I finally got around to finishing the chapter. It's been sitting in my drafts for a few weeks and whilst I'm not entirely happy with the length of the chapter, I've just decided that I can't add anything else to it.

Please enjoy the chapter - I do not own Marvel, I'm just playing in their sandbox


What I have in my heart and soul must find a way out

- Ludwig van Beethoven

It had been four months since the Battle of New York and whilst life was just getting back to normal for most of the people that lived in the city, Cale was finding it hard to adjust to the changes in his own life. Behind his back, Tony went and enrolled the teenager in at NYU and much to his chagrin, Director Fury agreed with his underhanded methods. Apparently the psychologist that did his quarterly assessments didn't agree with the fact that he didn't have any normal friends to hang out with.

Cale tried to argue the fact that he didn't need to go to college, but in the end he was practically blackmailed into going. The classes were boring and the teenagers that attended campus for their education were childish. When it boiled right down to it, it was probably his life experiences that made him think like that...nobody there had been through what he'd been through. The teenager ended up skipping more than he attended his lectures, even if Tony was paying for them. When it came to learning new things, the redhead preferred to see how to do something hands on, book learning was not something he was interested in at all.

The months that followed after the incident, Cale found that his powers were starting to expand and grow. Normally that wouldn't have bothered him but for some reason, they'd chosen to lock themselves onto the God of Mischief who was currently imprisoned in Asgard for his crimes. Were they dreams? Was he actually projecting himself on the astral plane? Was he actually going to Asgard? Cale wasn't sure exactly what was going on but the first time it happened, he went to sleep as normal with the intention of waking up in a few hours like he always did.

When he opened his eyes, Cale happened to find himself standing in the middle of a lush garden full of every type of flower imaginable along with others that he didn't recognize. The redhead knelt and picked up a flower, watching in morbid wonder as the golden petals bloomed and then floated off in the wind. Wherever he was, the smell was nothing like he'd ever encountered before and it made him feel all floaty and happy. Cale grinned and stood up, plucking another flower from the ground before he turned to try and figure out where he was.

Loki Laufeyson was standing right behind him. The God stared at Cale like he was some kind of mutant monster that he'd never seen before and before he could speak, Loki grabbed him around the throat and slammed him into the ground. "How did you get into my dreams?!" he snapped.

Cale found himself gasping for air as he clawed at the hand around his neck, squeezing tighter and cutting off all his air. How the hell was he supposed to answer that question when Loki was strangling him? "Can't...breath…" he managed to rasp. "Can't...answer…dumbass" The grip around his throat lessened but Loki didn't let go. Cale took the opportunity to punch the trickster in the face, it was enough to shock him into letting go and allow him the chance to get up. "Fucking hell!" he hissed, rubbing his throat. "I'm supposed to be asleep you asshole!"

"You're in my dreams!" Loki accused. "Nobody should be able to get into my dreams, least of all a mortal!"

"I'm not mortal dumbass," Cale scoffed, rubbing his throat. "I'm half-Asgardian. Look, I didn't come here on purpose, my abilities have been all over the place lately and all I did was go to sleep like I normally do. Then bam, I'm dream walking with a sociopath."

"You go here, you should be able to get out." The god got to his feet and seemed to disappear altogether through some kind of shimmering rift. Cale took the opportunity to follow him, emerging on the other side in a golden throne room where Loki sat upon the throne watching the faceless members of his court. "You dare follow me?!" he scowled, standing with a staff in hand.

Cale glanced around the throne room, he cocked an eyebrow. "Wow, you'd be a psychologists wet dream Loki. Faceless courtiers? Are you elevating yourself above the others now?" He ran a hand through his hair and groaned at the dull beeping sound groaning in the back of his head. He'd only been here for a few moments but his alarm was already going off?

"What is that incessant noise?" Loki demanded to know, his eyes scanning the throne room before falling upon Cale. "Explain yourself mortal."

"You don't like me...do you?" Cale asked, trying to ignore the sound ringing in his ears. He crossed his arms and stared at the god from across the hall. "The only thing I ever did to you was fight against the army you sent through to Earth in an effort to kill everyone. It's not like I was gonna take that lying down! I get it, I really do, you're jaded and the universe is against you. Could you get anymore like an angsty goth teenager? If you want me to go, please really does go a long way trickster."

Loki tilted his head to the side and studied the teenager curiously, it was almost like he was trying very carefully to choose his next words and Cale had no idea why. "Or I could just expell you out." He raised his staff and tapped it to the ground twice, before Cale was able to object, he suddenly felt a pulling inside his chest as he was flung backwards…

Cale's eyes flickered open and he sat up with a groan, blindly he fumbled around beside him to turn his alarm off and fell back into the bed. Honestly it felt like he'd only been asleep for a few minutes and not the six hours he'd just gotten. What the hell was that? Was he dream walking? Did he astral project? It was hard to understand things like this when he had no one to help him understand. Cale picked up his phone off the nightstand and glanced at the time, it was early, only a little after six...too early to call Tony and ask him for his opinion and his pseudo siblings were away completing a mission in Germany...sometimes he wished that magic was just as simple as science...


The intrusion into the God of Mischief's dreams continued for several weeks before Cale came up with an idea. It was a rather good idea in his opinion and he only hoped that Loki agreed with him. Up until that point, he'd just treated Cale like one would a fly, annoying but something that he wasn't able to get rid of no matter how much he tried. Each time Loki expelled the teenager from his dreams, Cale would be back the following night bringing his snark with him. Each dream was different despite the fact that Cale desperately wanted to see that field of flowers again; the one time he asked, Loki kicked him out and it actually hurt like a bitch. It was like Cale had been throughout all of the nine realms without even leaving his own bedroom.

Cale had a late evening training session with Clint and Nat. Both pseudo siblings were worried that his skills were becoming a little rusty and boy did they put him through his paces. After getting his ass kicked and a meal that he barely ate in the mess, Cale dragged himself back to his quarters for a shower and some homework. It was well past one in the morning by the time the teenager crawled into bed, he had contemplated taking a sleeping tablet so he didn't have to deal with another trip to Asgard but Cale couldn't bring himself to do it. He'd come to like these visits with the god. He heard his phone ping to life, a message coming through from god knows where as sleep claimed him.

"I was beginning to think that you weren't coming Caelum." Cale tilted his head to the side with his lips pressed together as he tried to ascertain what exactly Loki had meant by that. The god hated having him around, and said so, often. But there he was standing there flicking through a book and tapping his foot like he was waiting for him.

"You hate me," Cala frowned, taking a seat by the window in Loki's dream library. "But right now you're all I was beginning to think you weren't coming and confusing the hell out of me." He sighed and sat back, closing his eyes; was it possible for someone to be tired in their dreams? "It's just been a stupid day...but then again I can't really complain because I'm not locked up in a magical super prison for trying to take over the world."

"Caelum you're babbling." The god liked to think that he knew the hybrid well enough to peg him for a babbler when he was nervous about something. "One would assume that there is something on your mind." Loki placed the book back on the shelf of his dream library and turned to face the teenager who looked tired even if his body was actually sleeping away back on earth. "What do you have on your mind?"

Cale sat up straight in the chair and ran a hand over his face. "I had a thought the other day. This, what we're doing...honestly I still can't figure out what I'm doing or how I'm doing it so I figured that I should ask you if you can teach me. Or at least attempt to teach me. All my tricks that I use are all trial and error, self-taught mojo and you are the god of lies, illusion and all that jazz."

"And you want me to teach you?" Loki asked, amusement dripping in his voice. "I was wrong Caelum, you are highly amusing for a mortal."

"Okay...so put it this way jackass," Cale scowled. "You fill in the gaps of my training and then I can stop bothering you and we can both get a peaceful night sleep? Cause I seriously don't even how my own biolog works and how I'm going to age, so for all I know, I could be pestering the fuck out of you for a long, long time."

The silence coming from Loki said more than he thought could possibly be said. It told Cale that the god was at least considering it. "If you are to be my student, that would mean that you must do what I tell you to do at all times. Correct?"

"Don't push your luck Loki," Cale answered. "You still helped murder thousands of people. So, what will it be?"