I know this is a fairly quick update, but I am under quarantine because the person I live with tested positive for COVID - I tested negative, thankfully - and have had time to write more.

Chapter Eighteen

Arianna and Loki were rudely awakened by the massive bang and the trembling of the house around them. Arianna basically shot up into a sitting position and Loki wasn't that far behind.

They had taken to sleeping in the same bed most nights since the first and only time they had become intimate, even though Loki still had his own room in the Tower in New York, and he'd been offered one there in Malibu. Loki had let Arianna choose whichever way she wanted, so they'd ended up sharing.

Considering what was now going on, she was glad she'd decided to share the room.

"Jarvis?" she called out but didn't get a response.

"Perhaps he is offline," Loki said.

"Yeah." She stood up and noticed the floor was still shaking. "We should go."

Loki was already standing. "Agreed."

They quickly made their way out of the room and were hit by the dust and smoke from something having blasted through the back wall – the one that was just one big window.

"Tony? Pepper?" she called out and reached for Loki at the same time.

She grabbed his hand and began making her way to what she knew was Tony's room even as she heard the familiar whup-whup-whup of helicopters. There was another bang from downstairs, but Arianna actually saw what had caused it this time: a missile.

Someone was shooting missiles at the house.

Without warning the floor began crumbling beneath her feet. Loki grabbed her and pulled her to his side where the ground was more stable.

"Perhaps we should go downstairs."

"Good idea," she said.

Tony had the Iron Man suit; he could get Pepper and himself out if it came to that.

It turned out that both Pepper and Tony were already downstairs - downstairs and laid out on the floor. They were both okay, just dazed.

"I told you we needed to leave," Tony said as he stood up, helping Pepper in the process.

"You did no such thing," Loki said. "But yes, we must go."

It was as they were trying to get out that the ceiling decided to cave in. Two things happened almost simultaneously. Tony, who had obviously been tinkering with his suits the past few months did something to make his suit shoot out to cover Pepper so nothing could fall on her and hit her; the other thing was that Arianna shot her hands up to direct her power and was able to slow down the rubble from the ceiling, at least enough for them to get out from underneath it.

"Hey, look at –" Tony began before another missile hit, knocking everyone but Pepper off of their feet.

The actual floor began to split and Tony was separated from the rest of them.

"Go! I'll find a way around."

Even as he said that, the house was struck again and it began to tilt down from the cliff and towards the ocean.

"Go!" Tony shouted to Pepper. "Get them outside."

Pepper hesitated.

"You have the suit! I can call it back to me once you're outside."

That got Pepper moving, Loki and Arianna following quickly behind her. Everything was fine until they reached the way out – it was blocked, and it took a few tries to get the blaster on the suit to work. It finally did, and they were able to get out.

"Tony, now!" Pepper yelled.

It was quite a sight watching the suit come off of Pepper piece by piece. It jerked her around for a few seconds, but she finally got free of it, which meant Tony now had it back, which was good because there was a never-ending barrage of gunshot being fired now.

There were three helicopters in the sky behind the mansion. Arianna could see whatever weapons being used sticking out of the sides of them. She wondered if she could take out the weapons without taking out the helicopters.

That thought didn't last long as something flew out of what used to be the back wall and hit one of the helicopters, causing it to plummet towards the sea.

The other two helicopters continued firing at the house, but it didn't take long for an energy blast to hit one of them and that one began twirling down as well, only this time it crashed into the remaining bit of mansion still hanging over the cliff. It began to crumble into the ocean, yet the last helicopter still continued to blast the cliff with missiles.

"Tony!" Pepper yelled.

He . . . hadn't come out, hadn't walked or flown out. If he'd still been in the part of the house that had broken off, then he was in the sea by now. Would he be able to swim if he was encased in his Iron Man suit? Would it even work if it became immersed in water?

The attack suddenly stopped and Pepper recklessly made her way back inside. Arianna made to follow her, but her legs decided to turn to jello at just that moment and she almost fell to her knees. She would have had Loki not been so close.

It was as if it hit her all at once – her head was throbbing, her body was shaking, and she felt all around awful.

"Steady," Loki said. "You've expended a lot of energy today."

"But Tony –"

"If he's fallen into the sea, there is nothing you can do." Loki's voice was quiet but firm. "If he's still inside, Miss Potts will find him."

Arianna allowed Loki to help her to the ground. She could hear Pepper yelling for Tony, and she was aware of the last helicopter flying away. It made her realize that Tony probably wasn't going to be found in the rubble of the house. Tony had been the target and whoever had been piloting the helicopter wouldn't have given up if there was a chance that Tony was still inside, or . . . alive and still inside.

But Loki was right. There wasn't anything she could do. She'd expended too much of herself already what with helping Happy to breathe earlier and then keeping the ceiling from falling on them just now – she didn't know how she'd done that. She just seen it happening and had reacted instinctively.

It had left her feeling more drained than ever.

It didn't take long for the sound of sirens to fill the air. Not too long ago, Loki wouldn't have known or recognized what the noise meant, but he now knew that they meant some kind of emergency crew was on the way.

Why wouldn't they be? The building that used to be the mansion was basically destroyed, only half of it still standing. The rest of it had broken off from the cliff and fallen to the water below.

A lot had happened in a very short amount of time once he and Arianna had been shocked out of bed – out of their shared bed – to find the building they were in was being attacked. Not a promising thing to wake up to.

They'd made their way through the quickly-being demolished house, and they all would have been killed by the roof caving in if Arianna hadn't reacted so rapidly.

She was getting stronger and Loki was grateful that they weren't dead, but it did worry him how much of a strain using her abilities seemed to have on her. Loki remembered having what his mother called 'growing pains' when he'd first started learning magic. It had taken him years to build up the proper endurance to use magic in battle. The problem was that Arianna didn't have years. She was mortal and didn't have the amount of time to practice that he'd had when he was starting out. She didn't have an extended life span. He hoped him teaching her more wasn't shortening it.

As it was, he and Arianna were both seated on the ground outside the rubble, Arianna because she could barely stand, and Loki because he wasn't going to leave her side when she was so vulnerable.

Pretty soon the siren noises were met with flashing lights coming from different emergency vehicles: police cars, ambulances, fire trucks.

As the emergency people began to comb through the wreckage Pepper Potts came out of it. She began making her way over to them. Other than the tears in her eyes, her face seemed to be set in stone.

"Tony?" Arianna asked when Pepper reached them.

Pepper closed her eyes, tears finally falling, and shook her head.

Something between a gasp and a sob escaped Arianna's mouth and she collapsed into herself as she leaned against Loki even more than she had been.

Loki knew that Arianna and Tony had been close – after Natasha and Clint, she was closest to Tony – and Tony had even considered her as family, more than just a teammate. From her reaction, Arianna obviously felt the same way.

"This place is going to be a media circus within an hour," Pepper said. "We need to get you out of here before that happens."

Pepper was mostly talking to Loki. It wasn't exactly public knowledge that he was still on Earth. If the media saw him there, they might just think he had done this.

"Where do we go?" Arianna asked quietly. "What are you gonna do?"

"I have to stay here. There will be questions I'll need to answer. I'll call one of the security people to come pick you up, take you to a hotel. I'll meet you there later."

Pepper stayed with them until a driver in a black car came to pick them up. Loki helped Arianna into the backseat and sat beside her.

Aside from the quiet crying, Arianna was silent. She had become almost despondent once Pepper had let them know that Tony hadn't been found.

Loki didn't know what to do for her. She wasn't physically hurt, aside from a few scrapes and bruises, but she was grieving and there wasn't anything he could do aside from making sure she knew he was there for her.

It wasn't until they reached the hotel and were settled in their room – their room that had more than enough room for just the two of them - that she finally spoke.

"I've, uh . . . I've seen a lot of death," she said, voice tight and rough. "But I've never actually lost anyone, not anyone I was close to."

She seated herself on the edge of the bed and crossed her arms over her chest as if holding herself together.

Loki stood in front of her, hands clasped, fingers clumsily playing against each other. It was a nervous tic he had learned from his mother.

"Arianna, I'm –" He knelt down in front of her. "Tell me what you need. I'm not sure what to do."

He'd never had to help someone with grief before. There was no sickness on Asgard, so aside from accidents, which were rare, or dying in battle Loki could honestly say this was new to him. He'd never lost anyone he was close to either.

"I'm – I don't know," she said and looked at herself.

She began wiping away at her shirt and pants.

"I'm filthy." She looked at him now. "We're filthy."

"Yes," Loki said softly. "It's the dust and dirt from when the ceiling almost fell on us."

"Right."

There were smudges on her clothes and skin, bits of dust and rubble in her hair. He probably looked just as bad.

He brought his hands up to rub up and down her arms.

"Would you like to get cleaned up? Would that make you feel better?"

"Probably, a little. A shower would be good." Her eyes widened a bit. "We don't have any clothes. We don't even have any shoes. My phone's still at the house."

"I'm sure Miss Potts will take care of everything when she has time."

"Yeah." She sighed. "Yeah, and we probably have robes here. Or we can request them."

She stood up then, legs still a bit shaky. To be honest, she was shaky in general, and Loki wasn't sure how much was from exhaustion and how much was from shock.

"You, um . . ." she looked down again. "You can come with me. You need to clean off too."

"You are requesting that I shower with you?"

"Yes. I don't wanna be alone."

"Okay."

Loki stood up, his knees protesting and popping, causing him to wince. He'd never had to worry about joint pain or other minor aches and pains on Asgard.

He took her hand when she reached for his and then followed her to the bathroom.

'This bathroom is ridiculous,' was the first thing Arianna thought when they stepped into it. It was almost as big as the actual room was.

Along the side wall were shelves of towels and robes. They looked soft and fluffy and would probably feel great against her skin when she was able to put one on.

There were also different soaps and shampoos to choose from, not just the generic kinds one would expect to find in a hotel bathroom. She grabbed a random one of each and placed them in the placeholder where the shower was.

The shower was the kind that was built so the water would come down on them like a waterfall. This was definitely not a room she could afford on her own.

She turned the knobs to set the temperature before she turned back to Loki, who was watching her carefully.

"I've never showered with a man before," she admitted.

"Well, they don't have showers on Asgard, so I can honestly say I've never showered with anyone before."

Arianna allowed a small smile to play over her lips before reaching down to pull her shirt over her head.

"Grab a couple of wash cloths," she said as she removed her pants.

Loki did as she asked as she rid herself of her underwear and stepped under the warm water flowing down. It wasn't long after that that she felt his presence behind her and she found herself becoming tense.

This wasn't like the last time she had been naked in front of him. That had been a happy and spontaneous occurrence. There was nothing happy or spontaneous about this. She was sad and weak and sore. She was also naked, and Loki was naked, and even though she had been the one to suggest them showering together, her mind was now telling her that it wasn't a good idea.

"Arianna?"

She jolted a bit when his hand touched her back, but she got herself under control quickly enough.

"We are tired and we are dirty. We need to get clean so we can go to bed." He slid his hand up to her shoulder. "Nothing else is going to happen. Not tonight, and never unless you want it to."

She sighed, her throat and eyes burning.

"I know. I know you would never –" She turned around to face him. "I know you would never do that. I don't know why I'm reacting this way."

She allowed herself to be pulled closer to him. She relaxed a bit once his arms were securely around her. She even put her arms around him.

"You're upset, overwhelmed. And we're naked."

Her face pinched up as his words sunk in and she nodded.

"Yeah."

"I can wait outside the shower, if you need."

"No." She tightened her hold on him. "I'm okay. Or I will be. Just give me a minute."

She leaned more fully against him, their chests touching, her head against him, and let herself relax even more when Loki began caressing his fingers over her back.

His lips touched the top of her head and her body sagged in exhaustion.

"God, I'm so tired."

"Hm. Let's get you cleaned up then."

"Okay," she mumbled.

Loki stepped away and grabbed one of the wash cloths and soap.

"May I?"

"Y – you wanna wash me off?"

"If you'll let me. I'd like to take care of you."

"I – uh – okay."

The warm water flowing over her skin coupled with Loki gently massaging as he cleaned her of the dust and dirt helped soothe some of her aches away. He even washed her hair for her and it felt so nice she wanted to cry again, only for a completely different reason this time.

No one had ever taken care of her before, not like this, and definitely not a man who claimed to care about her, but Loki was and she liked it. She liked him – more than liked him – and it frightened her.

She had never wanted to open herself up to anyone, not in the way she wanted to open up to Loki. She'd never felt safe enough to. And as odd as it was . . . Loki made her feel safe.

He'd somehow known just what to say and do earlier when her mind had started messing with her, had known she'd needed reassurance that nothing was going to happen if she didn't want it to. He'd even understood why she'd been feeling the way she had.

He'd said she was upset and overwhelmed, and they were naked. She usually associated negative emotions with nakedness and he knew that. He obviously didn't want to become associated with those emotions. He'd let her decide whether she wanted him to stay, whether she wanted him to touch her.

He would probably never know how much she appreciated that.