"You could play a mean game of hide and seek in here," Max mused, her hands on her hips as she surveyed the vast expanses of Reed's private lab. It was the first time she had been asked to come down to that floor, and while she had never been expressly forbidden from wandering by the owner, she suspected Reed wouldn't want her snooping around things she could break.

Max liked to think she was an academic. She had almost a decade of post-secondary schooling to back up the fact that she was brighter than the average bear—as her dad always told his friends—and yet she had a very limited understanding of Reed and Peter's branch of academia. She had worked in labs too. She had handled ancient weaponry, archaeological findings, and written detailed reports on them for both coursework and now in the real world. And yet, as she marched into the lab behind Loki, she felt hopelessly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of technology around her.

"I suspect the children are not welcome inhabitants in this area," Loki insisted, pivoting on the ball of his foot to face her. Behind him, Reed had set up a number of chairs in front of a giant monitor in the very centre of the circular lab. There were tables pushed off to the side, as though the space had been cleared of unnecessary items, and Max wanted to look through all of them.

She cocked her head, arching an eyebrow.

"We don't need kids to play," she told Loki, lowering her voice. "I'll hide…" She stepped around him, careful not to touch. "You seek."

His lips quirked upward, eyes crinkling as he tried to hide his smile, and she grinned at him briefly before flitting off to join the others by the chairs.

Two days had flown by since she snuck out of the building with Peter, and in that time, things finally seemed like they were starting to change. Reed looked more tired than she had ever seen him, and he hadn't been to a meal since yesterday. Now, late in the afternoon, he had called the entire tower's adult population to a meeting in the lab—the children were doing homework in the kitchen, and Franklin seemed to be on a power-trip after Sue left him in charge of the situation.

Speaking of which, Loki had taken her request to heart, and Max learned yesterday that he was giving Franklin tips on how to handle his magic. He mentioned it in passing, before they went to bed, that he was working on the boy's focus—which was a gigantic task in itself. While Valeria was the perfect mixture of her parents (attentive like Sue and articulate like Reed), Franklin really only had concentration for chess—otherwise, he was all over the place, hopping from adult to adult looking for someone to tell his stories to.

Loki told her that magic—or whatever Franklin had—was a skill, and it would only bring him harm if he couldn't concentrate long enough to control it. She hadn't been privy to his lesson, nor did she ask him for details, but she gave him a good night peck on the cheek to show him that she was happy with his initiative.

She wasn't sure what sort of weird truce they had come to since they had their "talk", but things seemed temporarily settled. Although he had apologized for what he had said, Max hadn't forgiven him for it—not by a longshot. So, while she found she was full of flirtatious energy today, she hadn't let him kiss her or touch her, and when he tried, she brushed him off distractedly as though he were a fly. Out of the corner of her eye, she'd watch for a reaction from him, and while anger was too strong a word to describe his response, annoyance wasn't quite strong enough. Maybe no one—no woman—had ever taken the time to punish him for an astronomical fuck-up before, but she wasn't about to give in because he wasn't happy with his penalty.

She hadn't pushed the beds back together either, though she woke up these last two mornings half-curled onto his mattress anyway, their heads very near one another.

Still, it was the principle of the whole thing—she wasn't moving them back together until she decided he was sort of forgiven.

As she settled in one of the chairs set in the neat semi-circle, she noticed Sue looking particularly terse on the other end. Her legs were crossed, arms folded, and she was staring at something away from the monitor that Reed was fiddling with, gaze unfocused.

Max exchanged a look with Peter, who dropped down into the seat next to her, and after he took in Sue's posture, he shrugged. The woman hadn't said another harsh word to them after she had said her bit about them sneaking out, and it seemed that she had no intention of being a mother hen—just as she said. Max appreciated that she wasn't going to face repeated lectures, but she would have liked to chip away at the frosty exterior the other woman put up around her whenever they were alone together.

"What?" She glanced over her shoulder at Johnny's cry of mock outrage. "No food? What kind of meeting is this?"

"Shut up, Johnny," Sue muttered, and Max heard the man chuckle. He plopped into the other chair next to Max, effectively taking away Loki's opportunity to sit by her side, but when she looked back to him, he seemed to be perfectly fine pacing behind her. Ben also seemed to forgo the chair, preferring to lean back against one of the tables. His expression was almost as grim as Sue's, but the more time Max spent with him, the more she realized that was just his resting face.

Shifting on the hard metal chair, Max tried to find a comfortable position. Her lower back would have preferred she stayed in bed that day, and her uterus had been giving her hell since lunchtime. Wrapped up snuggly in Nolan's old sweater, she could have been comfortable if her damn body would give her a break. All the bruises were finally gone, and now her PMS decided to rear its ugly head. Sighing, she shot a hesitant look at Sue and wondered if she could ask for a hot water bottle when the meeting was over.

No regrets packing her tampons now—though Loki had been less than impressed to find that all her female products had taken over the bathroom after she semi-unpacked her bag yesterday.

The monitor flickered for a moment, catching her attention, and Reed finally stepped in front of it with a remote in hand.

"Thank you all for coming," he started, pointing the clicker over his shoulder. A title page flashed onto the screen. "I wanted to talk to you—"

"Is this a PowerPoint presentation?" Johnny asked with a laugh, his arms folded over his chest and legs stuck out straight in front of him. Reed looked momentarily thrown, shooting the man a narrowed glare, and cleared his throat.

"It was the best format to present the information," he muttered. Max poked Johnny sharply in the ribs, making him flinch.

"Stop heckling," she hissed, and he held his hands up innocently. She heard Loki chuckle behind her, and the corners of her lips quirked upward. Reed cleared his throat again, and suddenly an array of grainy black and white images appeared on the screen. Max leaned closer, squinting to try to bring them into focus.

"Peter and I have been able to hack into the camera feeds with lower security measures around the city," he told them, gesturing back at nothing in particular. "From what we can tell, they have camps in all the parks. People move in and out of them at a pretty steady rate, and I'm sure they're holding others somewhere else."

The screen flickered as the image changed, and Max saw images of all the destroyed bridges, along with a few boats in the river.

"I think they've been shipping supplies in," Reed continued. "The tunnels are still out of commission and the bridges are useless."

"They're not the only thing that's useless," Johnny muttered, this time sounding less playful as he spoke.

The screen changed again, and Max straightened up when she saw a familiar figure in a street fight with uniformed soldiers.

"Captain America," Reed said with a sigh, "seems to be holding Brooklyn and Queens. We've only been able to access a few cameras out there, but it's not like Manhattan… There are more people out there, people that look like…"

"People?" Max offered, remembering the deadened expressions of the individuals she passed on the street. "What does that mean?"

"It means it's not a global takeover," Reed remarked. "It means it's not the invasion that they had hoped for. I suspect that they assumed they'd have total control within the month… I mean, the propaganda videos on TV suggest as much. It's a fear-based campaign. They seem to want to scare people into submission by telling them the fight is already over."

Max glanced at Loki when his hand touched her shoulder. He wasn't looking at her, however, and seemed quite focused on the grainy image of Captain America. She placed her hand on top of his, gripping it gently for a moment.

"Russia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia are completely alien-free." New images appeared on the screen, and Max leaned back into Loki's touch. Massacres. There were screenshots of bodies burning, pits of bloodied people, and militias armed to the teeth with heavy weaponry. "Australia is close to it, and I don't have any information on New Zealand, but it seems that they're actually doing pretty well for themselves."

"They aren't sparing any lives either," Ben noted, his gravelly voice expressing what everyone had already been thinking. "The Captain won't get tough over here because of those hostage camps in Central Park…"

"But people are dying no matter what," Max said, feeling quite small in a room full of heroes—and Loki. "When they take over the body, the person's dead, aren't they?"

She looked up at Loki for confirmation, and he simply nodded.

"That's why I think we need to take action," Reed admitted, fiddling with the remote control in his hands. He shot a look to Sue, but she seemed unwilling to meet his gaze. "There's fighting all around us, but Manhattan seems to be the stronghold of the continent's power… I mean…" A new image appeared of the man Loki had called Carl. "This guy seems to be running things, and we've got pictures of him coming and going from the UN. I think that's his base."

"He does the same route every other day lately," Johnny said. "He goes by us in his convertible… We should just shoot him."

"We can't just get rid of one player," Peter insisted. "We'd need to get rid of all of them. They're a disease."

"That's why I propose an alternative to the bloodbath we've seen overseas," Reed said, scratching at the back of his neck. "I think we should brew an antidote… Something harmful to them, but non-toxic to us."

Max tried to contain her smile—they were finally doing something. Her grip tightened on Loki's hand, and she felt him stroke her shoulder with his thumb—though his gaze was still fixated on the screen.

"It needs to be one hundred perfect effective," Reed told them. "I propose a single strike once we've perfected the serum. I've been tinkering with it here, but we'll need test subjects to ensure it's lethal."

"You want to bring those things into this building?" Sue demanded, her voice shaking. "You want to expose them to our children?"

"They are not the creatures you think them to be," Loki interjected, speaking before Reed could argue. "They are small in stature. Stronger than the average human, yes, and it is their technology that permits them to hop between bodies… But the collective strength in this room would easily overpower several. I suspect the Spider here could catch a few for us."

Peter adjusted his glasses and peered up at Loki, and then nodded when he undoubtedly felt the gaze of the entire room on him. "Yeah, I guess."

"We can do it together," Johnny said with a nod. "Ben, would you like to catch a few of these assholes? It'll be fine if you break them."

She couldn't tell if Ben was smiling, as his face generally looked miserable, but there was a slight lift of a rocky eyebrow and a glimmer in his small eyes that seemed to indicate his approval.

"Getting subjects won't be the issue," Reed said quickly, bringing the focus of the group back to him. "The formula needs to be perfect, and I barely know where to start. I'm trying to combine elements that are lethal to animals and not to humans… pesticides and such that I already have in the lab. We'll need more. We'll need lots of other things…"

He looked to Sue, his gaze imploring.

"We'll need someone to take things while remaining undetectable," he continued. "Maybe a job for the Invisible Woman?"

The look she shot him was so poignant that Max could feel the discomfort between them.

"We'll… We'll talk about it later," he said, shifting his weight between his feet. "I had thought that if we could get a few weapons to defend the tower with, we might… we might launch a full-scale assault on the city with the formula."

"What?" Johnny sounded incredulous this time. "Reed—"

"The Oscorp tower has a device that could be used to dispense the formula across the city."

"They took it down," Peter interrupted. "After they arrested Connors, they took the main dispensing unit down and destroyed it." He paused for a moment, fiddling with his glasses again. "But there are some smaller prototype machines in storage…"

Reed nodded, pointing to Peter as he darted back to a whiteboard and started scribbling something. His writing was appalling.

"Could you move them out of storage?"

"I'd need help lifting them, but maybe."

"You don't need fancy machines to spray people with things," Max added. "I mean… We used to spray our dogs with squirt guns when they were misbehaving. Really, you could fill waterguns with whatever formula you make. If it's lethal to ingest, we'd just need to—"

"Spray them in the mouth with a close-range watergun?" Sue asked dryly.

"It's not a terrible idea," Reed told her. "I mean, I envisioned arming the entire city with… with this formula. Peter and Ben said there are people in the sewers. We're not the only ones left alive… This isn't an apocalypse yet."

"So why can't we wait for other people to help?" Sue demanded. "If Australia and the Philippines and whatever other country is fine, why can't they help us?"

"Because it's not an apocalypse, but it's no less of a global meltdown," Reed argued. "It's war, and if we haven't gotten help yet, I don't think we should keep waiting and letting them get stronger."

She seemed to concede the point to him, but she looked no less miserable in doing so. Max felt for her—she really did. She understood the need to protect the ones she loved, and if she was at home with her parents—and Nolan and his wife and their little girl—she probably would have advocating for staying indoors and locking down until everything blew over.

But she wasn't with them. Nolan was dead, her parents were stuck in Vermont, and her friends could be either in a camp or in a sewer, and they couldn't sit idly anymore.

"We'd need a coordinated blitz attack on the entire city," Reed said, "basically."

"If we could perfect a formula, we could give it to the people in the sewers," Peter suggested. "I mean, a lot of them seemed to be armed."

"They are," Max muttered, thinking of the welcoming party she and Loki met at the subway station. "They definitely are."

Ben shook his massive head, his arms folded stiffly across his chest—the best he could do, anyway. "It could easily turn into a mess if you involve the general public."

"Well, we can't do it alone."

"They should be a last resort."

"And it's not like the enemy doesn't have firepower either." Johnny let out a humourless laugh. "I mean, you saw the tanks, right? You've seen the soldiers? I'm all for a fight, but we can't have regular idiots getting themselves blown up because they lack experience."

"Hey," Max snapped, frowning. "Us regular idiots want to save the planet just as much as you guys do."

Loki's hand had moved to her neck, keeping her grounded when she tried to stand up. When she looked at him, he stared back pointedly. It wasn't up to her to plan this, apparently—she lacked the skills. Lips pursed, she settled back into her seat.

The debate grew more and more enthusiastic as time passed. Occasionally, Loki added input, but he seemed content to let the others work through it. Max listened as well—she could have complained about being excluded, but she was just happy that the people who could do something were finally taking a stab at the problem. Everyone would have a part to play, Reed insisted, though Max assumed her part would consist of watching the kids while everyone else was doing something important.

When she spared a look at Sue, she noticed the woman's slumped shoulders, her limp hands, her blank expression. At one point, a tear rolled down her cheek, but she brushed it away wordlessly. No one else seemed to notice.

Most of the time, the extreme temperatures in her shower bothered her, but as Max stood beneath the scalding streams that pelted onto her achy body, she wouldn't have it any other way. Breathing out of her mouth, she stood directly under the showerhead, eyes closed and hands at her side. The heat was making her back feel better, and she decided that she would join Peter, Johnny, Ben, and the kids for a movie night in an hour while their parents had that 'later' chat Reed hinted at.

Loki was welcome to join, but she had a sinking suspicion he would put up a fuss about sitting through a kids movie before bed, whether it was a classic or not.

The meeting raged on for the better part of the afternoon. Although they had decided that now was the time for action, she left it not entirely sure of what everyone intended to do in the end. Reed was to make a formula. Peter had contraptions to locate at the Oscorp tower and commandeer. Johnny and Ben offered to take test subjects, and Loki volunteered to blood them—his wording—to ensure they were actually aliens. Sue's role was a grey area. Max was a babysitter.

Not that she was complaining outright yet—she could watch the kids, but a part of her actually wanted to do something. She wasn't sure what at the moment, because there was no solid plan other than creating an alien pesticide, but it was a start. Reed already had a number of ideas for various mixtures that he wanted to try, and it was decided that they were going to collect specimens sometime in the next week and a half.

It all seemed a little too good to be true, and Max decided that she'd watch from the sidelines for now. Everyone seemed genuinely excited about taking a stand, but she wasn't going to get on that bandwagon until she saw real action taking place.

When she figured she had wasted enough of the hot water, she turned it off and stepped out of the shower, grabbing the towel on the toilet to dry her hair. Steam filled the room, and she rubbed out a small circle in the mirror to have a look at her freshly washed face. She frowned when she saw the start of a pimple on her chin, and then forced herself to leave it alone—hopefully the heat would take care of it.

After giving her hair and body another rub down, she wrapped the grey towel around her and tucked the tip under her arm. Loki was where she left him once she was out of their makeshift sauna: seated on his bad, back to the wall, and a notebook in hand. He volunteered to write down all the information he had in his memory about Pagurolids and their history, and as she approached him, he seemed to be sketching. He glanced up at her when a water droplet fell from her damp hair, landing noisily on his borrowed trousers.

"Is that what they look like?" she asked, wrinkling her nose as she leaned forward. He tilted the notebook toward her, showing off a rough sketch of a creature that looked like a hairless guinea pig crossed with a monkey.

"Beauty is subjective," he mused, head cocked to the side. "I'm sure they find themselves quite appealing."

"Ugh," she groaned, giving a dramatic shiver. "I can't believe those things are just… wandering around."

"The whole concept of their race is troubling." He smirked at her, eyes running up and down her frame. "You're still quite wet... Let me help you dry off."

She gave a forced laugh, stepping out of his reach when he swiped for her, and then poked her tongue out at him.

"I think it's a task I can handle myself, thanks," she told him, rolling her eyes at the fake pout he offered at her refusal. When she turned away, he sighed noisily, and as she stood at her bed, picking through the pile of clothes at the end, she felt his fingers ghost up the backs of her wet calves. She giggled, her skin erupting in little bumps, and stepped further away, shooting him a look over her shoulder.

"Those are prickly," he noted, nodding down to her legs, and she scoffed.

"Well, you don't have to touch them, do you?" She pulled out a pair of black sweatpants from the bottom of the pile, and then dug around for Nolan's old sweater. Her legs weren't bad yet, but they definitely couldn't have done with a shave sometime soon. However, seeing as she was still angry with him for what he had said, she opted not to bother with certain aspects of "required" female hygiene.

"I'd like to touch them…"

"Well, life's tough, isn't it?" she asked absently, frowning when she couldn't find the garment she wanted. She started throwing the shirts off the bed, going through each one before lifting her covers up.

"Am I still being punished for what I said?" Loki groaned, shutting his book and setting it aside. She could see him shuffling closer out of the corner of her eye. "I've told you that I was sorry—"

"I heard you the first time," Max insisted, finally looking up at him with raised eyebrows, "but that doesn't mean I'm over it."

"And this is the way to… get over it?" he demanded, sounding grumpier than before. She pursed her lips in an attempt to hide her smile, and then shrugged.

"Do you feel like you're being punished?"

He stared at her for a moment, and then shuffled back on the bed in a huff. He shot her one last look before picking up his notebook again, his eyes steely, and resumed writing in it. She wanted to laugh—the punishment felt very domestic of her, strangely enough. Still, it seemed to have the desired effect. Besides, did he think she'd just crawl back into bed with the guy who made a crude jeer about it?

No thanks. He did look handsome in that moment with the notebook pressed against his knee and a scowl on his face. Shaking her head, she grinned and resumed searching for her sweater. The air was fairly warm that evening, with the day's heat rising to the top of the tower, but she felt most comfortable these last two days when she was in Nolan's sweater. If she was feeling stressed, she just brought the collar to her nose, closed her eyes, and inhaled deeply—it was like he was right there with her.

When it wasn't on or under the messy pile of clothes on her bed, Max dug through the neatly folded spare pile that Sue let her keep—just in case she needed them. She didn't recall putting the sweater there when she took it off before her shower, but sometimes the mind worked in weird ways. However, it wasn't there either. She stood up, arms folded to keep the towel in place, and spun in a slow circle, taking in every inch of the room. When she was finished, she checked the bathroom, fully aware that it probably wouldn't be in there.

"Where's my sweater?" she asked, flicking off the light switch in the bathroom as she marched back into the bedroom. Loki barely glanced up at her when he spoke.

"Your what?"

"Sweater," she repeated. Her eyes ran along the base of the windows and toward the corner of the room, wondering if she had missed it somewhere. She then looked back at Loki, her breathing quickening. "Did you take it?"

"What? No," he said with a laugh. He half-closed his notebook and nodded toward the clothes on her bed. "It's not there?"

"No."

"Or mixed in with Sue's clothes?"

"No." Her lower lip started to tremble, and she took a deep breath. Before she could demand that he get up to see if it somehow found a way into his bed, he straightened, tapping his pen noisily against the cover of his book.

"Ah, yes, I've forgotten," he said quickly, smiling a little. "Sue came by while you were in the shower to wash some of our clothes. She must have taken it with her… That thing was shockingly dirty, Max."

Her lower back was starting to ache again, but she ignored it. "What?"

"It was so dirty," he told her, settling back against the wall. "I'm sure she'll bring it back."

"She's… She's washing it?" The idea wasn't syncing properly with her brain, and when she finally realized what a horrible thing that was, she turned and darted out of the room.

"Max!" She heard Loki call for her as she hurried down the hall, her hair leaving the odd droplet of water here and there. "She'll bring it right back…"

She gave no response. Instead, she practically threw herself through the door and flung her body down the stairs. She didn't care that she was wearing nothing more than a towel. She didn't care that Sue was forever distant and aloof toward her. The woman was going to wash the smell out of it.

Sue and Reed usually alternated between laundry cycles. Reed sent the clothes back still damp and never folded, whereas Sue returned the washed items in perfectly folded piles that were still fresh from the dryer. Max had volunteered to help once, and she usually brought Sue whatever clothes needed washing on the tenth floor because she felt like she was making a contribution to the chore itself. However, as she raced down to her, her mind focused on one thing and one thing only, she knew she wasn't about to make Sue's life easier this time.

The tenth floor needed to be remodeled completely, and she was running on bare cement once she was through the metal doorway. However, the laundry suite was almost done, with four washers and dryers in total and a drying area by one of the windows for delicates.

"Max?"

Sue looked somewhat surprised—taken aback, almost—by her appearance, and she looked her up and down quickly.

"Hey," she said, breathing heavily as she stalked toward the laundry basket filled with loose items. They appeared to be a whites load, which could mean that she'd find the sweater there.

"Are you okay?"

"I just…" She dug through the clothes, trying not to throw them everywhere—despite desperately wanting to. "I was just looking for something."

"Okay…" The woman cleared her throat. "You'll have to wait for it. I just put your stuff in about ten minutes ago—"

"Was there a, uhm, a sweater?" she stammered, straightening up. "It was big and kind of old looking, and I've been wearing it a lot lately."

Sue frowned at her. "There might have been. I figured I'd just grab everything that looked dirty."

"No, no, that's… that's really fine," she babbled, stalking toward the washer. "It's so nice of you to… to do our laundry. I know it's a hassle and probably annoying, and I…"

She hesitated before opening up the washer, and then heard Sue's cry of protest when she did it. The swirling pool of dark clothing came to a stop slowly, and she winced at the heat when she put her hand into it. She wasn't really thinking—not even a little. It wasn't at maximum temperature yet, thankfully, but when she retracted her arm with the wrong garment in hand, she could see the skin was going red.

"Max…"

"Sorry, sorry," she said over her shoulder, eyes fixed on the laundry. When she found Nolan's old sweater, she rung it out before shutting the machine's lid slowly. The washer resumed its cycle, rumbling noisily, and Max stared at the soaking material in her hand.

"What are you doing?"

She lifted the sweater to her nose and took a quick sniff—nothing. Nothing but detergent and damp cloth.

Swallowing thickly, she turned back to Sue, and she felt like she was in that freefall again with her heart racing and stomach churning. She looked between the baffled woman and the sweater, and then licked her lips.

"I'm… I'm sorry," she started, her voice trembling a little, "but please don't… Please don't wash this."

"Well, you could have specified—"

"I know," she said, "and I should have told you, and I'm sorry, but please don't… please don't wash this."

The last few words were followed by several heaving breaths, and her eyes started to prickle, lined with fresh tears. Sue opened and closed her mouth a few times, and Max tried to smile.

"It's n-not your fault, really," she insisted, trying to sound reassuring. "I should have… It's my fault. I should have told you. I just… Please don't wash this."

Sue nodded slowly as her breathing quickened. "Okay, Max, I'm sorry—"

"It's just," she carried on, holding out the sweater in front of her, "this belonged to someone, and now it… It doesn't have his smell."

She looked up at Sue, sniffling and gulping down air as a few tears rolled down her flushed cheeks.

"I'm… I'm sorry, just don't… I wish you hadn't washed it, that's all," she rambled. Her knees shook. The tips of her fingers were numb. There was a lightness in her head, and she realized that she was having a panic attack as she leaned back against the washer. "It's not your fault… I didn't tell you. I'm sorry, I just… I'm sorry, but don't…"

"Okay, okay, sit down," Sue said softly, hurrying forward and taking Max by the upper arms. However, as soon as they touched, Max let out an embarrassing sob and buried her face in the wet sweater. She then sunk down to the ground, ignoring the fact that she was still only in a towel, and let her legs flop out.

"You have to take steady breaths," Sue insisted as she knelt down in front of her, "or you're going to pass out."

"I'm sorry that I-I'm a bother," she said—she'd never used the word "bother" like that in her life. "I'm sorry, Sue. It's my fault for all this… I-I'm so sorry."

There was no telling how much of her babbling Sue understood, but she nodded all the same.

"Okay, let's just try to—"

"No," she whined, the panic-breathing resuming. "No, no, I'm sorry, but I can't just… Please, don't wash this. I'm sorry that I'm… I'm trying to stop, but I can't just…"

She buried her face again, sobbing into the sweater that smelled like nothing—pure, horrible nothing.

"Ridiculous woman," he muttered, shaking his head when he heard the hallway door slam shut. He wasn't sure why she cared about a piece of clothing—he had never known Max to be materialistic—but Loki wasn't about to stop her from doing what she wanted to do. After all, while he had thought they made up after she kissed him, apparently he was sorely mistaken, and he wasn't about to do anything to spoil whatever careful truce they had. After all, she wasn't being horribly unpleasant to him by any means—but it was quite clear he was still being punished for his rash words.

Today, he had seen a band of non-human misfits—and Max—come together for the defense of their realm, and he was almost moved by it—almost. There was no denying their strength. As a collective force, they were powerful based solely on the fact that they weren't human. He had learned to appreciate humanity, but they were no match for a colonial race of outsiders. However, the beings in this tower were better than humans. They had all the basic traits that made them human, and yet it seemed as though they had been elevated to something beyond that. Captain America, though painfully boring, could be counted among these superior types of humankind, though Loki would never admit it.

There was a possibility that Reed's serum could be a success, and if so, Loki was interested in being a part of that. He wanted to see what the man's brainpower could accomplish. If it wiped out the Pagurolid colonists here on Earth, there was a chance that the race would be annihilated elsewhere too.

Would the other realms hail Loki as a hero if he destroyed the pesky creatures once and for all? He couldn't deny it—the thought had come to him during the meeting that afternoon. He had also noticed that Max was keen to get involved, despite the fact that she had little to offer. She seemed to watch him appreciatively whenever he offered advice on the issue, though much of what he had to say was fairly common knowledge to anyone who had traveled between the realms.

Still, at least she—and the rest of the room—seemed impressed. His notebook was going to be even more impressive, as he thought his drawings were quite accurate, and he thought about adding all of the history of their home planet somewhere in the back for reference. After all, there wasn't much for him to do at this point in time. The tower's occupants seemed quite ready to take small steps toward their freedom, but first they needed Reed's concoction of poisons in some quantity—after that, Loki could become even more useful by helping them catch a few of the slippery creatures.

He wasn't helping because he thought Earth needed to be saved. He would happily abandon the planet with a select few of its occupants and leave it to ruin, but for now, this plan seemed to benefit him too.

His pen scratched softly along the paper, and Loki realized he was sticking his tongue out a little as he added some detail to the Pagurolid's face. Clearing his throat, he shook his head again, and then glanced up when he heard the hallway door open. He listened for a moment, and then resumed sketching. However, the footfalls fell differently than Max's usually did, and when he looked up again, he saw that Sue was standing in the doorway to the bedroom.

"Ah, hello again," he said, keeping his tone pleasant. He pointed in the general direction of the stairwell with his pen. "Max was looking for you… Something about a sweater—"

"Yeah, she found me," the woman said briskly. She ran a hand through her hair. "Can you come with me for a second?"

Loki frowned, quickly setting the notebook aside, and then eased off the bed.

"Is everything alright?"

"To be honest, I'm not sure," she said as she darted back into the hall. He caught up with her in a few quick strides.

"Is something wrong with Max?"

"I guess you could say that."

He wanted to snatch her arm and demand a more thorough explanation, but she descended the empty stairwell at such a rapid pace that it seemed more prudent to simply follow her. She took him down to the tenth floor, where he understood the clothes were to be washed, and led him in without a word. He could hear Max before he saw her—deep, breathless sobs echoed through the unfinished floor. Loki shot Sue a glare.

"What did you do to her?"

"Nothing," the woman groaned, throwing her hands up as they rounded a corner. "I… I mean, I accidentally washed a sweater that I didn't know belonged to somebody—"

"Enough," Loki snapped, brushing her off with a wave. He found Max curled up in front of a white laundry machine, still wrapped in her towel. Her damp hair clung to her shoulders, and she was weeping into a wet piece of grey fabric—probably the damn sweater.

"I didn't mean to do anything," Sue insisted. Loki shot her a look. "She needs to stop crying like that or she's going to pass out."

"Leave us," he hissed. He spotted her fold her arms out of the corner of his eye, and he added, "Please."

Whether she stayed or not was of little consequence to him, but he knew Max wasn't the most comfortable with the woman. Still, he marched forward, checking her over for external injuries, and dropped to his knees in front of her. She barely seemed to notice his arrival. Her shoulders were shaking and her knuckles were white—she seemed to have trouble breathing.

"Max?" He spoke gently, not wanting to startle her. However, when he received no response, Loki tried again, speaking a little louder this time. Finally, he pried the wet shirt out of her hands and forced her head up. It was easy to do, and he couldn't be sure if he had hurt her or not—she was already crying. Her face was white, eyes red, and her cheeks were drenched.

Loki hadn't the slightest idea what to do. When he had happened upon crying women in the past, ones who meant nothing to him, he used their tears for his own selfish purposes. He'd earned favours by comforting them, and then faced their disdain when they realized the secrets they had let slip when they were most vulnerable.

He rarely sought to comfort sobbing women he cared about, lest he say the wrong thing.

"Breathe," he urged, holding her head up by her chin. Her eyes were wild for a moment, darting this way and that, but she seemed to calm. When some colour returned to her cheeks, he cupped her face, careful not to press too hard. "What caused this?"

She shook her head, closing her eyes tight, but he only repeated the question again, firmly and pointedly.

"It's Nolan's sweater," she whispered, her lower lip trembling as she spoke. "It's his sweater, and it's from high school, and it still smelled like him, and now it doesn't."

Loki's eyebrows furrowed. "Max, I don't understand—"

"And I don't have anything else that smells like him," she told him. Her voice grew a little stronger. "Not here."

She shut her eyes as her face screwed, but he refused to remove his hands, even when she tried to shrug him off.

"Surely you can find something else?"

"I don't have anything else," she wailed, her breathing quickening again. "Not here, not at my apartment…"

"Max—"

"He came to get me." Her words sounded more like a confession, which made Loki's frown deepen. "He came back for me when you and all the aliens came, and they shot him."

His frown broke as a wave of understanding rushed through him, and he tried to muster something to say to her, but now that she started talking, she seemed unable to stop.

"They shot him right at the museum." She was reaching for the sweater again, and Loki returned it to her freely. "We were running and they shot him, and it's all my fault."

"It's not your—"

"They shot him like he was nothing," she wailed, her hands fisted in the fabric, the tears streaking across his fingers. "And he wasn't nothing!"

"I know he wasn't," he murmured. No wonder she seemed broken these days.

"He was a dad." She nodded when he arched a curious eyebrow. "He was a dad and a son and a brother and he wasn't nothing, and it's all my fault that he's nothing now."

"Max—"

"A-At least they c-can't use him." She was stammering and stuttering over her words now, her body wracked with shakes. "They can't because he doesn't have a face anymore, so they can't use him, but I don't get him e-either…"

He released a small puff of air as she started to cry again, and then let her grab him by the collar and drag herself to him.

"You should have told me," he murmured against her hair, feeling the damp skin of her cheeks against his neck. She gave an incoherent response, one that he didn't ask her to clarify. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her, holding her to him with just the right amount of gentleness. He then settled down against the rattling machine behind them and pulled her onto his lap, holding her there as she cried.

He said nothing to her as he cradled her to him. In the past, he hadn't known what to say in the face of such an emotional catastrophe—he feared ruining the moment. In this moment, however, he knew that there was nothing he could say to make it better, and there was no sense in trying. He would speak to her about it when she calmed completely—when she might be rational. However, there was nothing rational about the death of a loved one, and he could give her the silence she needed.

Sue appeared before them moments later, and Loki hoped she would also hold her tongue—he hadn't even realized she was still there. She had a fresh towel in hand, one that appeared to have just been removed from a dryer, and offered it to him. Temporarily releasing Max, he accepted the small token before wrapping it around her cool shoulders.

And with that, Sue left them, and they stayed there for the better part of the evening, forgetting about serums and movies and plans and notebooks and detailed sketches. They had nothing but one another, and although it pained him to see her in agony, he was glad to have been there for it all the same.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Right, so I think I got a little too excited about the details of this chapter in my last author's notes… Everyone thought Max was pregnant, so I figured I'd dispel that for now. I think it's significant development for both of them—for Max to tell her secret to the one person she was resistant to burden with it, and for Loki to behave selflessly, even in a situation where he felt out of his element. So. I'm the captain of the Max-Loki ship, and I'm their biggest fangirl… The littlest things make me happy.

I don't have too much to discuss this time around. Spoilers: a character from the last story will be making a brief reappearance at the end of the next chapter, and then a more substantial appearance in the following.

I feel like I'm stepping my game up with updates. Trying to keep this momentum going before I go away for my Christmas holidays, during which I doubt I'll have any updates done at all, really.

Onward and upward, darlings! See you again soon for the next chapter (hopefully), and see you even sooner in your lovely reviews. LOVE!