Max hugged her knees to her chest and tried to readjust her position so that some part of her body wasn't in pain. Unfortunately, no matter which way she shifted, there was zero chance of getting comfortable with concrete below her and chain-link behind her, so she had to accept the throbbing ache—which was especially prominent in her lower back—as something that was there to stay. The other seven people in the cage seemed equally uncomfortable, and there was constant fidgeting as people rearranged themselves in a new spot.

Loki was here. Loki. Loki, who she hadn't seen in over two years, was sitting in the antique furniture shop just twenty feet away. Loki, who she stopped obsessing over halfway through her fourth year, was King Shit yet again, and the uniformed guards appeared to be his pawns. She wasn't sure if he had known that she was in the museum, as he appeared genuinely surprised to see her after he nearly murdered her in a stairwell, but she couldn't imagine his presence was a good thing.

Her eyes flickered toward the store. The windows remained covered, and there were two guards standing watch over the door. Loki had disappeared inside shortly after she was thrown into the cage, and Max hadn't seen or heard from him in several long hours. She did, however, watch the uniformed men drag out all the bodies she had dispensed with during the assault on the museum—that managed to put a smile on her face, even if it was a strained one.

Almost all of her tricks and traps had worked. The building didn't burn down, but she could smell charred flesh when they hauled her outside in the aftermath. She scalded one soldier so badly with a kettle of boiling water that he was rushed away in a hurry, and many more were stuck of nails in their feet and shoes. The rest were missing parts of their skulls, which Max aimed specifically for from her shadowy hiding places on the third floor. The guns she used were loaded beforehand, and she simply ran from one to the next, praying none of them would stall or break due to their intermittent usage.

And then he came. Loki strolled through the fourth floor out of nowhere, and Max hadn't recognized him initially. Her body was pounding with so much adrenaline that her hands were shaking. Her breathing was a mess, which fogged the eye sockets of the gas mask. Initially, all she knew was that there was another enemy wandering through the fourth floor, and she planned to take him out—he deserved it. But she missed. She missed and he lived, and it was then that she decided to make a run for it. She assumed people would be too busy with the rest of the chaos that she could slip away unnoticed through the front door.

It was a stupid plan, but she was surprised that any of her ideas had worked up until that point.

Unfortunately, he was faster than her, and he caught up with her before she could get very far. He had ripped the mask from her face, tearing out clumps of hair in the process, and thrown her back against the wall. And then she saw him—the real him. Loki looked thinner than she remembered, with sharp cheekbones and dark rings around his eyes. He was wearing some sort of ceremonial garb that she had never seen before, though it looked reminiscent of the photos that were once his secret identity's undoing.

He had looked enraged—he practically snarled as he descended down upon her. In his fury, she knew he didn't recognize her as quickly as she recognized him, and she squeaked his name in the hope that it would jar his memory. Calm him. Something. It worked, thankfully, but Max couldn't stay there with him. He was the enemy now. She recalled ducking away from his wandering hand and almost falling down the stairs in her haste.

Unfortunately, they had been waiting for her on the second floor, and when a pair of hands gripped her and threw her to the ground, Max finally let out the scream she had been holding in since she saw Nolan die. It tore at her throat and reverberated through the hallways, and when she was finished, she was finished. She was ready for someone to put a bullet in her head—ready to be done with all of it. The soldiers seemed ready to do it too, but that was until Loki interfered. She wasn't sure what he told them, away in their hushed conversations, but before she knew it, two men were dragging her out of the museum and into the cage.

And that was where she had been. No one spoke to her when she scuttled across the ground and situated herself in the back corner, and Max preferred it that way. She didn't want to talk to anyone. She wanted to sink into the ground and disappear—go someplace that wasn't being occupied by Loki and his people.

A part of her just couldn't accept that Loki would cause this much destruction—again. When they had last spoke, he insisted that he had learned his lesson, that his issues with Earth and its people were long behind him, and yet here he was demolishing Manhattan with an army of thugs.

Everything hurt. The headache that had started about an hour ago was now clawing at the inside of her skull, desperate for relief. Shoes would have done her tender and sore feet a world of good. The muscles in her arms were stiff from carrying weapons. She was sure her knees were bruised under her sweatpants—hell, there were dozens of bruises starting to surface that she didn't realize she would get. Her face felt swollen from crying the day before. She was hungry—everything inside her felt painfully hollow, like her stomach was collapsing in on itself.

The day remained cloudy, which meant she didn't have to worry about getting a painful sunburn on top of camping out on dirty pavement. The others in the cage were the ones she suspected would struggle to get away: elderly, young, out of shape people who were unfortunate enough to be caught for a second time. She knew no one, and she was sure she would have nothing in common with them if she talked to them. Not that she wanted to talk. She wanted to sit and be miserable and hate everyone in a dark uniform. She wanted to mourn Nolan properly, but that part of her brain stayed locked tight, unwilling to budge unless she really dug her fingers into it.

The sound of the lock—a new one that was large and intimidating and pointed out to her when a soldier first shoved her in here—opening caught her attention, and Max looked up from her dirty trackpants to see an unfamiliar face opening the cage. He had no pot of food in hand, and she swore she saw one of her fellow prisoners deflate a little at the realization. There were two other soldiers standing at the door—perhaps to intimidate potential flight risks—and Max shuffled back against the steely cage behind her as the fellow approached her.

He said nothing, but when he grabbed her by the wrist and hauled her to her feet, his intentions were pretty clear.

"Hey, man, leave her alone."

An elderly man spoke up as Max struggled to stay upright, adrenaline surging back through her limbs. Apparently, her body wasn't ready to quite yet: her mind may be in the process of breaking down, but the rest of her didn't want to go quietly.

"You're hurting me," Max hissed, nodding down pointedly to the black gloved hand wrapped around her wrist. The man continued to haul her along without acknowledging the sentiment, and when her elderly rescuer spoke again, another uniformed man swept in with a baton drawn. The rest of the prisoners scattered as her hero held up his hands defensively, and Max winced when the soldier brought down the full brunt of his weapon.

"Come along—"

"Stop!" She wriggled the best she could, eyes wide with horror as the beating continued. Once she was free from the cage, Max used her spare hand to fight against the one wrapped around her wrist, and when the movement of a sleeve revealed some pale white flesh underneath, Max sunk her teeth into it with everything she had in her. The guard howled when she tasted a warm liquid in her mouth, and he immediately released her. She staggered away, and when she nudged into another body, she swung back with her elbow. It collided with something solid, which earned her another yelp, and Max darted under an outstretched arm and broke off into a run.

She wiped her hand across her mouth and nearly gagged when she saw a black smear mixed with saliva. Unfortunately, she didn't make it very far. The pavement made her bare feet weep, and she wasn't more than ten feet away from the cage when something slammed against her calves, and Max plummeted toward the ground. She had the good sense to break her fall with her hands, but that didn't stop the rest of her body was colliding with the solid surface harshly enough to wind her.

Her palms prickled with a familiar pain as she tried to get up, happy that she hadn't knocked her chin or face in any way. However, a pair of hands rolled her onto her back before she could wriggle loose, and Max screamed right into the face of the man she had just escaped from.

"Now, now," he sneered, catching her hands and pinning them down. "None of that, none of that."

"Get off me!"

"You're going to see the king, little girl," he told her, releasing her wrists and curving an arm under her waist to drag her upward. When the tips of his gloved fingers touched her stomach, she screamed again, swinging wildly and shoving against him.

"Don't you want to meet the king?" The question was posed by the other soldier. Max noticed his eye was starting to bruise, and she hoped that had been her elbow's doing. "He's so very keen to see you."

The way he leered at her made her shriek again, and she knew in that moment they were taunting her on purpose. They were using her gender against her, as if being a woman in this situation was the worst thing on the planet. So she fought the best she could. She wasn't sure who "the king" was—she assumed they meant Loki—but she wasn't about to make it easy on them. Not when they hinted and suggested and grinned like idiots.

At one point, the guard dragging her threw her up over his shoulder, but Max resorted to slamming her knees into his plated chest with as much force as she could muster. Finally, with a frustrated grunt, she was back on her feet with her head wrenched back by her hair, and he forced her to walk with a gun resting on her spinal cord.

When she felt the barrel pressed to her back, Max realized she didn't really want to die. She was ready to crumble, to fall and stay down, but she didn't want to end her life here—not by their hands. So, she walked with hesitant purpose, her eyes wide and watching the guards waiting on either side of the antique shop's door. One opened it as she was marched forward, and before she could get her bearings—before she could mentally prepare herself to face the man she had once dressed up as a king—she was shoved inside so forcefully that she tripped over her pants and ended up on her knees.

"She's all yours, my king!"

The statement was followed by a bout of hideous laughter, and Max's entire person shook as the sound tapered off when the door shut. He didn't come to her aid, but she could feel eyes on her as she sat there on all fours. The tile floor was cool against her palms, but her knees wouldn't let her stay like that for long. Finally, when she felt like everything was going to buckle and she'd simply collapse, Max used the wall to push herself to her feet.

He was nearer than she expected, and once she had straightened up, Max pushed her shoulders back and simply stared at him. It took everything in her not to cry, and she really, really wanted to. She wanted to collapse against his chest, to make use of their familiarity—but she stayed stock still. His eyes wandered up and down her frame brazenly; not sexually, but curiously, and there was a crease in his forehead that might have indicated concern.

Max didn't need to look at his body—she had seen him in the stairwell. Instead, she wanted to meet his gaze, to let him see the face of the people his troops were brutalizing.

She wished she could stop shaking.

"You have blood on your mouth." Her eyebrows shot up as he snatched a cream-coloured napkin off a table, and then held it out for her to take. He didn't move toward her, and Max kept her feet planted, eyes narrowing.

"Go fuck yourself."

"Max—"

"I mean it," she continued. Her teeth were starting to chatter from the anxiety, from the nervous energy, from the adrenaline, and from the pain. "Fuck you and them and everything you've brought here."

"I didn't—"

"Those are people in that cage!" Her voice broke as she pointed in the vague direction of the holding cell. "They're people, not animals! I'm a person!"

"It was either put you in the cage, or they'd kill you," he hissed, throwing the napkin back down and marching toward her. She hiccupped as a few rogue tears rolled down her cheeks, but she brushed them away and took a deep breath, steeling herself for his approach. She could take it. She would take it.

"Is that what you tell yourself?" she demanded. His pallor was almost sickly under this light, and she tilted her head up to keep eye contact. "Is that what makes you feel righteous?"

He took her by the arm firmly and dragged her across the store. Then, without another word, he threw her onto the small bed. Maybe the soldiers were right—maybe her gender was her downfall.

"King at last," she whispered as she propped herself up on her elbows. In that moment, she had never been more terrified of him—never. She saw the way his jaw clenched, the way the bones stuck out of his cheeks, and he retreated back suddenly as if she had slapped him. With his back to her, she sat up properly and scuttled back so that she was against the wall, her feet resting on the edge of the bed.

When he returned, his heavy black boots clomping across the once clean floor, Max saw the napkin in his hand again. It was wrapped around his fingers like he intended to clean her, like a mother would a child, but when he stood before her, he simply dropped it onto her knees and took two steps back.

They both stared at the piece of fabric for what felt like an age, but Max gave in first. She grabbed the damn thing and wiped her mouth off, nose wrinkled as she studied the black stains left in the stitching. Then, all dignity forgotten, she scrubbed at the back of her neck and her forehead and her ears. It had been two days since she showered, and while she had rinsed briefly in the public bathroom at work, that was hardly enough.

"I am a prisoner here." His voice was soft when he spoke again, and Max glanced up with a crooked eyebrow. "I am a captive as much as you are."

"Bullshit."

"How long has it been since we last saw one another?" She fiddled with the corner of the napkin, and then glanced up at him. His gaze was so intense—so focused—that it made her feel small. So, she busied herself with the napkin again while he stood in front of her, arms hanging limply by his sides.

"Two years." It almost hurt to say.

"Where do you think I have been all this time?"

"I don't know." She swallowed thickly, finally leaning her head back and taking another calming breath. However, she could still only fix her eyes on the ceiling, and she absently followed the designs in the crown moulding. "Thor said you were taking a breather—"

"Thor?" She could practically feel the disdain in his voice, and she merely nodded in response. "Thor knew nothing of my whereabouts."

"I don't care—"

"My enemies found me," he told her sharply, his voice cutting through her words with ease. "They found me and they took me and they punished me for my inability to take Earth the first time."

"Well, how was I supposed to know that?" she croaked. Finally, she looked at him, her teeth still chattering lightly. "Why should I believe you now?"

"Look at me, Max," he ordered, holding his arms out and turning. "Physically, I am a shell. I am here because the Pagurolids—"

"The what?"

"The creatures you see outside are not human."

"Nolan said that." The words tumbled out before she could stop them. "He… He said that."

She heard him let out a lengthy breath, but he remained where he was—the space between them stayed strong. "They are a race that live inside other creatures. They consume planets and move on… We have always considered them colonists of sorts."

"Oh my god." She buried her head in her hands. The headache was tearing at her with a vengeance, reminding her that there was simply so much information waiting to be processed. In the silence that followed, she pushed and pushed and pushed it all down until she could practically feel her temples throbbing.

"I was taken by the Chitauri." Loki's voice was melodic for a moment, like he was some mystical storyteller. Max closed her eyes, her fingers weaving through her dirty hair and tugging. "They were my allies, and my failing was a betrayal. They tortured me in ways you cannot begin to imagine. The Pagurolids have been here since I was last on this planet… and they bartered for my release so that I could be the figurehead of their invasion."

"Why?" With her face buried, she wondered if he had heard her. The silence suggested not, and Max looked up with a sniffle. "Why would they want you?"

"Dressed like this," he gestured down to his body, "and leading an army is familiar to humanity… Their true identities remain a secret, and if things take a foul turn, I am once again to blame for the destruction. A king from another realm explains why humans across the planet are turning against their own kind."

"We're so fucked." She threw the napkin down beside her in a huff and stretched her legs out—her teeth had stopped rattling together. "You're telling me the truth, aren't you?"

His face screwed into a frown, one that looked almost insulted. "What reason would I have to lie?"

"Because I… I read about… you," she admitted, her cheeks flushing when his eyes narrowed. "I read about Loki the Trickster, and the myths and the legends—"

"Grossly exaggerated and seldom true," he said stiffly, which shut her up. "I wouldn't lie to you, Max."

"Why?" She knitted her hands together on her lap, small jolts of pain shooting up her arm from where she fell on them. "Because we used to have sex once upon a time?"

"Hardly."

Even though she hadn't been looking for a real answer, the response hurt her all the same. It was dismissive, and his facial expression barely changed. However, when she spared a glance at his hands, she noticed they were balled into fists. Finally, after the silence grew so heavy that she could practically feel it, Loki turned back to that same table and placed his hands on the surface, his shoulders hunched.

"Do you want something to eat?"

She perked up at the question, and he looked over his shoulder at her. Her stomach gurgled at the thought, and she simply nodded.

"It's cold," he told her. "They delivered it to me this morning…"

Max's eyebrows shot up as he brought her a plate with what appeared to be a whole chicken on it, the kind you picked up from the grocery store when there was no time to cook anything for a get-together. There was a large chunk missing from the side, and when he set it on her lap, she shot him a look.

"I cannot say it's to my taste," he muttered, stepping away when she shifted into a more comfortable position. She then said nothing for a long time, instead opting to pick away at the chicken. Like Loki had said, it was pretty cold, but anything was better than nothing. Once she had devoured both of the legs and worked her way into a breast, she glanced up at him. He was watching her, though she could tell his eyes were only partially focused.

"What did you tell them to get me here?" She didn't really want to make small-talk with him, but the question had been waiting for an answer ever since she was spared.

"I told them that I wanted you." He was so matter-of-fact with the statement that Max could do nothing but nod. "I hinted that I was interested in… They believe I have taken a physical liking to you."

"Right."

"In the sense that I—"

"I've got it, thanks," she said shortly. He pressed his lips together tightly, and then busied himself with his hands. In the meantime, Max resumed shoveling pieces of chicken into her mouth.

"You put up a good fight," he told her as she pulled the juicy skin off the bird. Max's lips curved upward slightly at the compliment. "I was pleased to see you fighting."

"Thanks." She licked her lips. "I'd like to see you do the same sometime, I guess."

"You used a lot of elbow when you were in close quarters with them," Loki continued, pointedly ignoring her comment. "May I ask why?"

Max shrugged. She hadn't exactly been giving it much thought while she fought for her life, but now that she had to dissect it, she came up with a reasonable explanation. "Nolan told me once that the hardest part of my body was my elbow, and if I needed to, I should use it."

"Ah."

She frowned at his tone, her head cocked to the side. "What?"

"Nothing… The man wasn't wrong."

"Okay."

"You looked very… tough—"

"Oh my god!" Her eyes widened as she glowered at him. "Are you making fun of me?"

"No, of course not—"

"You totally are!" She wasn't sure if she wanted to scream at him or laugh at the way he tried desperately not to smile, his face twitching unattractively. In the end, she decided to hurl a chicken bone at him, which he easily dodged.

In fact, he even laughed. It was weak and short-lived, but Max felt the weight on her chest lift for a brief, shining moment. When the amusement passed, the weight returned, and Max set her plate aside, suddenly too full to continue.

"So, what do we do now?"

He suddenly swooped forward, leaning over her and resting his hands on either side of her body. Max could feel his breath against her ear—the overwhelming invasion of space made her stiffen, and she tried to push her body back into the wall with everything she had.

"They're watching," he murmured, and she spared a glance toward the door. Sure enough, she could see two vague outlines of bodies standing by the doorframe.

"Gross."

"I'll send them away in a moment," he assured her. Suddenly, his warm hand was on her shoulder, then her neck, then in her hair. Max's breath stuttered, and then she held it. He whispered her name, urged her to relax, but she couldn't—not like this.

"Stop—"

"They'll take you away if they suspect I was lying," he told her. "I won't… Please, you must trust me."

"Loki…"

"Here." He retreated so suddenly that his absence practically tore the breath from her. After readjusting his cape, which seemed to just get in the way, he settled beside her and patted his knee. "Sit here."

"No."

"Max."

She shot him a look, one that expressed her feelings perfectly, but he returned it with a look of his own. Sighing, Max dragged her weary body over and sat on his knees, her back to the door and her hands in her lap. He placed a hand at the nape of her neck, but there was barely any pressure behind the hold—she almost forgot it was there as he spoke.

"I have an idea…" His eyes flickered toward the door again before he continued. "I believe I can get us away from them, but I will need your assistance."

"Yeah?"

"Yes," he nodded as her eyebrows shot up hopefully. "It will be difficult for me. I will try to endure, but you must help me when it starts."

"When what starts?"

"The pain."

She looked at him sharply, and now that she was so close to his face, she could see the etchings of weariness across his features. Not only was the skin around his eyes heavy and sunken, but the actual colour of his eye seemed faded and dull, like he hadn't seen daylight for a long time.

"Okay," she said finally, nodding a few times. "Whatever you need, I'll do my best to help."

They held one another's gazes for a moment, but this time Loki blinked first. He pointed toward the back right corner of the store.

"There is a bathroom there," he told her. "Make use of it however you need, eat some more, and then we shall leave… I would like to be gone from this place before the sun sets."

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Hello you lovely darlings! I'm hoping Max and Loki's first interactions were what you needed! I wanted to get them to a tentative truce for now, but they still have such a long way to go when it comes to sorting out their relationship and how they feel for one another, and how they even view each other.

I had a reviewer bring up the idea that Max hasn't really mourned Nolan, and I completely understand why things feel as though they are moving quickly. While I strive for realism in my work—to an almost painful degree sometimes—I felt like I needed to make some creative decisions as the writer of the fic. Namely, I had to decide whether I wanted to spend a chapter or two with Max in mourning and really running through her emotions, or if I wanted to have her tackle these problems over the long haul, but in little chunks. I went with the latter, mostly based on Max's personality up until this point. She doesn't handle conflict and drama and whatnot especially well. She prefers to suppress and ignore rather than deal with things head-on, and she still has a bit of growing up to do in that sense.

I always pictured Max and Loki in this weird limbo when they met up again. Like. Yes, they left off in a fight, but they still felt very strongly for one another at the time—dare I say potentially came close to being in love? How do you react when you see that person again? I figured Max would be pissed, yes, but when the truth comes out, how do you handle it? She's doing the best she can, like I said. I think she's muddled, but she's also decided that she wants to survive this thing.

You're all amazing for the lovely feedback you've been giving! I'm still in this weird place about this fic… I've planned it all, written it in my head a million times, like what I have plot-wise, but it's just so different from the other story up to this point. I just want to do the characters justice, so I love hearing comments and whatnot from you guys.

I think I'll do another update directly after this one, so keep your eyes—and inboxes—open. As always, I post fanfiction updates on my tumblr, which you can find on my profile page. LOVE YOU ALL!