A/N: I didn't really know what was going to happen in this one until it did, but I hope the result was okay...because next chapter is going to be a wild ride. That's all I'm saying...

Disclaimer: Do I even have to put this anymore? Marvel/Disney's. Not mine.

18. Dead to Love

"FUCK!"

"Calm down, Loki. It's not that bad."

"Lupa said this would come naturally. It's not."

Tasha tossed him a water bottle. "Breathe. Just breathe. Maybe you're just not looking at it the right way."

Loki raised an eyebrow at her, then took a drink. "What other way would you suggest I look at it?"

Tasha sighed. "I don't know, Обманщик. I don't know."

"How do I control something I can't even coax out?" Loki groaned.

"Maybe you just need a catalyst," Valkyrie said.

Both Loki and Tasha looked over at the arrival of the other werewolf. They were training - or attempting to train - in an abandoned warehouse somewhere in downtown New York. Both Tasha and Loki had figured it was better to practice with the ice reserve somewhere the others wouldn't find them.

Loki raised an eyebrow again in Valkyrie's direction. He didn't question how she'd found them; she'd either followed them physically or turned into a wolf and folllowed their scent.

"And what do you propose I use as a catalyst, Воин?" asked Loki, somewhat sarcastically.

"Me," Valkyrie said simply.

Loki faced her full on, an expression of incredulity written on his features. "You?"

Valkyrie shrugged. "Yeah. I'll attack you. Maybe the adrenaline rush will make the ice reserve thing kick in."

Loki sighed. "Worth a try, I guess."

Valkyrie stalked closer, watching him. When she lunged, Loki tried to summon the ice reserve, but it wouldn't come. Loki had to resort to an Asgardian seidhr shield to fend her off.

"So that didn't work," Valkyrie said. "Maybe if I try as a wolf?"

Loki shrugged. "Why not?"

Valkyrie seamlessly transformed, then attacked without warning. Again, Loki attempted to call on the ice reserve, and again failed, having to fall back on his Asgardian magic.

"Какого черта это не работает?!" Loki swore in Russian. [Why the fuck is this not working?!]

"Эй подожди!" Tasha exclaimed. [Hey, wait!]

Loki looked at her curiously. "Какая у тебя идея, Убийца?" [What's your idea, Assassin?]

"Валькирия, выключи свет," Tasha ordered, seeming not to realize she was still speaking Russian. [Valkyrie, cut the lights.] She turned to Loki and explained, "Я думаю, что, может быть, в темноте, не зная, где она, вы почувствуете настоящую ситуацию жизни или смерти, и ледяной запас сработает." [I'm thinking that maybe in darkness with no way of knowing where she is, you'll get the feel of a real life-or-death situation and the ice reserve will kick in.]

"Это ... действительно может сработать," Loki admitted. "Давай попробуем." [That...might actually work. Let's try it.]

"Uh, guys? You know I have no clue what you're saying, right?" Valkyrie spoke up.

"Oh! Sorry," Tasha apologized. "I didn't realize I was still speaking Russian." She relayed her plan to Valkyrie in English.

"It might be a good idea if you attacked too, Tasha," Loki added. "Give me the multiple-opponents effect. More of a chance for the ice reserve to kick in."

Tasha nodded thoughtfully. "Makes sense."

Loki relaxed himself, wanting the effect of having to prepare a split second before the attack. "Valkyrie," he commanded, and grinned. "Cut the lights."

Valkyrie obeyed, and the warehouse was plunged into darkness. Loki couldn't see a thing, and resisted the urge to use his magic to light his way. The emergency lights kicked on, bathing the room in a faint red glow when close to one of the fixtures but otherwise leaving it in darkness.

It was eerily silent. Loki adjusted the hood of the dark green jacket he wore and reflected that deciding to wear jeans today of all days had probably not been a good idea. Silently, he used his magic to change into the simpler tunic he'd worn while in Asgard's dungeons. It was still a tunic, the likes of which he'd wear in battle, but it allowed him to move around a bit more than jeans and a jacket. He was briefly bathed in a green glow as his shimmering magic changed his outfit; mentally he cursed and started to move, his feet making almost no sound on the tile floor.

He stopped again when he heard it. The slightest sound, the rustling of fabric as someone moved. Loki held his breath, heart rate increasing as he waited.

There, again; a noise, however small. The shifting of weight from one foot to the other, a slight shuffle as whichever woman it was prepared to move. To leap. To attack.

Running feet suddenly to his right. Loki shifted position slightly so she'd blow right past him. She heard, however, and changed direction also.

Crap.

It happened in an instant. Loki could feel it as whatever wall had been holding the ice reserve back broke, as the roar of the ice magic flooded through him. As Lupa had said, he instinctively knew how to wield the new power. His hand glowed faintly icy blue, and, trying not to seriously injure whichever of the girls his opponent was, Loki summoned a snowball and threw it at her right as she leaped for him. The moment the snowball hit, she was encased in a net of ice, effectively stopping her in her tracks. Loki used his Asgardian magic to catch her before she hit the ground, but as he did so he felt the ice reserve power start to retreat. He set her down and focused his energy back on the ice reserve, and just in time; now the other woman was upon him.

She managed to get in a hit while his guard was down. Loki spun away and, without thinking, conjured a shield made of solid ice. As she approached again, Loki pushed his hands out and up, and the shield morphed into more of a forcefield, one that she bounced right off when she tried to attack again.

Loki used his Asgardian magic briefly to flip the lights back on and surveyed the scene before him.

Valkyrie had ended up in the ice net, while Tasha had bounced off of the forcefield and now lay on her back on the floor, the wind knocked out of her but otherwise unharmed.

"That was good, Обманщик," Tasha panted, sitting up. "Nice precision."

Loki shrugged. "Lupa said it would come naturally."

Tasha got to her feet and walked closer to inspect the now-barely-visible forcefield. It, like the magic itself, glowed a faint ice blue, and the color was the only reason the thing was visible at all.

"This is solid ice, right?" Tasha asked.

Loki nodded. "Yes, why?"

"It felt like bouncing off a giant marshmallow," Tasha told him.

Loki raised an eyebrow and let the forcefield go. It shattered into a million tiny ice particles, which began to melt.

Loki and Tasha both walked to where Valkyrie still lay in the ice net. Loki knelt down to examine his work.

"Did you seriously throw a snowball at me?" Valkyrie asked incredulously.

"...No?" Loki lied, but the question mark was evident in his voice.

Valkyrie raised an eyebrow. Loki threw up his hands. "Okay, fine. I was trying not to hurt you, alright?"

Valkyrie nodded. "Thanks for the consideration," she said, and Loki couldn't quite tell if she was being sarcastic or not.

Loki focused his attention on the ice net. It looked quite interesting, with what looked almost like threads of ice wove themselves together. It was thicker in places periodically every few centimeters along the net, giving it a shimmering appearance.

"Intriguing," Tasha murmured. "The way the ice threads seem to lock into each other perfectly...I've never seen anything like this."

"Nor have I," Valkyrie added, examining the net as best she could while still wrapped in it. "The way the color shifts too - when I move, the color adjusts to blend in better with the lighting."

A stray thought occurred to Loki. He turned to Valkyrie and asked, "Is it cold?"

"No, actually," Valkyrie said, somewhat wonderingly. "I'm not sure why."

Loki thought that over for a minute, then somewhat hesitantly inquired, "Can I try something? I'm not sure it'll work, but..."

Valkyrie shrugged as best she could, which was more just a tilt of her head. "Bring it on, Ice God."

Loki lined his fingers up with five of the brighter clusters of ice, then simply thought, Cold. Valkyrie gasped.

"Did it work?" Loki asked.

"If by 'worked' you mean suddenly went cold, then yeah, it worked," Valkyrie gasped. Loki removed the cold, not wanting to hurt her. He'd heard of frostbite and ice leaving burns and had no desire to see if his ice could leave such wounds.

Loki let the net fall away, and both he and Tasha helped Valkyrie back to her feet.

"I couldn't use my Asgardian magic," Loki informed them. "If I tried while also using the ice reserve, I'd start to lose my hold on the ice reserve."

"That could be problematic," Valkyrie muttered.

"Possibly," Loki said, sarcasm dripping from the word.

"You're going to have to learn how to use both at once, and how to suppress the ice reserve until you absolutely need to play your hand," Tasha told him. "It's going to be helpful if you can use all your magic interchangeably."

Loki nodded. "I know. That's why these training sessions are going to be crucial."

At that moment, all three of their phones buzzed. Loki, Tasha, and Valkyrie pulled them out in sync.

It was a text from Tony on the Avengers group chat (that they'd added Loki, Valkyrie, and Coulson to). Get back to Tower ASAP.

Then another text, just as Loki finished reading the first one. We picked up a stray the Queens HS. Need 2 figure out what 2 do w/ him.

Loki looked up at the women. Tasha just rolled her eyes; Valkyrie looked a little confused.

"'Picked up astray at the Queens HS?'" she repeated. "What does that mean?"

"They find stray people with special talents or abilities all the time and bring them back to S.H.I.E.L.D.," Tasha explained.

"Basically they adopt potential superheroes," Loki clarified. Valkyrie nodded, seeming to understand.

"I guess we better get back there, then?" she said. Loki and Tasha both nodded.

"Here we go again," Loki sighed, and they left the warehouse.

Once back at the Tower - which Loki was a little startled to find he now called home - Loki was barely two seconds in the door when Thor pounced.

"Hello, you," Loki said affectionately, surprised by the suddenness of Thor's hug.

"I missed you," Thor mumbled.

Loki raised an eyebrow. "I've only been gone for a few hours and you missed me already? I'm touched."

Thor blushed. "You were gone this morning. I wondered where you were."

"Training off-site," Loki told him. "Trying to work with Tasha and Valkyrie, get a feel for how they move as wolves so we can integrate the fighting style of the wolves into normal training schedules, so we're prepared for possible hostile wolves."

"Possible hostile wolves?" Thor echoed.

Loki waved a hand dismissively. "New York is most likely overrun with werewolves. It seems like the type of place that draws packs. They're more inclined to settle near civilization." It wasn't the whole truth about the warehouse, but it wasn't an outright lie either.

"You seem to know an awful lot about werewolves," Thor remarked.

This one was trickier to answer. "I studied them for a while growing up. Yet another thing for Odin to get mad at me about."

Thor nodded, seemingly satisfied; Loki kissed him lightly, then said, "They're going to get impatient waiting for us."

Thor sighed but nodded again. He took Loki's hand and led him towards the elevator bank.

"Have you met this stray?" Loki asked. "I got Tony's text, but I'm not sure who 'we' consisted of."

"Stark, Cap, and the Eye of Hawk went out into...they called it Queens, I think...for a small mission," Thor explained. "They brought back a stray. I believe he's just a kid, but I haven't met him."

Loki groaned. "Great. A kid."

"He's not that young," Thor defended.

"Define 'young,'" Loki requested.

"Well, he's not a baby," Thor said. "He's like...twelve or thirteen, I think?"

Loki gave Thor a look. "Then he's a teenager."

"Yes. Sure. That."

Loki laughed and shook his head. "You really can be clueless sometimes." Loki kissed him again. "But I love you anyway."

He refused to acknowledge what he'd just said when he realized what indeed he had said. I love you. They'd never said that before. Granted, it hadn't been that long, but still.

Thankfully, the elevator doors opened on the awkwardness, giving Loki a respite. They'd talk about it later - but for now, this meeting about the stray kid was priority.

The guard stationed outside the meeting room door held up a hand as they approached. "Leave your weapons here. You're both gods; if it comes to trouble, you'll be fine without extra items."

Thor dutifully set Mjolnir down. Loki decided to have a little fun with the guard, and began to pull out his knives and lay them in a pile on the tray beside her. At first it seemed relatively normal; plain blades produced from ordinary hiding places. And then it started to get wacky as Loki began pulling knives out of places they definitely weren't supposed to be (his back collar, tucked in the waistband of his trousers, hidden point up in his boots), and then even stranger as he grinned and kept finding knives, some in places that were literally impossible to have been concealed there. As this went on, the knives started to look scarier, with sharper, intimidating edges and intricate designs on the blades.

It was mostly a trick, of course. Most of the knives were fake, just illusions meant to get a reaction out of the guard (who by now looked somewhere between confused, terrified, morbidly fascinated, and horrified), and Loki kept his real knives - the small and easily concealed ones anyway - hidden on his person. Still, it was quite fun holding up the meeting for five minutes pulling nonexistent knives out of...well, everywhere. And, due to the inside wall of the meeting room being glass, the others could clearly see the spectacle outside.

Finally Loki produced the last "knife" and the wide-eyed guard let him and Thor into the room. Tasha immediately berated him in Russian.

"Что все это было, Обманщик?!" she exclaimed. [What was all that, Trickster?!]

Loki shrugged and grinned. "Что я могу сказать? Я слишком драматичен." [What can I say? I'm overly dramatic.]

Tasha rolled her eyes. "Очевидно." [Obviously.]

Fury cleared his throat. "If you're done talking in a language none of us can understand, can we get to the meeting itself?"

Loki sighed, muttered "это не весело" [that's no fun], and slid into the only open seat, conveniently in between Thor and Valkyrie.

"Alright then," Fury said once Loki had gotten settled. Loki was a bit surprised he was even here in person. "Who's this kid you picked up, Stark?"

Tony pulled up a hologram image of the kid. He had brown hair and hazel eyes, and the picture had a radiant smile lighting up his face.

"Name's Peter Parker," Tony informed them. "He's around thirteen and just finishing middle school, and he also -" Tony pulled up a video feed of a figure swinging by what looked like spiderwebs through the streets of Queens, masked - "apparently has spider powers."

"And you're sure that it's him in the video?" Tasha inquired. "For all we know, it could be a completely different kid."

"I had J.A.R.V.I.S. run a scan of the suit he wears and look for matches hidden in apartments around Queens," Tony explained. "He found one, I checked the owner of the residency, it matched. It's him."

"So what do we do with him?" asked Steve. "He is just a kid, but if he's already swinging through Queens..."

"Isn't he doing good, though?" Barton pointed out. "Cleaning up crime and all that jazz."

"Technically that would mark him as a vigilante," Coulson said. "But as has been pointed out, he's just a kid. And besides, there really doesn't seem to be anyone that opposes his work when he's out there swinging around in costume."

"Presumably whoever he lives with doesn't know," Valkyrie guessed. "Considering the fact that he's going to great lengths to hide from everyone the fact that he's this spiderling, his identity remains a secret."

"And he is young enough that the massive villains we seem to face on an almost daily basis won't take notice of him yet," Banner added.

"We think," Thor spoke up. "Who knows? Villains are unpredictable that way."

Loki casually pulled out one of his small knives and started flipping it end over end, catching it by the hilt or the point each time, as he contributed, "We can't exactly keep him here. Whoever he lives with would get worried, and you said he's still in school."

Everyone looked at him and at the knife. Loki glanced at the window and flashed the horrified guard outside a grin.

"How the hell do you still have knives?!" demanded Barton.

"It's called magic," Loki said seriously, staying completely straight-faced. "Maybe you've heard of it?"

Barton glared at him again. Tasha spoke up and diffused the tension.

"Loki does have a point," the former Russian assassin said. "We can't just pull him out of his life because we know about his powers."

"So...leave him be, for now?" Banner asked.

Tony nodded. "That is probably the best course of action."

"So it's settled," Fury said, leaning back in his chair. "Peter Parker is to be left alone...for now."

"I'll go find the kid and get him home," Tony said.

"Tell him he's welcome at the Tower anytime," Steve added. "Just because we leave him alone doesn't mean he has to forget we found him."

Tony nodded, and the meeting broke up. Tasha instantly started talking at Loki in Russian, berating him for the knife trick.

"Ты шутишь, что ли? Серьезно с ножами! Давай, Обманщик, ты лучше этого!" [Are you kidding me? Seriously with the knives! Come on, Trickster, you're better than that!]

Loki stopped her. "Ты меня знаешь. Я Обманщик. И ты можешь кричать на меня сколько угодно позже, но прямо сейчас у Тора есть пара жалоб на то, что меня нет сегодня утром, так что я собираюсь сосредоточиться на своем парне," he said, with a pointed look at Thor. [You know me. I'm the Trickster. And you can yell at me all you want later, but right now Thor has a complaint or three about me not being there this morning, so I'm going to focus on my boyfriend.]

Tasha rolled her eyes, but gestured at him to go on.

"You said you missed me this morning?" Loki said to Thor.

"...Yes, but I thought we covered this already," Thor replied.

Loki thought the confusion on his face was quite adorable. He pulled Thor by the collar out of the meeting room and down the hall a ways, lost among the shifting crowd of busy S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

"My point," Loki said, stressing the word, "is that I'd like to make it up to you."

The look on Thor's face as he realized what Loki meant was priceless. "Oh," he said. Then, "Are you sure?"

Loki raised an eyebrow pointedly. "Look who you're talking to." At Thor's slightly confused look, Loki rolled his eyes with an exasperated smile. "Of course I'm sure, you дурак."

"Дурак?" echoed Thor, the Russian tumbling awkwardly off his tongue.

"'Fool,'" Loki laughed. "It means 'fool.'"

Thor nodded; then the realization that Loki had just called him a fool hit and he said, "Hey!"

Loki laughed and pulled him to the elevator bank.

They all but tumbled into Loki's room, which Thor had been slowly moving into for the past few weeks. Loki waved a hand and the green curtains shut, blocking most of the sunlight and giving what did get in a green glow. Loki glanced around; his room looked mostly the same as it always had, with a bookshelf and what Tasha called his "reading nook" along one wall, the closet door next to a small desk that Loki hardly used on another, his bed across from the bookshelf with the door beside it, and various odds and ends taking up floor space. The fourth wall was covered in pictures, something Loki was constantly surprised about. There were pictures of him and Tasha, him and Tony, him and all the others, him and Thor, and a few drawings from Steve, including the one he'd gotten for Christmas. The other pictures were arranged around it.

Some of Thor's things had migrated in here in the past few weeks. Various outfits had made their way into Loki's closet, Mjolnir now had a basically permanent residence on a hook on the wall near the door, a few of Thor's pictures had appeared on Loki's wall...small things, but also things that Loki found quite endearing. The fact that Thor had been spending most nights lately in Loki's room didn't hurt, either.

"You are sure of this?" Thor asked again.

Loki kissed him, then said, "Yes, Thor, I'm sure. Now shut up."

Thor started to reply, but Loki kissed him again and whatever the Thunderer was about to say died as Thor returned it. Loki pulled Thor towards the bed, still kissing him. Thor seemed content to let Loki take the lead. Loki, being an alpha as a wolf, was perfectly fine with that.

Shirts, being the easiest and frankly most accessible, were the first to come off, and Loki delighted in the sight of Thor's eyes roving his body with a fire he'd never seen before. Loki began pressing kisses everywhere, teasing with his teeth and earning a soft moan for his trouble. Thor's hands went to Loki's waist, whether in an attempt to steady Loki or just because he could Loki wasn't sure.

"Did you mean it?" Thor asked breathlessly as Loki kept kissing him. "Earlier? When you said -"

"'I love you'?" Loki replied, pulling back so he could look directly at Thor. "Yes."

Thor's smile was brighter than his lightning. "I love you too."

"Good," Loki said, and resumed kissing him. "Now shut up and let me..."

Thor shut up.

Thor had left only a few minutes before, apologizing profusely about it but saying Tony would kill him if he missed the three-way training session with him and Steve. Loki waved him off, knowing the feeling and not at all mad.

He was only half-dressed when Tasha knocked on the door once to announce her arrival and then entered. Loki yelped and tried to pull his shirt down over his back before she could see, but her gasp told him he was too late.

"How much did you see?" he asked wearily.

"Enough," Tasha said. "Loki, who did that to you?"

"Who do you think?"

"Odin?"

"Not directly. But yes."

"What do you mean, not directly?"

Loki ran a hand through his hair. "Two of the Einherjar. I'm not sure if Odin was ever aware, but if he was, he never did anything to stop it."

Tasha came farther into the room and sat down beside him on the bed. "Tell me," she requested. "Why do you have so many scars?"

Loki sighed. He knew Tasha wouldn't press if he told her to drop it, but he figured it might be good for him to talk about it. Thor hadn't remarked on the scars, for which Loki was grateful, but he figured the questions would come sooner or later.

"As you may have guessed, growing up on Asgard wasn't exactly easy," Loki began his tale. "Mostly due to my fear of being discovered as a werewolf, but there were other factors as well, far more painful ones.

"I was always the outcast. I was the younger, darker prince, the one no one seemed to trust no matter how hard I tried to win them all over. While Thor was busy practicing his fighting skills, I was in the library or the corner of the training arena studying magic late into the night. While Thor barely paid attention in his classes and was generally quite an idiot for centuries, I was studious and focused, and remained one of the most intelligent people in my classes. While Thor was loud and brash and obnoxious, I was quiet, reserved, subdued. And there was something about that, that quietness, that scared people away.

"It probably didn't help that I spent so much of my time buried in books while Odin and the rest of Asgard expected me to be training with a sword. I've always preferred subtlety to brute strength, which is part of the reason why knives are my signature weapon. I did recieve hand-to-hand combat training from a private instructor that Mother brought in, but for the most part I taught myself how to wield a blade.

"It became clear as I got older that Odin didn't care, or at the very least cared little, about me. Thor was always the one in the spotlight, the one everyone adored, the Golden Prince. Meanwhile I was Silvertongue, the Trickster who could talk his way out of anything - yet another trait that made people hesitant to approach me.

"There were a few bright spots. Sigyn, for instance. She came into my life a bright ball of fiery energy that worked surprisingly well with my darker and mischievous attitude. For centuries we ran around the castle, playing pranks and studying the subtle tactics of deception and manipulation while everyone else went to the training arenas to beat each other up and call it practice. To my surprise, Odin never commented, and every time Mother found us she would purposefully turn a blind eye.

"But you asked about the scars. I suppose that story begins the day Thor forcibly dragged me to the training arena for the day, enthusiastically telling me that Odin would be watching. You can imagine my joy at that news." Loki rolled his eyes, but kept going. "True to his word, Odin was overseeing the practice fights that day.

"I sat on the sidelines and watched the first few pairs go at it, then volunteered myself just to get it over with. They sent an Einherjar-in-training out to face me. He was considerably larger than I, and far stronger physically. I knew I had no hope of defeating him in a fight that was purely physical. So he pulled out his sword, and I flipped out my knives, and I started talking. Subtle jabs, jests, taunts, anything and everything I could think of that would rile him up as we circled each other.

"He attacked first and I spun out of the way, going in close and getting in a double wound across both arms with my knives. He cursed; I merely smirked and continued talking. We continued on like that for a good fifteen minutes, me insulting him with every breath and him attacking every so often only for me to spin out of the way, leaving him frustrated. A game of cat and mouse, if you will.

"What he didn't realize was that while I'd been talking, I'd also been building up strength with my magic, holding it back like a dam about to break. Now I started to make things interesting. As I talked, I also let a few incantations slip out, lost amid the steady stream of insults. The arena floor began to fill with thick green smoke, something no one noticed until it started climbing my opponent's legs. He cried out, and while he was distracted I brought my illusion magic into play, losing myself amid the now-thick fog and leaving my illusion in my place. It continued talking; meanwhile I snuck up on the Einherjar from behind. When he lunged at my illusion and shattered it, I slid my knives back into my sleeves and caught him with my magic.

"Normally I don't use chaos magic, despite being called the God of Mischief and Chaos, but I had been studying it recently and wanted to try it out. So I used chaos magic - which is essentially telekinesis - to stop my opponent, and to bring him to the ground. Once he was there it was as simple as stalking toward him, slipping out a knife, and holding it to his throat until he all but whimpered 'I yield!' It probably helped that I was effortlessly bending his arm at an awkward angle. I let him go and slipped my knife back into my sleeve. When the smoke cleared, everyone was staring at me, some in shock and some in horror. I shrugged it off; I was used to their stares when they found out I was a sorcerer, and a damn good one at that.

"It was later that night that they cornered me.

"Two of the Einherjar who'd been watching the fight cornered me near my room. I could do nothing to stop them, for I wasn't as strong with my magic as I am now and I had exhausted myself during the fight. They proceeded to give me a violent beating, calling me a cheater and a freak because I'd used my magic. The wounds healed almost as soon as they were gone, but the pain lingered.

"They came back the next day.

"This pattern continued for years. Periodically, these two assholes would track me down, drag me off to some unknown corner of the castle, and beat me up. Each time, it took a little longer for the wounds to heal. Eventually, they started leaving scars. Repeated injuries in the same spot healed, but not completely, because the scars appeared on my back and haven't gone away since. They've faded with time, but they're still there, and no matter what healing my magic puts me through, they will never disappear."

Loki slumped forward, finished with his tale, and put his head in his hands. For a while, Tasha was silent beside him. Then she said, "What happened to them?" with a layer of iron in her voice.

"The Einherjar?" Loki asked, glancing over at her to see her nod confirmation. "I killed them. Accidentally, actually - some spell I was practicing got out of hand and killed like five Einherjar, my tormentors among them. Mother covered for me, but I wasn't too regretful considering all the pain they caused me."

"Gods, Loki. If they weren't already dead, I'd storm Asgard and kill the bastards myself," Tasha growled.

Loki smirked despite himself at that mental image. "Now that I'd like to see. Natasha Romanoff, one-woman army against Asgard."

"Hmm...you think I'd win?" Tasha joked.

Loki's smirk turned into a grin. "Yeah, you would. Easily."

He then realized he was grinning and swatted her arm. "Hey!"

"Hey what?" Tasha asked innocently.

"I was enjoying being depressed!" Loki protested, but there was no real meaning behind the words.

"Good, then my plan to make you smile worked," Tasha teased back, sounding satisfied.

Loki laughed. "Thanks."

"Anytime, Обманщик."

They were interrupted by Valkyrie appearing in Loki's doorway, out of breath, her dark eyes wide.

Loki and Tasha both instantly jumped to their feet. "What is it, Воин?" asked Loki.

"We have a problem," Valkyrie gasped. "Remember Brock, that werewolf from the night Remiend showed up?"

Loki and Tasha nodded, a cold completely different to his ice reserve creeping over him at the impending news.

"He's pissed off about something. He's coming for the Alpha of the Ice. And Loki, he knows who you are."

Haha yes I'm evil. *cue Loki's evil laugh* Anyway...YASS Thorki went at it! I was trying to figure out a good time to make that happen and it just sort of...slipped into this chapter. Peter Parker will return later...because he's adorable and basically Tony's son so yes. Anyway...I'm gonna leave you with that epic and horrible cliffhanger. Please review and tell me what you thought of the chapter!