"Well," Peter chuckled, tucking his legs under the blanket as Max tugged half to her side of the couch, "this is intimate."

"Shut up."

A clap of thunder rattled the windows, and they both glanced out at the miserable morning—this had to be the wettest May the city had ever seen. Max wondered if it was the Earth fighting back against the infection, and while she would have laughed the theory off in the past, at this point, anything seemed possible.

She had been stuck in the tower for almost a week now, and thus far, none of the superheroes in the vicinity had lifted a finger to help with the alien situation. Max spent a lot of her time catching up sleep and willing her body to heal faster, and it was only today that she saw the last of her darkest bruises change to a light green-brown mixture. She had an excuse to laze around in bed all day—her body needed to recover. The others, however, had no excuse. She watched Sue and Reed do homework with the kids. She and Peter played way too many games of chess while Max bundled up underneath layers of blankets and ice packs. Loki lurked nearby, clearly worried about being chastised again, though she could tell he was getting antsy to do something—anything.

It was a feeling she understood. Sue and her younger brother Johnny usually cooked their meals, and Max ate with the tower's residents every day; the only thing she really sunk her teeth into was her tongue, and that was to keep it from demanding to know why no one had done anything. From various windows around the building, Max had watched legions of New Yorkers marched to different locations. The TV played nothing but alien propaganda: news programs insisted nothing was wrong, that the world bowed down to the new king—no one mentioned that Loki was missing, mind you. There seemed to be a lot of activity in Central Park, but she couldn't get a good view of it from any of the windows. The roof would have been an ideal location for scouting alien activity, but the door was locked with various codes, only known to family members and Ben Grimm.

No word from the Avengers, government agency, or the military. Once, two days ago, a jet whizzed across the Manhattan skyline, but it was shot down by four other planes that she assumed belonged to the enemy. According to Johnny, phone and internet reception was spotty, and only a few days ago did Reed commandeer Peter to try to set up secure lines to avoid digital tracing by outsiders.

Max was frustrated. The tower was immense, and yet she felt claustrophobic. Her injuries were much better—finally—and yet she still felt like she couldn't do anything. She couldn't say anything or she'd risk offending the people providing her and Loki with clothing and shelter. She couldn't physically do anything because she wasn't some genetically altered super-human.

Hell, climbing the stairs up to her floor left her so pathetically winded that she generally needed to take two or three breaks along the way.

Loki stopped insisting they find a way to Stark Tower, but she knew there was something going on with him that he wouldn't tell her. There was no way a person could sit in front of a window for the amount of time he did and simply think of nothing. He had been especially careful with her lately, and as the days wore on, she wished he would just touch her again—carefully, but not as though she might break if he looked at her the wrong way. It felt like they were starting all over again, finding their groove in terms of what was and wasn't acceptable.

Unfortunately, they had yet to discuss the incident that caused all her bruising—nothing seemed to have changed there. Despite the fact she slept in his bed every night, neither of them brought up the potential for a relationship, nor did she ask him what sleeping together meant. Although, she would have felt much better if she wasn't so completely in the dark as to how he was feeling about her. It was easy to see that he cared for her, but sometimes he felt so distant, so stern and preoccupied, that Max once again felt like she was burdening him.

She still wondered if he regretted rescuing her in the first place.

"Now, don't try anything funny under the blanket," Peter carried on, wiggling his eyebrows at her. "I'm a taken man."

Max scoffed noisily. "I'll try to contain in my lust."

"Good. I appreciate that."

"It'll be difficult."

"It always is."

She rolled her eyes, which made him laugh, and then sunk further in to the corner of the couch. After enjoying a small, somewhat bland, breakfast with Sue and the kids, Max drifted upstairs in the hopes that she could find something to do that would waste away the hours until lunch. Normally, she'd grab Loki and use him as a source of entertainment—he had a knack for finding dozens of things to talk about that did not involve their sex life.

That morning, however, Loki was requisitioned by Ben—somewhat unwillingly—to fortify the sewer entrance, as they had picked up more security scares than anyone was comfortable with, which meant Max was out a partner in her boredom. So, halfway up the stairs, she stole Peter away under the guise of using him to move the mattress from her bedroom into Loki's room—effectively doubling the sleeping space. When they were finished, they ended up in the sitting room on her floor, musing about the ways they could improve the place.

He was a good kid, despite his random bouts of unnecessary sarcasm. For being the Spiderman, he didn't really do anything out of the ordinary: he liked to make the kids laugh at dinner by stuffing food up his nose when he thought no one was looking, and she was pretty sure she had caught him staring at both her and Sue's boobs on more than one occasion. He also seemed innately intelligent, which made for an easy rapport with Reed.

Meanwhile, Max knew virtually nothing about genetics, engineering, physics, or any medium of science, which made conversations involving said subjects really tedious. It was probably why she had very little to say to Sue and Reed if she wasn't thanking them for their hospitality. Peter, on the other hand, was closer in age, shared a few of her pop culture interests (thank goodness for internet humor), and liked to talk about anything.

His favourite topic the other day was Gwen, his girlfriend of almost three years. As far as he knew, she was in Brooklyn when the aliens struck, and while Max didn't revel in his pain, it was nice to have someone in the tower who wanted to get out, who wanted to know what was happening to loved ones.

Sometimes, she wondered if that made her a horrible person.

"It's really coming down out there, huh?"

Peter turned around completely, sitting up on the armrest of the couch to get a better look at the storm. Suddenly, a bright bolt of lightning flickered across the sky, followed by the most tremendously loud clap of thunder—loud enough to make her jump. Moments later, the lights in the nearby hallway flickered and went out, though they turned back on shortly after.

Max almost shared her insights about Thor—about how he was Loki's brother and could control the weather. However, she suspected it wasn't information Loki wanted circulating the tower, and simply nodded instead.

"I hope nobody's outside in that."

"Oh, I bet they are," he muttered. "I bet the sewers are starting to flood, and people are being forced back to the surface."

She blinked, taking in the idea. "Yeah, I hadn't even thought about that… All this rain…"

"Good thing we got you out of there."

"Yeah…"

She pulled the blanket up a little, tucking her arms beneath the soft fabric, and then leaned her head on the back of the sofa. For a few minutes, they simply watched the storm rage outside—with all the awful wind, she expected to see a house fly across the window pane at any moment.

"Why aren't they doing anything?"

"What?" Peter glanced back at her with raised eyebrows, adjusting his slightly crooked glasses. "Who?"

Max hesitated, wondering if she even ought to broach the subject with him. She had asked Loki if he could imagine why a tower full of superheroes just sat on their asses all day after an invasion, but he couldn't find an answer that satisfied her.

"Sue and Reed and Ben and Johnny," she muttered, fiddling with the blanket's flimsy fuzz. "I mean… Why are they just sitting around? Do they have a plan of some kind to… to fight?"

Peter sighed heavily before sliding back down into the couch corner, knees folded in front of him.

"I don't know."

"But don't they want to—"

"Sue's priorities are her kids," he told her. "Ever since Valeria was born, they only take government issued jobs… Nothing dangerous."

"Okay, I get that, but—"

"I've only known Reed for a year," he carried on, "but he never struck me as a fighter… I know they did their thing back in the day, but they're different now."

"Yeah, so is the world," Max groaned, rolling her eyes and sitting up a little straighter. "There are aliens living inside people, and who the fuck knows where the Avengers or the military are. We have genuine superheroes in this tower… you included, by the way."

She let out a soft puff of air when she saw him deflate a little, and she softened her tone.

"Sorry."

"It's a fair assessment of the situation," he mumbled. He shrugged and shook his head. "Look, I'd… I'd be out there if I could. I mean, I help the police department in my spare time… I fight gun-happy assholes on my Friday nights."

Max grinned a little when he glanced up at her, and in that moment, she saw just how young he really was.

"But I can't just go take care of this by myself." He fidgeted again. "I'd do it, you know? I've been trying to… to think of ways that I could do it, but they're everywhere."

"I know," she said as she tucked her hair behind her ears. "I'm just frustrated to be sitting here, I guess. Not that I can do anything… I had to ask Johnny to open the jam jar at breakfast."

Peter chuckled, a genuine display that traveled all the way up to the thin wrinkles around his eyes.

"They're scared, you know?" He almost whispered it, like saying such a thing was sheer lunacy. Max frowned. "They're scared for their kids, for themselves… I think they're hoping it will just blow over."

"Apathy is a great tactic."

"Sue won't fight because of the kids," Peter reiterated. "She doesn't want to lose them, or them to lose her. Reed won't fight because Sue put her foot down, and Ben usually goes along with whatever Reed decides, even if he doesn't support it."

"And Johnny?"

The youngest Storm sibling was everything the magazines played him up to be: roguish, charming, spirited, and still pretty immature for his age. Max had yet to speak to him alone, as he spent most of his time either with the kids or down in his separate apartment—it was difficult to get a proper read on him surrounded by the rest of the tower's occupants.

"Johnny and I have had this discussion already," Peter told her. He paused, glancing at the door. "He'd do whatever it takes to get rid of these… things."

No one wanted to say "alien"—no one but Max. It seemed Sue and Reed were still hesitant to even believe Loki's stories about the creatures that lived in people's chests, but they seemed to be coming around to it little by little. Max hadn't seen the aliens yet, but she saw no reason for Loki to lie—despite his mythological reputation.

And the previous Big Lie.

"So why don't you guys do something?" Max asked. "I mean, I'm sure I could get Loki to help now that he's at one hundred percent again… and I can… cheer from the sidelines?"

"If it is all Invasion of the Body Snatchers," Peter argued, "how are we supposed to know who is a person and who isn't? How do we fight something like that?"

Max licked her lips. "They bleed black—"

"So we just go around taking blood samples?"

"No—"

"Then what?"

"I don't know," she said, exasperated. "You guys are the clinical geniuses… At least try brainstorming something."

"I'm not going to push my luck," Peter told her. "Sue risks enough doing grocery runs while she's invisible… They don't know enough about the enemy to fight it, and I'm not going to dive in by myself. Give them some time—"

"People are dying."

There was a long pause. "I know."

"Gwen could be—"

"I know."

She instantly felt guilty for trying to use his girlfriend as a motivator—as if he needed more of a push to worry about her. Max shuffled across the couch, settling in the middle. If they were friendlier, she might have taken his hand or patted his knee, but for now she kept her hands to herself.

"Sorry, let's just… Let's forget I brought it up."

"Okay."

"I bet she's fine, anyway," she added, but it didn't seem to perk his expression up any. He sucked in his cheeks, silent for a moment, and then nodded.

"She's resourceful," he told her when he finally looked up. "She's smart and strong and a total fighter… I bet she and Aunt May are leading a resistance army somewhere."

Max smiled. "Definitely."

"I wish I'd gone with her…" He sighed. "We were supposed to all be at my aunt's place for dinner, but I had to drop off an assignment that was late."

"Well, I was supposed to be somewhere too," Max said, swallowing down the lump of emotion at the thought. "Things don't always go the way they're supposed to."

"That's an understatement."

She sighed deeply: she wanted to get away from the depressing subject matter, and yet it seemed like she had come full circle. Max shifted so that she faced him, crossing her legs awkwardly beneath the blanket.

"So," she started, nodding at him, "how did you become… a guy who can climb walls and spin a web?"

"It's not… They aren't webs," he told her. "They look like webs because I made them that way."

"Oh."

"A spider bit me," he carried on, filling the silence when she wasn't sure what else to ask. "I was at a lab where they were doing some testing, and I was where I wasn't supposed to be, and a spider bit me, and… here I am."

Max smirked. "A nuclear spider?"

"I don't think that was the technical term for it—"

"I was kidding."

Peter grinned, a ghost of a chuckle slipping through his lips. "Right."

She gestured down to his hands. "So, how to the web things work then? Do you ever feel like Tarzan when you swing?"

"I may have let out a Tarzan cry once or twice," he admitted, his cheeks flushing a dull pink, "but I made sure no one was around."

He then rolled up his sleeves and showed her two metallic devices latched to his slim wrists.

"This is where the biocable comes out …" He pointed his arm away from her and fired a handful of webbing—she wasn't sure what else to call it—at a spot on the wall. "It's taken a lot of practice to get the consistency right."

"How did your brain even come up with the concept?" Max grabbed his arm to get a closer look at the device, marveling at its intricacies. "I mean… You could be loaded if you sold just a portion of your brainpower to someone who wanted it."

"That has always been my goal in life."

"So what else can you do?" she asked excitedly. "Any other neat tricks?"

"They aren't tricks, Max," he told her, a faux-seriousness in his voice. "I am a walking, talking scientific miracle…"

He trailed off as she giggled, and when he said nothing else, she noticed him looking over her shoulder before finding something to fiddle with on the blanket. Frowning, Max looked behind her. There stood Loki in the doorway—looking soaked and irritated. She licked her lips, giving him a once over, and then smiled.

"Hey," she greeted warmly, ignoring the expression on his face. "Peter's showing me all his tricks… Look what he can do with these wrist things!"

She waved for Peter to do the trick again, hoping that Loki would be as impressed as she was. However, she spotted Loki stalk out of the room from the corner of her eye without another word, and her smile quickly disappeared.

"Loki?"

His bedroom door shut noisily in response, and Max settled back against the couch in a huff. Peter cleared his throat.

"Jealous type?"

She looked at him, which managed to make him stop smirking, and then rolled her eyes. "Sometimes."

Not that he had anything to be jealous of—the thought of doing anything remotely romance with Peter made her feel like a cougar. All that aside, he had no reason to be jealous: he hadn't once brought up their time together. He hadn't kissed her or touched her in a way that hinted anything beyond a friendship—and maybe that was too strong a word for their current relationship.

"Whatever," she muttered, rolling her eyes. "Show me something else that's cool."

"I'm not here for your entertainment—"

"Come on!"

"No—"

"Dance, monkey, dance," she laughed, poking his leg.

"Fine!" He hopped off the couch and beckoned for her to follow. "But you can't tell anyone I showed you this…"

Max licked her lips, intrigued, and followed him out into the hall. After casting a sidelong glance at Loki's shut door, she hurried off after Peter, darting into the stairwell and out of sight.

Max's jaw dropped as she stared at shelf upon shelf lined with boxes of store-bought macaroni and cheese. Yellow and blue Kraft Dinner logos shone out at her as far as the eye could see, and she quickly opened the rest of the cupboard doors, blown away by what she was seeing.

She knew that, until she had kids of her own, she really wasn't in any position to criticize anyone's parenting skills. However, she had just learned—over lunch—that aside from breakfast foods, Franklin ate nothing but Kraft Dinner for all of his lunches and dinners.

After Peter showed her his secret—the doorway the led to the roof, which Johnny had leaked the access codes to—and they had peered out across the rainy skyline, they drifted down to join the rest of the tower for something to eat. Loki was noticeably absent, and when Max asked Ben if anything had gone wrong in the sewers, the man—creature?—said that Loki was as pleasant as always.

Which didn't exactly help her situation.

Still, she tried to ignore it. She wanted to bond with the rest of the people—she wanted to get on the Fantastic Four's good side. After all, who knows when they might come in handy? But then again, that would actually require them to do something beyond hiding in their building, but that was a moot point at the moment. So, after she and Peter finished the dishes, Max decided to investigate Peter's claim that there was a giant stash of Kraft Dinner boxes in her and Loki's otherwise empty kitchen on the floor below her bedroom while he helped Franklin work through some math homework.

Sure enough, the kitchen was Kraft Dinner Heaven, and Franklin would be its king if he could. The kitchen itself needed some work: the walls still needed to be painted, and some of the tiling around the baseboards was incomplete. However, the outermost wall was just a window, and Max could imagine spending a morning curled up beside it with a coffee when the weather was nice. The appliances were so new and clean, and the cabinets—light brown—matched the flecks of colour in the tile. Naturally, the countertop felt like real granite, and there was a kitchen table with no chairs.

And an entire store of Kraft Dinner.

Her arms fell to her side when she heard something in the doorway, and she met Loki's gaze for a moment before turning her attention back to the cupboards. She could feel him staring at her, loitering in the entryway as if he were a dog who wasn't allowed into the kitchen. It was unsettling, in a way, to be someone's sole focus, and Max let out a weak chuckle, pointing up to the boxes.

"There must be six hundred dollars of Kraft Dinner in here." She shook her head, planting her hands on her hips. "This much crap should not be ingested by one kid…"

She reached up for a box to check the expiry date, wondering when these were even purchased, and she was so wrapped up in her hunt for the grey lettering that she didn't even notice Loki stalking toward her. She did notice, however, when he wrapped a hand around her ponytail and wrenched her head back, pressing his lips firmly to hers as she let out a surprised squeal. Dropping the Kraft Dinner box, Max stumbled back as he tugged her away from the counter and pushed her up against the fridge.

Her breath hitched in her throat as his lips trailed along her jaw, and she fisted a hand in his hair.

"Are you still tender?" he whispered in her ear, curving a hand over her hip. "Here?"

"No," she murmured, abdomen clenching when his fingers danced across her fitted tank top—over her stomach and up her side.

"Here?"

"No."

It was a lie. There was some tenderness, but the bruises were almost healed, and there was an excited prickle of pleasure curling inside her that overpowered any soreness.

He exhaled softly on her neck, her skin littered with goosebumps, and he bit down gently on her shoulder when he slipped a hand under her knee, hoisting her leg up to wrap around his waist.

"Here?" She shut her eyes when he ran his fingers along her thigh.

"No."

"Here?"

Her grip tightened in his hair when he cupped her through her thin trousers, pressing the base of his palm on a spot that made her gasp. She tilted her head back, licking her lips and moaning, as he rubbed her. She then straightened up when his tongue trailed up her neck and to her chin.

"Here?" he repeated, arching an eyebrow at her, and Max shook her head quickly, biting down on her lower lip to keep any embarrassing noises in. "Say it."

"N-No," she breathed, eyes fluttering open. She then pulled him in for another kiss, biting at his lower lip to entice him. There was no hesitation on his end, no resistance to her soundless demands.

She wasn't sure where any of this was coming from. Not only had they not spoken about the last time that they were together, he barely touched her this last week. Hell, she was fairly sure she fell asleep with her head on his lap last night, and he had done nothing but stare out the window in response. Not only did she have no idea what drove him back to her, she hadn't the slightest idea what he was thinking either.

However, when he pulled his hand out from between her thighs and stepped between them instead, there was no denying that he felt the same heat she did, the same need and desire.

She could forget his little temper tantrum from earlier for the time being—maybe she had made too big of a deal out of nothing.

"You don't have to untie those," she told him when she felt him undoing the drawstring on her borrowed yoga pants. "They just slid off."

"Good," he muttered, dipping his fingers beneath the waistband and tugging. Max winced when she felt a twinge of pain from one of the leftover bruises, and then quickly put her hands on his shoulders, pulling back for a breather.

"Okay, so," she started, panting a little. "I want to… uhm… I want to do this with… you."

"I suspected as much," he mused, his forehead pressed to hers. She smiled, cupping his cheek and stroking his cool skin.

"Yeah, yeah, there's that," she rambled as colour rose to her cheeks, "but I don't really want to spend a week in recovery again, you know?"

Max expected him to set her down, to see her hesitance as some sort of rejection. Instead, he grinned and hoisted her up completely, urging her to wrap both legs around him.

"Ah, you see, I've given that some thought," he told her, stepping away from the fridge as she curled her arms around his neck, their lips lingering close to one another. "I have no intention of leaving you marked… in the manner that I did when we were last…"

"Together?" she suggested, arching an eyebrow when she saw him open and close his mouth a few times—as if he was searching for the word. Loki nodded.

"When I leave marks on you," he murmured, his hands slipping under her shirt and running along her waist, her back, and up her sides, "I want them to be there purposefully."

"O-Oh." Her other eyebrow shot up now: she rarely heard him talk when they were together intimately, especially not about what they were doing.

"I've come to the conclusion that it is all about positioning," he told her as his back touched the opposing wall. He then set her legs down, smirking when she leaned in. "Careful positioning and awareness on my part."

"Okay."

He then slid down the wall in front of her, leaving her standing over top of him, and her cheeks flushed when he started to drag her pants down in the process. She helped a little, twisting and shimmying to get the fabric down, and she kicked the material aside once she had it down to one ankle. He now sat at a very opportune place, and Max swallowed thick when she felt his lips on her thigh. They were gentle as he pressed a few kisses here and there, his hands sliding up the backs of her legs.

"Sit," he ordered softly, and Max practically collapsed onto him when he bent her legs. Straddling him, Max ground down against his arousal, her hands resting on his shoulders, and she heard his sharp intake of breath.

"Positioning," she muttered, smiling a little before giving him a quick kiss. "Is that what you think about when you're staring into space?"

"Sometimes…" He carefully removed her hair tie, taking her wrist and sliding the bright elastic band onto it. With her hair loose, she watched him watch her, his hands ruffling the freshly washed locks as they fell around her shoulders.

It seemed like they fell into easy old routines after: teasing, touching, stroking, kissing. His fingers were as talented as ever, and when Max yanked open the zipper on his pants, she glanced at the doorway.

"Should we… shut that?"

"There's no actual door, woman," he grunted, pushing her hands aside and hauling her forward. She licked her lips, bracing herself on his shoulders. Her skin was alit with heady desire, sensitive to the touch, but she still balked at the thought of someone walking in unexpectedly.

"But—"

He thrust up and into her, silencing her as he filled her to the hilt. Her mouth hung open for a moment, eyes drifting shut, and he stilled beneath her like he was waiting for her approval. She clenched around him, her body only somewhat distressed at the rough intrusion, but it wasn't long before she relaxed. Closeness felt like a common theme these last two times, and Max wrapped herself as tightly as she possibly could around his neck, shoulders, waist. His hands wandered through her hair, along her back, over her legs—they were never still for long.

She quickly realized he was absolutely right about positioning. Seated on top of him, Max was able to move at her own pace, raising and lowering her body at whatever speed her desire dictated. Sometimes he bucked his hips against her, but she could tell he was almost consciously gentle about it, gritting his teeth every time. For that, she was grateful.

His kisses were rough, however, and Max pulled back whenever he pushed too hard, her thumb resting on his lips as she ground against him. When she finally felt herself breaking, the almost crippling tension finally startomg to spill over, she rocked her hips against him, her forehead pressed to his, and let out a stifled cry.

"Am I hurting you?" he asked tightly, one hand fisted in her hair. She clenched her eyes shut, riding out the pleasure when it finally burst, and she shook her head.

"N-No," she said heatedly. She then moaned, her legs trembling, and she heard Loki chuckle.

"Ah, I see."

"I feel like you got better at this," she whispered after kissing him, her hands cupping his cheeks. He scoffed.

"Well, I had all that time to practice—"

"Really?"

"No," he snapped, rolling his eyes at her and pushing himself up. She squealed, clinging to him as he stood and set her on the edge of the nearby table. Before she could get a retort of any kind in, he was thrusting up against her, his face buried against her neck. Her legs wrapped around him instinctively.

"Gently," she whispered, turning and pressing a kiss to his head. "Fragile human… positioning and… whatever."

She gripped his shoulder when he reached between them and stroked her, alternating between pointed thrusts and careful tweaks, and before she knew it, she was coming undone all over again. She swore noisily, clinging to him with a thin sheen of sweat across her skin, and then fell back onto the table, her whole body shaking this time. Loki leaned over, his hands resting on either side of her, and he smirked smugly. Max's eyes narrowed as she stared up at him and then sat up on her elbows. It was then that she noticed that while she had finished twice now, he was still as solid as ever.

She nodded down at him.

"Have you not… you know…" She licked her lips. "Yet?"

He shook his head and then pulled up his pants, buttoning himself in. "No, not yet."

"Did you pop a Viagra before we started?" she demanded, unsure where all his stamina had come from lately. Well, not lately—now and before. He shot her a look over his shoulder as he retrieved her trousers, and Max slid into them as she wiggled off the table.

"No, I haven't taken anything in particular."

"So… How are you still…?"

"There are many differences between humans and myself," he told her, ducking down so that he could hold her gaze. "You've discovered one that's worth paying attention to."

She blushed. "Oh."

"Oh indeed," he muttered, pinching her chin before leaning down and wrapping his arms around her waist. Max shrieked somewhat unattractively when he then lifted her and set her over his shoulder, legs flailing and hands gripping his shirt.

"Perhaps," he continued, "you can think of some ways to help me along."

"I'll try my best," she said, laughing a little when he jostled her.

"You always do."

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Like I said before: I'm aiming for weekly updates, and I seem to be on schedule! I got an extension for the ghostwriting job I'm doing, so I'll be able to manage working on both this and that without dying.

I'm glad a few of you like the way I'm integrating all these new characters into the story. I want all of them there, but I'm trying to find a way to not make it overwhelming with new info and people and all that good stuff. Hopefully someone will let me know if I'm not succeeding.

There were a few common questions in the reviews, so I thought I'd answer them. I gave Peter's estimation of where Gwen is within the chapter, which a few people asked about. People were also curious if Max has told Loki about Nolan—she hasn't. I don't think she wants to open up about the subject yet, and this last week has been more about physical recovery than anything else. I don't think she blames him for Nolan's death (as some people have assumed), but we'll see how it plays out when she finally does tell him. I don't think Loki will be the first person she opens up to about it, however.

I do so enjoy writing a jealous Loki. It's such an integral character trait in him, and I think he's trying to find different ways of expressing it with Max so that it won't lead to a fight.

Anyway. My wrists are spent from this and everything else. I'm off. BUT. Thank you for your lovely comments and reviews! Welcome new readers—and old—and you can always find status updates on chapters on my tumblr account (usually tagged as "fanfiction updates" or "ghost town")—the link to which is on my profile.

LOVE YOU ALL, DEARIES. SEE YOU SOON!