"And who shall I be playing this time?"

Franklin stared at the chessboard briefly, eyes darting back and forth between the two opposing sides, and then pointed to the white.

"How generous of you," Loki mused. He settled down on the designated side, knowing full well that Franklin preferred to play the white army during their matches whenever he could.

"Something tells me the black guys have a victory in them today," the boy insisted excitedly, plopping onto his chair. He then seemed to notice a piece of lunch stuck to his t-shirt moments later, and Loki watched him, eyebrows raised, as he scratched at it until the dried, crusty crumbles fell to the floor. His toothy grin did nothing to soften Loki's look, but Loki managed to offer a small smile in return. There was no need to cause anymore undue stress today, even if it was a lesson and he owed Franklin nothing but proper mentorship.

Thursday. Two days before the assault on the city, and the tower practically radiated with stress and tension. Johnny, the Spider, and Ben were down in the sewers for the day, while Loki politely declined said glorious duty—he'd played nicely enough with all the scattered human communities over the last few days, and he preferred to sit the next two days out. Reed, meanwhile, overworked himself and his woman in the daylight hours to get enough of Stark's serum ready for citywide use. Sue, meanwhile, overworked her man come twilight by forcing him into bouts of playtime with the children.

It was as if she suddenly remembered she ought to mother the young duo.

Max, meanwhile, spent the morning cleaning various common areas of the tower, taking over said duties from Sue, and crashed up in their room after lunch. Exhausted, she had fallen asleep mid-conversation with him when Franklin came sniffing around for a chess match, and seeing as there was no one to mind either child at that point, Loki begrudgingly agreed to play in the boy's room. The little girl, meanwhile, hovered near the door while Loki had set up the board, but when he glanced over his shoulder, he noticed she was gone, and he soon heard her puttering around in her room across the hall.

"I've been practicing everything you told me," Franklin said as Loki shifted on the slightly too small chair, trying to find a comfortable position. He nodded when he realized the boy was gazing at him expectantly.

"Have you?"

"Every day!"

Guilt plucked at him, though he had no reason to feel it. He had offered to help Franklin, to teach him, but he wasn't obligated to be with the boy day and night. Still, it had been almost two weeks since he had given a proper lesson—the hours of simpering and crying while Franklin struggled to move his next piece seemed to have put a bit of a dampener on their lessons. He cringed thinking back to that day, recalling how Max balanced her frustration with Loki and her patience with Franklin quite remarkably—he could have almost taken notes on it for future infuriating situations.

"Well, I expect to see some improvement then," Loki told the boy. He watched that excited smile falter a little, and Franklin gulped noticeably. With some effort, he kept his features relaxed, a hand under his chin as he stared at the pieces. Although he had only learned the game recently, Loki felt quite competent in most of the chess strategies that Franklin frequently employed. Sometimes he let him win, but those were fleeting, rare occasions: Franklin's hubris was sizeable enough without Loki adding to it.

He eased his first pawn across the squares, then sat back. Franklin moved forward to set the balance, chewing his lower lip quite aggressively as he surveyed the board. Surely it was all just an act: Franklin usually knew what he was going to do long before the game started. Still, Loki could give him credit for knowing how to really play the game, how to psyche out an opponent, how to pretend to struggle. Despite his age, Franklin was a worthy adversary on the chessboard, and, perhaps if his powers actually developed, he'd be worthy on the real playing field too.

Franklin's focus was impressive before that first move. Loki followed his gaze down to the board and saw the piece he wished to move, and for some time, they both stared at it. His head started to throb again, the pain coming in sharp and fast and angry. He took a deep breath, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, and slowly closed his eyes. The boy's power had a strange effect on him, and he wondered if anyone else in the tower ever felt it—or was it simply because it was magic that Loki felt this way?

No. No, Franklin's abilities weren't the magic Frigga taught him.

His eyes shot open when he heard a piece wobble, and he saw the pawn Franklin had focused so desperately on keel forward. However, instead of falling, Franklin managed to right it, leaning backward so suddenly that the piece mimicked his action. Then, it slid forward, gliding across the two squares smoothly, and Loki felt the heaviness drop in the room. The pain behind his eyes ceased, and Franklin was smiling.

"Did you see it?" the boy demanded, pointing at the piece. "Look!"

"I was watching," Loki assured him. He then moved another white pawn forward effortlessly, his hands in his lap. "Do it again and I'll start to be impressed."

The boy opened and closed his mouth several times, slightly deflated, and then nodded. "Okay."

Loki tried to hide his smile. The next time Franklin moved a pawn, the pressure was less and the movement was smoother. When he moved a knight, there was almost no uncomfortable sensation in his head. When he finally took Loki's king, knocking it over with his queen, he gave the boy the highest praise he could possibly sing.

"You've made me very proud." And he meant it. He fully intended to tell Franklin's parents that their son could be managed, that the power could be controlled. Franklin didn't need to be an outcast in a family of superhumans—not anymore.

"Can we play again?" Franklin asked. His cheeks were flushed when Loki glanced up at him again, and he nodded with a smirk.

"Only if you set up the board without touching any of the players," he told him, gesturing to the discarded chess pieces. "You have ten minutes to do it properly."

There was a brief flash of panic across Franklin's little features, followed by a look of determination. Loki settled back in his chair to watch him work, slowly inching the pieces across the board into their proper spot. When he looked behind him, he spied Valeria peering in, watching her brother with cautious fascination. When she caught Loki studying her, she vanished, darting back into her room and shutting the door softly behind her.

Franklin managed to set up the board without touching a single piece. He did it in eleven minutes, and therefore earned no praise from Loki.

"Why are all the Smurfs blue?" Valeria asked from beneath the mountain of blankets she had brought down from her bedroom. Despite the fact that the tower was getting warmer with each passing day, she seemed forever chilly, almost to the point where Sue mentioned to Max that she was worried the girl might be anemic.

"They're just blue, Val," Franklin grunted. He and Max occupied the small loveseat, and she smirked at him when his mom swooped in to take the empty chip bowl out of his lap. He continued trying to get every last morsel out as it disappeared, and Sue swatted his hand away.

"I'm getting more, Franklin."

"I mean, do they have a genetic defect that makes them blue?" She and Loki exchanged a look from across the room. He had an armchair to himself on the other side of Valeria's couch, while Peter snored softly on next to the little girl, head thrown back and mouth gaping. "They have other human features—"

"That's just what they look like," she offered, hoping to quell the conversation before Franklin made things worse by losing his temper—he was already starting to huff and puff by her side. "They're a blue race. Alien, probably."

There was no sense in trying to dumb things down for a girl as intelligent as Valeria, but sometimes there were issues that she didn't quite know how to explain. For instance, Valeria considered the Smurfs in the movie real, and yet she must have known, logically, that they weren't real on Earth, even if the film had scenes on Earth. Max liked to watch and listen to the girl reason things out: sometimes she was so profound about the simplest things, while in other cases she was still just a kid who didn't have the experience to know better. She was a mystery, one that Max knew she couldn't solve.

Nor would she bother trying. These little nights together with Sue and the kids were actually some of the best parts of the day, unless she was alone with Loki. There was laughter and innocence, and movie nights were almost like a reset button: everyone went into them with the day's stress in mind, and they left them completely relaxed. Now, there was no telling how long everyone relaxed for when it was over and they were back in their rooms, but that didn't matter. She needed to live for the moment, otherwise she'd go into a panic about Saturday.

Even with her few practice shots, Max's confidence wasn't all that high. Sure, she knew, theoretically, how to shoot the gun Sue had given her. She had read literature on snipers, and she had been to long-range shooting galleries dozens of times in her twenties, less so in the last few years. But there was an immense pressure on her shoulders now, one that she had put there herself, and she could only hope that she'd live up to the expectations she set. She was going to kill the guy who started the invasion—she was going to put a bullet in his head, and the revolution would kick off across the city.

And she was terrified. Terrified of missing, of failing. She could feel the stress in her body these past few days: her cramps came and went in her lower back and across her abdomen, her limbs equally stiff and sore. After cleaning the main floor—which involved a lot of dusting, sweeping, and scrubbing of food off pots—and attempting to do the same in her bathroom, Max was wiped out. Loki had taken the day off from the sewers, insisting he owed Franklin some time, and Max fell asleep mid-conversation. She woke up a few hours later feeling a little better, but she assumed the stress was really doing a number on her body.

Therefore, a movie night was crucial to her health—or so she told herself.

"No, no, they can't be aliens," Valeria said after a moment of silence. Max heard Loki sigh noisily, and Franklin reached for the remote on the coffee table. "Aliens are bad guys."

"Not all aliens are bad guys." Max turned, her back digging into the sofa's armrest, and tried to resettle somewhere more comfortable. "Loki's an alien, and he's not a bad guy."

"That's debatable," Peter interjected sleepily, and she noticed Loki roll his eyes, his head resting on his hand as he clearly tried to force himself to watch the movie.

If he had had it his way, they would have been upstairs in the shower together right now, but Max ended the debate by sneaking out when he wasn't paying attention, and then darting out of his grasp playfully until they reached the main floor. He could have easily caught her—they both knew it—and brought her back upstairs, but he must have wanted to humor her tonight. She also suspected he was starting to feel bad for her aches and pains again, and he had been hesitant to touch her too roughly after their sexual escapades in the basement last night, during which she let out a pretty embarrassing yelp when he manhandled her too much.

The sex was still as good as always, but he had seemed to need an extra reminding that she was flimsy.

"I always thought Loki was a god," Valeria said after another lull in the conversation. She had taken a breath before saying Loki's name, and when Max looked at her, the girl wasn't actually looking at him as she spoke about him. "I mean—"

"I'm trying to watch the movie!" Franklin bellowed, squishing his thumb down on the volume button to drown his sister out. Sue admonished him almost immediately from the kitchen, and Max snatched the remote away to lower the sound back to a reasonable level. The boy almost looked sheepish when he caught Loki glowering at him, and Max handed the remote back to him. She watched him lift it, point it at the TV, and then set it down on the coffee table again.

Rolling her eyes, Max got up and grabbed her mug, then did a quick sweep of everyone else's drinks. Sue acknowledged that the kids shouldn't be drinking soda this late, but she seemed unable to deny them anything the past couple of days. Max shrugged it off when the woman presented the ethical dilemma to her: one night of fizzy drinks after dinner wasn't going to ruin their teeth. If they kept eating chips and chocolate and soda, however, there might be an issue somewhere down the line…

When she noted everyone else's drinks were still full, she stepped around the coffee table to gauge Loki's tea levels, and Peter nudged her with his foot as she walked by the couch.

"Move… 'm watching," he grunted, and then let out a sleepy chuckle when Max turned back and smacked his leg. Valeria leaned to the side in order to keep watching despite the disturbance, and Loki held out his hand to help her the last few steps.

"Do you want some more tea?" She touched his cheek as she spoke, her palm spread across his cool skin, fingertips ghosting by his hair, and then peered into his dark mug. Empty. She raised her eyebrows questioningly, and the two mugs clinked together when she looped a finger through the handle.

"Yes," he breathed, tilting his head back as she pressed a kiss to his forehead. They exchanged a brief smile, and when Max stepped away, she could feel the relaxation his touch sent through her limbs, easing away some of the tension in her neck.

"How are you feeling?"

She looked up from the sink at Sue. The woman poured a bag of chips into the bowl Franklin had previously kept to himself, and while Max always expected her to look exhausted, she was perky in the evenings. Daylight showed her lines and folds, her bags and wrinkles, but they all went away once the sun set and she was with her kids.

Setting the mugs down, Max grabbed the nearby black kettle and started to fill it, shrugging at the question.

"PMS is a bitch," she mused, to which Sue nodded with a smile. "I dunno… The tea helps."

"Let me know if you want actual painkillers." Sue tossed the empty plastic bag in the general direction of the garbage bin, sullying the otherwise pristine kitchen setting. She then grabbed a container of cookies and started unloading them onto a plate. "I have some Advil for the kids in their bathroom… It might help."

"I'm sure it's more psychological than anything," she said decidedly. "Stress for Saturday and whatnot."

"Ah, yes." Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Sue's hands stop for a moment, a cookie in each, and then resume the placement ceremony. "I could tell you that it gets easier, but that'd be a lie."

"Yeah?"

"You just get more adjusted to it," she said quietly, pushing the plate away. She then started slicing an apple, as though the healthy option was a pointless afterthought. Max would eat the slices before they went brown, she decided. "And this isn't something I'd want for anyone to get adjusted to."

"It must be no big deal by now for you guys." She quickly rinsed out both mugs, frowning when the tea rings stained the inside. "I mean, you've done this sort of thing heaps of times before."

"True." Sue set her knife down and stared at the spread before her, and before Max could tell her that that was enough, she opened the fridge and pulled out a tray of brownies. When had she had the time to bake brownies? "Back when I was young and stupid, this sort of thing excited me."

"Yeah?"

"Reed was the only one who hesitated before going into a fight," she continued, pulling off the clingwrap and bunching it up. "I mean, he really held the reins on us, you know? Then he got older and it seemed like that sort of… changed."

"That's what happens."

"We switched roles," Sue chuckled, as though she hadn't heard Max. The kettle's innards started to bubble violently, and Max plucked two tea bags out of their cardboard container nearby and dumped them in the mugs. "I thought we'd have kids and get married and settle into cushy contract jobs and just… be done, you know?"

Max stared at the woman for a moment, fingers clutching the edges of the granite countertop, and she watched her smile.

"Sorry, that got personal really fast." Sue shot her a small smile. "I didn't mean to dump that on you—"

"It's not dumping if we're just talking," she assured her. Both women looked over their shoulders when Franklin and Valeria shrieked with laughter at something in the movie. Peter bolted upright at the noise, and Loki still seemed incredibly bored with the whole affair. She'd definitely have to make this up to him—the Smurfs was a rough ride for anyone, but Loki was probably miserable.

"I guess," Sue said once they both turned back.

"Can I ask you something?" The kettle switch clicked and the bubbles slowed, and she grabbed two spoons to manage the teabags. "It's sort of personal…"

Sue nodded. "Sure."

"Why aren't you and Reed actually married?" Her eyes flickered involuntarily down to Sue's ring finger, which was empty. "Are you guys just… not the marriage kind of people?"

"We kept meaning to," the woman replied. She ducked down and grabbed a tray from under the sink, and then began loading it up with all the food she had set out. "We both want to make it official. I mean, it essentially is, but it'd be better for tax purposes if we actually went along and did it."

"Oh."

"Things just keep getting in the way." She rearranged the bowls and plates a few times, trying to find the best way to place everything. Meanwhile, Max filled each mug with steaming water, then dunked the teabags in and out a few times. "Our goal is to do it before Franklin starts high school."

"You've got a couple years of cushioning then, huh?" Max said with a chuckle. Sue, however, did not share the laughter. She sighed deeply instead, hands on the counter and head bowed. When she looked up again, Max saw the shift in demeanor.

"It's all going to change," she told her. "After Saturday, everything is going to be different."

"Well, yeah." Max grabbed a handle in each hand, careful not to spill anything on the floor. One of the mugs had too much tea in it—she'd need to tread carefully. "I mean, we won't have any aliens running the planet anymore, hopefully—"

"Even if we come out on top, nothing is going to be the same anymore." The statement sunk into her like a knife, cutting through right to her core. She swallowed thickly, shaking her head.

"It may take a while, but I'm sure things will get back to normal eventually…"

"No, no, this has changed everything." Sue grabbed the tray and hoisted it up, just as careful as Max was not to spill anything. The apple slices wobbled. "Marriage may not even matter in the new world that'll come after this weekend."

Max frowned as she watched Sue move back to the living room area, gliding gracefully around the large island. Her gaze was unfocused, however, and it only came back into focus when Franklin cheered over the sudden appearance of brownies. Shaking her head, she sauntered over to Loki, trying to ignore the thoughts swirling around her brain now.

He took both mugs from her before she could say anything, and then pulled her into his lap. She didn't protest, and Sue took up her old spot next to Franklin. Loki set the mugs on the table beside him, and neither said anything when tea sloshed over the side and onto the coaster. She pulled her legs up and settled down against him, her head beneath his chin, one arm curled between their chests, and the other hand gripping his arm.

Lost in thought, she only realized she was crying when a tear dripped off her chin and onto Loki's shirt.

How could the Captain let this happen?

Bruce had been in Manhattan for a little under a week now, and he couldn't understand how Steve had let all this come to pass. The world wasn't a lost cause, and yet in New York, it definitely felt like things were coming to an end. It was a militant state, even more so than Natasha's S.H.I.E.L.D.-run Indonesia, and that was saying something. He could practically feel the alien activity in the air, and it made him sick.

He felt bad for stealing a sub without consulting his friend and partner on it. Natasha had been his comrade-in-arms for the last few months, and she had been a better friend than he ever would have expected in the years that Tony had been incommunicado. She respected him. She respected his opinions, and she wasn't afraid of him anymore. She used him, yes, but everyone did, and Bruce didn't hold it against her. He'd learned that the Big Guy needed to stretch his legs sometimes, and now that they were on better terms, he was more willing to let the asshole out for a run from time to time.

And by god did he want to run in Manhattan.

He let the driver of the submarine he commandeered get off easy. Twenty miles out from the New York shoreline, Bruce let the Big Guy take over, and when he was back to normal, he was sitting in a drainage pipe off the East River. He knew vaguely that the Captain's base of operations was somewhere nearby, but instead of hopping across to Brooklyn, he turned inward to the island that had housed him, Tony, and Pepper for a happy year in the aftermath of Loki's invasion.

The sewers were full of people, and Bruce's status as a part of the Avengers hadn't seemed to make a difference down there. No one remembered Bruce Banner—just the Hulk—and he liked it that way. He moved through camps of people, hiding in the background and taking food whenever it was offered. He watched big shot Johnny Storm and bleak Ben Grimm give a lecture on an upcoming assault on Manhattan, spearheaded by the Fantastic Four, Spiderman, and, shockingly, Loki. He was a skeptic, and anyone who knew Loki properly probably was too, but the people swallowed it up.

They needed it. They needed heroes again here. So, Bruce kept the Big Guy in check over the past few days. He watched that kid—Spiderman—weave above people, and for the briefest moment, he saw Loki sitting on an overturned garbage can, listening as Johnny Storm made the same speech Bruce had heard the day before. People had warmed to the war criminal, forgetting that just a few years ago, he had destroyed half of their city on a mad quest for power.

Bruce stayed in the shadows. The Big Guy beat at his chest, wanting to get a piece of the Norse god, but he kept him quiet. If there was going to be a coordinated strike on the city, one that the Captain was involved in, then he wouldn't go spoiling it by pre-emptively taking out a few of the big guns.

Apparently, the Fantastic Four had already done that, and when Bruce eventually made it to the surface level, he found a higher military presence in a few blocks than he had seen in most of the Pacific region.

Militant state indeed.

As he strolled through the streets filled with aliens and soldiers, he knew precisely where he wanted to make his first real stop: Stark Tower. The building appeared abandoned, and even late at night in a city that never slept, there were no lights on in any of the windows. The glass around the lobby was broken into, clearly an easy target for the invaders, but as Bruce stepped through one of the holes, he was pleased that the tower remained unoccupied. He had no fear in the street—the Big Guy would make a mess of anyone who tried to seriously stop him.

The button by the metallic elevator doors had been pressed to death. There were bullet holes in the doors, deep and black and pointless. They had tried to get up and in. He wondered if the security padlock on the roof would show the same amount of damage. Shaking his head, he pushed his hand, palm-first, into a tile on the other side of the elevator. It sunk into the wall, and when he stepped back, it turned over. The retinal scanner popped out, and he leaned into it obligingly. A horizontal red line. A vertical red line. They flashed across his pupil, across the brown orbs, until a familiar voice greeted him.

"Hello, Mr. Banner."

"Hello, Jarvis," he said, the response almost automatic. The elevator door sprung open beside him, and he stepped in like it was any other ordinary day.

"It's very good to see you again, sir." The doors whizzed closed smoothly behind him, and he pressed a button at random. "Have you been well?"

"Yes, thank you." He barely felt it as the lift climbed through the tower, but each digitized number that flashed by above the doors gave him an exact location. "How are you, Jarvis?"

"Worn out, sir," the voice replied, and Bruce smirked a little. It was always absurd talking to a machine, but Jarvis was more human than people gave him credit for. "He's been a handful."

The elevator stopped, doors opened, and Bruce stepped out. "Where can I talk to him?"

"I suggest Conference Room F on this floor, sir." Jarvis's automated lilt echoed through the painfully neat corridor, following him as he walked. "I will patch him through."

"Thanks."

"Of course, sir."

Manhattan's skyline kept the hall lit, and when Bruce hesitantly opened the door to the expansive business center, several skylights along the outer ring of the ceiling lit up. He shut the lightweight wooden door behind him. The room was familiar enough, though he had never been in there when Tony conducted the occasional meeting at home. All the Avengers had sat in that room after the Loki fiasco, tired but well-hydrated, as Nick Fury scowled at them through the huge monitor on the far wall. The table needed some dusting, but he wouldn't hold it against Jarvis.

The screen flickered a few times, and Bruce debated whether or not to sit at the head of the table. However, before he could make up his mind, Tony's face appeared. He was clearly inside the suit, though it was easy to see the blotchy quality to his skin, the dark circles around his eyes. He looked both intensely aware and yet unfocused, and they stared at one another for a moment.

Rage. Rage and relief.

When it was clear the man wasn't going to start this off, Bruce folded his arms. "Where are you?"

"Key West."

They stared at one another for another moment, and Bruce's lip twitched. "Oh." He shook his head. "Is it nice there?"

"It'd be hot without the suit." His head jostled as though he tapped his helmet. "And it's hard to find a bartender who hasn't been put in a camp—"

"What the fuck, Tony?" His friend closed his mouth, eyes cast down, and Bruce threw his hands up. "Are you kidding me right now?"

His skin started to feel itchy, like it was too tight, and he started to pace—he needed to vent off the frustrated energy.

"Two years?" He whirled back to glare at the monitor. "Two years and I hear nothing from you? None of us do!"

"It's been… rough—"

"Yeah, well, the whole world has had it rough lately," he shouted, "and maybe your world would have been less rough if you hadn't turned into some alcoholic recluse!"

Tony looked up at the word—that word—and Bruce held his ground. He knew Tony. He knew his demons because the man had told him, and he wasn't going to shy away from them.

"I'm not…"

"How's South America?"

"Fine. It's clean… It's been alien-free since the day they first rose up." He could almost picture him shrugging, his tone completely blasé. "I'd been rigging buildings across the continent with my serum for almost a year… I had drones carrying the rest out."

"That would have been nice to share with the rest of us!" Spit clung to his lips, and he licked it off as he glowered at the man on the screen. "You could have stopped all of this! You could… Millions of people are dead, Tony!"

"I know." No intonation, no emotion. He hadn't flinched since Bruce had said the word. "I know they are."

"What were you thinking? Why'd you keep it to yourself?!"

"I thought… I thought everyone would be fine." He let out a breath, and it shuddered between his lips. "I thought it would all go away. I made a mistake."

"You…" Bruce trailed off, nodding a few times. "Yeah, yeah you did, Tony."

"I know."

"Where's Pepper?" He couldn't imagine her letting him sit around in his palatial estate in wherever the hell he'd been living down south.

And then he cracked. Tony's eyes welled, his cheeks coloured, and he looked away, the monitor going black for a moment. He could still hear the sounds: the heavy breathing, the saliva being drawn back over his teeth.

"Tony."

"Dead." His face flickered back into view. "She's dead. They got her a few years ago, and I had to… I couldn't let them have her."

"What?" The news hit him like a solid punch to the stomach: he was breathless, doubled over with a hand on the back of a leather chair. "When would they… How did they…?"

"Do you remember," his voice crackled, "when you took her to the hospital for the…"

He wanted to be sick. He wanted all the nausea and ache in the pit of his gut to bubble up and spill over onto the table.

"It said it got her then," Tony told him, "and then it laughed."

Bruce turned away from the screen, his hands in fists.

"It laughed with her perfect mouth and her perfect giggle, and I put a knife in her perfect stomach."

The monotonous quality of his voice had returned, and Bruce's vision was slightly blurred when he looked up.

"I'm so sorry, Tony."

"It's not your fault."

Wasn't it? He'd taken her to the hospital? He'd left her in the hands of people he thought they could trust? He'd left her alone to get some food in the cafeteria. Pepper was dead long before Tony had to kill her, and it was all his fault.

"The airwaves told me there's a counterattack this weekend," Tony slurred after a long, long silence. "I guess they got the serum nice and gassy, huh?"

"Yeah," he croaked. "I guess so."

"Maybe I'll see the Big Guy on Park Avenue."

"He'd like that."

Silence again. The screen went blank, and Bruce's knees buckled.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

OMG WE ARE LITERALLY SO CLOSE. ONE MORE DAY BEFORE THE ATTACK. ONE DAY MORE. ONE MORE DAY TO REVOLUTION, WE WILL NIP IT IN THE BUD, WE'LL BE REAAADY FOR THESE SCHOOL BOYS, THEY WILL WET THEMSELVES WITH BLOOD! ONE DAY MORE. WATCH 'EM RUN AMOK, CATCH 'EM AS THEY FALL, NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK WHEN THERE'S A FREE FOR ALLLL…

Sorry, Les Mis sometimes just takes over my brain and I literally can't do anything without singing any song at random. Ahem.

So for those of you that follow me on tumblr, you may or may not know I use Odette Yustman as my Max PB. She was the closest person I found that sort of fit how I saw Max in my head, and then all of a sudden, Brooklyn Nine Nine takes over my life, and fucking Melissa Fumero is like BAM. SO CLOSE. I don't remember if I've described her in much detail beyond brown hair-brown eyes (leggy for Loki), but she's always had an olive-ish complexion in my head. Quick to tan and whatnot. I dunno why that needed to be said. I guess I just got excited. So. My headcanon tells me Max is a mix of Lily Collins (her eyes, jfc), Odette Yustman, and Melissa Fumero. Fml.

Also, for those of you who have been with me for a while/pay attention, you know I work at a movie theatre. I have had to work through BOTH Smurfs movies, and whilst cleaning up after shitty kids who have popcorn fights in the dark (because how else is there literally a sea of trampled popcorn in all the aisles), I pictured the scene with Valeria asking if they had a genetic defect, and that's why they were blue. I was pretty happy I found a spot to work it in.

Anywhooo. Things got sort of emotional in this chapter, and I don't know where that came from. Max's reaction wasn't initially like that, but then it felt right as I was writing it, so I left it in. Also, I thought I had made Pepper's fate pretty clear when I last wrote her, but people kept asking me about it, so I figured I'd throw the final, affirmative thing in there that she's dead. Tony had to kill her because he discovered she was infected, and that's that. My B, guys. I'm a huge Pepperony shipper in the movie-verse, but sometimes shit hits the fan. Boom. –drops the mike—

I'm hoping to get the next chapter out sometime early next week, but we'll see! My work schedule isn't all that bad, so I don't foresee any reasons why the update won't be out.