Lori woke up in pain. Her whole body hurt as if she had been seriously roughhoused. Oh right, that was exactly what had happened. Thinking about that still made her feel terrible. She crawled under the covers again. Stupid Loki, he had pushed her into this and now she would look like the elephant man tomorrow in school and everyone would make fun of her instead of Liz Harrison. Self-pity and physical pain did not make a good combination. And of course that mean god was ignoring her again… maybe it had all been a ruse from the start so she would get beaten up.

Then she heard Loki's voice, sounding strangely subdued.

"I'm sorry."

"What?"

"I said I'm sorry, Lori Lauritsen."

Lori couldn't believe her ears.

"I seriously thought you were incapable of pronouncing those words."

"If I could I would humiliate myself to do penance. Odin knows that's how I usually paid for my tricks."

Loki had never spoken about his past before… She was mad at him, but her curiosity won it from her need to ignore him.

"What tricks did you do then?"

"Lots of things. Setting traps in the palace corridors, painting people's faces while they were sleeping, slipping sexually charged notes with false names in people's books, tricking people by making illusionary clones of myself… I will never forget the one time I caught the ambassador of Alfheim in one of my corridor traps, a net. Odin was so furious he let me hang in such a net myself for five months without food, for everyone to see. I even had to piss on the floor."

"Wow. Whatever I said about my dad being the worst in the universe… I take it back. Shit. What kind of parent does a thing like that?"

Loki didn't know why he was telling all this to the mortal, but he couldn't stop himself.

"The betrothed of my brother, Sif, who is the Goddess of War, always had something against me. So one day while she was sleeping I shaved her bald."

He could hear Lori chuckle.

"Loki, sometimes I wonder how you've survived up to now. You gave the Goddess of WAR a head shave? What did she do, royally kick your royal ass?"

Loki winced at the memory.

"Oh yes… but that wasn't the worst. Sif is the best warrior of Asgard, but she is also a maiden, and everyone sympathized with her. If she had been a man it would have been different, but now… the whole of Asgard hated me. I tried to undo my mistake…"

"Couldn't you magic her hair back?"

"No. I hadn't mastered such spells back then. I went to the realm of the dwarves and tried to get them to craft a magical wig for Sif, made out of the finest gold. Dwarves are pathological gamblers, so the only way I could win the wig was through a bet. I… I didn't have anything of value, but most people did want to see me dead, so I bet my head."

"WHAT? Now I'm seriously surprised you're still alive."

"The dwarves did manage to craft the wig, and I was supposed to be beheaded… But I talked myself out of it. Yet the dwarves didn't like what I had done, and they cursed the wig without me knowing."

"Oh no…"

Lori was totally immersed in the story…

"Oh yes. When Sif put it on and the wig became her new hair, it also turned raven black, and the spell was irrevocable."

"Could have been worse…"

"Sif is a vain goddess, despite being very brave on the battlefield. She was not happy… Odin believed it to be another one of my tricks, and when I tried to explain what must have happened he said he didn't want to hear my lies anymore. As a punishment he had the guards sew my mouth shut."

Lori remembered how Loki had reacted when she had threatened to sew his mouth shut, and now she understood why.

"Wow… Your dad is fucking abusive…"

"He's not even my real father. I… I was adopted."

"Don't the have like… adoption committees who control shit like that on Asgard?"

Loki chuckled dryly.

"Odin found me during a war, I had been abandoned to die because I was too small and weak for my real family, who belonged to the enemy race. He never told me until… not so long ago."

"Let me guess… That didn't end well?"

"You can say so. I…"

"You ended up here with a freaking alien army and a lot of big talk about freeing us of freedom. Yeah right that didn't end well."

Loki could hear the sarcasm in Lori's voice, and felt strangely hurt.

"Don't mock me, mortal!"

"I don't mock you Puny. I… You're just a tough person to live with, you know that?"

"Huh?"

"One moment you're an evil asshole, then you're almost acting as if we could be friends, the next moment you act as if you wouldn't touch me with a ten feet pole, and suddenly you're being so nice to me it almost feels as if you're not trying to… to… I don't know. Why are you nice to me when all you're going to do is go back to being evil and cause me even more trouble in the end?"

Loki didn't know what to say. The mortal girl was right… He indeed treated her in a highly confusing way. But that wasn't his fault! He never chose to be stuck with her! Somewhere in the back of his head he realized it was his fault though. Lori hadn't really done anything wrong, and he had been a complete jerk to her. But since when was he nice to mortals? There was an awkward moment in Loki's mind, in which he realized one thing.

He was nice to Lori… because he liked her. He really did.

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry just doesn't really cut it. I'm not going to sew our mouth shut or not feed you for months or anything drastic like that, but I'm still mad at you. Tell me… Did you think of this revenge plan only to get me in trouble?"

"Of course not. Getting you in trouble is getting myself in trouble too. Even if you assume I dislike you why would…"

"You don't seem to have too much of a problem with bringing yourself in trouble, from what I heard."

Loki swallowed and sighed.

"Do you know I have never apologized this much to the same person?"

"No way."

Lori's voice was dripping with sarcasm. Loki found it particularly unpleasant, it made him feel exposed and a little betrayed. He sighed.

"If a woman's tongue is her dagger… yours sure is a poisoned one…"

That made Lori raise her eyebrows.

"You know, compliments don't work that way."

"It wasn't a compliment. I was stating a fact about you, little poison-tongue. You made the god of mischief and lies spill his guts to you, and then you speak with such enmity…"

Lori heard nothing but tiredness in the god's voice. Loki was tired of it all. He was tired of trying to hate the mortal female, he was tired of apologizing, and he was tired of everything else too. Everything.

"Loki… Why did you attack earth?"

"Because… Because I… I wanted to be respected."

"No one respects assholes…"

"Odin is pretty well-respected though."

Lori was starting to see a pattern. If this Odin person had really humiliated Loki so much, and gotten respect for that, then it was no surprise that Loki believed being a world-conquering arse was going to bring him respect.

"When he told me of my heritage… It's too long a story really, but in the end I tried to kill myself."

Lori didn't know what to say. Over-confident asshole Loki wasn't the type of person for suicide in her idea…

"Really?"

"Again, long story. I don't like to reminiscence about that. Just know that somehow I met the alien species that attacked Manhattan… they made me believe I could be respected, that I could be powerful… If only I followed their orders."

"Shit. That… And you bought that?"

"I was…"

Loki didn't finish his sentence, because he couldn't really think of a word to describe his state. Despaired just didn't cover it… While thinking about it he could almost feel the feeling seep into his bones again, that worthless, sick, desperate sense of complete failure… A sensation that felt a bit like a hand softly caressing him pulled him out of it…. It took him a moment to realize it was Lori's attempt at comforting him… Normally such a sentimental thing would have made him scowl, but now… he was grateful for it. Knowing that Lori was in pain, he stretched out his mental hands as well, and tried to ease her discomfort. It was odd, how they fell asleep, mentally entangled, seeking comfort in each other's presence…

(Author's Notes)

Yes, at long last, Loki spills his guts. Not completely, there's still a lot left out, but... it's a beginning, no? Anyway, I thought they deserved some fluff. Loki will be kick-ass awesome and revenge-driven in the next chapter, but for now I just wanted some feels :D

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Thanks to TheSillyKitten, no-MY name's Anonymous, Cinderfire16 and Tiryn... *hands cookies* I love you guys...