Hey everyone! Here's the next chapter! Again, it's another rather long one. I've kind of been getting better at judging how long a chapter will be when it comes to the amount of words in it and everything. I've learned that four to five pages in a notebook, using both sides, tends to be around 1,000 or more pages, but it also depends on how much dialogue is in there too and everything. Anyway, enough of my rambling, enjoy this next chapter!

Disclaimer: I own nothing except for my OC Robin.

Eventually, during the time that I was explaining my relationship with Loki to Ayame, the rest of the team managed to round up the injured, frozen, or unconscious convicts and got them temporarily locked away. The police planned to rebuild the prison to be strong enough so that our previous incident wouldn't happen again. Ayame and I let Loki go. Why? Because we are two hopelessly romantic females who have issues. We didn't tell anyone about that, though. They'd get suspicious and angry at us if we did. We figured that Loki wouldn't try anything funny for a while. Only time would tell us if we were right or not. Now, we all sat in the shawarma joint that Stark had mentioned after the Chitauri Invasion years ago. We pretty much made it a tradition to eat shawarma after a victory. It felt only natural that we should, considering we dined on the food after our first big victory as a team.

Stark happily munched on his shawarma, still partially in his Iron Man suit. "Nothing like shawarma after kicking ass, right?"

Thor nodded in agreement, his eyes shining at the prospect of this wonderful food that none of us had ever heard of before Stark introduced us to it. "Another!" he exclaimed rather loudly, slamming the empty red basket on the wooden table.

I jumped a bit in my chair at the sudden clang of plastic hitting something solid and nearly breaking. I was so surprised, that I had almost thrown my shawarma across the room in reflex. "God, you've gotta stop doing that," I complained, "One of these days, you'll break the table, and then we won't be allowed to eat here anymore!"

Ayame giggled, "Oh relax, Robby, it's not that bad!"

I sighed, "Well, at least it's not glass. . ." I heard that the first time he was at a diner when he was cast out to Earth for arrogance, as he said, that he threw a glass coffee cup on the floor and it shattered. I didn't want that to happen here, not on my watch anyway.

Does it bother you, mortal? Loki asked.

A bit, yeah. Scares the shit outta me, actually.

I know what you mean. I've had to deal with that for ten thousand years.

Oh wow . . . I feel so sorry for you.

Thor simply shrugged and gulped down some soda obnoxiously loud. His table manners were atrocious to say the least. He ate like a Viking who hadn't eaten for days. Although, I suppose his horrible manners made some sense, since Vikings had followed his mythology a long time ago. I looked to Ayame and mouthed, "How do you find that cute?" I subtly gestured my thumb to Thor, whose blond beard was caked with shawarma bits. She simply giggled, shrugged, and resumed eating. I looked to Thor, the bits of food all over his face greatly bothering me. I know, I didn't have room to talk, I was much worse when I had lived on the streets in Russia, but I was raised by Captain America, and he was a big nut when it came to manners, I suppose it rubbed off on me. "Uh, Thor? You got something in your beard."

He looked up to me, his blue eyes filled with puzzlement, "I do? Where?"

"Everywhere." I threw a couple of white napkins at him, "Wipe your face off, you barbarian!"

He chuckled and complied, "My apologies."

I rolled my eyes, "Try not to stuff your face next time. There's plenty of time to enjoy your damn shawarma."

Loki chuckled, It's impossible for him to eat slowly.

Yeah, you're probably right, but it was worth a shot. I sat back in my chair, satisfyingly patting my stomach, "Well, I'm stuffed. I think I have a food baby."

Ayame laughed, "Oh really? When's it due?"

I looked to her and said in a serious tone, "In a few hours. It'll probably look like shit."

She cracked up laughing, and I joined in when I saw the confused looks of everyone else at our random conversation of having a food baby.

"Food baby?" Thor asked, confused at this terminology that no one had ever told him before.

I looked to him and grinned, "Yeah. You know how when you overstuff yourself it makes you look like you're preggers? We call that a food baby when that happens."

Bruce chuckled and shook his head, "You two are so weird."

Ayame and I giggled and said in unison, "Why thank you!"

They looked at us in surprise at our unified voice, it was something that didn't really happen much since Ayame and I aren't very similar. I continued and elaborated, "We take great pride in our weirdness. It is now a reflex to thank someone when they call us weird!"

Ayame smiled brightly, "Indeed!"

I stood up and threw away all of my garbage and then looked to the Avengers, "Ready to go back?" They all nodded and we headed on back to Stark Tower, which had become our unofficial headquarters. Once there, I went right up to my room and plopped down onto my suddenly irresistibly comfortable bed, not even bothering to change out of my rather uncomfortable armor. "I'm exhausted," I said with a sigh to no one in particular.

I heard a chuckle, but I didn't even bother to raise my head from the fluffy pillow. I already knew who it was. "Then why don't you rest?" I heard Loki ask.

"Because it's really hard and uncomfortable to sleep in armor and last time I did that I got a rash," I mumbled.

He chuckled and sat on the edge of the bed, looking at me and giving me one of those super sexy and dazzling smiles, "Then take your armor off."

"I'm too tired to get up," I groaned. The bed was way too comfortable to move away from, anyway.

"Really, Robin?" he shook his head in amusement.

"As I've told you before, I'm lazy."

"Apparently."

I sighed and unstrapped the black, intricately embroidered pouches and sheathes that held my knives and set them on the dark nightstand. "There," I stated, "Now it's slightly more tolerable."

"You're not even going to see to your wounds?"

I looked up at him blankly, my mind giving up on me. I did not recall getting wounds. Perhaps I was too tired to remember. "What?" Out of curiosity, I gently dabbed my index finger on my forehead, removing it and looking at the tip of my finger. It was smeared with bright crimson blood that was still fresh. "You know, I was so tired that I didn't even notice," I said after a few moments of silence.

He looked at me expectantly, as if he wanted me to get up and do something. "And now that you know they're there?"

I shrugged and said absently, "Meh, they'll clot up and heal eventually."

Loki rolled his eyes and gently touched my forehead, the warm and familiar feeling of his magic greeted me as it closed up my wounds. "You really should take better care of your injuries," he said softly.

I shrugged, "I've suffered worse."

He looked at me with deep concern in his green eyes, "How much worse?"

I paused and looked into his eyes, seeing the worry in them. I suddenly realized what I had said and looked away, trying to hold back the shock and pained emotions I felt. I didn't mean to say that, but I acted again without thinking. Sudden images of my back being ripped open cruelly by a cold, hard sword flashed in my mind. The remembrance of the pain that I felt at that time haunted me still, even when the cut on my entire back that went to the bone had healed after weeks of recovery and became a permanent scar. I could not shake that memory, the laughter of the man that had sliced me open still echoed in the back of my mind. I shuddered and closed my eyes, trying to fight back tears that hadn't spilled for years.

Loki noticed my sudden, fearful behavior, "Robin?"

I opened my eyes, the sound of his voice bringing me back to the present and calming me down a bit. I let out a small sigh of slight relief that he snapped me out of my haunted memory and I looked up at him, "It's nothing," I said softly, trying to reassure him as well as myself.

He saw the pain that didn't fully fade from my eyes and obviously wasn't convinced. I figured that he wouldn't be. After all, who could possibly be able to lie to the God of Lies? He sighed, "I will be here if you ever wish to tell me."

I nodded, "Thank you." I felt my exhaustion from the previous battle finally taking over. I yawned and relaxed my tense muscles and closed my eyes, trying to get a bit of sleep.

Loki chuckled slightly, "You're going to sleep now? You're not even going to wash yourself?"

I opened an eye, "Is it bad?"

He laughed, "You're a complete mess."

I slowly sat up and looked in the mirror across from my bed. He was right. There were smears of dirt and ash all over my face and body, and my black hair was grimy and a tangled mess, small bits of debris were in the mix of my wild jungle of hair. There was dried blood caked on my forehead and arms where my cuts had been healed and my eyes were wide, wild, and had unsightly bags under them. I shuddered. It looked like I was a zombie from a horror movie, minus, of course, the rotting flesh. "Oh wow. . ." I looked to Loki, "You couldn't just lie and say that I looked nice?"

He grinned, "I do not think that even I could pull off such a lie."

I sighed, "Fuck you."

He chuckled, "Someone a bit moody from the battle earlier?"

"I look like a fucking zombie right now, what do you think?" I paused, and then slowly stood up, "But at least now I have a reason to get up when I'm obviously dead tired and take a shower. Be right back." I grabbed some fresh clothes from my dresser and walked out to the bathroom. I did as everyone else did in the shower, stand under the warm water and contemplate the universe as I shampooed my hair. I was so exhausted, however, that I almost fell asleep several times while showering. In order to keep myself awake, I lightly sang some of my favorite songs. My voice was scratchy and sore, so I had sounded like a dying whale, so I stopped singing to save everyone else's ears from the horror. I returned to my room afterwards with my skin clean, and my tangled hair wet and free of debris and other unsightly items that might have been in there. I brushed out the tangles and, when I was done, looked to Loki, who was laying on my bed as if he had owned it as well. "There. Better now, Mr. I must worry about people's hygiene when they're dead tired?"

He chuckled at my sarcasm, "Much better."

I rolled my eyes and once again laid down on the bed, snuggling into the comforter and pillow. It felt like a bed made out of pure feathers. Loki smiled and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me closer to him and holding me close. I relaxed in his arms and smiled softly, gently kissing his cheek before snuggling into him and falling asleep.