Loki, in fact, had not burned down the apartment, which he pointed out triumphantly until Hela made him scrub at the charred, eggy mess for an hour. The pan eventually had to be thrown away, but she didn't seem too mad about it. She even took them swimming later, so maybe she wasn't so bad. The rest of the day and the next passed mostly uneventfully. He finally finished watching Gravity Falls and chased Fenris around the apartment until Hela and Thor yelled at him.

Mom didn't call that day or the next, but she texted once to check in. She seemed a lot happier now that they here at Hela's house instead of hot as heck Arizona waiting for Dad to come back. On Sunday, Hela made Thai food, but after Amanda disappeared to hang out with friends (Thor said she was going clubbing whatever that was), they rented a movie.

Monday morning, Hela woke them up before it was even light out, and Loki growled and rolled out of bed. Deep down, he knew she was mostly nice. She'd come to get them, let them stay her house and swim and eat and stuff, but she kept pulling nonsense like this, and that irritated him.

The boys stumbled around the bathroom getting ready then out to the living room where Thor flopped on the couch and Loki made himself toast, chewing and staring into space. There wasn't any peanut butter that wasn't chunky, and he hated chunky peanut butter. He slammed the fridge door and just ate his toast plain.

Already unreasonably awake for the day, Hela grabbed a cranberry juice out of the fridge, threw her oversized bag over one shoulder, and grabbed her keys off the table. "Let's go."

Loki took another bite of his toast and mumbled "what?" around it.

"We're going to work."

Thor poked his head around the couch and shot her a disgusted look. "Work? I'm not five."

"Hmm. Well, Saturday I woke up to a missing kid and dog and a kitchen full of smoke, so sorry if I'm not uber confident about leaving you here alone all day."

Loki scowled. "We fed ourselves the other day at Dad's house. And we flew down here all by ourselves."

He could take care of himself mostly. He could cook eggs and macaroni, wash his own dishes. He just wanted to stay here in the apartment, not meet new people.

Hela smiled, in that way that said he might be right but she'd already made up her mind. Condescending, Mom called it. Like Dad, even if Hela wore it a little sharper in the eyes.

"Nice job," she said. "Now put your shoes on."

"I don't want to."

Her smile faded to a warning raise of the eyebrows. Loki scowled but went to put his shoes on. They got their stuff together and followed her out the door.

As usual, Thor took shotgun "What is it you do exactly?"

"I'm a COO for an architecture firm."

"Uh…"

She turned the key, and the engine rumbled to life. "I make sure not everything hits the fan at once."

"So, like what you normally do but you get paid for it."

"Something like that."

A traffic-heavy hour later, Hela pulled up to a shiny high rise, and they trooped inside and up to elevator to the eighth floor. Open and airy, the office was full of windows overlooking the city and its haze of sound and smog and motion. People stood at desks and balanced on green exercise balls, and even though the carpet was still corporate and ugly, all the desks were black and space-like. In the center of the room stood a giant table loaded with models of buildings, city blocks, and interior spaces—all cardboard and Hobby Lobby trees and 3D printed models. It reminded Loki of a documentary he'd watched with Mom once, one about a guy who had built a scale model of Central Park in his basement. He wondered if they had tiny plastic dogs too.

Hela led them through the office and a couple of the desk jockeys glanced up, only to do a double take and watch Hela and her brothers march to her desk. Loki stared back at a couple of them before his sister opened a glass door and waved them in. Her office was separated from the main space by a big glass wall, and she shared the space with a little sitting area and another desk that had a white mug with "WORLD'S BEST CFO" plastered on it. Loki wasn't sure what a CFO was, but if their desk as behind glass like Hela's they had to be important.

Hela dropped her bag in the spinny chair behind her desk, or at least what Loki guessed was hers. There weren't any pictures or mugs to mark it as a personal space, just a desktop with two big screens and a metal tray stacked with manila envelopes. Now that he thought about it, her apartment didn't really have of her photos either—well, photos in ugly frames of her with Amanda and other people Loki didn't know, so those pictures were probably Amanda's and not Hela's at all.

He glanced at her, and she pointed to the sitting area with its weird dish seats and coffee table of building magazines. "You can hang out here or there's TV in the lunch area." She gestured across the office to a full-sized fridge and coffee station, and yep, there was a TV with soccer playing.

Pointing at both of them, she backed towards the door. "Don't bug anybody. This is an office, not my house."

Thor slumped into the dish chair and put his headphones in. "Yeah, yeah."

She shot him a warning look before leaving the office and crossing to a bald guy chewing on a pen and staring at some spreadsheets. His head was shiny, but he wore skinny jeans and converse, so he couldn't be too awfully old. Hela spun another chair over, and the two started yakking. Something about Chicago, about Hong Kong.

In the disk chair, Thor was already watching something on his phone. They'd forgotten to ask for the Wi-Fi password, but maybe it was open like at Caribou Coffee. Loki wandered over to Hela's desk, moved her bag to the floor, and claimed the spinny chair. After a couple test spins, Loki settled into the faux leather and went through all the drawers. A couple were locked, but he found the key taped to the underside of the chair. Mostly file folders of papers that didn't make much sense, office supplies, gum. He took two pieces and sucked the mint flavoring out of them before chewing the flavorless wad left behind.

After a while, Loki moved onto practicing his supervillain spin around. Fingers steepled or gripping the armrests? Glaring or cackling?

Tap tap

On the other side of the glass stood a man sporting dreadlocks, dyed red and all bright against his dark skin and snappy, grey vest. He flashed a white-toothed grin and held up a flat white box with a questioning shrug of his shoulders. Hela had said not to bug anyone, so Loki frowned and shook his head.

The man flipped the lid back and tilted the box to reveal rows and rows of donuts. Loki hopped off his chair and bolted for the door. The man was a lot taller up closer, but he bent his knees a little so the kid could take his pick.

Loki wiggled a chocolate-covered donut free and grinned. "Thanks."

"No problem. Hela a friend of yours?"

"She's my step-sister." Loki took a bite of his donut and nodded. Definitely the right call to get chocolate.

If the donut man was surprised, he didn't show it, just nodded like Loki had announced LA traffic was bad. He offered a donut to Thor, who had just wandered out after his brother.

"Well, looks like she and Adam will be talking shop for a long time. You two want to come hang with me for a bit?" He gestured back to a long table near the pile of models. "Get you some graph paper and rulers."

"Sounds cool."

Loki and Thor followed him across the office, and true to his word, Jordan, the donut man, gave them both some big blue graph paper with pencils and sliding rulers before turning back to his team and their own drawings all pinned up on a board. After a minute, Thor wandered off the model table then the TV then from desk to desk until it sounded like he'd made friends with the entire office, chatting with somebody new every time Loki looked up.

Every once in a while, Loki glanced at Hela, who had retreated back to her office and was pacing back and forth on her phone, then typing on her computer, then back on her phone, then disappearing with some coworkers into another room.

Jordan brought Loki an orange juice and another donut and pointed to the doodles spilling over half the page. "Not bad, little man. Keep it up and maybe you'll be working here someday."

This was really different from going to work with Dad at Asagrd, Inc. There, Dad had a giant office with real walls instead of glass ones, and he'd spent most of the day behind his desk or in meetings while Loki and Thor chilled on the floor or sprawled on the couch. But they probably wouldn't ever be going to work with Dad again. Loki went to drawing and snapped his pencil from pressing too hard.

For lunch, Hela gave Thor and Loki some cash, and the duo walked to a nearby Subway and brought back lunch. Later that afternoon, Jordan showed them the 3D printer, and they sat and watched forever as the printer head laid down then layer after layer of plastic until Jordan peeled up a red hammer pendant and passed it to Thor.

"What is this supposed to be?"

"You know, Thor's hammer? Tough as nails and all that."

Thor shot him an unimpressed look. They'd only heard jokes about their names a million times, but Jordan didn't seem to be joking. He pulled a pendant out of his shirt, a small wooden disk with smaller, worn carvings on it. "Saint Anthony's the patron saint of lost stuff. My grandma gave it to me when my parents split, said he was good at finding people and things that hadn't quite made it home yet. Hammer's like an anchor, kind of a fixed point that'll always reel you back in to where you need to be."

Thor turned the thumb-long hammer over in his hands, and his expression softened. "Thanks."

Loki leaned forward on his stool, almost tipping off balance. "Do me next."

Smiling, Jordan input the next job, and Loki watched for another small eternity while a weird green figure eight emerged under the print head. When the older guy handed it to him, it was still warm on top, and Loki blinked at it. "Uh, I'm not super good at math."

"It's a snake." Jordan flipped it over, revealing a snake with its tail firmly in its own mouth, head in profile and staring at Loki. Was is gonna ask a question or give an answer?

"Infinity and all that." Jordan traced the snake's body around a couple times. "No matter where you start, it just keeps going."

Loki blinked and traced over the teeth and down the throat and back up the body. "I don't get it."

Chuckling, Jordan ruffled the kid's hair. "I gotta get back to work, but I think you'll figure it out."

As the mystery printing man went back to his sketches, Thor and Loki sat and inspected their new gifts.

By the end of the day, the brothers had migrated over to the TV and fought over the remote. Thor, as usual, won by right of being taller and stronger, so they watched soccer for a couple hours, but then he got distracted texting his friends—probably Jane—so Loki changed the change to cartoons and forgot about the weird plastic snake in his pocket.

"Good news, kid."

At his sister's voice, Loki looked away from the TV. "What?"

She put both hands on her hips and smirked like she'd accomplished some great thing. "You get go home."

Loki jerked to his feet, tipping orange juice dregs across the table. "Really?"

"Mm hmm. You'll be back home starting your mom's kitchen on fire."

Thor pumped a fist. "Yes! When?"

"As soon as we can get you plane tickets." Hela looked at her watch and flinched. "Oh, you guys must be starving. Let me grab my purse, and we'll head home."

Thor popped his headphones in, and his thumbs moved furiously as he updated probably half of St. Paul about the news. Loki turned off the TV, gathered up his giant blue page of doodles, put in his headphones, and opened messages to send his mom a voice message when he heard people talking, talking about him. Keeping his headphones in, he glanced around until he spied them. Most of the workers had gone home for the night, but at a nearby pair of desks sat two workers typing away at their computers. One snorted and said in an undertone, "Hopefully someone comes to pick them up this time."

The other snickered. "You'd think. But all that money and you don't want your own kids. What's wrong with rich people honestly?"

"No kidding."

"No really, why else would they leave them pack 'em off on old Hell or High Water? She does't know jack about kids."

Was that true? Were they only here because Mom and Dad didn't want to deal with them? Was he that awful? Loki blinked and lowered his phone.

"Ready." Hela tapped Loki on the head. "What's wrong with you?"

Loki pulled off his headphones. "I'm not hungry."

Hela rolled her eyes. "It's because you ate too many donuts. Come on."

"No!" He threw his stuff on the ground, scattering pencils everywhere.

Hela flinched back. "Hey!"

Her face turned murderous, and Loki shrank back. Behind Hela, Thor stood with his stuff in hand, eyes wide as he looked from the mess on the floor to Loki to their sister. The office was really quiet. Why was everyone looking at him? He just wanted to go home.

Hela pointed at the door. "Go stand in the hall."

"But—"

"Now."

Loki slid to his feet and shuffled out to the hall where he slumped against the wall. A small eternity later, Thor came out of the office and shot his brother a "what the heck?" look, and Loki ducked his head. He hadn't meant to, but those stupid office workers had made him so mad—

Hela stormed out of the office, striding right past them to the elevator. The boys sprinted to catch up and just reached her as the door dinged open. Silently, they followed her into the elevator and waited for the long ride home.

The siblings drove home in tense silence. Hela gripped the wheel so hard her wrists ached, and she fumed the entire drive and up to the apartment where she slung her purse onto the couch and whirled on the silent boys. "I cannot believe you."

Loki and Thor trailed in after her, Thor with his hands jammed wrist deep in his pockets, Loki just sniffing and kicking at the floor.

"What the hell was that? How old are you, five?"

Thor jerked his head up, lips and brows pressed into angry lines. "It's not a big deal."

"Don't talk to me like that. You have no idea how embarrassing that was for me." How was she supposed to run a business when she couldn't keep a couple kids in line? She'd fought for this job, then turned around and taken valuable time to go pick their butts off the curb and this was how—

She sounded like Dad. Hela dropped her snarl. They were just kids; they didn't deserve to be ripped apart.

Just kids.

Dragging a deep breath, she put both hands on her hips and nodded to the couch. "Come on, sit down."

The boys shuffled to the couch, Loki refusing to look at her and Thor just looking mad.

"So…"

Loki stared at his hands. Hela licked her lips. "Wanna tell me what's really bothering you?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" Hela clenched her jaw and took a couple deep breaths. "Okay. Look. It has been a really stressful week, for all of us. So I don't know what your problem is… what's bugging you, but you'll be home in a couple days, so we just have to make it through the next few days."

"Yeah, sure," Loki muttered.

"What is that supposed to mean?" Don't be Dad. Don't be Dad.

He pressed his lips together and looked everywhere but at her. Hela nodded. "All right,

I know I'm still pretty much a stranger. You don't have to talk to me."

Thor hitched his shoulders, and some of the anger had gone out of him, if only a little.

"I'm going to make dinner. You can hang out here or in your room, but food will be finished in half an hour."

Dinner was just as awkward with Thor putting down three helpings of hamburger helper while Loki picked at his plate. Hela tried to put on a movie but when Amanda came home, Loki complained of an upset stomach and went to bed before nine.

She didn't do kids for exactly this reason. Adults she could do; they were just as dramatic but at least she could tell them to shut up and back off without worrying about anyone crying. She thought about texting Frigga but decided against it. Heimdal's call that afternoon had been a relief, that Frigga had gotten the idiot judge to turn custody back over to her at least until Odin got his crap together and back on American soil to plead his case.

If Loki was having a phase or getting sick, it would be better for his mom to deal with it at home then for his half-stranger step-sister. She didn't know why he'd freaked out, but hopefully everybody was okay in the morning. The last thing she wanted was to turn into her dad.

In the middle of the night, after tossing and turning for no a couple hours, Hela decided to get up for a drink of water, maybe answer a couple emails. Anything was better than lying in bed trying not to stew.

She shuffled out of the bedroom, careful not wake Amanda even though her roommate slept like the dead, then down the hall towards the bathroom light. The boys slept with the door cracked open and the bathroom light on, though neither boy would admit to wanting it.

"Thor?" Loki's whisper was probably meant to be quiet.

The older boy let out a long, half-awake hmm.

"Are we really going home?"

"Mm hmm."

"Are you sure? What if… what if Mom doesn't come get us from the airport?"

"That's stupid."

"Nu-uh. Dad wasn't there to get us."

"Cause he's in China." A creaking of springs. "You know they're, like, fighting in court over who gets to keep us right? With lawyers and all that?"

A long silence. "Yeah."

"Yeah? So don't be stupid."

"Okay."

Another creak of springs. Silence, and Hela took a few steps towards her bedroom, but then Loki took a deep breath, and she froze.

"But what if they're fighting so they don't have to keep us? What if they put us in foster care?"

Thor gave a snort. "What do you know about foster care?"

"I don't know." A smothered sob. "I wanna go home."

"Hey. Geez, Loki, don't cry." An awkward silence. "Look, I'll be eighteen in a couple years, and I'll get some of my piece of Dad's company, right? We'll run away and get our own place, and it'll have a pool and a basketball court, and it'll be awesome. Okay?"

"Okay."

"Hey. See this? I'm the anchor or whatever like Jordan said."

"Hammer. I googled it."

"Hammer. I'll just pound anything that gets in our way."

Loki laughed and sniffed.

"Mom will come get us. Don't worry."

The boys fell silent. Hela sighed and leaned her head against the door frame. This was going to be tougher than she thought.

A/N

Hey, everybody. I've been on the endless treadmill of work, school, responsibilities, which hasn't left much time for fun writing. Since it's feels like forever since I updated, have a chapter twice as long as normal!