Author's Note: This has been a while, but I recently re-obsessed myself with OUaT (and I'm always obsessed with the Avengers) so I found some inspiration to write another chapter!

Back to Cass

Loki sat me down in front of the couch in my apartment on a pillow. Star Wars was playing on my TV. We were both in our jammies and my hair was wet. I had just gotten out of the shower when he announced that he was coming to my floor for a movie night. Oooookay. He sat himself behind me with his legs on either side of my shoulders. He kissed the top of my head and took my brush to the wet locks as the opening scroll for Episode IV A New Hope started to crawl up the screen. "What are you doing?" I asked, more than a little confused.

"Doing your hair," he replied shortly.

"What for?"

"Fun." Once my ratted, thick, brown hair was smoothed down, he gently and lovingly attacked it with swift fingers. Before Princess Leia had even finished her message to Obi-Wan Loki had my hair in a "feathered waterfall" braid. He showed it to me with a mirror (and magic). I rolled my eyes.

"Where did you learn how to do hair?"

"My mother would often be doing her hair at the beginning of any given day when she was teaching me magic. It went on for… two… hundred… years… give or take. I learned several different hairstyles for long hair just from casual observation. I'm a quick learner," he retorted. I gave a very unattractive-sounding snort right about here as he took a quick picture with my iPod Touch and yanked the style out to try another one.

"Is that why you've been growing your hair out since we met?" I asked sarcastically.

"I don't follow you."

"When we met, your hair was just a little bit longer than your head. In the past… three years it's grown well past your shoulders and you need a massive haircut," I explained with a lot of sass in my tone.

"Well, maybe I'll get one eventually. I just haven't had time. I'm a little preoccupied with a dazzlingly gorgeous girl whose hair is at least twice as long as mine and about thrice as thick," he replied with a flourish of a chunk of my hair as he continued to try another style. I chuckled lightly. Wow. All the Avengers could be really theatrical.

"You and the others should really put on a play," I remarked. Loki tugged on my hair.

"Look who's talking—Drama Queen," he teased.

"Oh, I'd be the leading role hotshot," I retorted, turning to face him. He smirked and brought his face down to mine. He was a great kisser. Always slow and measured. He'd only go deeper if I wanted it. I hadn't until recently, so I was just beginning to know exactly how far into his chill embrace I was willing to go. As he sealed his lips to mine, I closed my eyes and threaded my fingers through his overlong black hair. The style he'd been trying with my thick curtain was only half-finished so he let it drop before clenching handfuls of my wet mop in his long, pale, spidery fingers.

His lips traced my lower lip and jawline as mine brushed his perfect, sharp cheekbones and smooth, pale forehead.

Somewhere in the back of my ears I must have heard the door open, but my brain was too far-removed from anything to hear it. And who knows? Maybe it hadn't opened at all. Yeah right.

"Do you two ever come up for air?" a sarcastic voice inquired from the doorway. Loki pulled away from me and we both turned to see Callie leaned against the frame with her arms folded and one ankle crossed over the other, looking highly amused and slightly exasperated. I sighed, the perfect comeback hitting my throat and begging to be released. So I decided to comply.

"I could ask the same about you and your soldier," I snapped. Callie was like a sister to me, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to snap at her. It was just part of who I was, and as far as I knew, that was probably never going to change.

Her face flushed a light shade of pink. "Cass," she warned. "If you've been spying or something—"

"She hasn't," Loki put in. "Tony has."

The hue of my friend's face turned slightly darker. "Oh, I am going to kill him," she muttered. Before either of us could say anything, she had whirled on the ball of her foot and stormed off to the elevator, slamming the door shut behind her so hard that it rattled on its hinges. Loki turned back to me and brushed one of his fingers down the side of my face.

"Where were we, love?" he asked.

I tapped his lower lip gently. "I think we were somewhere around here."

He beamed, bent back over, and kissed me again.

I wasn't quite sure why that memory was racing over and over through my mind as I watched the commotion going on between the Lost Boys in the compound, but it might have had something to do with the fact that I'd just kissed Peter Pan and he was currently idly playing with the ends of my hair. "What do you think?" he asked, gesturing vaguely at the camp. There was a look of pride on his face. I was pointedly not saying anything—not being able to think of anything to say.

Finally I shrugged. "It looks like you've put a lot of work into it," I answered.

Peter Pan beamed proudly. "We have. Over the course of a very long time." After a pause, a thought seemed to strike him. "Boys! Come meet our special guest!"

Almost instantly I was swamped with boys either my age or younger—with the youngest being around ten. It hurt my heart. I knew from OUAT why Pan had found them: because they felt unloved. But how could a ten-year-old feel unloved? I knew that not everyone had the very affectionate home life that I'd had the privilege of enjoying growing up. But every ten-year-old deserved to be loved.

I got lost in the small sea of faces and confused through the never-ending stream of names. "I'm Cass. Nice to meet you." I must have repeated those six words dozens of times, shaking hands.

Finally Peter shooed them away from me. "Alright! You're gonna scare her! Go on!" he called. I slouched forward with relief—my scab throbbing—when the area around me cleared and I could breathe again. Gently Peter approached me. "Sorry about that. They've been asking questions for days."

I shrugged. "It's alright. I understand."

"Come on. Let's see if we can find some other way to pass the time while you heal."

End Note: I'm still working on it, but things will hopefully be happening soon! (Assuming I don't forget about this story for months on end again...)

Thanks for reading!

~Cass