A/N: I am so happy you readers liked my story. Thank you for the support! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing
He was too pissed off at her to ask where they were going. Her car stunk because the seats got soaked in rain water last night so all the windows were rolled down. Which was fine except the only thing bothering him was the damn music she had at max volume, singing along loudly to the lyrics.
It's not that she couldn't sing. Her voice was beautiful, but it was not by any standards improving his ever-growing migraine. He didn't think it was possible, he'd never been sick a day in his life, yet here he was. Reduced to Midgardian torture and headaches.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Kira asked, noticing his furrowed brows and elbow resting on the rolled down window's edge as he brooded.
He groaned, "What isn't wrong?"
"I meant right now, broody."
He spat, his patience snapping, "Lower that wretched thing before my head bloody explodes!"
Kira sighed, turning it off. She opened a compartment and pulled out a pair of sunglasses that she offered to him. He snatched them instantly, placing it on his eyes, and sighing in mild relief.
She spoke softly, "I'll buy you medicine after we eat, but Loki, you might have a concussion. I hit you pretty hard last night and-"
He sneered vehemently, "I wish it was just a concussion. What I have been sentenced to is death in life."
Kira held back an eye roll at his drama, "Do explain?"
He rested his head back against his seat as he spoke, "Why should I? You won't believe anything I say."
He could feel her scrutinizing gaze the whole drive, but was too fiscally and emotionally exhausted to snap at her for it.
Kira dropped the car at what she called a car wash to get it cleaned and then it would be taken to a mechanics and since that would take a few hours they were now standing on a curb awaiting an UBER to pick them up. Whatever the hell that was, he thought.
Kira shook her head in disbelief, fiddling with her phone, "I can't believe you dented the hood, ruined, and dirtied up the inside of my one hundred-thousand-dollar Tesla." She scoffed.
He turned his head sharply to look down at her, "What?"
Did he hear right? She dares to accuse him?
"You heard me," She peered up with annoyed eyes. "I should've left you there to die. At least my leather seats and carpet wouldn't be fucked up."
He was about to insult and scream at her in outrage for considering him to be less important than a bloody car when he noticed her sly smirk.
"You're fucking with me." He says through gritted teeth and she replied even though it was a statement.
"Maybe." She shrugged and it took all his self-control to not strangle her right there in broad daylight.
The UBER turned out to be another car, but with a driver to take you places if you pay them.
"In Asgard only the royal and rich can afford this kind of luxury. Oh, how Midgardian standards have dropped to the ground over the past couple of centuries." He frowned in disgust in the backseat of the car beside Kira.
She smacked his chest, "Could you shut up for once in your life?" She glared before turning to the confused, slightly offended driver. "I'm sorry, sir, he's got a hangover and hit his head pretty badly so ignore him."
Kira gave him one last threatening look before turning her attention back to her phone. He crossed his arms and balled his shaking hands into fists.
Inhale. Exhale. You'll be rid of her soon.
The UBER dropped them off at what Kira called a diner. He stayed close to her as the place was jam packed with Midgardians and his anxiety levels were steadily rising. It smelled of grease and something else he couldn't quite name. Where in the hell had she taken him?
"Loki," Kira glanced over her shoulder when she felt him pressed against her back breathing heavily the moment they entered. "Oh, for the love of... C'mon." She gripped his wrist and she snatched an empty booth at the end of the diner. They sat across from each other and he took off his sunglasses with a shaky sigh of relief.
"What is this hell hole you've brought me to?" He settled her with an icy glare.
Kira scoffed, "You're what? 6'2, 6'3? A god? And you have fucking anxiety? If you were me for a single day, you'd die!"
He gripped the edge of the table with such a tight grip the wood crunched, "Well, I've never been in such a confined space of this size, much less one filled to the brim with Midgardians!" He hissed.
She leaned over the table and forcefully pried his fingers off the table, "Loki, I swear to my dwindling patience that I'm not fucking paying for this motherfucking table!"
"Have I mentioned that you have a really colorful vocabulary for a lady? If you spoke like that in Asgard-"
She cut him off, "I don't give a shit. This is Seattle, Washington of the United States. A free country where I can speak as dirty as I want. Not Asgard. Now look at the menu and choose something."
He scowled, but decided not to infuriate her further and picked up the menu to read it. It was a relief that most of the stuff here he'd eaten before.
He cleared his throat and Kira glanced up expectantly, "What is this coffee? You mortals seem to live off it. Is it like tea?"
"It's a hot drink, most of the time. Bitter if you drink it black. Kind of like you. Try it." She replied shortly and he rolled his eyes.
Insufferable woman.
Yet again she was using her phone after barely glancing at the menu, replying to emails as she put it. It was then that he truly saw her clearly for the first time as a cloud moved in the sky to allow a ray of sunlight stream through the window pane.
Kira wasn't extremely short, more like petite, but she had a slim, hourglass figure that could make any man drool and women green with envy. Her skin was light and smooth with delicate hands with fingernails painted a soft pink and he knew that the mop of hazelnut hair currently in a messy bun atop her head ended halfway down her butt if let loose. Her heart shaped face, framed by tendrils of her curls, harnessed her ever-changing emotions and full, pink lips that momentarily turned into a small, pretty smile, but it was her round eyes surrounded by long lashes that outshone her physical beauty the most.
They contained every shade of blue imaginable with specks of silver, you could drown in those eyes. In one second they could be a soft, baby blue, the next a bright, happy sky, and the next icy daggers that were cold enough to burn. Sometimes they were unreadable, but they always had a slight glow to them. He'd only ever seen eyes that resembled her in Alfheim...
How was it possible? The most beautiful woman in the Nine Realms was a mortal, a Midgardian. He couldn't comprehend it and someone as studious and know-it-all as himself didn't like the feeling of the unknown.
"Loki!" Kira snapped a finger in front of his face, breaking his trance.
"What?" He replied, resuming his usual stoic expression.
She gestured toward the waitress waiting for him to order. He told the waitress his order, not noticing the way she was practically fawning over him. When she left to put in the order Kira rounded on him.
"Why were you practically drooling over me, you obvious bastard?"
"You don't want to know and I was not drooling." He replied indifferently, passing a hand through his hair that for the first time wasn't in its perfect slicked back state.
"I do want to know." She says stubbornly, quickly glancing away from his hair with pink cheeks.
"Fine. I was wondering why you were so beautiful," He told her matter of factly. "It perturbed me."
She was shocked for a moment before her expression turned into one of annoyance.
"Told you so."
"Why? Why does it bother you so much?"
"Because you're a Midgardian. Mortals aren't that gifted. It's not normal."
A long silence as she started to fume.
"...Oh my God you're such a narcissistic asshole! There're not enough words to describe how much of a douchebag you are! I don't give a fuck if you're maybe a European spy or some psychotic idiot who escaped a psych ward or actually a god, but I'm done. No wonder you got banished from Asgard! You're the biggest son of a bitch ever!"
Kira managed to keep her voice low enough for only him to hear, but he could hear the strain in her voice at doing so before she got up and stormed out of the diner with him hot on her heels.
"Shit! Hey! Kira, hey, stop listen-"
"Don't touch me or you'll regret it." She turned on her heels to shove him away roughly before he could grab her hand.
"Listen to me then." He growled in frustration and he managed after a whole minute of her glare to get a curt nod out of her.
"You've got a minute." She placed her hands on her hips expectantly.
He took a deep breath, "One of my many monikers is the god of lies, but I swear that everything I've ever said to you has been true. I've never been so honest in my life and I've never needed someone to believe me as much as I do you. I've never begged anyone to believe me until this moment, so please, I'm begging you, Kira." He pleaded, suddenly feeling vulnerable and actual fear of being left alone. Up to this moment she has been his anchor, his distraction from the sad reality of his new life. He's loathe to admit it, but she's his last and only hope.
She had been biting her lip, staring at the ground the whole time he spoke. But now she reached up with her hand to grasp the nape o his neck and forced him to look her in the eye while her other hand rested where his heart was. He swallowed thickly as she searched his eyes in suspicion her face a mere inch away.
"Are you lying to me?" She whispered.
"No." He replied firmly and she released him just as fast as she had grabbed him.
"I'm a breathing lie detector. Helps me with my job." She shrugged in explanation at his confused state. "Look, Loki, I believe you, okay? But if you want me to help you, you must tell me everything and try not to be such an asshole all the damn time. Because I have a life and it's busy enough as it is for me to also put up with your crap. Deal?"
He clenched his jaw. She was the one calling him an asshole like she wasn't the vain of his existence too? Or maybe she was like that because of him? Most likely.
"Fine..." He grumbled and shook her outstretched hand. "Can we go eat now?"
She laughed, "Yes."
And just like that the tension disappeared.
He didn't know whether if it was not having eaten for a whole day, but it was the best meal he'd ever had in a long while. Eggs, bacon, and miraculously the place had fruit. Kira took out her phone to record him trying coffee for the first time.
He sniffed at it skeptically after adding a spoon of sugar to it and brought it to his lips where he instantly cringed.
"What? Is it bad?" Kira chuckled at his scrunched-up expression.
"It's fine I guess." He shrugged. "I've had better drinks."
"Well, that was anticlimactic." She laughed, setting the phone down. "You should try real ground coffee. The stuff they sell here is probably instant."
"Uh-huh..." He replied distractedly, stifling a snicker at her mouth smeared with something she called Nutella. A kind of chocolate, in her words, that she swore by and she had ordered practically a tub of it on her pancakes.
"What?" She says and he leaned over with a napkin to wipe her mouth as he snickered.
"Do all mortals lack table manners? Or is just you? You and Volstagg could have an eating competition."
"Screw you." She childishly stuck her tongue out at him, taking the napkin out of his hands to do it herself. "Who's Volstagg?"
"A friend of my brother Thor. He could eat a pheasant stuffed inside a whole boar without batting an eye."
She smirked proudly, "Well, I can eat a whole tub of cookie dough and popcorn in one sitting. I think that is far more badass."
They left with full stomachs and walked through the cloudy city towards a mall. She explained to him that it was a place to buy clothes and shoes. It was just as crowded as the outside world and he gravitated around Kira instinctively. Not wanting to lose her since he didn't have magic to prevent that.
"So, what's your style? Besides armor and all that prince stuff... Loki?" Kira glanced up when he had stopped her by tugging her wrist. He had stopped to look at a display in one of the shops.
"That attire," he pointed out. "Does is it reflect respect and authority?"
Kira blinked, "Uh... I guess so, but suits are mainly for fancy occasions or work. You can get a couple of them if you like, but you'll also need actual clothes for everyday normal stuff."
He cringed at the word normal.
"If what I'm currently wearing is normal I'd rather die." He glared down at his black jeans and worn out Ninja Turtles t-shirt.
Kira laughed, "Yeah, it's not. I swear, Loki, I'll make you as stylish as me!"
He gave her a skeptical once over. She was wearing overalls with one of the straps hanging loose and a black crop top shirt that had cartoon cats flying on pizza slices and beat-up shoes that matched his which she called Vans.
Yeah. He was fucked.