Chapter Five:

Having Company is Sweet

Aph was keeping herself busy with a word search puzzle book. David had given it to her as a gift before she left to Stark's tower and despite wanting to throw it back at him, she couldn't resist a good word search puzzle. They were her absolute favorite and she hated that David knew her likings. Momentarily removing her eyes from her book she turned to look behind her seat. On the private jet's seat Bruce sat two seats back away from her sleeping. Beside him Tony was arguing with JARVIS about who knows what, probably about expanding his tower Aph thought carelessly. As she looked across Bruce she saw Natasha with closed eyes and earphones plugged into her ears. Beside her Clint took a nap as well. And in one of the seats that sat facing Clint and Natasha, Steve sat in one of them as he focused and rather clumsily learned how to use a laptop that was in his lap. Aph couldn't help but crack a smile as she spotted hard concentration on Steve's face mixed with pure desperation. Behind those three Thor and Loki sat together and Aph noticed yet again that Loki didn't look all too pleased to be seated along side his brother. She didn't even observe them for ten seconds when Thor's sleeping head fell on to Loki's shoulder. She spotted right away all the disgust and annoyance quickly jump onto Loki's face as he glared at his brother's head, but then feeling eyes looking at him he snapped his head toward those eyes. His eyes instantly bore angrily into Aph's calm and lazy eyes and she simply turned around back in her seat to continue working in her word search puzzle book. She managed to find ten words in thirty seconds when the seat beside her was all of sudden occupied.

"What brings you here, my Prince?" Aph said to him without removing her eyes or focus from her puzzle.

He was quite surprised she had called him a Prince, which wasn't wrong, but something he hadn't heard in a long time. "I thought perhaps you could give me better company than Thor."

Aph encircled the last word on the puzzle and then turned the page and started on a new puzzle. "Why do you hate your brother so much?" She asked, truly curious. She could never have imagined hating her sister. And probably because Thor had stopped Loki from taking over the world wasn't the only cause of hatred between those two, it seemed the hatred ran way back before Loki ever came to Earth. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

He looked at her to see if she would pay attention to what he was going to tell her. But seeing her eyes glued to the book he doubt she even asked because she cared, but who truly listened to him now a days? "Thor was Father's favorite, not to mention Thor was better at everything than me. I lived in Thor's shadow of greatness all my life, and truly I did not mind because I knew I was just as good as him if I were given the chance. But when I found out the reason why Father never liked me I knew I had a chance to prove myself, but as you can see Thor ruined everything."

"Why doesn't your father like you?" She asked him caringly because she knew what it felt to not have a father's love.

Her soft voice almost melted all of Loki's anger as he put the answer together in his mind. "He adopted me." There was no use going into detail of who he truly was because he was sure she didn't know about the nine realms.

"I'm sorry, Loki. Just so you feel better I was adopted too."

"Really?"

She finally lifted her eyes from the puzzle book to look at him and lightly laughed, "No, not really."

He couldn't help a small smile at her little joke. For some reason she always managed to make him feel more pleased and calm, perhaps knowing that she was in a similar situation as him. "Did you and your sister ever differ?" He asked, remembering that she had mentioned a sister who died.

Aph sighed and reclined deeper into the seat, letting the memories come into her mind. "Yes, a lot actually. Mostly because she was jealous that I was more special than her. If she only knew what a horrible burden my skills were, she would have been grateful to be a normal human. But she never saw that, only seeing that she wanted to be just like me but couldn't. I never let that get in my way though and I never treated her any less. I always made sure we were treated the same way but it almost never happened so I would always treat my sister better than I did to myself but she never believed me that I truly loved her. It-it were those thoughts in her mind that led her to her end."

Loki didn't know what to say to her. He had so much in his mind to say yet he couldn't say it. But he did see that she acted like his brother, but his brother wouldn't make such a hard effort like she did to make him feel as an equal and loved. Turning his head back as he realized he was still staring at her, he began to fish for something out of his pocket. He pulled out a small zip lock bag filled to the brim with gummy bears, gummy worms, and jelly beans. Aph was beyond horrified as she stared at the bag full of sugar.

"Are you serious?" She couldn't help but ask, shock still on her face. Then she didn't know if she was shocked or amused and said to him, "I can't believe you are god of mischief and tried to take over the Earth killing thousands of humans and you like candy? I don't know if that's funny or just plain weird."

He smirked at her, "I am very fond of sweets. In Asgard there are only sweet desserts, and not many at that. I would steal those sweet desserts from the kitchen whenever I wanted and shared with my brother in secret. You can only imagine what I felt when I found out that you humans have sweets whenever you like, and many kinds of sweets."

She watched him grab a gummy bear and quickly pop it into his mouth. As she watched him chew with delight it reminded her of her sister, who also had sweet tooth for all the sugar in the world. She closed her book of puzzles and asked him, "How does Asgard look like?" She knew everything there was to know about her home; her universe. Yet she never thought there'd actually be people, or even gods, out there! She knew everything but that and now she was determined to learn everything about Asgard and anything else out there.

He thought back to his home who had rejected him but could never hate the beauty his own home held. "It is quite beautiful, but I really do not know how to describe it more descriptively in words. You would have to go one day and look for yourself."

How amazing would that be, Aph thought, to go to a whole new world and learn it's wonders! But how would she go, was now the question that plagued her mind. "How would I get there, though?" She asked him and watched him put a gummy worm in his mouth.

As he chewed the gummy a few times he opened his mouth and said, "You would need the Bifrost. It is a portal that connects realms."

"Realms? We are not the only two who exist?" She was now very curious as to everything that Loki was saying to her.

He nodded his head no without looking at her, too focused in which sweet he was choosing to eat next. "There are nine realms, including this realm."

Amazing, Aph thought as her eyes shown, there are more worlds than I thought there would be. "What if you can't use the Bifrost?"

He looked at her with a grin, "You would need magic to open secret portals. But you cannot just open them, for example, you must find the hidden portal in this world to open it. Every realm has its own secret portal located in many places. There could be up to more than hundred portals in just one realm."

"Wow," was all Aph could muster from her mouth. After all she loved learning new things and this new knowledge that Loki was providing her with was just like eating thousands of candies. "Can you find those portals here on Earth by any chance?" She was now determined to put more new information in her mind, expanding it a little more.

He looked at her again and angrily spoke, "I cannot because my Father has taken my magic from me."

"So that was your punishment. Your father sent you here to live as a mortal, didn't he?"

"Not a complete mortal, but in a way yes," he said annoyed and stuffed a handful of jelly beans in his mouth. "I can get sick and feel tried and hungry more occasionally. Not to mention that I can sustain injuries more easily and I do not have my magic to heal myself."

"I know how you feel, Loki. Being a mortal sucks." Aph sighed.

"Sucks?" He questioned her, not understanding.

She lightly laughed again as she said, "It mean something awful. Being a mortal is awful. See? Now how does the Bifrost work? Do you open the portal yourself?"

"No," he replied, "Hemidall is the only one who can open the Bifrost."

"Who is Hemidall?"

Loki started to get irritated with her now. She was asking too many questions already and wasn't giving him any peace. Nonetheless he answered her, hoping it would be the last question she asked, "Hemidall is the omniscent god. He is wise and all knowing."

Aph opened her book of puzzles and grabbed her pencil. She wanted to ask more questions but seeing as Loki replied her last question with a rude tone, she guessed she was annoying him with her questions. But could you blame her? She wanted to know more and she hoped that later on Loki wouldn't be to irritated to ask him more questions. Loki was glad that she finally left him alone. Enjoying the quiet and peace in the air, he ate his sweets happily. But it wasn't long before a voice beside is hear spoke and made him growl in anger.

"Brother, you have sweets! Give me some, Loki." Thor demanded.

"Get away Thor," Loki said angrily and just for good measures, he moved his bag of sweets away from his brother. "I got these sweets myself, go find your own!"

"But you used to share with me in Asgard! Why not now?" Thor said quite madly. He wanted those sweet and delicious and delectable sweets that taunted him from the bag.

"That was before you ruined my plans for subjugation!" Loki almost shouted at him. He could see that Thor was ready to kill him for his sweets.

Aph ignored their conversation and was carefully encircling a word she had found when all of a sudden, her perfect circle turned into a hard and rigid dark line across the paper. Loki almost laid on her arm, leaning away from his brother in an attempt to keep his sweets safe from Thor's hands. They began to shout, waking up Clint and Bruce from their sleep. By now Loki fully laid on Aph as he kept his sweets far away from Thor but Thor would have none of that and started crawling on top of his brother to reach for the candy. Aph could clearly see the bag of candy hanging in front of her face as Loki tried to keep it safe, and noticing Thor crawling on top of Loki made her worry. They were going to crush her underneath their weight and all for a stupid bag of sugar! "Guys!" Aph squeaked out from underneath Loki, "just give him the stupid candy!"

"No, they are my sweets not his!" Loki shouted as he heard Aph's horrid suggestion.

Because her arm was still resting on the harm holder, Loki was crushing it against the metal. She didn't worry until she noticed when Loki jerk quickly to one side as he moved away his bag of sweets from Thor's hand who almost got it, and felt her bracelet snag with the end of the arm holder. She knew that if Loki moved again he would pull the bracelet and the damn thing would take it as a sign that she was trying to remove it. Aph had to gasp as Loki's weight became heavier on top of her, knowing that Thor had probably fully crawled on top of Loki by now. With her other arm she had to grasp Loki's shoulder to give her herself some levitation from his body laying on top of her any more and so she can breathe. The brothers started to shout even louder and before Aph could say that they were going to get shocked, Loki jerked yet again.

Outside the jet as it flew, one of the very first windows on its left side lit with a quick flash of light. It seemed as nothing more than someone probably snapping a picture but inside was a whole different story. Inside Loki still laid on Aph with a face that held no emotion. As Aph laid underneath Loki she too had a face that held no emotion. But Thor was off his brother and on his feet unfazed, with a smile from ear to ear. He had successfully gotten the bag of candies.

"Victory!" Thor shouted in triumph and held the bag of candies in the air so everyone could see. But then his face twisted into confusion as he brought the bag down and closer to his face, "What is this?" He asked bewildered and disgusted. The gummy bears and the gummy worms along with the jelly beans were melted, a mushy goo of colors bubling inside the bag. From behind Tony burst into a fit of laughter.

"They melted!" Tony managed to say before he laughed even harder.

"Why?" Thor asked very sadly as he turned to him.

"It's sugar Thor," Clint said laughing as well, "sugar melts with heat!"

As Loki regained himself back from the shock, literally, he slowly removed himself from Aph and sat back on his seat properly while he throwing daggers at the back of Thor's head and staring sadly at the bag of melted candy. The first thing Aph did was dislodge the bracelet from the arm holder and sit in her seat still feeling the awful shock that ran through her body. Thor couldn't help but chuckle as well and turned back to his brother.

"You can have the sweets back," Thor said holding out the bag of melted candy that almost seemed to stretch towards Loki.

"I do not want it anymore!" Loki shouted as him and swatted the bag away.

Because the heat from the melted candy was too much, the plastic bag became part of the sticky goo. And when Loki swatted it away the bag had ripped and landed on Aph's right leg. Because sugar does not cool down fast like wax, it was essentially having a volcano on her leg that spewed endless lava. Aph was brought out of her shock from the horrible heat that landed on her leg and seeped into her pants. She yelped and leaped to her feet and ran to the bathroom as fast as she could.