hit hard on the ground on a green hillside, they remained lying on there for a while aching. The sky was dark and cloudy above them, but the thunder had fell silent as was Thor himself.

"Ohh-hh..." Loki grunted, letting out a short pained laugh, taking a small breath, and feeling was anything broken. "This is like Nidavellir once again," he gasped lying on his back. He noticed a few sheep haring off down the hillside, passing by them closely.

Thor wasn't in a gaming mood as he pulled his face from the ground and crawled on his hands and knees. Staring at his brother he forgot his seriousness for a short while, sharing that memory with a tiny chuckle. "It was entirely your fault! The dwarves did not appreciate you fine eloquence," Thor reminded to his brother of their not so successful visit to the dwarves' realm that had seemed to be ages ago. Then he turned gloomier again, while standing up.

With a worry Loki lifted his gaze at the dark sky as he was getting up on his feet, searching the aircraft where he had left Emma. His chest tightened with a sense of sudden concern. To his relief he spotted the Quinjet's lights returning to their direction, slowly dropping altitude but still far ahead. Good girl! He thought, heaving a relieved sigh with a tiny smile. She had had a change to escape, ran as far as she could away from him, but she was coming back to him.

Then he turned back at Thor, not so happy to see him again. "Tell me, with the Bifrost gone, how much dark energy did the Allfather muster up to get you back down here? To your precious Earth?"

Thor dropped his hammer on the ground and grabbed a hold of his brother, not so brotherly or loving way. "I thought you were dead!" he grunted in a pained voice, holding Loki still, seeing in his mind how Loki fell into the abyss, feeling that helplessness of being unable to help him then.

Loki snorted. "Did you mourn?"

"We all did. Our father..."

Loki lifted his finger to interrupt. "Your father!" he corrected, and pulled himself free, giving a short disgusted look at Thor's outfit, feeling a small sense of justice been served. "Do not come too close, your breastplate is smudged with sheep shit!"

Thor glanced down at his tainted armor, letting out an annoyed grunt.

"Odin did tell you about my true parentage, did he not?" Loki asked then in a bitter voice, walking away from Thor, still feeling aching in his body. It was a second time he had been falling from the skies on his back within a few days, and hadn't yet grown to like it. Nor had he learned yet to accept his origins.

Thor followed him, taken aback as if everything would have changed by Loki's true origins unveiled. "We were raised together. We played together. We fought together. Have you already forgotten all of that?"

Loki stretched his back straight gazing at Thor. "Oh, how could I ever forget? I do remember a shadow. Living my whole life in the shade of your greatness." His voice was full of bitterness and sadness. That was something he couldn't ever forget. "It was your doings that set in motion of all this. Or have you so conveniently forgotten Jotunheim? You rushed there blindly ready to rid the world of the Frost Giants."

"Like I said, I have changed. But you were trying to destroy their whole realm… your own race, Loki!"

"Why should I care for them? They never cared for me."

"Well, I do. We all care for you, my brother."

"Oh, and you have a strange way of show it. I remember you tossing me on the brink of an abyss. I was, and should be king!" Loki stared at his brother with a sad smile, remembering of letting go of the spear. "Why are you here? Did I not do you a favor?"

Thor stepped closer to Loki. "I never wanted to fight you, Loki," he said and reached a hand to hold Loki brotherly from the back of his neck. "Forget whatever your plans are here, and come home! It is not too late."

Loki took in his words but let out a snort. "Back to your shadow, huh? Humiliated?" Loki shook his head and grunted, freeing himself from Thor's grip again. "You go back home, Odinson! Asgard is yours, for all I care. And Earth shall be mine!"

"So you would take the world I love as a recompense for your imagined slights? No. The Earth is under my protection now, Loki."

Loki let out a mean laugh. "And I am sure you would have done a marvelous job with that, watching the humans slaughtering each other in droves." He glanced quickly at the sky, the approaching aircraft at the distance. Emma was truly returning. "You do not know the half of the monstrosity they are doing to each other, to the innocents."

"And you think you grown wiser? Your hands are stained by their blood already."

"You are no better to judge me! As I recall there was a lady in my presence, and you, in your great wisdom, left her in peril up there, piloting a damaged aircraft!" Loki scolded, enjoying that small moment of Thor's awful mistake, pointing his finger up at the sky.

"What?" Thor glanced up with worry, reaching his hand for his hammer that swung to his grip. He hated to admit it but it just occurred to him that perhaps Loki was right. The woman was there alone now. He was about to spin his weapon to gain the ability to fly at the aircraft when Loki stopped him, Loki's hand on his shoulder.

Loki glowered at Thor with a foul expression. "No!"

"Do you want me to save her, or not?" Thor asked.

Loki gave one more glance up at the jet on grey cloudy sky. "She is smart enough to look after herself," he stated nearly in possessive way, not wanting Thor anywhere near Emma. She was his, if she needed saving he was going to do it himself. And to him, it seemed that she was doing just fine up there. Quickly he changed the subject, knowing it would put a spark into his brother. "But tell me, how is Jane? Did you come straight to me or did you have time to see her first? I remember I promised to pay her a visit. And since we are all here now..."

Thor lost it when Loki mentioned his beloved. He roared and dropped his hammer, jumping on to his mischievous brother and they were in a fight again, rolling down on the hill. They had been too busy battling each other that they didn't pay attention to the Quinjet that soared closer like a big mean ghost, until they were in its lights.

Thor gave a questioning look at his brother who stood his back against the aircraft, casting a shadow over Thor in the lights of the aircraft. It truly seemed that the woman was capable of looking after herself, maybe too well, Thor thought. "Loki, how well you know this woman of yours?" the god of thunder asked watching at the jet, lifting his hand up to shield his eyes in the bright lights.

"It is none of your concern!" Loki roared, flared up, knowing she was right there behind him in the aircraft. She had returned, for him.

Against Loki's expectation, a minigun dropped on the sight below the jet, and Thor's eyes grew larger with worry. "Well, it should be more of your concern, because she is about to open fire at us!" Thor shouted, and Loki turned to take a puzzled look over his shoulder.

And just as that, the minigun's barrel begun spinning with a fierce whirling sound and firing at the mighty gods of Asgard, offering them both a heavy shower of lead.