Loki had cooked, and Hela complimented him on the excellent risotto. He only threw her a tired smile.
"I am glad you like it, Hela dear."
"You look tired, father."
"I don't sleep well. It's of no concern. Better tell me how you are doing with the assignment I gave you."
Hela suddenly felt something clinch in her stomach. The assignment. The nefarious plan for which she had come to New York with her father. She masked her thoughts with a mask of quiet indifference when she answered.
"I need more time. A plan like this…" Hela didn't finish her sentence; instead she caught her father's eyes. If she didn't know him so well she would have thought they were pleading… Loki sounded disappointed when he slowly nodded.
"Yes. You are right, my dear daughter. Take your time. Don't forget what you promised me though…"
"I won't, father. You know I love you."
He thinks I don't see it… Hela thought. He thinks I don't see that slight twitch in his face. It made her sad, seeing her father like that. He didn't believe her, and that hurt.
"There is a tutoring class in school this saturday. I would like to go there, to gather more… information. Unless that is, it causes you trouble. I wouldn't want to keep you waiting."
Loki flashed her a smile.
"I have never been in time to pick you up so far, you needn't be afraid of keeping me waiting. If anything, I kept you waiting long enough."
"Thank you."
They cleared the table, and Hela did her best to keep a straight face. Why hadn't she told Loki about Peter? It wasn't as if there was anything to hide, it was just another pathetic mortal that would end up in her realm in the end. Another face in a sea of faces, not worth remembering. And yet… Later, in her room, Hela thought it over. Her father would definitely have approved of her mixing with the mortals; with the plan in mind it was a very good move. Then why did she lie? Hela was good at lying, it ran in the family after all… but she didn't like doing it. She liked the honesty and equality of death above the ambiguous nature of life. Ambiguous… It almost made her snort. If there were anyone ambiguous in the whole of the nine realms, it would be her. Perhaps that was her fate. Twofaced and ambiguous in everything, from her face to her behaviour…
(pagebreak)
"What are you doing in my kitchen?"
"Making a picnic."
Tony Stark grinned when hearing that.
"Ah, so you have asked the Norse Cutie out on a date?"
Peter couldn't help but grin back.
"Yeah, thanks for the advice, man."
"My pleasure, as JARVIS would say. What does she look like?"
"Black hair, green eyes, pale skin. She's really pretty, and tall but not too tall. And she's a bit of a goth, I think, but it's hard to tell with the uniform and all."
"Sounds like a good catch… When are you bringing her in for inspection?"
Peter rolled his eyes.
"Never, Stark."
"Ooh, afraid I might steal her from you?"
"She's 15, you perv!"
Stark muttered something about fresh green leafs while pouring himself another drink.
Natasha and Clint were gaming in the living room, Thor was visiting, or "courting" as he called it, his lover Jane, and Bruce was upstairs to meditate. Peter put the finishing touches to his picnic: strawberries, in October! Sometimes having money really was a blast…
"You could have just ordered a picnic, you know."
"That's not the same."
Tony Stark rolled his eyes and finished his second drink.
"Anyway, that girl of yours, she doesn't have horns, does she? Because she has black hair, and she's Norse, she might as well be related to Loki."
"Not all black-haired people in Norway are related to Loki, you know. I doubt there is anyone related to Loki in Norway, or anywhere else on earth for that matter. He's way too high-and-mighty to screw a mortal…"
Stark smirked, stole a strawberry from the basket and grabbed the whiskey bottle for a third drink.
"What would Thor say if he heard you talk like that about his little brother?"
Peter frowned and retorted.
"What would Pepper say if she saw that's your third drink in less than an hour?"
"Less than half an hour, give me some credit please."
Peter shook his head. Stark was undoubtedly an alcoholic, and he doubted he had ever seen the man completely sober. It appeared Stark was even proud of his alcohol intake. He wondered how the man never threw up in his Ironman suit…
(pagebreak)
Happy drove Peter to school to pick up Hela. She stood on her usual spot, black coat, black handbag, black boots. Her green eyes caught Peter's even before he opened the door. She looked… distressed. Was she having second thoughts about the outing, perhaps?
"Hi there!" Peter smiled. "Ready for the park?"
Hela granted him her half-smile and nodded. During the car trip they didn't say a word, and Peter noticed how Hela suspiciously eyed the driver. Happy dropped them off at the entrance at Central Park West, and Peter grinned when he saw Hela's eyes widen at the sight of the green. Armed with the picnic basket they started their walk. Peter saw how part of Hela's melancholia seemed to fall off her face, making her look younger, happier. She opened her coat and let the wind ruffle her dress and hairs, her step almost dancing.
After a while, she turned to Peter.
"Thank you."
It was heartfelt. Peter smiled happily.
"Living in New York and never having seen Central Park is really a shame, especially when you love nature."
"I haven't seen a lot of this city."
Now that was a euphemism. All she had ever seen was the school, the apartment, some streets around those locations, and the small graveyard garden. It hadn't seemed necessary to go sightseeing…
"New York is really nice, but you need to take your time to go see things, otherwise it's just another big and dirty city."
Peter said it with the confidence of a local.
"My father doesn't approve of me going out very much."
"Really?"
"He… is not exactly… I think you would call it a… a people person."
"Well, at least he let you come today, so that's something, right?"
That only earned him a slightly mocking smile. Internally, Peter was already making an inventory of Hela's expressions. The most common was the melancholic, wary look, but she also had a half-smile to indicate her approval, a wider smile for happiness, and a mocking smirk to show her superiority. He believed that last one would be directed quite often towards Tony Stark, would she know him.
"What do you have in that basket?"
"A picnic. Food and drinks" he clarified. "Hungry?"
"I would like to see the contents, yes."
They sat down, and Peter unpacked his carefully prepared picnic. They were lucky; the weather was exquisite for a day in October. Hela was surprised to see strawberries, salmon sandwiches and chocolate mousse, among other things. She tasted everything, and Peter watched her in admiration. She ate fast and hungry, but without ever losing that air of elegance. Norse etiquette education had to be very stern…
"You like it?"
Hela looked up from a sausage roll and flashed him an almost childishly innocent smile. A new one for the inventory…
"This food is fascinating!"
Her happy expression reminded Peter strongly of Thor eating pop tarts. When she finished the roll, she turned to him, looking serious again all of a sudden.
"I am utterly grateful for this experience, Pa-Peter. I… I wish to give you something in return. What do you desire?"
It was surreal. Peter had the feeling he had just found the magic lamp and rubbed it three times. He softly shook his head.
"Hela, all I want is to be your friend. I don't need anything from you… All I really want is to get to know you better."
Hela looked at him with big eyes, as if the concept of friendship was rather foreign to her.
"I… But…" She couldn't seem to find the words. She had never had a friend before. She had her servants in the realm of the dead, and her father who loved and respected her, but further… Friendship was something only for the healthy, strong Aesir, not for the deformed illegitimate child of the second prince… And now this boy, this mere mortal, wanted to befriend her?
Seeing her slight panic, Peter sent her an encouraging smile.
"You know, you could always repay me with information, if you really find it necessary. I know nothing about you!"
Hela nodded. That she could take peace with. It was more in the range of things she understood, transactions and the like. 90% of the politics in Helheim had to do with bartering after all.
"I miss my homeland more than anything, even though I didn't have any friends there. Both my father and I were too different from the rest of the people, there where we lived. My mother was from abroad, and there was… well, she was not of an appreciated race, if you understand what I mean. In the end, we were outcasts. That's why we moved."
Peter was silent after hearing that. He had known that Hela probably hadn't had an easy life; she was way too mature for her age for that, but having to move because of racism?
"And your mother…"
"She… she died in childbirth."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. As the people of my homeland said, those of her kind are better off in the realm of the dead."
That sort of shocked Peter.
"Hela, you can't be seriously telling me that people believe that shit? You don't believe it yourself do you?"
"I don't believe it. My father found her worth loving, and I trust his judgement. But ask anyone who lives there, he will tell you the same thing."
"That's…"
"Please, ask no more. I granted you your information."
Hela sounded cold again, old and stern. It wasn't how a fifteen-year-old should sound, Peter thought. He tried to brighten up the conversation.
"Do you want an ice-cream?"
"Ice… cream?"
"What? They don't have ice-cream in Norway? Come on, you'll love this!"
He sort of pulled Hela along to the closest ice-cream cart. A little later they were both licking a big cone of mint chocolate chip ice-cream. Once again that fascinated, surprised expression graced Hela's face, leaving the awkward conversation forgotten.
"This realm holds many surprises!"
Peter grinned widely. He had slowly gotten used to Hela's unusual manner of speech, and now all he noticed was her happiness. It made him feel happy too…
While they were eating their ice-cream, the sky started to darken, and suddenly the rain splashed down on them. Hela let out a surprised squeak at first, but quickly enough she had opened an umbrella. His umbrella, Peter noticed. They quickly gathered the remnants of the picnic, stuffed it all in the basket, and made their way out of the park. Happy picked them up, and dropped Hela off at the school again. Right before he closed the door, Peter caught Hela's eyes. Her green eyes with their piercing look now only held a soft feeling he would describe as gratitude.
"I thank you, Peter Parker."
The phrase was pronounced with bone-chilling authority. Peter couldn't shake the look she had given him when the car drove away…
(pagebreak)
Days passed, and the whole Avengers team noticed something had changed about Peter.
"Well, tell me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that baby spider has a girlfriend."
Clint remarked while playing bowling on Wii Sports. Steve looked up from his book.
"Oh? And why would you think so?"
"He's being less of a pubertal pain in the ass lately, that's why. "
"Maybe he has made friends?"
Clint shook his head.
"Nah, I bet it's a girl. Haven't you seen how he dreams away when he thinks we're not looking?"
"I'm not a spy, Clint. When it seems as if I'm not looking, I usually am not looking."
"Boring."
Clint pointed his attention back to the game, and the conversation fell silent again. Then Clint muttered."
"I wonder if she's a mutant too. Wouldn't surprise me if she's like… half lizard or something. Would really be something for him…"
(pagebreak)
"I am very, very curious as to how this happened."
Hela remained stoic as usual while she stood behind her father, who stood bent over the kitchen table with his bare ass facing her. Armed with a pair of long tweezers, she plucked little metal bullets from Loki's behind.
"I don't want to talk about it."
"No, really. A hail gun? Who in his right mind goes into battle with you with a hail gun?"
"A demented old lady apparently. She witnessed my attack from her flat, and she found it her civilian duty to shoot me with her husband's hail gun. Now you know it."
Hela restrained herself from giggling or tsking disapprovingly, and simply continued to remove the hail from her father's backside.
"Go on, mock your poor father."
"I would never mock someone who just got a full shot of hail in his ass."
Hela couldn't keep the sarcasm out of her voice though, and for a moment she feared she might have offended Loki. Then she heard a soft chuckle.
"It was mighty embarrassing. I hope that thundering oaf hasn't seen it. Auwch."
"That was the last one."
With a tingling sound the last of the bloody little bullets fell into a small metal recipient.
"Remind me Hela dear, why couldn't I just remove the metal through magic?"
"Because it would have ripped your backside to shreds. I haven't forgotten the last time you tried to magic out a bullet you accidentally perforated a lung."
Loki sighed deeply as he pulled up his pants.
"Thank you, my dear daughter."
Hela smiled.
"That's what you have a daughter for, father."
Loki granted her a tired smile and retreated to his bedroom, leaving Hela alone. She warmed up a bowl of leftover spaghetti and crawled up on the sofa with a book about the invention of the telephone. She found that she became more fascinated with Midgard the more she learned about it. Did her father know all these things, the ingenious inventions humans did, the strange variety among their indigenous people, the taste of ice-cream? She had read about the history of these humans, surprised by their opinions on many things. Their realm was inhabited with black-skinned people, people with yellow or red skin, and even strange creatures with white skin and red eyes they referred to as "albino's". Such difference, and yet all of these people were considered equal. It was mind-baffling. There was no ruler, no owner of this realm, and still there appeared to be something connecting humans with each other. Hela wished she had more time, more time to learn of these people and their ways. No matter how backwards they were in many things, she also had the feeling they were majorly advanced in other fields…
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