Thor perked his head up and practically tripped over himself trying to skirt down the hill. He edged around assorted audience members, then got to the top of one of the small stands that'd been set up and ran down the benches, two at a time, taking care not to spill the drinks.

Freya was standing, completely unperturbed, in the middle of a swarm of assorted vehicles; rally cars, off-road cars, some bog-standard sports cars and some bikes, all going nowhere fast. Since they'd arrived, two sets of around 10 cars had taken off from the starting line (finishing, obviously, somewhere else). There was a constant sound of tires on track, and engines, reverberating around the valley, and nearby, people were driving into and around a sort of collecting ring off to the side. But Freya looked as comfortable as if she were in her own living room.

When he finally reached her, she was grinning at him with her hands on her hips, looking as if she were trying not to double over laughing. He saw now that she'd changed slightly, and had her hair in a scruffy bun, with a cap and matching jacket sporting the 'Vanir Motors' logo.

Loki was nowhere to be seen.

'Your drink,' Thor offered, winded, and then made himself busy trying not to look as afraid as he was of ending up as roadkill. Freya waved the champagne away immediately and took his hand, dragging him across the road to one of the paths that lead down to the quarry.

On the other side, safely out of the way, they could see almost all of the activity in the competitors' section below them. Freya looked around, thoughtful, and then indicated one of the fairly glitzy looking lorries that had just pulled in. It was lowering its ramp.

As Thor watched, a car was reversed straight out of the back of the lorry, shooting over the ramp and slamming ungracefully into the ground. The few men who'd been buzzing around it jumped back, obviously startled, and then stood around uselessly as the driver carried on, backwards, at quite a pace, all the way up the hill towards Thor and Freya. It looked to Thor like a normal, if slightly bulky, sports car, but it came at them so quickly that he had to resist the urge to jump back. The car backed directly onto the main road, narrowly missed some pedestrians, and then gave a colossal screech as it spun around to end up at the starting line facing the right direction.

'What an asshole,' Freya commented, deadpan, taking the words right out of Thor's mouth.

Then she turned to him, and her charming grin was back. 'Right. Come with me.'

Thor was really more interested in knowing what exactly Freya was trying to achieve by all this, but he followed without a word.

She dragged them a few feet away, so that there was a group of chatting staff in between them and the stands across the road. She bobbed her head around until she could find what she was looking for through their cover, and then pulled Thor closer to her so he could see what, or rather, who, she was gesturing at.

She smelled of engine oil and vanilla.

'For context,' Freya whispered, probably making herself more noticeable rather than less by doing so, 'do you see that lady?'

Thor did; he told her so. An older woman, standing at the base of the hill with some of the more dull looking viewers. She was trying and failing miserably to pretend she was absorbed with something on her phone. She kept glancing over at the driver of the orange car that'd backed up the hill, who was now gesticulating obnoxiously to a group of his friends, laughing and slapping his car at intervals.

'All right,' Freya continued, facing him now. 'Long story short: she's the one who owns Loki's car. It's been in the shop all winter. But this guy, our only opponent, by the way, there're only two cars, is on her payroll. So she's going to bet against us, because this is Loki's first race, so technically he hasn't a chance.'

His first? That was new. Thor whipped his head around to make a comment, but was quickly interrupted. 'He's doing a warm up lap but he'll be back any second now. The timer above the stands, you probably saw it earlier, is our countdown. We've only got a few minutes. When he gets here I'm going to check on the car one last time with the crew, and then talk to Letitia quickly, so I won't have much time with Loki before they go. Howard, however, because he's a predictable piece of shit, is going to try and psych Loki out. And Loki, because, although I love him, he is a guy, is going to bite the hook. So I need you- I need you to distract them. Got that?'

'Er.' Thor wanted to ask what exactly it was that she wanted him to do, but, before he had the chance, Freya had ducked through the group in front of them and jogged over to meet Loki, who, sure enough, had just come around a corner towards the start. As soon as he'd stopped, he jumped out of the driver's door, unsubtly avoiding Freya, and strode confidently towards Howards, or Howard or whatever. Idiot, Thor thought.

Howard apparently thought so too, because he broke into an extremely unattractive grin as he greeted Loki.

Thor glanced around uncertainly, looking for inspiration. If there was one thing worse than a clueless kid trying squeakily to demand respect from someone like Howard (who, by the looks at him, hadn't paid for his lunch once in high school), it was two kids doing it.

He didn't have much time. The starting line was being cleared of vehicles and officials, other than those involved in the race, and Loki and his opponent's names and basic information were being announced over the speaker system.

Freya turned suddenly from the car and walked back towards the woman, Letitia, who was smiling wanly at her. As she passed Thor, Freya flapped her hand at him very agitatedly, pulling a face.

Thor made an executive decision.

He hopped from one foot to the other, groaned out loud and then snatched up an oversized black windbreaker that'd been draped over a folding chair. Throwing his own jean jacket aside, Thor donned the stolen one, and ran across the road to Loki, zipping it up as he went.

When Thor arrived, Loki was being patronized horribly. Howard and his lackeys were practically sneering at him, insulting everything from his car to his accent with moderate and polite voices, and although Loki was holding his own, outwardly calm, he was tapping his fingers against his clasped knuckles behind his back, obviously agitated.

As Thor drew up, Loki turned to face him, mouth open in greeting, and then saw what he'd done and cleverly shut up.

Loki pursed his lips and glared knives at Thor, trying as hard as he could to shoo him away without actually saying anything, but Thor, grimacing internally, ignored him entirely.

'Loki Liesmith?' he asked, addressing Howard.

Howard snorted at him.

'I don't think so, buddy,' he said. 'Can I help you? We're sort of in the middle of something here.' He nodded at Loki, who had turned around again, face calculatedly blank.

'Oh!' Thor exclaimed, feigning surprise, and gave an apologetic head-bow. 'I'm so sorry. Excuse me. It's just that it's usually the rookies who showboat like that!' He gave a little laugh, and then stopped himself as if he'd just realized what he'd said.

Howard, having now been insulted as well as interrupted in his tirade, looked as if he might internally combust. Before he could comment, though, Thor cut him off with another stuttered apology and turned to Loki. 'I'm so sorry to interrupt. Really. But your crew is asking after you. There might be a problem with the car.'

Loki raised his eyebrows in concern and nodded. 'Of course,' he said, and then wished Howard, who was still fuming, good luck. As Loki turned to go, Thor caught his shoulder. 'Also,' he said, wondering as he did so exactly what he was thinking, 'we want to know if you want to place a bet.'

'I already have,' said Loki, smoothly but with unconcealed warning in his voice.

'Of course. But we thought you might want to raise it. With the odds as they are, you – well, I don't want to be frank, but you might as well have not bothered, you see. So we were quite surprised, and wondered if there'd been a mistake.'

Loki regarded him steadily. 'Thank you, but that's quite alright,' he said. 'Is that all?'

'Hang on, kid' said Howard, finally finding his voice. He jabbed a finger at Loki. 'You do know that he's Liesmith, and I'm Michael Howard.'

'Of course,' said Thor, and apologized one last time. 'If you'll please excuse me, sir, I should explain the problem…' he pointed at Loki, who was turning to go, and then jogged to catch up with him without waiting to be excused.

'I'm so sorry,' Thor hissed out of the corner of his mouth. 'That was- if he realizes, I mean… I shouldn't've…'

'It's quite alright,' Loki grinned, facing forwards as they walked. He lit a cigarette. 'Quite frankly I think it was worth it, just to see the look on his face.'

Thor tried not to beam. That short sentence had somehow made his entire morning of feeling like a fish out of water completely worth it. Besides, who cared if Howard found out who he really was? It wouldn't matter in a few minutes anyways. As it was, he'd spend the time slightly baffled either way.

When they reached the car, Freya was there, looking very inquisitively at the two of them. 'I take it there's not actually a problem with the car?' Loki asked, effectively preventing her queries.

'No…' Freya gave them one last curious glance, and then quickly addressed Loki. 'Know the course? All ready?' she asked.

'As I'll ever be.'

'Right.' She shooed away the crew. 'Now, Loki, look at me. Pep talk time.'

'I know that this's been eating away at you for weeks. And I know how worried you are. But the thing is; the weather, the car, it doesn't matter. None of it matters. Because you're an amazing driver, and a total genius, and you were made for this. And I know a large part of you's scared. But, darling, it's completely pointless, because you've genuinely got nothing to fear. So I want you to take a deep breath, promise you'll be a gentleman no matter what happens, and then go out there and annihilate him.'

So saying, she punched Loki, hard, in the upper arm. He swore viciously, looking for a second as if he might reciprocate, and then growled lowly at her. 'Thank you,' he muttered. 'So helpful.'

'Any time.' Freya grinned charismatically. 'You've got 55 seconds.'

She backed away.

Loki stood outside of the driver's door while he finished his cigarette, and there was a tense lull in the day's rushed activity as he looked at Thor, who was now the only one still waiting by the car. Thor broke the silence by saying the first thing that came into his head.

'Kiss my cast for good luck?'

Loki groaned out loud and rolled his eyes, leaning back against the car. 'Dream on, Odinson,' he said. He pushed himself forward and swung open his door.

Loki rolled his way into the seat, simultaneously throwing the remains of his cigarette on the ground. He slammed the door shut so he could smirk at Thor from behind the glass.

Thor grinned and dipped his head in mock dejection, bowing out of Loki's picture so he could focus as the timer reached the single digits. Freya caught him and led him back to the sidelines, where the crew was. Well, there were really only two of them right now. Freya tried to introduce them - he caught that the girl was called Annie - but Thor couldn't tear his eyes from the cars.

Their engines revved deafeningly as the timer blinked down. Flag guy got himself ready.

Four seconds. Three. Two.

In the time between '1' and '0', Thor felt within himself as if a precipice had been reached. No one else seemed too bothered at that moment. Freya was relaxed by his side. The crew was chatting hushedly. But Thor was, he realized, terrified.

Loki just stared out at the open road.

And then it was over. The flag was waved, and the cars were around the corner barely before Thor could blink.

That was it.

They were gone. Extroardinarily fast, for street legal sports cars.

Thor just stood still for a while, temporarily stunned, and feeling extremely deflated. Then Freya patted his back. 'Come on,' she shouted, excitedly, 'we can see them finish over the hill.'

Thor snapped back to reality and nodded, running to get his denim jacket back before sprinting after the other three. He dodged waiters and hurdled an entire picnic spread, suddenly terrified that he might miss the finish. How could Loki sit there and look so calm, he wondered, when he himself felt sick to his stomach? Thor was positively strumming with the nervous excitement that he recognized so easily from his own matches. He could tell, when he reached the top of the hill and saw Freya clutching both of her employees as if they might fly away, that she felt the same.

Breathless, he jogged down to meet them. They were still at a higher elevation than the track, which finished only a few hundred meters from the start, right by a woods, stretching out like a runway into the sunlight. He could see the last few bends in the road, and the final stretch down to the finish line. And he could hear – still distant, but getting close – Loki and Howard's engines as the cars tore across the valley. 'How fast is the circuit?' he asked hurriedly.

It was the Annie who answered him. 'Only a few minutes. They'll come around the corner any second.'

Thor nodded and turned back to first bend the cars would come around. Come on, Loki, he thought, and crossed his fingers like he hadn't in years, shaking his hands impatiently. Come on, come on.

Seeing a car race in person was nothing like when Thor had watched them on TV – the heat and tension in the atmosphere, the smell throughout the complex of burnt rubber, and the sheer noise, were all absolutely encapsulating for him. It was addictive.

He didn't realize he was wishing out loud until Annie shushed him, smirking. He apologized and waited, silently, trying to keep still, eyes on the crucial bend in the road.

He didn't have to wait long.

When the cars appeared, the man on Freya's other side smacked his thigh and swore. Freya didn't say anything, and kept her gaze fixedly on the cars – Howard was in the lead.

Thor knew from the races on TV how agonizing it could be for a driver to be trapped behind a car, spending crucial time looking for an opening, and when the chance finally came to overtake, it was usually drawn out for ages as both cars progressed along the track. In the few times Thor'd seen this, he'd found himself itching with agitation just watching.

He didn't know if it was because it was real this time, or because the cars were still so far away, but Loki did not look like this.

He was making the pursuit look like a game of cat and mouse. Howard was swerving jerkily, losing momentum, obviously phased by Loki's proximity, and on every bend, at every gap Howard left in the road, Loki was there, teasing his way ahead.

Howard's larger car was actually more suited to aggressive moves like Loki's, but it didn't seem to make a difference. Loki couldn't be shouldered out of the way. When Howard followed a curve on the inside to the left, Loki was on his outside, matching his angular speed despite the extra coverage. When Howard allowed himself to drift out, Loki was suddenly on his left, as if completely on accident. Howard was completely aware of the game being played with him, and that Loki was simply waiting for him to mess up, to take a turn too quickly in his haste, and end up skidding off course, but there was nothing he could do to stop Loki. And so when they approached the final bend in the road, Howard slowed.

He was at the end. He'd almost won. Despite his snappy temperament, he wasn't taking risks.

He hadn't fallen for it.

But he decelerated too late. He was still slowing as he took the turn, as close to the inside as possible.

Watching it from in front, Thor wasn't really sure when or how it happened. He just knew that all of a sudden the cars were side by side, and there was a colossal screech, and then Loki was in front, just like that.

The noise – tire roar, Thor realized - didn't stop as Loki drew away, leaving Howard, already far too slow to catch up, trying desperately to match his speed. It didn't stop until he was well over the finish line, cruising to a neat stop hundreds of meters down the road, to cheers from the crowd behind them. Most of them, it seemed, didn't care who won so long as there was a good show.

And it was Loki. Who 'hadn't had a chance'. Loki had won.

Freya gave a whoop of joy and jumped straight into the air, hugging Thor, who had shouted far too loud when Loki stopped the clocks as he streaked across the finish line. She tore away after Loki, throwing up her hands as she went. The two crew members soon followed, laughing and shaking each other, excitedly calculating their winnings, and Thor was left grinning on the slope.

Freya was right, Thor realized. It didn't matter what car he was in, or the sun was too dazzling, or whether both his arms were broken. Loki was the better driver.

Loki drove just like he walked, or wrote, or spoke – beautifully. With the same, precise, deadly grace of a knife or a viper. Thor felt as if he'd had a great honor bestowed upon him, being allowed to see Loki drive like this. It was nothing like how he'd been in the Mini.

It was nothing like anything Thor had ever seen. So enviably easy.

After a while, he clapped his hands once, winced in pain, and cheered again, before starting off in a slow lope towards Loki.

That evening Thor sat quietly by himself, and didn't say a word.

The apartment was a total bombsite, and, of course, instead of doing anything to rectify the situation, his flatmates had decided instead to cover the fray in a thin layer of empty beer bottles and, in Tony's case, circuit boards.

Tony himself was draped on top of a bookshelf in their living room, assorted mechanical tools supported by a pile of musty Greek dictionaries, trying to rearrange the wires falling from the back of their flatscreen in a way that'd somehow get them free Sky. Bruce had gotten up to try convince him to lay off for a while so that Thor, Steve and he could finish their horror film without the image blurring, but they'd quickly gotten into a heated discussion about their team name, and lost track of the original conversation entirely.

Thor was caught between listening to Bruce and Tony, trying to watch the film, and wondering if he could be bothered to go up and get something to drink, and had ended up doing none of those things and staring into space, thinking about Loki Liesmith.

'but I still don't see what's wrong,' Bruce was insisting, 'with "MUAMAC", Tony. It makes perfect sense-'

'And it's boring! What does it even stand for, anyways? Something something… "assorted martial arts"? Really?'

'Well, look, we're not calling ourselves-'

'I'm just saying-'

'Steve! Back me up here, you're the captain. Tony's just a glorified groupie, he can't even box.' Tony scoffed. 'He wants to call us the Avengers.'

Steve laughed out loud. 'Who on Earth are we avenging?' He asked.

'The originality of my so-called friends, for one thing,' said Tony, who was still mucking around with some electrical cables. 'And also-'

The screen gave a helpless blip and went completely black. Nobody spoke.

'Fuck,' said Tony, 'that's the fuse. Thor, buddy, could you maybe go into the hall and…?'

'Thor?'

'Hm?' asked Thor, who had been staring attentively at a mysterious stain on the wall. Tony had to rephrase the question.

'Oh,' he said. 'Right. Of course.'

He left to some odd staring. As he closed the door behind him, he could just make out Tony saying, 'oh, don't worry about him, he's just depressed because he got left here all alone all day. Poor puppy.'

Thor restarted the fuse, and then went into the kitchen, where he could have some peace. He poured himself some orange juice and leaned heavily on the counter, deep in thought.

He didn't know what to do.

Thor liked Loki. He'd had a great time today. But he'd promised himself, after their first disastrous meeting, that he'd sell him the car and then leave things at that. There was nothing Thor had experienced before that troubled him as much as the look of fear on Loki's face when he approached him in the lecture hall that day.

In fact, after that, he hadn't even intended to try to sell him the car. He'd just wanted things to go back to normal – with each of the two of them politely ignoring each other.

That'd gone well.

But then they'd hit it off. And Loki'd invited him along today, and… Thor couldn't lie, he'd loved it. He wanted to do it again. But he knew things wouldn't be straightforward. He'd have to be conscious, and aware of Loki's weird mannerisms - I mean, does he even like me? Does he hate me? I don't know - and maybe even secretive, especially about Vanir Motors, which Loki seemed to prize like a gold hoard. There was no way around it. Loki was definitely… not normal.

In the end, though, Thor had to admit that saying to himself that he could choose whether to say 'screw it' and just go for it, or to, from now on, just pretend that none of this had happened at all, was just like telling himself that he could choose whether to breathe with his lungs or his gills.

Thor was enraptured. Whether it was by Loki, or Vanir Motors, or simply the eccentric way he'd been brought into it all; it didn't matter. He couldn't give up the way he already felt when he joked with Loki, or saw new things with Loki, or just saw Loki.

In the end… In the end he supposed he'd just have to follow this path, and see where it took him.