"I'm not going and you can't make me!" Linn bellowed from inside her room.
Loki looked at Maisy with a raised brow as they stood outside her door.
"Linn, that was part of the agreement of you moving with us," Maisy said, "You have to go to school!"
"But me dad was right," the girl sounded as if she was sniffling, "They are all gonna hate me!"
"Why would you say that? Everyone loves you! I don't think I've ever met someone who hasn't. Even those Krylorian ambassadors started to warm up to you toward the end of their visit."
"Just because they knew their princess was in deep doodoo and they didn't wanna get in more trouble. They hated me and all of the kids at the school are gonna hate me and I'm gonna be mocked forever!"
"You think they are going to dislike you because you look different from them," Loki stated calmly, "You think they'll take one look at you and label you as the weird new kid."
"Because they will!"
"You're right."
"Loki!" Maisy slapped his arm, "We're trying to convince her to go to school not hide in her room forever!"
"They will see you as that odd alien girl from space. And you will be miserable and let their words affect you."
"Seriously Loki, shut up!"
"You will let the opinions of lesser beings dictate your every feeling while you are on this planet. You will let bratty earth children decide that you are inferior to them."
The door flew open and Linn glared at him with puffy eyes.
"No."
"And because you let them tell you who you are then you will never be brave enough to show them your true likeable self," Loki finished, crossing his arms and looking down his nose at her in a challenge.
"Linn, he doesn't mean that!" Maisy tried to give her friend a hug, but Linn refused it.
"He does," she said, "And I know dis is one of his stinky mind games, but I'm still gonna prove him wrong. I will make more friends den he can count! See if I don't!"
"Oh, I doubt that," Loki smirked evilly at her, "After all, aren't you just the weird alien kid?"
"If I'm weird den you are ten times as weird!" Linn stuck her tongue out at him, "And you need a haircut!"
They made their way to the common floor to eat breakfast with the others, Linn and Loki insulting each other playfully while Maisy rolled her eyes and searched her phone for cheap apartment listings. When they arrived Steve had made an enormous breakfast for everyone.
"Whoa, what's all this?" Tony asked as he arrived and poured himself a cup of coffee.
"I made a special breakfast for the special day," Steve answered, flipping a pancake.
"What's today?"
"First day of school!" Steve shoved a plate full of pancakes at Tony as he started to leave, "Sit. Eat."
"I'm good with just the coffee, thanks," Tony started to walk off again, but Pepper walked into the room and steered him into a seat at the table, "Pep, I need to get back to work!"
"Your Mark One Billion Suit can wait until after you've had some breakfast."
"But-"
"Tony," Steve scolded, "You have had nothing but coffee for the past twenty-four hours, Jarvis told me. You can't make it without fuel!"
"Ugh…" Tony began to angrily eat his pancakes, "I hate it when people care."
"Too bad," Pepper kissed his cheek, "Because there are a lot of us."
"Yeah, Tony Baloney," Linn, who'd cheered up significantly after bandying insults back and forth with Loki, patted Tony's arm and helpfully poured a river of maple syrup on his pancakes, "We all cares about you lots and lots. Just like dese two nincompoops cared about me enough to get me to go to school!"
"If I'm a nincompoop then you are a humarr húnn," Loki grumbled over a mouthful of scrambled eggs.
"What the heck does dat mean?" Linn demanded.
"Not telling," Loki stuck out his tongue and Maisy rolled her eyes again.
"Thor!" Linn roared when the Asgardian walked in, "What does humarr húnn mean?"
"Lobster head?" Thor furrowed his brow, "How did you learn to say lobster head in old Norse?"
"Loki, I'm gonna—"
Linn's threat was interrupted by Steve slamming another plate of pancakes down on the table. He glared at Linn and Loki and they both meekly went back to eating their breakfast. Pepper chuckled and accepted the bowl of fruit Steve handed her.
"Thank you," she turned, "Linn, I hope you have a productive first day of school."
"Fanks Spice Lady!" Linn beamed. She, like Maisy, was captivated by Pepper's grace and charm as well as her business sense and her ability to boss around the Avengers.
"I know you'll do amazing," Pepper smiled and started to leave with her bowl of fruit.
"How come she doesn't have to eat with the family!" Tony pouted.
"Because I'm too afraid to make her do anything," Steve replied.
"Good response, Cap! Save me a pancake for later!"
There was silence as everyone munched. As soon as Linn plowed through her plate of food, however, she spoke up.
"So, as it's me first day of high school," she looked at Maisy and Loki, "Because some people are forcing me to go even though we've only been here four days."
"Five."
"Whatever," she slid closer to Maisy, "Can I borrow some of your clothes to wear?"
"Of course! Wear whatever you like!"
"Cool," Linn said and then thought of something else, "Um, I haven't been to school in a long, long, long time, but ain't I supposed to have paper and pens and stuff?"
"Blast, I knew we'd forgotten something!" Loki exclaimed.
"Back to school shopping! Aaah!" Maisy yelped, jumping up, "We need to buy stuff fast!"
"Sit down and eat your breakfast!" Steve snapped with a glare, "It can wait until after food!"
"But—"
"Don't worry about it," Tony said with a wave of his fork, "Jarvis, tell Happy to go buy anything he thinks a high school student might need and shove it all in a backpack."
"A green backpack!" Linn piped up, "Gotta represent."
Loki smirked quietly.
"Happy will have it all ready to go by the time you're ready to leave," Tony looked at her for a minute, "Hey, I don't want to be rude or anything, but are you… going to be, uh, pink at school?"
"Wif me skin normal you mean?"
"Yes."
"Why not?"
"I'm not sure that's a good idea. Does the school know where you're from?"
"Well, we were going to tell them when we spoke with the principal this morning…" Maisy said.
"Loki, is there anyway you can cover her up?"
"I don't see why we should if she doesn't want to be," he said.
"Because otherwise we're going to have the government breathing down our necks?"
"Linn, would you be okay with that?" Maisy asked, "I don't want you to have to cover up, but we really need to keep the government from finding out about Loki if we can."
"Yeah, alright," Linn shrugged, "Make me peachy colored, Loki."
He was reluctant to do so, but waved his hand over her and she took on a skin tone similar to Maisy's. She pinched at it and when it didn't go away she shrugged again.
"Now the kids won't have any reasons to be making fun of me and I'll make even more friends!"
When they'd finished breakfast they didn't have much time left before school so Maisy quickly rushed Linn into the room that housed all of her belongings and pulled out some boxes of clothes. She left the younger woman to it and went to prepare Loki on what to say as they were posing as Linn's adopted parents.
When Linn emerged from the room dressed in Midgardian garb, both Loki and Maisy stopped their discussion and stared at her.
"What do you fink?" Linn spun around.
"Um," Maisy tried to find words, "Well, first, hat's are against the rules… so, um, that's going to have to go."
"Okay," Linn grabbed the cap printed with the american flag and tossed it aside, "Anyfing else breaking the rules?"
"Nothing is breaking the rules, but..." Maisy cleared her throat and looked to Loki for help.
"Are you aware that it looks as if you were dressed by a court jester?"
Maisy facepalmed.
The teenager's outfit consisted of a plain green T-shirt covered by some denim coverall shorts, which topped a pair of galaxy print leggings. The leggings disappeared into black knee high socks that were decorated with smiling cat faces at the knees. The socks ended at a pair of glittery boots and the whole ensemble was finished off by a bright yellow coat that Maisy had been meaning to donate for years. The effect was quirky and a little unsettling.
"I picked everyfing I liked and tossed it all together," Linn said defiantly, "I like it. And I do know dat I look like a crazy person, but it's fun!"
"As long as you like it," Maisy said reluctantly, "I guess it's fine. You're almost an adult, you can choose for yourself."
"Do you really fink it's bad?"
"I think it's a bit too much for my eyes to handle all at once," Maisy admitted, "Maybe swap out an item or two for something more subdued?"
"Right," Linn kicked off the sparkly shoes and went back into the room, reemerging with red converse instead. It did very little to help, but the girl was adamant that she didn't want to change anything else.
With the first day of school outfit decided they headed out, picking up Linn's new backpack from Happy as they went.
A note from the author: *coughs* Yeah, there's no need to check if my Old Norse is accurate or not... cuz yeah. I highly doubt it is! I found a website with a few Norse words on it and I occasionally slip them in like Taka af Brúðr (the contest thing from TDDYP), which is supposed to be "Taking of Bride" or something like that. But I am way too lazy to look further into using Norse words or grammar or anything like that so we're just going to have to deal with my half baked attempt at the Old Norse language. :P Sorry to offend any linguistic people.
Thanks so much for reading! Hopefully I will be able to have another chapter up soon, but I'm considering some heavy editing for the next chapter because I'm not sure I like the subplot it sets up (which is code for "I don't know how to resolve that subplot") so I might be a while in posting since I've got to move some stuff around. But we'll see!
Special thanks to my reviewers:
ferbette: Sadly, I didn't write a whole lot of Tony and Loki getting into shenanigans, but they totally would drive everyone else crazy. I can see one of them setting up a joke or something and the other one playing along effortlessly, without being told. Thor would be tormented!
Dragoncat: We'll get to see Linn's first day of school in the next chapter!
Guest: Always happy to dry some tears! :)
Ninja Squirrel: Babies are a maybes, and Thor, like a happy dope, will continue to hope... along with the majority of the readers it seems. XD
xlokiswolfx: In true Linn fashion, her first day of school will be... interesting. Regardless of how I end up editing it there's no way to stop it from being interesting. I hope you enjoy it when you read it!
I am eternally grateful for your encouraging reviews and I hope the story continues to entertain you as we go along! :)