As Maisy's boss was single and had heard that this would be Maisy's first Valentine's Day with her husband, the boss insisted that she go home early. Even though Maisy protested, saying her husband hated the holiday and that she really would have prefered to keep working. The boss turned out to be a hopeless romantic and Maisy found herself on a bus headed for Stark Tower.

As she was riding on the bus she was trying to get her breathing under control. After they'd left the stop by the boutique a thought crossed her mind that the last time she'd ridden public transportation she'd nearly been killed. True, that lead to a great many happy things, but she couldn't help remembering that the purpose of the lindworm had been to drag her to Muspelheim and it was only by accident that she'd ended up in Asgard instead.

Had things gone according to plan, she'd have never met Loki. She would have probably been in Muspelheim for the past - well, it was only a few months shy of a year now. Would anyone have cared if that had happened? Would she have given in to Egil's philosophy that she belonged to him? She might be the "well trained" woman that he wanted by this point with no concerns except loving him.

What if another lindworm attacked the bus she was riding on? What if it succeeded this time? Brought her back to Muspelheim and Egil used one of those glowing things to make sure she followed his orders and whims this time?

"He's dead," she whispered angrily to herself and the man in the seat next to her gave her a curious look.

"Who is?"

"Huh? Oh," Maisy smiled, "No one."

"Your boyfriend forgot to buy you flowers, am I right? So he's dead when you get home?" The man chuckled.

"No, no!" Maisy rolled her eyes, "I don't have a boyfriend anyway I have a-"

"No boyfriend? Aw, but babe it's Valentine's Day and you're a cutie!"

"Thanks, but-"

"Hey, you let me take you to dinner tonight, huh?"

"No, I don't have a boyfriend because I'm married!" Maisy laughed, "Thank you for the offer though, I'm flattered."

"Oh, my bad!" He blushed, "Sorry about that. I didn't mean to waste your time or anything."

"Actually, you helped take my mind off some stressful stuff. Thanks for that."

"Stress? You okay?"

"Yeah, I just don't like riding the bus. I had an accident on one a while back and it freaks me out ever since."

"That's terrible. You were okay and everything?"

"The Avengers were there so it was fine."

"Avengers? Must have been some bus crash!"

"Um, yeah, there was some other stuff involved…" Maisy realized she was supposed to be keeping a low profile and telling someone about a lindworm attacking a bus would probably give her away pretty quickly.

"Man, glad you made it okay. Those supervillains are scary stuff!"

"Tell me about it."

"And you know what I heard?"

"What's that?"

"The one who tried to destroy New York came back this Christmas!"

"Loki?"

"Yeah! That's the one! He married that one earth chick Maisy something and I guess she wanted to be all domestic and crap and made him come here for Christmas."

"Oh, uh huh, interesting," Maisy turned her face away slightly.

"Can you believe anyone would marry that guy? Seriously. He's a messed up dude!"

"Right."

Now was not the time to try and defend her husband. She was beginning to realize that she should get off the bus before she was recognized as the "earth chick". Odds were that this man had seen the documentary and it was only a matter of time before it clicked. Luckily, they were almost to the Tower.

"Oh damn!" The man shouted all of a sudden and the bus squealed to a stop. Maisy almost fell out of her seat and was going to look and see what everyone was staring at, but as she looked up as she had to bite back a scream.

The roof of the bus had been torn off and a lindworm was towering over them, it's beastly red eyes scanning faces and finally landing on her. She couldn't help but shriek in terror as the claws descended toward her just like they had before. She jumped off her seat and crawled beneath it, hoping for some protection. As she shivered under there, terrified out of her mind, she eventually heard concerned voices and felt someone tap her.

"Miss? You alright, miss?"

"Get down! It might kill you!"

"It's okay, lady, it was just a horse. Got away from its carriage and ran in front of the traffic. We didn't hit it or anything!"

"A horse?" Maisy opened her eyes and carefully climbed out from under her seat. The man she'd been talking to was staring at her.

"What's the matter, lady?"

"S-sorry," she was shaking all over and the bus was moving again, "Sorry. I… I have, uh, panic attacks sometimes. Bad ones."

"Hey, it's okay. We're only human, right?" The guy patted her shoulder reassuringly and helped her sit back down, "Damn, must have been a bad one. You were acting like we were under attack or something!"

"I didn't mean to freak you out or anything, I'm sorry," she whispered.

"You're good. You got any meds you can take or something? I can make sure you get to the hospital if you need."

"I've got meds. It's all good. Thank you. You were a big help."

"You should probably take those pills, huh?"

"Right…" Maisy bit her lip and dug through her backpack. She found some ibuprofen and popped it in her mouth to convince the man. He nodded, satisfied, but keep an eye on her all the way to her stop.

When she got off she thanked him again and walked the block to Stark Tower, trying to control her shaking hands.

"Welcome back, Ms. Sichore," Jarvis greeted as she got into the elevator.

"Hi," she said quietly.

"Do you require assistance in choosing which floor?"

"Huh?"

"You have not pushed any buttons."

"Oh, right," she stared at the panel of buttons for a minute and started to reach out to push one, but her hand was shaking so badly that she couldn't quite get there, "The common floor, please."

"Mr. Laufeyson-Sichore is on Thor's floor if you wish to see him," Jarvis commented.

"No, common floor, please."

The elevator began to ascend and Maisy buried her hands in her coat pockets and stared at her shoes the whole way up. When she got to the common floor she stepped out of the elevator and saw that it was empty. She was both glad of this and disappointed. While she didn't want anyone to notice how badly she was shaken up, she knew she'd feel safer with someone around.

"Jarvis?"

"Yes?"

"I guess I kinda want to see Loki. Could you tell him I'm here?"

"Yes, Ms. Sichore."

"Thanks," she went over to the sunken in living room and sat down in one of the comfy chairs, staring up at the ceiling and taking deep breaths. When she heard the elevator ding she knew she should get up or at least look over and say hello, but she was afraid that if she did he'd be able to see the lingering fear written all over her face.

"You're back early today," Loki's cool voice said, coming closer, "Fired already?"

She didn't answer.

"Oh Norns, were you fired?"

"No."

He stood above her, outside of the living room. Looking down at her with a peculiar smile, he waved. She looked straight ahead instead of up at him. If he was going to believe that she was fine then she'd have to start acting more like herself soon, but she knew her face was not suited for a lie at the moment. Especially not a lie to him.

"Is everything alright?"

"Yeah!" She replied cheerfully and smiled back up at him, "The shop wasn't that busy so I got to go home early, that's all."

"Brilliant," he lowered himself into the seat next to her, "But you are lying about something. What is it?"

"I think you are overconfident in your lie detecting abilities," she teased, leaning over to give him a kiss on the cheek, "The only thing I'm keeping from you is that I stole one of the pepperoni Hot Pockets for my lunch today even though I knew they're your favorites."

"You are truly evil for doing so, but I'm still not convinced," Loki told her and she felt guilty about not telling him about the nightmare on the bus. Not guilty enough to bring it up, but a sick feeling filled her stomach.

"It's three o'clock, aren't you supposed to be picking up Linn from school with Happy?"

"Linn skipped school today."

"What?!"

"Thor brought Bjorn for a visit and I may have threatened the boy when he kissed Linn too passionately. Thor convinced them to play hookey and go see some of the sights of New York together with Romanoff as their escort."

"So Linn skipped school?! Loki, we can't let her skip school!"

"Why not? I merely called the office and told them that she was ill. It all worked out splendidly," he grinned, "And though I am worried about what Linn and her guardsman will get up to on their own, it does leave us sometime to get up to our own business here."

"We should really spend some more time apartment hunting," she said.

"Not today."

"Well, we have to do it sometime," she patted his hand, which was resting on her thigh, "No time like the present, as they say. By the way, when do you start your Avenger consulting stuff? And when does Tony start paying you?"

"Tomorrow. Paycheck next Thursday. We can start our search for new housing tomorrow evening. Today simply won't work."

"Why not?"

"We have plans."

"We do?"

"Oh yes, we most certainly do," one of his hands squeezed her thigh more tightly and the other pressed into her back and pulled her closer to him, "First order of business: a welcome home kiss."

"Loki I- mmm," she pulled away and gave him an annoyed look, "Your impressive seductive abilities won't get you out of work this time. I'm going to get changed out of my work clothes-"

"I can help with that."

"And put more clothes on."

"Spoil sport."

"And then I'm going to get my laptop from that mess of a storage room and we're going to spend two hours looking the apartment website, got it?"

"No."

"Just because I'm home early doesn't mean we can spend all of our time making out, Loki," she gave him another quick peck and started to stand up. He stood with her and from behind he wrapped his arms around her middle, holding her to his chest.

"What if I want to spend all of our time making out?" His lips brushed her ear as he spoke and she felt a shiver run up her spine.

"Then you aren't going to get what you want," she finally managed to reply, "Sorry. If you don't want to help me then you don't have to, but that means you don't get any input on the new place."

"Fine, fine," he let her step away from him and they got into the elevator, "I'll help you."

"Good. Thank you."

After Maisy had changed into a T-shirt and jeans, they found themselves digging through the boxes in the storage room and trying to find Maisy's laptop. Not long into their search for the elusive computer Maisy sighed as long fingers danced up her sides and a cool breath tickled her neck.

"You're sure you want to spend today going through that boring website looking at boring homes?"

"Yes. Now get back to looking."

"I can't, you are far too distracting."

"Then get out and let me look for it," she turned to face him and he pressed her against the nearest wall, "Loki, c'mon! We have work to do!"

"Will you reward me if we spend an hour working?" He grinned playfully.

"If we find an apartment in an hour, then sure," she said, trying to ignore him but finding it incredibly difficult.

"Alright, fine. An hour of intense apartment searching and then you and I…"

"If we work until dinner time-"

"But Linn might return by then."

"She'll probably eat dinner with Bjorn."

"Ah, but we can't work until dinner time. We have plans, remember?"

"What plans are those?"

"It's a surprise," he leaned forward and kissed the spot right between her jaw and her neck, "You'll love it."

"Oh!" She gasped and then slapped his chest, "Stop it."

"Stop being so wonderful then."

"You know what? We don't need my computer. We'll use one of the ones in the common area. Where we can't get up to, to, to inappropriate, uh, smooching."

She ducked under his arm and walked out of the storage room. He followed her glumly and they made their way to one of the common area computers. They searched for a full three hours - not having much luck - before Loki shot a bolt of magic at the computer and it shut down. He proceeded to do the same thing to the other computers in the room and then he turned to Maisy with a wicked smile.

"Hey! Why'd you do that?!"

"Time to get ready for our plans," he started walking away, "I claim our bathroom. You can use Thor's to get ready. He's out for the day."

"Get ready for what?!"

"I'm not telling, but dress elegantly - perhaps that dress you wore to the Christmas party. I never got to fully enjoy the sight of you in it."

"Tell me why and I'll be more than happy to put on a dress," she crossed her arms and watched him walk toward the elevator.

"One way or another you are going. It would be best if you dressed appropriately, but it's up to you if you want to be embarrassed by your clothing choice," he waved his fingers at her and the elevator doors closed.

"Dammit," she swore and got up, "Jarvis, what's he up to?"

"I've been instructed not to tell you, under threat of being enchanted to have a southern accent."

"Ugh!" She rolled her eyes and then a thought occurred to her, "Jarvis… he didn't find out what Valentine's Day is, did he?"

"I am not at liberty to say."

"Are you comfortable?"

"No."

"Oh come now, just because of the blindfold?"

"You also set me down on top of a seatbelt buckle," Maisy grumbled from her seat in the back of a car. Loki, dressed in an all black suit, had met her in Thor's living room after they'd finished getting ready and he'd complimented her profusely, making Maisy more suspicious that he'd found out about Valentine's Day. After telling her how "ravishing" (a word that made her roll her eyes) she looked, he'd snapped his fingers and she found that she could not see. A blindfold had been magically tied around her face and, try as she might, she couldn't remove it. Then he'd carried her down to the car and set her inside.

"Apologies," he scooched her over a bit, closer to him, but did not remove the blindfold, "Better?"

"I still can't see, Loki," she would have glared at him if she could have seen him, "What's going on? What are you up to?"

"I can't take my wife out for one fun evening?" Loki said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders as she felt the car start to drive, "Happy, you know where to take us."

"Yeah, yeah," Happy said from the front seat, "Can't believe I'm stuck playing chauffeur to you two! If Tony hadn't cleared this then I hope you know I'd be nowhere near you, Loki."

"Mr. Stark cleared our outing, huh? Where are we going, Loki?"

"I can't tell you," he chirped happily, enjoying the mischief in his plan, "But you'll be awestruck when we get there, I promise."

"Dare I ask why we are doing this?" Maisy really hoped it was because he felt like being spontaneous and not because someone had let it slip what day it was. It wasn't that she would have minded celebrating Valentine's Day. She and Egil had never done it because he thought it was silly and she had kind of fallen out of the practice of getting into the Valentine's Day spirit since her mom left, but she didn't hate the holiday. She thought it was sweet to have a special day just to show everyone how much you loved them and she thought there should be more excuses to do so on the calendar. She just didn't want to celebrate this year because she'd completely forgotten about it and had nothing planned for Loki.

Not to mention she was still shaken up from her nightmare on the bus and her emotions were a bit frayed at the moment. Her patience with Loki's charade was wearing thin and she felt herself cracking.

"Why do you think we are, my dearest beloved wife?" Loki was smirking - Maisy couldn't see him, but she knew he was, "Any guesses?"

"Nope," she replied, "None. There is no reason we should be-"

"Isn't this a Valentine's date or something?" Happy called from the front seat and Maisy scowled in the general direction of the rear view mirror.

"Oh goodness me!" Loki said, his voice ridiculously gleeful, "Mr. Hogan, do tell this extraterrestrial what in the nine realms Valentine's is! You see, I've never heard of it before."

"It's a holiday about love and crap," Happy replied gruffly, "I thought for sure this weird date thing was for that."

"A Midgardian holiday celebrating love, family, friendship, and, matrimony?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"How peculiar it is, then, that my wife - whom I love, whom I consider family, whom is my dearest friend, and whom I am connected to in blissful matrimony - would not tell me about such a holiday! It would seem that we check all of the boxes for Valentine's Day celebrations and yet I am not learning about it until this very moment!"

"Yeah, weird."

"So, dear, sweet, lovely wife," he pulled her closer to his side and Maisy winced, "Any particular reason you neglected to tell me about Valentine's Day? Hmm?"

"I, uh, it's just-"

"I have a theory," Loki said, twirling her hair around his finger, "I suspect that you had something spectacular planned for me. Something amazing, but you knew that I could easily outdo anything you came up with. So, to prevent me from upstaging you with Valentine's Day festivities, you decided to keep the holiday from me in hopes of outdoing me in showing affection!"

"Loki, that's stupid-"

"The joke's on you, Maisy, for as soon as I found out about this Valentine's Day, I planned something so fantastic that you cannot possibly upstage me! Ha!"

"No, stop it…"

"Honestly, Maisy, how petty of you. You know that-"

"I didn't plan anything!" Maisy blurted and then slapped her hand to her mouth.

"What?" His voice sounded genuinely surprised.

"I'm so sorry," she said quickly, "I wasn't thinking about it - but I've got no excuse because the decorations were everywhere and everything. It totally slipped my mind and I didn't plan anything or get you anything or, or, or anything! I totally forgot."

"You… forgot," he sounded hurt by this and it made Maisy's already over emotional state worse.

"And then I figured you didn't even know about Valentine's Day so I thought if I didn't tell you then neither of us would do anything and I wouldn't feel so bad for not remembering and," she sniffled, trying not to cry, "I'm sorry!"

"Oh."

"And, and worse than that," she felt the tears start to soak the blindfold, "Worse than that, I did lie to you earlier. Because I wasn't alright and I didn't wanna tell you!"

"Are you alright now? I mean, there is nothing immediately problematic happening?"

"I'm fine, but I'm just a terrible-"

"No, no, no," he slipped her blindfold off her eyes but she could scarcely see through her tears anyway, "You aren't a terrible anything."

"I'm sorry," she swiped her nose with her wrist, "I'm being stupid now. I just… I just love you. And I feel terrible. And I lied to you and, and I forgot about Valentine's Day and-"

"Wow. Way to make her feel like a jerk, jerk," Happy called from the front seat.

"Shut up, Happy!" Maisy blubbered, "He isn't a jerk! He might be evil, and manipulative, and a murderer, and sometimes he hogs all the blankets, but he's the kindest, sweetest, nicest guy I know!"

"Wow."

"Maisy," Loki turned her head to look back at him, "Thank you. I'm sorry for this whole absurd plan of mine. I just wanted to… I don't know, show you that I love you too. I didn't go about it very well, I suppose. There is no need to worry over hurting my feelings. I have lived through several hundred Valentine's Days without ever knowing what it was and ignoring it. I can ignore one more."

"So I can stop driving?" Happy asked.

"No! You went to so much effort for whatever this plan is. I don't want it to go to waste!"

"Are you sure you're up to it?" Loki brushed some of her tears away with his thumb, "We can simply return to the Tower and apartment hunt until our eyes fall out of our heads if you'd prefer."

"I'm up to it," she promised, "I want to see what you have all schemed out."

"Very well," he smiled gently at her, "If you are sure, then the blindfold must go back on."

"Ok," she began to pull it down over her eyes, but spotted something outside the car window before she did, "Wait! Happy, can you pull over here for just a sec?"

"Fine," he sighed and pulled over.

"I'll be just a second. Wait here."

"Me too?" Loki asked.

"Just for a minute," she unbuckled and jumped out of the car, racing into the shop they'd stopped by. The woman working at the register gave Maisy's fancy dress a confused look, but didn't say anything as Maisy rushed around the store, picking out what she needed.

"Last minute Valentine's stuff, you know?" Maisy smiled, realizing she was wearing the blindfold as a headband and that her mascara was running in black tears, "Erm. Really last minute."

"That'll be thirteen seventy-two."

"Right."

Maisy paid the woman and held the plastic bag she was given close to her chest as she ran back out to the car and slid back into her seat. She smiled at Loki before pushing the bag into the corner where he couldn't see it and then pulled her blindfold back down.

"Ok, I'm ready!"

"I assume I'll find out what that was about later?"

"Yup," she snuggled in closer to him.

"Alright then. Mr. Hogan, please continue."

"Ugh, fine."

A note from the author: Hopefully this longer chapter makes up for the shorter one last time. I had so much fun writing this chapter so I hope you had fun reading it! It seems kind of odd to post a chapter about Valentine's Day in May, but I wrote this chapter way back in, idk, probably December with the intention of posting it in February. I'm a little behind lol.

I have good news to share! I wrote the last chapter for this story yesterday! So now it will for sure have an ending, it's just a matter of posting everything in a timely manner. And, of course, I'm still going back and adding in little scenes or snippets of dialogue that will help tie everything together, but for the most part I've finished writing! Am I anywhere close to having posted all the chapters? NOPE! Just like last time, there are probably going to be around a hundred chapters total, depending on how I break them up. Right now the word count is over 163,000. So you've got lots of fluff and drama to look forward to!

Thank you so much for reading as far as you have! I hope you continue to read! :)

Special thanks, as always, to my reviewers:

CheetahLover: We're going to get more Linn and Bjorn shortly! I wrote a whole Valentine's chapter just for them! :D

Guestanewone: No problemo! Let me know if the timeline ever gets confusing again. Sometimes I'll know something about the story and I forget to mention it and then I just think everyone else knows it because I do. :P

Lwolf: Thanks for the review! :)

Ninja Squirrel: I'm glad you got your cake! ;) And now we know Loki's got big plans for Love Day! He was kinda an idiot about it, but he's got big plans! lol

Thanks for reviewing even on a tiny little chapter like the last one! You're the best!