The Avenging of Loki Laufeyson

by YouLookLikeFOOD

"So… the shadows are coming to life, we're all gonna die, and the only way to save three separate worlds is for Loki and the Avengers to quit whining and work together for once. And of course, I'm the one who, somehow, has to make that work out. Yep, sounds like a Tuesday. When's my coffee break?" Sequel to 'The Avenging of Natalie Frost'. T for violence and language.

14. Strange Bedfellows

A/N: I'm back! :D

I know it's a little later then I said it would be, and that I left you all on a little bit of a cliffhanger there, so thank you all for your patience! :) But I made sure this was a decently long chapter to make up for the wait. :)

Also, thank you all for your reviews, suggestions, song suggestions (wow, I've been getting a lot of those :P) comments… whatever. :) They all really made my day.

Right then, on to the story!

---

I sat on the edge of my seat, gnawing my lip, my foot tapping out a nervous, quiet rhythm.

Waiting.

I hate waiting.

We were back in the Asgardian 'waiting room'. Back where this had all started. Natasha's arm and Clint's leg had been bandaged, all trace of shadow infection removed. Say what you will about Asgard, but its Healers were beyond brilliant. Granted, they couldn't heal everything, but in terms of medicine, they were certainly far more advanced than we were. What could have scarred them for life on our world was barely a scratch here; in a few days, all that would be left of their wounds was a memory. The same could be said about the cut I'd taken to the forehead- I still didn't know where it had come from- and Tony had gotten away pretty unscathed, thanks to his armor.

Thor, Steve and Loki, on the other hand, were not so lucky.

And of course …

My eyes stung for the thousandth time, and I wiped them quickly, trying to ignore how puffy and sore they were. Bruce. I couldn't believe it. We just… left him there. Alone. No backup. No help. No nothing.

When Odin had heard of what had happened, he'd immediately sent out an Asgardian search party, sent along with the Tesseract. I'd been torn between going along and staying by Loki's side, but eventually the Trickster won out. Not that I was doing him much good out here.

When the search party had come back from Fraye's world- Clint, with a new quiver of arrows, had gone along to guide the Tesseract there, being the only one among the group to have seen the place with his own two eyes- they came back empty-handed. All that remained of Fraye and the Hulk was a few stains of black blood, and one or two droplets of extremely dark green. The two of them were no where to be found; and believe me, that search party searched.

Not for the first time, I buried my face in my hands. The only good thing to come out of any of this was the fact that, whatever Fraye was doing to the Hulk, it seemed to be keeping her busy. Too busy to bother with Jane any longer; the shadows in her lungs had stopped fighting the Healers and returned to normal. They said she'd be waking up soon. I wished that I could be happier about that.

But she should've woken up to see Thor right beside her.

Thor, we'd been told, would be all right. He'd taken a nasty blow to the head, but the big galoot had always had a pretty thick skull. A few days, and he'd be fine. Steve, too, would be all right soon enough. He'd taken a bit of a beating, but he should be awake by the next morning, if not sooner. He'd be okay. They'd both be okay.

Loki, on the other hand… we'd had no word from him. Normally, I'd be in his head, watching the situation unfold from his eyes. But, as he was currently passed out and somewhere off in dreamland (somewhere with gory nightmares), I was forced to wait for the Healers to give me the news, just like every other chump.

And I was going absolutely batshit crazy, waiting. My fingernails were bloody again. His injury was bad. I knew it was; in the moment that we'd been merged, not knowing which one of us was hurt, we'd been certain that -whoever it was- they were dying. And then I'd forced him to use his magic, to drain his energy further… creating portals like that was such an incredible strain…

He'd looked so lifeless when they brought him in. And I knew he'd be pissed about this: but he hadn't even had the strength to keep up the illusion on his skin. After all these years of making sure that those scars stayed hidden, even in his sleep… those Healers were going to see them. And through them…

Ugh, if Odin found out through them, I was going to shoot something.

Stark, who had switched seats periodically (every fifteen minutes on the dot, like clockwork) now lowered himself into the chair beside me. He was silent for a moment, as though debating if he really wanted to say this, but after a while, he sighed deeply. Carefully, he tried to reassure me, "He'll be okay, Nat."

My chin was resting in my hand, mouth mashed against my fingers as I mumbled, "Yeah…"

I didn't believe him, and I'm sure it was clear in my tone. He smiled softly, sadly, then nudged me with his elbow. In a brighter tone, clearly trying to cheer me up and get my mind away from this, he said, "Listen, about what happened back there…" he waited for me to look to him, then shrugged and said, "Thanks for the save, kid."

I blinked, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. He rolled his eyes. "You know, with that tornado thing?" He twirled his finger around a few times. "You pushed me out of the way? Remember?"

I blinked again, then realized what he was referring to. I barked out a miserable, sardonic laugh. "Oh, so those were these hands?" I asked, glancing down at my fingers. My voice was strangely bitter as I said, "Sorry to burst your bubble, Tony, but that wasn't me."

"What?" his response was so immediate. His head pulled back in confusion. "Of course it was. You-" He froze. "Wait… you mean…?"

I nodded, keeping my eyes on the door, waiting for someone to come out and make the horrible knot in my stomach go away. My elbow was resting on my thigh and my chin was once again in my hand. "I'll pass the message along to Loki when he wakes up, if you'd like," I said, unable to keep out the bite in my words. At this point, all I really wanted was to be left alone; because I knew I was about ready to snap the head off of anyone who talked to me. Literally, twist their neck and snap their head off.

I knew the anger was misdirected. But I didn't much care.

And it was true, that it had been Loki's actions, not mine, that had saved Stark in that moment. A majority of the time, we weren't certain who was doing what, but I knew that one for sure. Maybe it was my hands that shoved Stark out of the way. But it was Loki's idea, Loki's decision, Loki's action.

I realized, only now, the enormity of that. Loki had saved his enemy from his greater enemy. The enemy of your enemy really is your friend. Regardless of who they were, or who they had once been.

Stark was looking positively aghast as he turned away from me, his face turning white. I didn't pay attention to him any more. My stomach was hurting very badly, and my nerves were so tightly stretched that my fingers were tingling. After a moment, Stark stood and walked away, seemingly incapable of handling the news that he now owed his life to the man who had previously tried to take it. Well, perhaps not 'owed', but it was just possible that they were 'even', at least.

I started waiting again.

I don't know how much time passed after my conversation with Stark before Clint sat down next to me. My brain was so fried and nuts at the moment that time seemed to have lost its meaning entirely. It didn't pass like it should, in a steady crawl or as a quick staccato, but rather went by in odd globs; seconds would pass, then hours, then seconds again, sometimes slow, sometimes racing past me in the blink of an eye.

There was a lump in my throat as I swallowed, a lump that had absolutely nothing to do with the archer. For some reason, he and the others seemed somewhat… insignificant. The rest of the world could currently go dunk its head in boiling water for all I cared; the only thing I cared about was the door that led to the Healing Room, and the news that would come from inside it. I knew that Loki was still alive-I wouldn't be standing here if he wasn't- but whether or not he would remain that way was still a difficult question to answer. My eyes couldn't seem to stay dry, my fingers unable to stop shaking.

For a long time after he sat next to me, Clint just stared ahead, looking blankly at the wall opposite of us. At first, he didn't speak, but when at last he did, his voice was very quiet. "How long has Fraye had me brainwashed?"

My eyes flicked to the side, to look at his face, then back again. "I don't know."

"Don't lie to me, Natalie."

I didn't even bother to look at him again. I just sighed deeply and sat back in my chair, leaning against the wall and cradling my arms against my stomach. "Since she got here, s'far as we can tell. And you weren't brainwashed. You had your emotions royally screwed with, but you weren't brainwashed. You still had total control of what you said."

Clint blinked. Blinked again. And then he sighed with all of the ancient grief of someone who finally recognizes what they've done, after a thousand years of turning the other way. "That's what I was afraid of," he admitted in a quiet mummer. For the first time, the conversation sparked my interest. Interest, and a vague hint of pity.

My eyes softened. This wasn't Clint's fault, not entirely. I turned my face away from him, my head still resting against the wall. "Well," I conceded after a moment, "Maybe not total control." I heaved a sigh. "She made you angry. Beyond angry, she made you furious. Non-stop, 24/7, just being pissed all the time. Of course you said things that you didn't really mean. Anyone would."

I knew this from experience, though not from someone else's influence. That was my monster within; the capability to do or say anything if I was only angry enough… and I, like a certain now-missing green rage monster, was always angry.

Clint thought that over for a moment. And then he turned forwards once more, watching the wall.

"When will she take control again?"

I glanced to him, almost involuntarily. So he'd figured it out, too. I tried to look directly at him as I admitted, "I don't know. Soon."

His fists clenched, then unclenched. He forced his hands to remain open as he lifted them up and ran them down his face. "You know I don't mean it." He looked at me. "Whatever I say. Whatever I said. I don't mean it."

I gave him a little smile. It was an apology without apologizing. But it was perfect. Because that was Clint. I nudged him with an elbow, cheering up just slightly. Or at least pretending to. "'Course not, Bird Brain." My eyes flicked to the only other woman in the room. "But I don't think it's me that you need to say that to."

His eyes followed mine and landed on Natasha as well. His expression as he looked at her was… indescribable. Unreadable, and yet, it was the most emotion I'd ever seen the assassin express. He was silent for a very long time.

Then, finally, he asked in a soft tone, "She knew, didn't she?"

"Of course she did. She's Natasha."

He actually half-smiled at that. But it vanished quickly, evaporating in the solemnity of the situation. "Why didn't she…?" He trailed off. Because he already knew the answer.

I knew the answer to that, too. Natasha didn't tell him because he wouldn't have heard it, it's true; but also because to admit that Clint had been subjected to the enemy's control (again) would mean that he was compromised. And if he was compromised, regardless of whether or not he believed he was, then S.H.I.E.L.D. would take him off the field. Or the Avengers would. And he'd be stuck on the sidelines without being able to fight; when we all knew that he wasn't compromised enough to risk losing him on our team. Fraye had visited him alone once before, after all; and he'd still shot her. Regardless of whether or not she'd gotten away, he had acted in the best interests of the planet; of what the team believed the planet's best interests were. He hadn't acted on his own belief. If he had, he probably wouldn't still be here.

He let out a quiet breath of a chuckle, somewhat acrid and a little bit sad. He placed his hands on his knees and pushed himself upright, then turned back to me. "See you around, Natalie."

I smiled back, weakly. "See you 'round, Clint."

But we were both lying. Because whoever he was when he next talked to me, we knew that he wouldn't be Clint.

The archer walked towards Natasha and greeted her in hushed tones. The two had a whispered conversation in Russian, their words blocked off from us by a language barrier. I closed my eyes and tried, unsuccessfully, to sleep. I was glad that the two of them had a chance to talk it out. They certainly needed it.

After an hour or so, I managed a light doze despite my nerves. I was woken, at last, by the crick in my neck and the sound of the door opening. My eyes flew open, my entire body stiffening as I oriented myself towards the sound, immediately wide awake as a Healer stepped out. I'd seen her a few times before when I was young (or was that Loki?), and though she seemed a little older now, with a few more wrinkles and an extra few strands of silver-white in her blonde hair, she still had the same thin, capable-looking hands and hard, stern, pale blue eyes.

Gold-blue magic curled at her fingertips, and she was looking at it as she came out, reminding me strongly of a nurse studying a clipboard. Her gaze turned to us as she walked inside, and I sat on the edge of my chair, my fingers immediately, reflexively going to my mouth. I forced them back down before I could start chewing on my nails again.

Her eyes did a quick sweep of the room. "I was told I would find Loki's Keeper here?" She had that same no-nonsense, flat voice that I remembered. Her eyes flicked to Natasha; clearly his Keeper had been described as 'that female mortal' that most Asgardians would recognize but she would not, due to the fact that I had never needed to come here before recently. I guessed it would make more sense that Natasha would be Loki's Keeper from first glance; she certainly seemed older and more capable than I probably did at the moment.

But the Avengers were looking confused. None of them (save Thor, who wasn't here right now) knew what a 'Keeper' was; nor that I was Loki's. My face started to burn. Great. You know what, just freaking great. I had tried to keep this whole thing a secret.

I officially hate my life.

I cleared my throat; best just to get this over with. I held my hand up, waving it about an inch or so to get her attention. The Healer's eyes zeroed in on me, and I tried to remember her name as I said, "That, um…" I cleared my throat again and stood, making my voice a little stronger. "That would be me."

Her gaze flicked up and down my entirety, and she asked, in a tone that indicated that she did not approve, "Natalie Frost?"

I nodded and crossed the room, ignoring the stares on my back. The Healer held out her hand in an oddly rough motion, a demanding gesture. I swallowed.

Aw, come on… I thought to myself. That's just not cool, universe.

But, the universe didn't play fair, and so, sighing to myself, I pulled up my sweater sleeve and gave the Healer my hand. She took it with another oddly rough movement, examining my wrist for a brief second before running the tip of her index finger across the Key. A light, feather-dust of gold followed in its path; I lifted an eyebrow. The Key only ever lit up on my wrist when I ran my finger along it; and Loki's would light up in the same path and pattern whenever I did. (Though, whenever Loki touched the Key on his wrist, though it would glow on his, it would not glow on mine.) It must have been a magic thing; some way of verifying that it was genuine.

The Healer dropped my wrist, still eyeing me somewhat dubiously. Even for a mortal, I guess I didn't look like much. The Avengers were still looking at me funny, and I knew that I'd have to answer for that later, but for now the Healer turned away and ordered, "Follow me."

I hesitated. "How is he?" I asked. "Is he okay?"

She glanced back at me over her shoulder. "He'll live," She answered tersely, before again ordering, "Follow me."

I swallowed, looking back to the Avengers. Tony gave me a swift thumbs-up, and I responded in kind before walking after the Healer, still trying to remember her name. Sharon? Now, that was too human… Shalire? Sha… Shale. Shale! Definitely Shale.

Her blonde hair flicked out behind her as we entered the room, long and flowing and, as usual, way prettier than mine. But I was distracted from my petty jealousy by the sight in front of me.

There were two other Healers in the room, magic pouring from fingertips and bandages being wrapped around wounds. They stepped back as I entered, and my breath hitched in my throat, my chest suddenly tight. Loki was lying on a bed in the center of the room. It was a nice bed, rather large and comfortable, and dusted with a light golden magic that I would not have been able to see in the old days, and should not even be capable of seeing now. It wasn't like the dome over Odin's bed when he was in the Odinsleep or anything; just the faintest of shimmers in the air around him, keeping Loki safe, helping to revive him. The very air in the room made all the small aches and pains that I'd earned over the day (from my battle with Fraye and my sleep in an uncomfortable chair) dissipate, melting away. Every one of the Healers had kind faces and soft expressions, tending to Loki and caring for the injuries.

But not even all of these healing properties of this place could ever scrub away the horror that I felt when I looked at him.

He was pale as Death, pale as Fraye herself. I didn't think his skin could get much paler, but here was the proof, right in front of me. Purple-black circles lingered beneath his eyes, so dark as to almost be bruises. He was shirtless again, but was covered up to his chest by a large, white sheet, only his arms and shoulders visible. But there, I could see his scars, and I swallowed at their intense visibility. There was no way the Healers had missed that.

He looked… deflated. The bed was large and comfortable, perhaps, but its size only seemed to highlight exactly how small this supposed 'Giant' really was. He seemed shrunken and hollow, as though the life inside of him had been drained clean out. If it wasn't for the minutest of rises and falls in his chest, I would have declared him a corpse. No, I'd seen more life in corpses. Terror shot through me; he wasn't supposed to be like this, to look like this.

Everything in me started screaming, aching. There was something I wanted to do, something I needed to do, something specific, but I couldn't quite place my finger on what, exactly, that something was. My heart pounding in my ears and my breath shaking every time I pulled it into my lungs, I walked over to his side and resisted the urge to hold his hand. It wouldn't be appreciated, I was sure; on Asgard, I was Loki's Keeper. I had to seem distanced from him, had to seem cold, otherwise they would not trust that I could keep him in line should he try anything.

There was a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes that refused to be blinked away. Healer Shale was studying me intently, her gaze harsh and scrutinizing. "We have been made aware of your connection with him," she informed me after a moment, striding over to his other side and pulling the blanket off of his form, down to his stomach. I flinched as I began to see the bandages and salves that had been placed on the critical wound. But that was not where my attention was being directed.

Shale gestured to the scars with one hand. Her skin was also pale, but against the ghastly white of his, it looked positively tanned. Her fingertip traced one of his scars, hovering half an inch above his actual skin. "Given the nature of that connection, perhaps you can tell us how, exactly, he acquired these."

I winced, unable to tear my eyes away from him even to meet her accusing gaze. Without the blanket to cover him, he looked even smaller, more diluted. My nerves seemed to have fried and my blood was heavy, my heart weighed down by the lead in my veins. This wasn't right. This wasn't right at all.

I didn't dare tell the Healer anything. And yet, I didn't dare not tell her. Shale folded her arms across her chest and eyed me beadily. "How long has he had them, Lady Frost?"

Oh, a few years, give or freaking take. I closed my eyes. I was trying very hard not to cry, but it wasn't working. All I wanted was to be left alone so that I could just curl into a corner and sob, but clearly that wasn't going to happen. Getting away to some private area where I could let these tears fall suddenly shifted into my top priority; and I found myself complying. If only to get this over with quickly.

"I-I don't know how long, exactly," I said, because that was mostly the truth. "He didn't want anyone to know about them. He fixed them himself."

Shale actually rolled her eyes. "Yes, I noticed that. Master of Magic that boy may be, but he would certainly make a horrific Healer." I was surprised by the almost… maternal tone in her voice. And the reference towards their banished prince as 'that boy'. But then, Loki had been raised here in Asgard; and this particular Asgardian had been caring for him -and the rest of the royal family- since he was a child. It only seemed natural that she would still view him that way. "And he tried to hide it again, did he?" She asked, and if she were human, I suspect that she would have tapped her foot.

Again?

I thought that over, then remembered; of course, there was that incident ages back, when Loki had first been learning of illusions. He and Thor had gone off and done battle somewhere- he didn't even remember where by now- with some unremembered enemies, and Loki had broken his arm. He'd refused to let Thor know, or his parents, and had actually successfully hidden it for two days before he was forced to drop the illusion and have it seen by a Healer. (This Healer, as it happened.)

Showing weakness never had been his strong point.

"Aye," I answered Shale's question at last, in a whisper.

"Little fool," she muttered with the barest trace of affection. I think a part of me wanted to smile- it was rare that I met anyone on Asgard who had anything but disdain for Loki- but the rest of me was still screaming, and trying desperately to hold the tears back.

"We've done everything we can to help the scars," Another of the Healers spoke up, her eyes on Loki as she walked towards us and cleaned blood from her fingertips with a white cloth. "It would have been easier if he had told us sooner."

I did not know this Healer; at least, not well. She was fairly young, by Asgardian standards, with blonde hair that was lighter than Shale's, and very soft grey eyes. Her eyes flicked to me and back to her charge on the bed, but I didn't even really look at her as she gave me this quick assessment. I still had to do something, needed to do something, and I had no idea what it was. I was settling for getting-the-heck-outta-here-and-crying-my-eyes-out , but there was something else, something more vitally important…

"We should be able to erase a fair majority of them," Shale continued on with what her fellow Healer had said. For a brief second, I was startled out of my daze, my eyes tearing themselves away from Loki to look at her. They were scars, they didn't go away.

"I thought…" I bit my lip. "I mean, Loki tried to get rid of them. He couldn't do it."

Shale looked almost amused by my confusion. "Yes, well, as I've said: he's not a Healer. He may have been able to remove the shadows from beneath his skin from time to time, but he never tried to heal the injury following that. So the shadows were able to reform."

"It is a common enough mistake," the other Healer admitted. "Shadow Wounds are very… complex. Shadow Scars even more so."

I blinked at her, then at Shale. "So… they'll get better…?" I asked, tentatively. That was too much to hope for, considering how I was still in disbelief that he was even going to live.

"Most of them," she answered with half a sigh. "The deeper ones will remain."

'Deeper'. Her eyes caught mine and translated that for me; the ones on his back would never go away. Fraye's inscription of her name would remain with him for the rest of his life. They were, after all, the deepest of his scars; in more ways than one.

Why did that seem like such a big deal, now that I knew that most of the others could be removed? I had known all along that they would never leave him… but now that many of the others would, it felt… wrong, that these would not. I tried not to think about it too much as I looked back at Loki. Everything in me was still aching as I held myself back, stopped myself from doing what I needed to do, though I still had no idea what that was.

"When did all of this happen?" Shale started prodding again. "What was their purpose, why-" She was cut off by the other Healer's hand on her arm. The younger Healer's soft grey eyes were carefully, cautiously stern as she silently chided her elder. I wasn't paying attention anymore. My eyes were back on Loki's empty-looking form, my hand straining very hard not to reach for his.

The grey-eyed Healer stepped forwards and pulled the blanket up to Loki's shoulders again. "Perhaps these are questions for another time," she said, giving a pointed glance towards Shale that seemed to be an attempt at reminding her of something. What that something was, I didn't know. Didn't really care, either.

The younger healer was by my side after a moment, her hand gently resting on my forearm. Her voice was very low and quiet as she told me, "As we have said, we are aware of the nature of your connection with him. We understand." The volume lowered even further as she gestured to Loki with a glance. "So it is quite all right, Lady Frost. Do as you need to do."

I looked at her, eyes wide and strangely pleading. My hands began to tremble, and I couldn't fight the tears any longer; my eyes squeezed shut, and they poured down my cheeks, leaving hot trails in my skin. A little sob hitched in my throat, and I looked back to Loki, taking a tentative step towards him, hand clasping around his as I took a seat in a chair beside the bed… but that wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough.

Now that permission had been given to be myself- and really, who would understand what this connection meant better than a Healer, who had seen and knew about every form of relationship, for they saw it with every one of their patients?- I found my barriers dissolving. My usual tight control over what was and was not 'appropriate' for the rest of the word went 'poof' into nonexistence, and I found my arms stretching to wrap around him, carefully avoiding the injury on his side. A sob finally managed to escape me, and I held him tighter, burying my face in the blankets, trying to ignore the rest of the world with a fair degree of success. They didn't matter to me. Nothing mattered anymore.

He's going to be ok.

The grey-eyed Healer directed the other two out of the room with quiet whispers of, "Let's give them some privacy, aye?" When the third Healer in the room tried to protest, Shale spoke up, saying, "It'll be good for him. We've kept them apart for too long now…"

Their voices faded away and then cut off entirely as the door closed behind them. I shifted a bit, so that I was sitting upright again, and wiped my eyes and nose with the back of my hand, trying to pull myself together. That wasn't possible. And now I recognized what I needed to do; I needed to be right next to him, to hold him, to have him in my arms and make sure he was okay, to be able to make certain that my eyes were not being deceived, that he really was there… but also to be there, right next to him, to be there for him, as the Healer had alluded would be best. He needed me and I needed him and I needed to be there for him, even when he wasn't entirely consciously aware that I was.

The bed was fairly large; it was easy for me to climb up on it and lie down next to him, keeping my distance enough to not injure him, but close enough that I was right next to him, that I could keep one arm loosely linked around him. In other circumstances, he'd probably murder me if I did this. As it was, I didn't care; and in fact, actually smiled briefly at the thought. At least if he was like that, he would be back to himself, would be… alive. This, however… this wasn't life. This was so close to the brink of death that he'd certainly never be the same again, even if he was still breathing, even if his heart was still beating.

I curled up next to him, on the side that was not injured, so that I could move a bit closer, and closed my eyes. It felt abnormally right to be next to him, and I only wished that I could do this more often, that I could be… well, that I could be me. That I could be who I really was, because I was really a part of him, and no one else seemed to recognize that. Only Thor had ever seemed to be all right with it; but then, he understood magic better than any of the other Avengers.

I sighed heavily, the tears still pouring down as I found myself mentally babbling. I thought you were going to die. I sobbed once. I thought you'd leave me alone. Please don't leave me alone. I've been alone all my life, I can't do it again, please don't do that to me.

I hugged him just a little tighter, feeling him breathe unevenly. Despite how his skin was always cold as ice, the longer I stayed next to him, the warmer he seemed to get. I know you can't survive without me… but I can't live without you, don't you get that? Tears rolled down my cheeks even faster now. I knew he couldn't hear me, but still I talked to him in his sleep, still I whispered quiet thoughts into his nightmares. And, as I talked, they slowly lightened into dreams. You're going to be ok. You're going to be ok. You have to be ok…

I stayed beside him for a very long time, studying his sleeping, hollow, empty face, and willing him back to life.

---

Loki's 'return to the land of the living', as I later called it, started slowly. It began with a piercing, screaming headache, one which rang in the back of his mind, accompanied by starbursts of light behind his eyes. There was a sound in his ears, a crackling of empty static; an illusion of noise. For a long time, he remained motionless, trying to allow the pain to clear. When it did, he struggled to open his eyes. His eyelids were heavy and the world very bright, making it seem like an impossible task, but slowly, slowly, he managed it.

The first thing he noticed, past the headache, was the pain that sliced down his entire right side. That much was to be expected, he remembered, but it was still… horrific.

The second thing he noticed, beyond any of the pain, was the strange feeling on his left side, where he seemed abnormally… warm.

After a few more seconds of silent struggling, his eyes managed to open. He blinked a few times in an attempt to clear his vision, and to keep the light from entirely blinding him. His jade gaze was immediately caught by the large shape on his right; he glanced over and saw Thor, who, seeing that Loki was awake, leaned forwards in his seat and gave him a dazzling, very-typical-to-Thor smile.

"Brother," Thor greeted him, and he seemed genuinely happy. "You're awake."

Loki blinked again, then carefully, carefully, oh-so-carefully tried to sit upright, without straining his injury. It might have worked, but in doing so, he realized that there was a strange weight leaning on his left side, and a smaller weight held across his chest. He frowned and turned to look at it, surprised to find me there, completely passed out. I was still sitting in my chair, but he was close to my side of the bed, and the upper half of my body was leaning down next to him, my arm wrapped around his chest and somehow expertly avoiding any of his injuries even in unconsciousness. His eyebrow lifted, and he gave Thor a look that demanded an explanation.

Thor smiled weakly. "She has not left your side," he clarified in a quiet voice, clearly intent on not waking me. "It is the first time that she has slept in many days."

Loki wasn't too surprised to hear this; it was understandable that I would be worried about him. He, unfortunately, would likely be worried too; even if he would not be quite so… affectionate in showing said worry.

But he still wished that this concern had not been shown in front of his brother; he scowled at me, pulling his arm-admittedly gently- out from under me. I barely shifted, not waking. "And how long have I-" He cut himself off as he noticed something on the arm that he had pulled out from under me. His stomach twisted, and he felt the blood rush from his face. The scars were visible. They were not hidden, not any longer.

So who had seen?

Thor did not seem to notice Loki's sudden inner tumult; he answered the question as though it had not been cut off. "Six days." He looked down, staring at his large hands, which were folded in his lap. "Your injuries were… extensive."

For now, Loki pushed aside his concerns about the scars. He would discuss that with me when I woke; until then, there were other matters to think on. He frowned at his brother, struggling to sit a little more upright without waking me. He was successful, to a degree. "And the others?" Loki inquired, the words tasting sour on his tongue. The world was indeed a sorry place, for him to be concerned over the welfare of the Avengers, of all people.

"Everyone returned home safely," Thor answered, then hesitated. "Everyone except…"

Loki recognized the sadness in his brother's eyes; the same look he always had when one of their compatriots would go missing: that empty, haunted look. He had not seen it many times as a child, but he had seen it often enough. He tried to recall the state of the battlefield before he had lost consciousness, tried to remember who had been in the worst condition. The look on Thor's face suggested that, whoever it was, they were either dead or very near to it.

"Banner," Thor finally finished. "They were forced to leave him behind."

Loki's heart sank. Of all the Avengers, Bruce was the most… tolerable, at least. But beyond that, he was, without any doubt, the most powerful of the group. What little chance we stood against Fraye was immediately diminished by his disappearance. Loki ran a hand over his face, trying to compose himself, his scars glistening in the faint golden light of the Healing Room.

"And Fraye? She still lives?"

"We have seen neither of them since the last battle," Thor responded. "And there was nothing to indicate that either is deceased."

Loki cursed quietly in a language that he knew Thor would not recognize. The two brothers fell silent for a very long time, lost to their respective thoughts. There were many questions to be answered, and much time lost with Loki being put out of commission. There was so much to discuss… and yet, he found himself not wanting to speak of any of it. He was still very tired; an old, weary ache settled deep in his bones. It wasn't the typical kind of exhaustion; he did not think he could sleep any longer if he tried. And yet…

Loki's thoughts were interrupted as Thor began to reach towards his brother's arm, then stopped, his hand hovering for a moment. His clear blue eyes were on Loki's scars.

The Trickster swallowed painfully, looking away.

Thor's voice was the barest whisper. "All this time… and you said nothing."

Loki's gaze went to me, sleeping peacefully, eyes closed and lashes tangled together. My hair was a mess around my head, a thousand brown strands in my face that he methodically began to tuck behind my ears, one by one.

"What could be said?"

Pain pierced through Thor's eyes, but Loki could not bring himself to look at the Thunderer. I twitched in my sleep. "You could have… told me!" Thor protested in a soft, pained tone.

"Could I have?" Loki's eyebrows went up, his words chilled. A bitter smile twitched across his lips as he turned to his brother, his voice becoming serpentine. "If that were the case, then would you not have already been told? After all, I had all that time to say it."

Thor flinched, as though he'd been physically struck. But the look on his face suggested that it would have been less painful if he had been. Loki turned away again, back to me.

It took Thor a long moment before he could think of an answer. Then, "You told Natalie."

"I had no choice," Loki answered, prepared for this. It was a lie: he had shown me the scars of his own free will. But, seeing as it was only a matter of time before I discovered them anyway, it was not entirely untruthful.

Again, Thor was quiet. Then, "Why did she not say anything?"

Loki winced inwardly as Thor's voice cracked. It had been a while since he had heard his brother so pained, and a part of him felt bleakly victorious at the sound. But another part of him never wished to hear such an atrocious noise again, not for the rest of his life.

The first part won out, and he laughed, the sound dripping with acid. "Why do you think?" He inquired, turning to face Thor, his head doing a quick tilt to the side. He laughed again, a sound that grated against his own ears, that felt like gravel in his throat. "She knew what it meant. She knew everything about them. And she knew what it would mean if she told you." He gave his brother a sly, snakelike smile. "Does it truly injure you so badly, to think that she chose to keep my secret, when it would mean that she would lie to you?"

Thor's eyes narrowed on his sibling. "There is no reason for injury, brother. I know precisely what I am to her; and precisely what you are to her."

Loki scoffed. Why was he saying these things? Why were these words slipping from his lips? Had he not been friendlier to his brother in days gone past? Would I not murder him in his sleep for attempting to hurt Thor? And yet, he could not help himself; a dark pleasure rang through him, and his heartbeat quickened as he tasted blood in his mouth, heard the old roar of battle, the endless drumming of his heartbeat in the back of his skull… the desperate craving to cause damage, to spread plague and to breathe in war… it all swirled inside him and this was all he ever wanted…

Loki turned to Thor, smiling wickedly. "Then you know precisely where her loyalties lie." His hand stroked my hair back carefully, but the gesture was almost… possessive. It was a gesture, he would admit, that he had adopted from Fraye. I stirred just slightly in my sleep, moving just a little closer to him, as though proving his point in my unconsciousness. Loki's smile grew ever larger, and more reptilian. "And to whom she belongs."

If Loki had thought that these words would hurt Thor (and he had) then he was sorely mistaken. Because, as usual, Thor saw right through Loki; through him, and all of his bullshit. In fact, he returned Loki's smile with one in kind; though it was far less manipulative and dark than his adopted brother's.

"I know that she is a child of the Earth," Thor answered easily. "And that she will never abandon it."

Loki scoffed again. But Thor's next words sucked the bravado right out of him.

"And that if she was intent on hiding those scars from me, then they mean far more to you than you wish for us to believe."

Silence.

Loki swallowed painfully, then started talking quickly, in an attempt to regain control over the conversation. "She did not tell you because I did not wish for her to tell you; and for no other reason."

"Of course, Loki." Thor was still smiling. Damn him. Loki's teeth began to grind together, and he glowered down at the floor on my side of the bed. There was another long, empty silence.

And then Thor's hand fell on Loki's shoulder, holding it carefully. Loki found his eyes closing as, for just a second, he allowed himself to slip back in time, to be a child again, to go back to the days in which he believed himself to share blood with this golden child, with this man who truly, truly was a giant…

"I know…" Thor said quietly, "That you hate me. But regardless of what has passed between us, this… this creature has hurt you, in many more ways than one." His hand squeezed Loki's shoulder a little tighter. "And I will not let that stand. I can not." His head lowered. "So please. Do not ask me to. Do not hide such atrocities from me. Do not think that I will leave you to suffer in the dark."

Loki's eyes closed. He laughed again, very quietly; and it was no longer bitter or filled with acid. It was soft and gentle, a whisper of a sound.

"Oh, my dear brother," Loki said in a quiet tone, his eyes opening again, his gaze on the ground. Still not facing Thor, he shook his head back and forth and ran his pale fingers through my hair. "How can I not think that," he inquired, "When you already have?"

Thor's eyes grew round. Loki chuckled again, still that soft and oddly innocent half-laugh. "Do you not remember what my prison was, Thor? Do you not realize that the darkness I was continually surrounded by could, at any time, come to life and destroy me? Do you not realize that your father sentenced me to that fate?" Another little laugh. "There is but one creature in the nine realms who has attempted to 'protect' me from the darkness, brother. Who succeeded. And it was not you, nor Odin, nor any of your precious Avengers."

His eyes went back to me, still asleep, still snoring softly, still holding onto him as though to let him go would be the death of us both. "How many times did she advocate for my intentions?" Mischief asked of Thunder. "How many times did she insist that the only possible way for us to fight Fraye would be together? How many times did she prevent me from returning to that cell, knowing that it was not only her planet's last hope, but also the one thing that I could not possibly do?"

A weird noise made it out of him; some cross between a sad laugh and a happy sigh. "There is but one person in the nine realms who knew the truth; because there is but one person in the nine realms that I trust. And, should this ever be repeated, I will deny it, but that person is, and will always be, Natalie Frost."

Loki turned his even green stare towards his brother. It was laced with a quiet accusation, as it always seemed to be. "Because she had her opportunity once," he found himself breathing out the words, stunned by his own near-silent revelation. "She could have left me in the dark, abandoned this life, abandoned me. And she instead decided, in her own, misguided way, to stay; to tie our lives together irrevocably." He laughed again, quietly, still half-startled by his own words. "Her methods may be unconventional, and her conclusions erroneous… But her intentions, at least, are honorable."

Thor's eyes widened just slightly as Loki turned away again. "She has tried to 'protect' me from the beginning, do you not realize that? She was there." His eyes hardened, a cool, electric jade. "You were not."

Thor swallowed as silence enveloped the room once more. After a few moments, he opened his mouth to speak; but whatever he meant to say in reply was lost as movement caught the brothers' eyes. I was stirring.

My own eyes opened, and I blinked a few times to clear my vision, lifting my head off of Loki's chest. "Huh…?" the sound drew out of me, long and exhausted, as I looked up.

Thor and Loki exchanged a we'll-talk-about-this-later look that no one else outside of their adopted brotherhood would have been able to understand. I blinked again, blearily, and turned my head to the side, seeing Loki's face in my vision… his skin was not so pale, the circles under his eyes not quite so dark, and his eyes were…

Open.

Immediately upon seeing this, I bolted upright. "You're awake!" I squeaked, the words startled out of me. Loki lifted both eyebrows and gave me a bemused smirk as I leaned back. Realizing that my arms were still around him, I wrenched them back quickly, my cheeks staining themselves red as my face began to burn.

"Aye," Loki agreed, an amused spark in his eye. Thor was already standing, his hand falling on his brother's shoulder.

"I will speak with you later." He voiced the words unnecessarily, mostly for my benefit, and carefully ducked out of the room. I watched him go, my brain not currently working quickly enough for me to stop him, to talk to him. I was still trying to comprehend the fact that, after six days of silent wishing and fearful hoping, Loki was finally awake.

It took me a while for me to put the pieces together and notice the tension that still lingered in the room, which remained in spite of the mischievous smile that Loki was trying to use to cover it. I frowned, glancing to where Thor had left the room, then back to Loki.

"What was that all about?" I asked in a mummer. Loki rolled his eyes.

"Nothing of great importance," he lied. My eyebrows lifted. Did he really think he could get away with that?

Apparently so, because he gave me a little, almost sad smile, and I found myself dropping the subject. For now.

I was just so happy to see him awake. "How long have you been up?" I questioned eagerly.

"Not long," he responded. "Only a few minutes." His eyes flicked to the door that his brother had exited out of. "Thor informed me of… the current situation."

My chest tightened, but I forced the feeling aside. This was not the time to be sad. Banner may still be out there, Fraye may still want to destroy the world, but Loki was alive and awake and that was all that mattered right now.

After six days of doing so without rebuff, I was now a little more comfortable with holding his arm, running my fingers down the scars. I knew he would want to know everything I knew about them, that he wouldn't want to wait through all of the usual pleasantries that resurfacing from a six-day coma entailed. He wouldn't want to hear how ecstatic I was to see him awake; he already knew. What he would want to hear was information: so that's what I gave him.

Fingers lingering above one of the longer, paler scars, I told him, "The Healers have been working to erase these." I allowed him to flick through my recent memories as I spoke, allowed him to become acquainted with the details of what had happened while he was asleep. "They told Odin."

Pain stabbed through him, but he had suspected as much, so I kept talking, trying to ignore it.

"He hasn't come to see you yet," I admitted, truthfully a little irritated. I supposed there were different ways to show affection; but not coming to see your son while he's on his death bed seemed a little extreme. "And Frigga…"

Loki lifted an eyebrow at the melancholy note in my voice as I mentioned his mother's name, and when he came across the memory of my conversation with her, he perused it with perhaps a little more delicacy and caution than normal. It wasn't a very pleasant memory, after all. Could you to talk to a mother about the tortures that her son endured? About the scars that he had? About the things that had been done to him, that she had known nothing about?

Even the Trickster winced as he continued onwards, a very subtle gesture that I would have missed, if I was anyone else (and if he was anyone else).

I changed subjects quickly, intending on moving the conversation onwards as fast as possible. This was what we usually did, after all, this exchange of memories. As though he'd only been asleep for one night as opposed to six days. As though nothing was wrong. As though I hadn't cried myself to sleep every night since the moment he'd been wounded.

"Clint… has 'learned the error of his ways', so to speak. He's more on our side now, but he's… teetering. He's on edge again. The others have been coming to check on me every so often, but… they come here for you, too." I fought a little bit of smug triumph as I added, "They won't admit it, but they've been worried about you. Natasha was right about those scars; everyone's pretty convinced by this point."

Loki gave a silent nod of acknowledgement to this statement, but he did not feel as victorious as I did. He felt… sick. He despised this. He loathed it.

So much for the truth setting you free…

I shuffled a bit in my seat, trying to keep my mind on task. My eyes stayed on Loki, though my voice was still a little… distant. "Tony's kinda spooked that you saved his life. He's barely talking to me." Loki actually snorted at that; it was almost a laugh.

"The feeling is mutual," he responded smoothly.

"Fraye's still missing," I went on. "Jane's woken up, and Thor's asked her to stay here until the issue is resolved. He extended the same offer to Pepper, seeing as she's right in the heart of this, too. They both refused."

Loki was surprised at this, while I had not been. I'd kind of suspected as much.

"Not much else to say, really," I concluded with a shrug, my voice still quiet and somewhat vacant. "Everything else is pretty much the same." I looked down at last, my words now carrying a little more weight and depth, even as I tried to make them… careless. "I saw my dad, he still hates you, saw my mom, she's still my mom, you woke up-" my eyes flicked up to him now, hardening a little, "-And you're still a total dirtbag to your brother."

Loki blinked, mildly startled by the sudden turn my sentence took, only now realizing that I was poking around in his brain space. In the time that he had been scanning my memories, I had also been scanning his. To be fair, they were really our memories by this point, but still, he scowled at me. I lifted both eyebrows, challenging him with my eyes, daring him to confront me. He lied to me, I wanted to know why, and now I knew. Simple enough, really.

He clamped down on his memory of the conversation that he'd had with Thor quickly, cutting off my access to its conclusion. I backed away gracefully, avoiding a confrontation, but I had seen everything that I wanted to see. I gave him a stern look.

"Using me against your brother?" I asked, folding my arms. "Not cool, man."

He glared at the ground on the other side of his bed, looking away from me. It gave me the opportunity I needed to sock him in the arm. He hissed in a surprised breath, not truly hurt by the blow, but startled nonetheless.

"That," I said, pointing a finger in his face. "Is for being a jerk to Thor."

He rolled his eyes over to the other side of the room again, muttering something under his breath, and I curled my hand in a fist and punched his arm again.

Again, he looked to me, eyes hard, still vaguely startled but now fairly annoyed as well. I jabbed my finger back into his face. "That is for saying that I 'belonged' to you."

He gave me a look. After six days without it, his eternal smirk was finally back. I was surprised by how much I'd missed it; and surprised by how much I hadn't. "Do you honestly believe-"

I swung a fist at him again, cutting him off before he could say 'that you don't.' He was, of course, prepared this time, catching my hand before it made contact, his fingers wrapping around my fist. He was still giving me a triumphant little what-now look when my other hand pummeled him in his (uninjured) ribs.

"And that one," I growled as he released my hand, his own hands going back the area that I had struck reflexively. "That one…"

I couldn't speak for a moment. I was glaring at Loki, my chest suddenly tight. The Trickster looked at me curiously as I glowered. "That one is for scaring me half to death, you stupid sunova bitch."

Loki's smirk faded. As my eyes prickled and stung, I turned away from him and glared at the wall, as though that would stop him from seeing me cry. As though he didn't already know.

His features softened. I tried to compose myself quickly. Just because he wanted to ignore the emotional aspect of coming out of an injury-induced coma didn't mean that I could.

A heavy sigh escaped his lips as I managed to blink away the tears. I gave him a watery smile. "Sorry," I apologized. "I just…
I swallowed, looking away again. "I've been losing everyone, Loki. I lost April, I lost my parents, I lost Clint, and now I've lost Banner… and if I lost you…" My voice broke. I looked down. "I can't do it again. I won't."

Neither of us mentioned how I had lost April. It wasn't irrelevant, it meant something, it mattered, but we knew better than to bring it up anymore. It was something that would have to be settled later, if it ever could be.

Loki rolled his eyes, his voice flippant, casual. "Honestly, Frost. I may be another part of your mind, but that doesn't mean that I'm-"

"Don't!" I snapped, cutting him off abruptly, knowing exactly where his words were going. He shut up, startled by the intensity in my words. "Just… stop." My head lowered, hair draping over my eyes, half-hiding them. "Please. Stop trying to pass everything off on our link. Telepathy or not, Loki, if anything happened to you…" I wrapped my arm around myself and closed my eyes tightly, biting my lip. "For crying out loud, Laufeyson, can't you just get it through your head that it doesn't matter to me if we're linked or not? That you're still… that I'm still…" My words faltered, failing me when I needed them most.

Loki was quiet. I was even quieter. It took me a very long time to try and piece together my sentences enough to say, "You… you matter to me. I know that I don't matter to you, but… I am your friend, Loki. Even if you're… incapable of being mine."

The word 'incapable' stung him more than he had expected it to. Hard green eyes whipped to me and turned to stone; polished obsidian and jade that gleamed dangerously. "Do you know, for someone who continually insists that I could conform to your idea of 'redemption', you seem to have a fairly low opinion of me and what I am and am not capable of."

This confused me; I looked up to him, puzzled, my eyebrows furrowing. Loki sighed in a disgusted way and glared at the wall opposite. "You truly are a fool, Natalie Frost."

I blinked. Blinked twice. Blinked a third time. Then, shaking my head out, I rubbed my temples with two fingers, trying to clear away the pressure that had started building there. "So… what?" I demanded, looking up to him again. "You're saying that you are my friend?"

He winced. "If you insist on characterizing it in such… dismal terms, then I suppose the answer must be yes."

A smile struggled to make itself known on my face, but I kept it at bay, raising my eyebrow and leaning my elbow on my knee, propping my chin up in my hand. "And how would the Silver Tongue characterize such a thing?"

He considered. "Mutually Assured Destruction."

I barked out a laugh. That was true enough.

But Loki was thinking it over again, his smirk dying away. Finally, after a few moments of intense concentration, he sighed. "Is there a word to describe such a thing?" he asked, his words a typical, casual, lofty whisper, laced with the barest hint of exasperation. "There is no sense to you, Natalie Frost. You simply 'are'." His eyes narrowed on me. "And I am not incapable of understanding that."

I half-grinned. "Oh, so that's it. You're not my friend; you're just pissy because I said that you couldn't do something."

He scowled. "I am not 'pissy'."

"You totally are," I teased, nudging him in the arm. "Sheesh, Loki, you're such a girl sometimes."

His eyes darkened as I laughed to myself. His fingers gripped my chin suddenly, forcing my face to his, his eyes locking on mine and smoldering dangerously. There was something inherently grim about the look that he gave me, something that displayed a strangely ancient darkness. It seemed to be such a natural fact of my life that I sometimes forgot just how old the Trickster was. But then he would give me looks like this, and I would remember: there were thousands of years behind those haunted eyes. They say age is just a number, and they're full of it. This, this right here, was age. And it was tired and timeless.

I swallowed as he breathed, "Enough insults, Frost." His words were that of a specter, a whispering, silver-grey ghost, calling across the shadows where his life had ended. And though goose bumps rose on my arms, I forced myself to match his gaze, ghost for ghost, specter for specter.

Though I frequently forgot how old Loki was, it seemed that Loki frequently forgot my inane-yet-impeccable ability to not give a shit. Giving him my biggest, brightest, most unimpressed grin, I rested my chin on the hand that held it, forcing him to keep my head propped up.

"Touched a nerve, did I?"

His eyes narrowed, shadows brewing inside them. I had occasionally seen his brother look his rightful age, but even though Thor was Loki's elder, I had never seen the Thunderer look quite this ancient. I'd say that it was his innocent, childlike outlook that kept him young. But Loki had always been an old soul.

After a moment of holding his glare, I sighed and rolled my eyes. "All right, all right," I conceded defeat as flippantly as I could manage, pulling my chin out of his grip and sitting upright again. "I'm just…" I paused, considering, then flashed a brief, sad smile in his direction, showing teeth. "I'm really glad to hear you say that."

He seemed to acknowledge this as truth and let the bitter tiredness in his gaze die down. The grim solemnity didn't vanish from his face entirely (it never did) but it dimmed.

We fell silent for a long time, and it was oddly… comfortable. We were used to spending our time together in silence; because, in all honesty, we spent all of our time 'together'. We could not possibly spend our entire lives continually talking to- or even monitoring- each other. We were content to merely sit together, allowing our thoughts to wander; or, in Loki's case, to follow strict and serpentine paths that led to scheme upon scheme and plot upon plot. Occasionally, our thoughts would touch on similar subjects, and we would let our minds travel down those paths together, but otherwise we merely sat there. Contemplating.

We had been doing this for almost half an hour when Loki spoke up again; and this time, the topic had changed greatly. "Frost?"

"Yeah?"

"Considering the… events of the past six days… I do have one concern."

I sat back in my chair, looking to him completely. "Shoot."

There was a light brush of sarcasm in his words, a cynic's kind of humor, as he asked, "Did you truly find it necessary to sleep beside me every night?" His eyes started to dance as my face grew hot. "I understand the need to be close," he emphasized, "But in the same bed?" His eyebrows lifted.

I swallowed. "Eh…" I laughed nervously, rubbing the back of my neck awkwardly. "The Healers said it would be better for your recovery if I stayed nearby." I admitted. I looked down as my ears began to burn as badly as my cheeks. "And, you know, the bed was more comfortable than the chair."

He suppressed a smile. My awkwardness around such subjects- or anything, really- tended to amuse him. "I see," he said, barely disguising the chuckle that was trying to force its way out of him.

"The Healers said it was probably better, anyway," I grumbled defensively, my stomach twisting. I couldn't quite meet his gaze, which was sparkling with mirth. "Even though the connection works from longer distances, it's better for us to be… closer." I twisted my suddenly-sweating hands in my lap.

"Ah." He waited for my eyes to flit upwards and gauge his expression before he leaned forwards, resting his elbow on the bed and his chin in his hand, index finger below his bottom lip as he prodded, "And…?"

I blushed furiously, my stomach tying itself into knots. Because of course he knew that there was more, more that I didn't really want to say. I sighed and gave in, muttering the words under my breath. "And it got rid of the nightmares."

That seemed to surprise him, to shock a small amount of the humor out of his eyes. His hand drifted and dropped as his head tilted to the side, silently waiting for me to explain.

"You didn't have any, did you?" I asked, though I knew the answer. I had been monitoring his dreams as best as I was able to over the past few days. When he thought back to it and eventually shook his head no, I went on, "Me neither. And… I talked it over with Healer Shale."

The corner of his lip tugged downwards, but he supposed that if the matter had to be discussed with anyone, he would prefer that it was Shale. The Healer could keep certain secrets, when they were not of such vital importance; not like his scars.

"She thought that it might have to do with our subconscious," I went on. "Telepathically speaking, we're immune to any attack Fraye can throw at us, due to our nature. So long as we're in accord, she can't stop us. But, because we're… well," I stopped. This hadn't been so awkward, and so I had eagerly launched into it; it explained our situation in terms of magic. Terms that Loki could understand. But… this was a little different. Still, I soldiered on. "Because we are- were- enemies, because we have such… inconsistencies at our very core, our subconscious doesn't always… recognize that accord. And so Fraye is free to play with our dreams as much as she wants to. But when we're together, like, right next to each other together…"

"Our subconscious recognizes that we are still in agreement with each other." Loki cut me off and finished my thought smoothly, slowly nodding a few times. "And our telepathic barriers are able to stop her."

"It's just a theory," I agreed with a shrug.

"It makes sense," he admitted. I bit my lip. His eyes watched me intently and, after a moment, he added in a cold voice, "That does not mean that it should continue indefinitely."

"No, of course not," I concurred swiftly. I looked down to my hands. "It's just… the Healers don't want me leaving your side for too long. And… you know, they said it was good for your recovery." As his eyes turned even frostier, I tacked on quickly, "It's just until we go back to the Tower. And then things can go back to normal."

He considered for a long few seconds, made longer by the twisting in my stomach. But at last, he sighed.

"Normal," he confirmed with a tight nod.

Neither of us said what we were both thinking, not daring to admit it out loud. Because, if we were honest with ourselves… this was normal. And regardless of whether he was 'better' or not… that wouldn't change.

Ever.

---

I rarely left Loki's side over the next few days; Shale gave him two weeks in the Healing Room before he would be allowed to go back to the Tower. As his Keeper, I inherited a few of the medical tasks once that happened; checking for infections (including recurring Shadow Infections), changing bandages, and the like. But for now, I kept Loki company, and the two of us complained about the mind-numbing boredom that went hand-in-hand with medical areas together.

The Avengers checked up on us both from time to time, though Thor was surprisingly absent. We eventually consented that it was Jane keeping him away and were mutually grossed out by their general lovey-dovey behavior.

The other Avengers were… cordial to Loki, at least. Nothing changed with Natasha-she'd been on our side for a long time now- and after a while, Clint went back to his moody self (or really, moody not-self) but the others made an effort at being more polite. Occasionally, Steve looked as though he wanted to say something about the scars that were now very plainly visible for everyone to see, but he usually thought better of it before the words could get out of his mouth. And Tony… well, Tony alternated between giving Loki death glares, as though wondering how he could dare inconvenience him by saving his life… and trying to stop the grudging respect from showing too much in his eyes. I saw all of these interactions and goings-on, monitoring without comment… for now. I wanted to see how everything played out before I started poking my nose where it probably didn't belong.

Loki's mother came back the instant she heard he was awake. I stepped out of the room so that the two could talk, and did not ask Loki about the conversation when she left. I left the memory alone and allowed him to have his walls that we both knew would later on dissolve. He looked white as a sheet when I returned, and did not say a word to me for almost three hours. If there was one person on this planet that Loki still cared for, and still knew that he cared for, still consciously wanted to care for, I'd say it was Frigga. He might have hated his father, and his brother, but it was very difficult to bear ill will towards the Asgardian Queen.

It seemed that a great deal of people came to visit Loki while he was recovering. But still, one remained conspicuously absent: Odin.

And it pissed me off something fierce.

Loki, tired of my annoyance, eventually told me not to think on it, that he preferred it this way, that he would not have spoken to his father even if he did come. But I, of course, did not want to let it rest. And, after a week of sitting around and doing nothing, I eventually decided against listening to the Trickster. Under the guise of going to 'stretch my legs' and 'get something to eat', I cut out of the room. Loki, of course, knew that I was lying, but I'd made sure to be a little on the annoying side that day, so that he would be too glad to be rid of me to care. I can scheme too, thank you very much.

As I left the room to talk with Odin, someone else- someone who had been biding his time without me realizing it- waited until I was gone. As soon as I was out of sight, he slipped inside, enteringthe room to talk to Loki.

Loki-momentarily expecting it to be me, coming back for something that I had forgotten- sighed, looking up from his book, slightly exasperated… but then his eyes clicked on Stark.

He froze. A long, heavy silence lingered in the air, smothering everything. Tony hadn't visited Loki even once (at least, not without having someone else in the room) though the others had occasionally come by themselves. And without me there to make certain everything remained civil- and with the dark look on Stark's face- Loki braced himself. This was unlikely to be a particularly pleasant conversation.

Tony's hands clenched into fists as he sighed and glared at the ground. He ran a hand through his hair, making it even messier than before, as he kept his solemn, harsh eyes on the floor. Loki lifted an eyebrow and waited him out patiently; obviously, whatever he wanted to say was difficult for him. Which led the Trickster to suspect what it might be about.

Finally, Tony blurted out, "All right, Reindeer Games, I'm only gonna say this once. And if you tell anyone, I'll deny it."

Loki considered that. "Does this include Miss Frost?" he asked after a brief moment, setting his book down on the bed next to him, his index finger still held between pages to mark his spot.

"Especially Miss freaking Frost." Tony muttered under his breath, still not looking at the other man. Loki's other eyebrow went up.

Stark sighed again, and once more ran his hand through his hair, holding his hand against his head, fingers intertwined with the dark strands. "Okay. Okay. Fine," he grumbled, "What the hell…" His eyes flicked to Loki. "Thank you."

"I'm sorry?"

"Once," Tony repeated, holding up his index finger to indicate his insistence on the number. "That's it, I'm never saying it again, understood?"

The Trickster fought a small, almost cruel smile. He folded his hands, his fingers interlacing, and propped his chin up on them. "May I inquire why you are thanking me?"

"You know damn well why." Stark glared at the wall. "Nat told me that… you're the one who saved me back there. So… there you go, I've said it. I'm done."

There was silence from the two of them for a moment. Stark's was a fuming silence, while Loki's was a calculating one. Finally, however, Tony turned around and started towards the door. He stopped himself with a hand on the doorframe as Loki said in a soft voice, "You're welcome."

Tony hovered in the doorway, his hand clutching the frame tightly. The muscles in his arms were straining. Loki could practically see the struggle that raged in his mind through his body language: Just keep moving. Move on, Tony, leave it alone, just keep going, let it go, let it go…

But Stark was not exactly the embodiment of willpower. He caved, whirling around to face Loki again. "Why?" he demanded. "Why did you do it, why? Why would you of all people save my life? I just… I don't get it! You could've let me die, one more of your enemies gone, why didn't you? And don't give me that 'Natalie-wouldn't-let-me' bullshit, you weren't thinking that clearly. It was fight-or-flight, pure instinct, and you still…" He faltered, making a disgusted sound in the back of his throat, glaring at the ground, his hand still clutching the doorframe so tightly that the strain on his arm muscles was visible. "Why?" He repeated, eyes returning to Loki.

The Trickster's eyebrow went up again, and he reflected on Stark's question for a long moment. After a brief silence, he gestured casually for Tony to sit in one of the empty chairs. The Iron Man glanced to the chair, debated with himself for a moment, then complied, so that the two's height was more evenly matched. Loki sat straight and still as he looked into Stark's eyes.

"You're intelligent, for a mortal," Loki admitted at last. "And while I do not particularly like you, I do have a certain… respect for intelligence." He sighed, rubbing his temples with his thumb and forefinger. His eyes briefly touched Stark's, and he said, "And, I suppose, that translates into a certain respect for you." He paused just momentarily, then added, "And Banner as well, if it must be said."

Stark snorted. "You sure you don't just respect him because he managed to shatter half of the bones in your body?"

Loki smiled wolfishly, showing teeth. "I threw you out of a window, Stark. Did that increase your respect in me?"

"Point taken."

Loki chuckled softly, and the other man sighed. "So that's it, huh?" Tony asked. "After everything that's been said and done, that's the reason that you saved me?"

"What did you expect?"

"I don't know, blackmail, probably."

"Tuh!" Loki grumbled, unimpressed. "Surely you think I have more imagination than that."

"Hey, I gave up trying to figure you out ages ago," Tony defended himself. "Bruce was right: you're crazier than a bag full of cats. I don't know how Natalie stands it, being in your head all day. It must get exhausting."

"And you think that the opposite is not also true?" Loki inquired. He found himself rather enjoying this little game of words that the two were suddenly playing, in some odd way. A duel of sentences, strike and dodge and parry. "That it is not exhausting for the supposedly-insane to try and comprehend the supposedly-lucid?"

"Hey, I never said Natalie was sane."

Loki almost laughed at that one. Again, the two fell silent. Again, Loki broke it.

"I know that you will not appreciate this, but I do see a great deal of myself in you," He told Tony after a moment, musingly, thoughtfully, his eyes slightly distant. "Natalie has noticed the similarities, though she never comments on them."

While his first sentence drew a sharp retort to Stark's mouth, blazing in his eyes, the moment my name was mentioned, the words were pushed back. Warily, Tony asked, "Oh?"

Loki smiled, again with that wolfish, predatory grin. "She believes that we are both… attracted to the spotlight, in her terms."

"She called us attention whores, didn't she?"

"I believe those were her exact words, yes."

Stark snorted and gestured for Loki to continue. The Trickster did, once more surprised by the strange… ease with which the two were speaking now. The air was no longer clogged with tension, past furies no longer crackling between them. He noted this quietly, filing it away in the back of his mind for later consideration.

"She also compared us with Banner," Loki noted. "She believes that, as far as intelligence is concerned, the three of us stand relatively on par with each other." Here, Loki sniffed, vaguely haughty again. "I disagree, of course."

"Of course," Stark returned Loki's gaze with a wolfish grin of his own. "Because we all know who'd win that battle of wits, now, don't we?"

"We do indeed," Loki agreed, a spark dancing in his eyes. "But she believes that you and I have a slightly more…" he paused here, then decided to use my phrasing and said, "Arrogant kind of intellect, than Banner. An intelligence that demands to be announced."

Tony considered, then shrugged. "Agreed."

Loki smirked. "So I suppose you can say that I saved you because I respected your… ambition, selective and… hindered as it may be."

"Hindered, huh?" Tony looked more bemused than annoyed. "Why, because I'm not a ruthless killer like you?" Loki shrugged mildly, and Tony laughed. "Remind me again: which one of us has a technological empire, a hot girlfriend, and all the free time in the world to keep expanding said empire… and which one of us is a prisoner?"

Loki continued to smile, hiding his grimace at the sudden reminder of his current status in the world. "And yet," he said in a very soft, quiet voice, "I am not currently imprisoned, am I?"

He had almost worried that some of the tension would return to the room. In fact, it almost did. But then Stark's eyes caught on Loki's scars, and that tension melted away into nothingness. There was silence for a moment.

"You know," Stark said, "You work so hard to convince everyone that you're on our side… and when you finally do, you try to convince us that you're not." He met Loki's gaze steadily. "That you're still planning the same old schemes and plotting the same old tricks." His eyes traveled along the still-uncovered scars on Loki's arms, the ones that were slowly, slowly beginning to heal. "Why, because you think you look weak?" Stark rolled his eyes. "You know that pretty much every one of the Avengers has, at one point or another in their lives, been captured, imprisoned, tortured, and/or gone through some serious shit, right?" His features hardened. "And I can tell you right now that I'm not exactly an 'exception' to that rule."

Loki blinked. His eyebrows pulled together. Stark tapped the glowing circle in the center of his chest twice with his index finger.

"A person doesn't become heartless for no reason," he reminded Loki in a dark tone. The Trickster looked at Stark, studying him. Yes, he could see it now. There are many types of scars; and Tony, besides the metal one on his chest, carried a great number of them behind his eyes.

"And before you ask," Stark went on, "I never talked with Natalie about it because I thought she wouldn't understand it. Truth be told, I didn't want her to understand it." His gaze darted down. "I didn't know…" And the eyes were back on Loki's scars. "That she already did."

Loki tilted his head to the side. "You wished to protect her. To spare her the knowledge of the harsher truths in life."

"Yes. And you screwed that up, too. Big surprise, right?" Stark rolled his eyes, flippant again. His continuing change in moods was unnerving. But, Loki supposed, that is likely his intent.

The two were quiet once more, and, unlike usual, it was not an uncomfortable silence that stretched between them. They were too absorbed in their own thoughts to even begin to consider feeling 'uncomfortable.'

Finally, Stark stood. "Well, I've gotta get outta here before Natalie gets back," he said, though they both knew that I would be made aware of this conversation regardless of how many times Tony might deny what had been said. "Get well soon and whatnot," he added, laying the sarcasm on thick.

Loki didn't respond. He simply watched the Iron Man leave. And, long moments later, he sighed heavily and returned to his book.

While I would later pick apart this conversation as I did with everything, at the time, I was a little busy with my own conversation to deal with it at the moment.

After I left Loki's room, I didn't even bother with keeping up the pretense of getting food; though I did take the long path to my destination in order to stretch my legs out a bit. Once I could feel my feet again, however, I headed straight towards the Throne Room.

I'd never really gone there unannounced before, or really without being called there first. But right now, it wasn't really possible for me to care less. I wanted to know why Odin hadn't even said a word to Loki since his return to Asgard, and, one way or another, I was going to find out.

I knew there had to be a reason. I knew I had to give him the benefit of the doubt. And I knew that Loki's continuing hate for his father made it a lot harder to me to remain clear-headed about this. So I kept as tight a lid as I could on my emotions, sealing them away in a little steel box at the back of my heart, locking them away until they would become necessary again.

As it turned out, my visit wasn't really 'unannounced.' It wasn't really 'allowed', either. The sentries outside of the Throne Room stiffened the moment they caught sight of me, and one of them stepped forward, giving me a respectful nod. The Asgardians sometimes seemed leery about how to greet me, or what to say around me. I mean, I hung out with the Asgardian royals, and I frequently represented my own planet. I could be (and occasionally was) considered a relatively high political figure, much to my chagrin.

But, by now, a lot of the guards knew better. Because a lot of them knew me. And the man who approached me now was no exception.

"Apologies, Lady Frost," he said carefully, being certain to meet my eye. "But he will not see you."

I lifted an eyebrow and considered getting upset. I decided against it; on someone who didn't know me, getting angry might have been intimidating enough for them to give me a few answers as to why, exactly, this was the case. As it was, I went for the direct approach.

I sighed deeply and slouched to the side. "Yeah, I was worried about that," I admitted. It was true. The other sentries-save the one newbie whom I hadn't really seen around, and thus hadn't seen me- all relaxed as I did. They knew I wouldn't try anything. I nodded with my head towards the door. "So what's the deal? I haven't heard anything out of him since he sent out that search party."

The other guards exchanged furtive looks as the sentry in front of me mashed his lips into a hard line. He lowered his voice, seemingly out of habit; we all knew that, if Odin wanted to listen in, he would listen in, no matter how quiet the words were. "It is not only you, Lady Natalie. The King has not spoken to anyone since your return to Asgard." There was almost… worry in his eyes, worry that intrigued me.

I scanned him quickly from head to toe with Shrink-Goggled eyes; he looked fairly old, even for an Asgardian, though he was still physically fit and obviously more than capable for his duties as a sentry. His hair was silver and there were wrinkles around his eyes; but it was the scars on his hand- his sword hand, if the position of his scabbard was any indication- that convinced me that he had been at the King's service for a very long time. Perhaps long enough to have fought beside Odin during the war with Jotunheim.

Serving beside someone for that length of time tends to breed a fierce loyalty; even to the point of sentimentality. I memorized the man's face and filed the information in the back of my mind, uncertain of what I was going to do with it, but keeping tabs nonetheless.

As I opened my mouth to respond, I was cut off and interrupted by a loud, sudden, echoing sound from inside of the Throne Room; the Newbie flinched, as did one of the other sentries, but the man in front of me merely closed his eyes and sighed, an exasperated sound. The blood seemed to drain out of a lot of faces, but he remained calm.

As the man I was speaking to opened his eyes again, I lifted a questioning eyebrow. Again, he made certain to meet my eyes. "I believe you should return to the Healing Room now, m'lady." The look on his face told me how likely he thought the chances of that were.

"Uh-huh," the look on my face reaffirmed his assumptions. There was another echoing, resonant noise from inside of the Throne Room; I couldn't place it, couldn't quite match it to anything I'd ever heard in my life. Not an explosion. Something else, something darker. Something that sang through the air and drove itself deep into my ears.

A little smile threatened to break out on the corner of the sentry's lip at my stubborn refusal to move, but his eyes were still… wearied. He opened his mouth to say something else when the Newbie behind him cried out; something darted out from beneath the Throne Room door, something small and onyx black.

The guards immediately responded to the object, which flung itself across the floor and darted in zigzagging patterns in a mad attempt to flee the light. I recognized it immediately; a shadow, come to life, smoking and whispering. It sensed the guards and I around it and reared up to attack, spreading itself out thin to build itself much larger, its edges sharpening until it was as fine as a razor blade. I skipped back, immediately trying to seize control of my emotions, to bring my shield out to defend myself.

It wasn't necessary. The sentries were skilled warriors; they would not be here if they weren't. One struck at the shadow's edge while another drove his sword through it from behind; the one who had been talking to me unsheathed his own blade and drove it deep into the twisting shade, dragging his sword up straight through it, cutting it in half. The dark shade dissipated into nothing, remnants of itself falling into the nearby, silent shadows. It did not rise again, life drained from it like poison from a wound.

I immediately charged towards the door, cursing under my breath. I expected the guards to come after me, and I was muttering questions on how, exactly, Fraye had managed to get into the Throne Room when the Newbie stopped me with a firm hand. I gave him a glare and threw him off; but the other sentry, the Veteran, stepped in front of me.

"We have to stop her!" I shouted at him, my glow already beginning to seep across my skin. Newbie looked surprised. Veteran and the others did not.

"She isn't inside!" the man shouted back. I halted, taken aback by the sincerity-and volume- of his words. I hesitated, and he sighed. "Fraye has not returned to Asgard."

I blinked. Blinked again. Then I took a step back and tried to reorient.

"Then who…?" The sentry glanced downwards. Many of the others did the same. Newbie didn't take his eyes off of me, but he looked pale. My eyes widened, and I swallowed.

"He isn't," I breathed. No one would meet my eyes this time. "No, no, tell me he isn't, tell me he's not that-" That what? That stupid? That reckless? That much in pain?

I cursed breathlessly, running my hand through my hair, utterly stunned. I fell back a few more steps, my knees suddenly weak. The veteran managed to look me in the face again, and, because I had to double-check, because I had to be certain, I whispered,"Shadow Taming…?"

He gave the barest hint of a nod. He had likely been told not to tell anyone the truth, but since I had figured it out for myself… I swore again, this time using something I'd picked up from Jotunheim.

"Why?" I demanded. "He has to know that we'll never beat Fraye at her own game! The shadows are her element, they are hers to command! No Asgardian will ever be able to match her in Shadow Manipulation; no one can!"

No one answered me. Because of course Odin knew that. But what else could he do?

The sentries fell back into place slowly, the veteran meeting my gaze. "You should return to the Healing Room now, Lady Natalie," he repeated in a firm tone; this time indicating that it was no longer a choice issue. I swallowed, staring at him for a long time… but eventually, numbly, I managed to turn myself around and stagger out of the room.

I didn't return to the Healing Room, not right away. Instead, I found one of the secluded corners of the palace- an empty nook that Loki had discovered as a child. It was a quiet place, secluded, where I would not be disturbed. Using this to my advantage, I tucked myself into the farthest, darkest corner and pressed my back against the wall, sliding down it until I was sitting. Crouched, in a ball, I sat there for a long time, trying to piece everything together.

It was wrong. There had to be a better way than this; there was no possible way that any Asgardian, even Odin, would be able to defeat Fraye using Shadow Manipulation. The shadows were hers. Irrevocably, undeniably, undoubtedly hers. Her abilities may not have been as diverse as the Asgardians, her other forms of magic not quite as strong, but what she lacked in quantity, she made up for in quality; there was not a creature alive who could stand against her in a direct, Shadow-Taming battle. To try and do so anyway was the act of the truly insane; or the truly desperate.

And it sent shivers down my spine to realize that was exactly what we were: desperate.

I buried my face in my hands and groaned against them. "Please," I pleaded of thin air. "There has to be some other way." I tilted my head back and looked at the ceiling. "There has to be some way to stop her."

---

Loki had one day left in the Healing Room, and he was getting restless. It was the fifth time that day that I'd had to forcibly shove him back into the room.

"No, no, no!" I snapped, pushing him backwards, back in the door as he protested. "You have made it this long, you can make it for one more day!"

He scowled at me and allowed himself to fall back onto the bed, sitting down and glaring at me. "Honestly, Frost, you know as well as I do that I am perfectly fine."

"Look, I know, I know, but let's just play it on the safe side, okay?" I placated, placing my hand on his shoulder and leaning down so that I could meet his eyes. "One more day won't kill you."

He gave me a look. After two weeks of sitting around and doing nothing, even his usually limitless patience was wearing thin. A person can only go through stratagems so many thousands of times. Besides, it reminded him of his prison.

And he was doing a lot better, for which I was grateful. He would be allowed back to the Tower tomorrow, but it would be another few days before he could begin training again. Still, once he got out of Asgard, at least he would feel somewhat useful. At least he could be doing something about Fraye.

"She's right, you know," another voice joined our conversation; the young grey-eyed Healer who, together with Shale, had been taking care of Loki steadily since he'd come here. She gestured for Loki to lift up his shirt, and he did so irritably, displaying the white bandages that she had been checking every few hours. We had both lost count of how often she came to do this. Fingers alight with pale white-gold, the Healer slowly removed said bandages in order to look at the injury. It still looked gnarly, but there was no trace of shadow infection. Still, she glossed it over with a quick sheen of magic, just to be on the safe side. "You feel fine in here, but you of all people should recognize that there is magic in this air." She lifted a thin blonde eyebrow. "Once outside of this room, you may not be so eager."

Loki groaned and fell back on the bed. It was somewhat childish, but, of late, he hadn't been as controlled as he usually was. I put it down to the stress of being stuck in here while Fraye was still out there. There had still been no word from Banner, and with each day that passed, I was getting more and more anxious; which, in turn, translated onto Loki.

I sat down. The Healer smiled slightly at Loki's behavior and maneuvered to the other side of the bed so that she could reapply fresh bandages, clean and sterile and bright white. Somewhere in the back of my mind, it registered that Loki was oddly comfortable at displaying this immature lapse in control in front of this Healer. It made sense that he was all right with doing it around me-we were in each other's heads, after all- but someone else… not so much.

It was just a dim thought, somewhere far distanced from me… but suddenly, it was at the front of my mind. Why was that? I supposed the Healer was a fairly charismatic, charming, kind person; by her very nature, and the nature of her job, of course people would feel comfortable around her. That much was just expected; it was a sign of a good Healer.

And she's pretty, too, a nagging little thought said in the back of my head.

Was she? I hadn't really noticed. I took her in at a quick glance as Loki stared at the ceiling, irritated. I put up a few walls between him and my current thought process, uncertain of why I was really even doing so. Yes, yes, I supposed she could be considered 'pretty', with her bright blonde hair and soft grey eyes, her small nose and somewhat elfin face. But then, it seemed that all of the Asgardians were drop-dead gorgeous. It wasn't a wonder I hadn't noticed; by their standards, she probably wouldn't even seem that pretty at all. She was just… average.

By the realm, Natalie Frost, I found myself thinking as the Healer smiled at Loki and gestured for him to put his shirt back down. Are you… jealous?

No, I stubbornly answered myself, looking away from her. Loki lowered his shirt and placed the back of his hand over his face to shield his gaze from the small light. A little, squeaky, traitorous voice somewhere far away in the back of my skull whispered, yes.

Ugh. If I was jealous, then it was all Loki's fault. I smiled weakly at the Healer as she walked out, then studied my shoelaces. I mean, I used to get irritated that the Avengers and the Asgardians were all freaking beautiful, it's true, but that was always a petty jealousy, kicked aside after a while. I was always able to push it under more important matters. This was a lot worse; it nagged at me, a dark kind of envy that just refused to go away. My hands gripped the seat of my chair beneath me.

"Miss Frost?" Loki seemed to have noticed my sudden souring in mood. "Is something wrong?"

"Hmm?" I looked up at him, jumping at the sound of his voice. "Oh. No. No, nothing wrong," I babbled quickly, realizing too late that he would detect the lie in that. His eyebrow lifted, and he sat up. It was rare that I lied to him. For him, that tended to mean that I was hiding something interesting. For me, that tended to mean a world of hurt until he figured it out.

He gave me a small, wry smirk. "Come now, Miss Frost," he said, his words slithering around me, coiling around my throat like a python. "You should know better than that by now."

I flushed. "Ah, it's petty stuff," I waved my hand flippantly. "Mortal things. You wouldn't care."

His eyes lit up, an onyx-and-jade sparkle shining in the back of them. That hadn't entirely been a lie, but it hadn't entirely been the truth, either. Usually, that was the only way to slip through the loopholes; but today he sensed the flat note, and it only made him want to figure it out all the more. Usually, when I was caught in a lie, I gave in almost right after he pointed it out. I normally didn't see the point in keeping it hidden; mostly because I knew that this was how he would react. But since I was still keeping up with the lie… well, now he was interested.

"Oh, really?" he asked mockingly, a quiet, taunting undertone in his voice. He edged towards where I was sitting, until he was on the side of the bed, one leg dangling over the edge and one propped upright, his arm draped over his knee. His eyes were shining. I was really beginning to hate that shine.

"Yes, really," I said stubbornly, jutting my chin out. Ugh, this was so much worse when he was bored and had nothing else to do. There was nothing to distract him away from the touchy subjects.

He smiled benevolently, almost managing to look like he was above doing something extremely unpleasant in order to get the information out of me. "It's been a while since you last lied to me," he said in a quiet, velvet whisper. He closed his eyes and tilted his head, as though listening to something, still smiling. "I'd almost forgotten what it sounded like."

I scowled. "Wanna hear another one? You're not a pretentious asshole."

He was undaunted by my hostility. His eyes flickered open again, dancing. "Now, really, I thought-"

He was cut off by a soft knock on the frame of the open door, and we both turned to face the newcomer: Thor. He was half inside the room, smiling at us both. "May I ask what, exactly, the problem is?" he inquired, walking inside, towards a nearby chair.

I blushed, protesting, "It's nothing, really," while simultaneously, Loki responded, "Miss Frost is attempting to lie to me, for reasons unknown."

Thor's eyebrows furrowed as he took his seat. "I thought that was not possible."

"Which is precisely why I said that she is attempting to do so," Loki retorted, sounding a little unbearably smug. I stared daggers at him.

"Look, it was no big deal. Just some petty human stuff. Nothing to it. Okay?"

Thor immediately looked to Loki. The look on his face clearly indicated that he was convinced. Loki, however, sighed theatrically. "Half-truths and avoidance. I'm becoming rather impatient with you, Frost."

"Tough cookies."

He met my eyes. Thor watched us, now a little wary. "Come now, brother. If it truly is that important, would she not tell you?"

Loki didn't even look at Thor. "And will you not discover it later, regardless?" The Thunderer pressed.

Oh, peachy. My cheeks burned even hotter; and though I was trying to keep my emotions well clear from Loki, he could see the embarrassment coloring my skin as I found my gaze turning away from him. His eyes grew ever brighter. He knew it was unlike me to shy away from things like this.

"Ugh, you guys, it really wasn't that big of a deal!" I complained in a desperate attempt; sticking as close to the truth as humanly possible. "It was just an errant thought! The only reason it means anything is because you-" I jabbed a finger at Loki, "Made such a fuss about it!" I rubbed the back of my neck. "Just drop it, okay?"

"Now you know, and I know, that is never going to happen," Loki reminded me, the irritating little pest. "You may as well simply tell us, Frost; it can not possibly be as humiliating as the shade your cheeks are turning suggest."

I almost slapped him. "Oh, shut up," I grumbled, pulling my feet up onto my chair and resting my forehead on my knees, so that neither of the Asgardians could see my face. Loki was surprised by my dedication to this; he hadn't expected to have to test my mental walls, but he was beginning to do so, beginning to see exactly how strong they were, and what, exactly, it would take to break them. If we probed deep enough, either of us could take any secret out of the other's head. I hated it when either of us went that route, though, so the moment Loki began to look for cracks in the black wall that I had thrown up, I sighed heavily and gave in. "All right, all right already!" I threw up my hands in exasperation. Loki retreated, waiting me out, smiling in triumph.

I gave him a death glare, then sighed and looked down. "I just…" I took a deep breath, then said it all in a rush, "I noticed how pretty the Healer was and got a little jealous, okay, you happy?" At their blank looks, I grumbled, "Sheesh, I told you it was petty!"

Thor and Loki exchanged a glance. Even though I knew that their common ground had been bought at my expense, a distant part of me was glad to see the brothers turn to each other so reflexively. As they turned back to me, Thor lifted an eyebrow, and Loki laughed; the sound seemed to come out of him without his permission. My cheeks burned hotter than ever.

"That's all?" Loki snorted, trying very hard to hide that laughter. "You were that embarrassed simply because you were envious of someone?"

Urgh, he didn't get the point. I wasn't embarrassed because I'd been jealous, I was embarrassed because…

Because…

Why was I embarrassed?

I'd been jealous of people before. Maybe not this bad, over something as stupid as looks… but the increase in intensity could be pegged on Loki, and his influence on my emotions. That was it. There was really nothing to be embarrassed about.

I pushed the unwanted thoughts and unanswerable questions away with a snide remark. "Excuse me if I'm not as experienced with envy as you."

He chortled. Poor Thor was looking very confused. I realized suddenly that we had switched languages, that we were both speaking in Spanish… but neither of us felt any real inclination to switch back. Which, unfortunately, left the Thunderer in the dark.

Loki waved my complaints off with one hand, looking very much amused by my awkwardness around an emotion that he was all too familiar with. "Let me know when you begin to imagine her demise; that is when things become interesting."

I stuck my tongue out at him, then turned my head to the side, squishing my cheek against my jean-covered knee, resting my head there and glaring pointlessly at the wall. It took a moment of silent brooding for Loki to realize that this wasn't something that I could just laugh off. It disturbed me. I was used to some very dark emotions- anger, vengeance, depression- but… none of this particular nature. It was all new to me and I didn't like it in the slightest.

He was quiet for a moment, then he sighed heavily. He looked ready to open his mouth and say something when yet another person intruded on our conversation, bursting in the door with unexpected urgency.

Again, all eyes turned to the newcomer. It wasn't one of the Avengers; nor any Asgardian I recognized. He was young, with bright red hair and blue eyes, and a thin, wiry body. Reflexively, Loki and I both found ourselves scanning him up and down, making the same conclusions at the same times, though our minds had not merged.

The man's simple, light and sturdy clothing-accented with a hint of gold around the collar- indicated that he was a messenger; one of the palace's, more likely than not. This was confirmed by the sheathed dagger at his side; the sheath was black with a dark blue tip, the signal to those in the know that the blade had been dipped in poison. Practically everyone in Asgard carried weaponry, but messengers had to travel light, and thus made do with what few small weapons they could carry on their person at all times.

He was out of breath, but not sweating; whatever message he was delivering likely came from inside of the palace. Panting, he looked around at us.

"An embassy has arrived," he informed us. "From Jotunheim." His eyes flicked around the room, glancing at each person inside in turn. "Under a truce of peace."

The tension that crackled in the air following this announcement was palpable. For a moment, everyone was frozen, shocked into place, made into rigid stone.

And then Thor was on his feet, immediately falling into line with his princely duties. The stone air shattered, and suddenly we were all moving again. I shirked back so that Thor could pass me, and Loki subtly positioned himself beside me, watching his brother and the messenger with great curiosity. He was already planning strategies before Thor had even taken one step forwards, calculating this newest variable and the others that it presented, placing into the equation.

But before Thor could leave, the messenger swallowed, looking very, very nervous. Though the phrase 'don't shoot the messenger' was a human saying, there was a reason that Asgardian messengers carried weaponry. Bad news wasn't always taken well. "Apologies, sir," he said quickly. "But they have refused to speak with anyone…" his eyes traveled to me. The back of my neck prickled. "Without the Lady Frost."

"What." The word came out of me, immediate, reflexive, and sounding more like 'whut'. I couldn't even make it into a question. My face was dead, flat. I was too surprised to feel my own shock. Which is kinda saying something.

Thor and Loki were similarly surprised, though they recovered faster than I did. "How did they know that she was here?" Thor asked, looking at me.

"They probably didn't," Loki wagered. "But they can hardly go to Midgard to search for her." Thor and the messenger were watching me as I stared at them in return. Loki turned to me as well, and suddenly he closed his eyes, burying his face in his hand. There was heavy exasperation in his voice as he sighed out the words, "Not again…"

I blinked. Loki's annoyance was the first thing that registered through the cloud of what-the-hell-just-happened that was swarming above my head. I looked down at myself and discovered the cause; I was wearing a ratty old pair of jeans and an old, faded graphic tee, along with fingerless gloves; the right of which sported a gaping, frayed hole. Loki gripped my wrist suddenly, wrenching me upright a bit more violently than strictly necessary; but then, he wasn't particularly thinking of that at the moment. New urgency had fueled his movements, and suddenly he was ordering the messenger, "Tell them that we have to retrieve her from Midgard." He glanced to me. "That should give us time to rectify… this."

The man nodded in response and lead Thor out of the room. Loki started out of the room as well and, with me still trying to process things, I couldn't think to stop him. By the time the shock had worn off enough for me to remember that Loki wasn't supposed to leave the room, it was too late. And it did not seem to matter a great deal; though the Healer had been correct about the magic inside of the Healing Room keeping Loki from feeling a great deal of the pain, whatever he felt right now was nothing compared to the continuing agony that those scars had caused, an agony he had borne silently for years. He was fairly used to pain by now.

Loki dragged me along for a majority of the journey towards the room where the spare clothes were stored for the trainees that fought in the arena. By now, my head cleared up enough for me to snatch my hand back and walk beside him. But I was thinking too intently to try and speak with him at the moment, trying to figure out what I was supposed to do, what I was supposed to say. Loki began to search through the clothing for something similar to what I had worn last time, muttering half-sentences under his breath. "Manages to become an ambassador…still wearing rags… unbelievable…."

I stumbled back into a seat. "Loki…" I breathed. I was ignored; he was too focused to hear me, scanning through the articles of clothing with intense eyes, trying to determine something along the lines of the same blend of mortal and immortal that we had tried to use last time.

"Loki!" I repeated, this time in a shout, my mind pulling together entirely at last, bringing me once and for all into the 'now', as opposed to the 'future', and what I would be forced to do. Loki half-turned, hand clasped around a leather ankle cover. "What… I can't do this!" I exclaimed, eyes wide, pleading. "I-I-I… What am I supposed to… I don't know what…" I spluttered and stumbled around it, then looked up to him, feeling… lost. I'd been in bad situations before, life-or-death battles…but this was different. I hadn't been in a political situation, not like this, not so sudden and out of the blue…

Loki froze, momentarily conflicted between his search and me going a little crazy. After a second, however, he set the clothes on the floor and crossed the room in a few quick, snapping strides, lowering himself down to his knee so that he was at my eye level. His hand gripped my shaking face, forcing it-and my darting gaze- to his. "Do exactly what you did before," he told me firmly. "Be yourself. That is what they responded to." His eyebrows furrowed, as though he couldn't quite believe what had just come out of his mouth, and he added on, "Apparently," before rising again and resuming his search.

I blinked a few times, trying to sort that out in my mind. The Jotuns had responded to me being me. Maybe a slightly more motivational me, but still a fairly confrontational one. I swallowed; only now recognizing the weight of something else that Loki had said; that I had now managed to become an 'ambassador'. As the weight of the situation hit me again (as things like this always did tend to resurge in waves), anxiety and fear sent my nerves abuzz. Ambassador Natalie Frost. Surrounded on all sides by the politics of not just one, or even two, but three separate worlds. My mouth went completely dry. This wasn't me. I wasn't a part of Jotun politics; I was barely a part of my own planet's politics!

As Loki shoved a bundle of cloth into my arms, my hands fumbled about until they found his. I squeezed his fingers tightly. "I need you," I whispered. "I need you to help me. I can't do this alone."

He extricated his hand from mine gently. "I'll be there," He reminded me, tapping my forehead with two fingers gently. I was already shaking my head by the time he pulled his hand back.

"No, I need you there. As in right next to me. I can't… I can't do this by myself, I just… I can't!" I didn't know why this was suddenly so important to me, nor why it made any difference as to the distance between myself and Loki during this discussion-and hopefully, it would be a discussion, and not utter warfare- but I knew that there was a difference nonetheless. Loki's eyes grew slightly rounder as I pleaded with him. "Please, Loki. Please."

"Frost, I…" He hesitated. His eyes and voice lowered. "You know why that is impossible," he reminded me. "I tried to destroy their world. That is not something that they should be reminded of during a negotiation for peace."

"They might not know it was you!" I protested; and it was true. They could have heard through rumors and spies, but otherwise, it would have been impossible to tell who had turned the Bifrost onto the planet. "And even if they do, it was during a war! That's what you do in wars!" He gave me a dubious look. I pressed on, "Besides, you're the son of Laufey! My 'ally'! They have to-"

He was already shaking his head. "The son of a deceased Frost Giant King that looks like the son of the current Asgardian one? No. It would be seen as a deception." I must have looked pretty desperate, because his hand fell on my shoulder; and, when he spoke again, he used my first name. "You will be fine, Natalie." He switched languages again, so as to keep any prying ears from understand what he said next. "In truth, you are, perhaps, better suited to such a task than my brother. You may share his brash recklessness; but not his arrogance. Your pride is not so easily insulted; and when it is, you are fairly adept at hiding it. It is a useful trait in politics."

That shocked me out of it, once and for all. I blinked a few times. Loki himself had a fairly sensitive sense of pride as well; though he could be very 'adept' at hiding it, when he needed to be. The fact that he was complimenting this trait, the fact that he saw it as something useful… well, let's just say that it got the old psych brain back up and running; and with it, the rest of me fell into line. I could do this. Of course I could do this. I didn't want to do this, and I was nervous as all hell, but I could definitely do this. I'd done stuff like this before. I'd survived. I'd survive again.

I gave him a tight nod in gratitude and ducked out of the room, clutching the bundle of clothes closer to my chest. I changed quickly, purposefully, while Loki waited outside. It was a fairly simple affair, as far as Asgardian clothing was concerned, though I was surprised by one thing: though I was not showing an abnormal amount of skin, it was certainly more than I had been the last time I had seen the Jotuns. Gone were the thick pants and long-sleeved shirts, the heavy cloak and boots. In their place: a black shirt that could almost- almost- be described as a tank top, light, loose brown pants that were held up by a black belt, and silent black shoes that would not have looked out of place on either the battlefield or the dance floor. Sturdy brown leather armbands, strapped to my forearms, completed the ensemble, though Loki was holding two leather cords when I came back out. One was thicker and more decorative than the other; I took it and started to tie it around my neck as I asked, "What's with the new look? Last time you had me bundled up like a Christmas present; they probably won't even recognize me like this."

Loki fought the urge to roll his eyes. It was difficult. "Last time, you went directly to Jotunheim. Your inability to feel cold was not something that we could display-or use to our advantage- without causing lasting damage. This time, however…"

Ah. I nodded, combing my hair backwards with my fingers, gathering it all together into a ponytail, and taking the second cord from him. "It's a portrayal that they won't deliberately pick up on; a subconscious suggestion that I am more like them than I am the Asgardians." I nodded once, wrapping the cord around the ponytail and tying it tight. "Clever."

He nodded in return, taking a quick look at me and seeming to approve of his choice of outfit without second-guessing it. "It will do for now," he said. Well, semi-approved, anyway.

My hand slipped in his. I squeezed his fingers once, tightly. "Get back to the Healing Room and stay there, 'kay? If you're not there with me… well, I can't deal with worrying about you on top of all this." I gave him a nervous flash of a grin, then walked out of the exit and towards where I knew the Asgardians and Jotuns would convene.

A messenger met me halfway; the same one who had informed us of the Jotuns' arrival. He led me towards the assembly of Kings. Odin, Thor, and three Jotuns- including the still unnamed Big Boss Man- were sitting inside of a massive room with an even more massive table in the center. The only comparison I had on it was the conference room at the Tower; but like, on steroids. The place was huge, impressive, and of course, completely covered in gold. The instant I stepped inside, I felt about two inches tall.

Lovely.

All eyes turned to me as I entered; including Odin's. It frightened me, to see the Asgardian King so… wearied. It was not something that anyone unfamiliar with him could detect; but Loki had learned his tells long ago, and thus I was also very well acquainted with them. Shadow Taming was an incredibly difficult form of magic; it was no wonder that it was taking its toll.

Big Boss Man watched me with steady red eyes. I now wished that I had thought to get his name the last time I had been in Jotunheim; otherwise this could get really awkward, really quickly. I gave the two Kings and the Asgardian prince a single shallow half-bow.

"Your majesties," I greeted them all. I turned to Big Boss Man, making my gaze level. "I must admit, I am surprised that you wished to see me again, sir. Particularly considering the things that were said the last time."

I took a place at the (freaking enormous, too large to be real) table, making certain to not place myself in any particular seat of power, nor on anyone's 'side'. I was very grateful at that point for the round shape of the thing, helping me to do just that. I wanted to remain a neutral third party in the whole thing; that was where I could do the least damage.

"It is precisely what you said that required us to recall you here," the Jotun King informed me. For a second, he was no longer even looking at the Asgardians, his entire and complete attention focused solely on me. It was unnerving, to be placed in such a position of high regard, with nothing more than one man's stare. Though I was a little more confident than I had been, my hands were shaking, and I was forced to clasp them together beneath the table so that no one could see.

And then the King's eyes were off me, taking in the entire room. The Jotuns outnumbered the Asgardians three to two, but the balance of power still seemed oddly even; and, thankfully, right now, it was not at the point of a fight. "We have been informed of the Shadow Child's return to the realms." His eyes went to Odin's face. "And considering that you knew of this mortal," he gestured to me, "I assume that you have as well."

'This mortal'. Well, hell. What was with these people? For crying out loud, by their own admission, I was an 'ambassador'; and I still couldn't get any respect!

Despite this, I kept my face blank. Loki was right; it took a lot to damage my pride. I was too used to the title to find it as denigrating as I once had. Odin nodded his head once, slowly.

"We have," he agreed with the Jotun King. My stomach twisted in knots. My tongue was tied. I seemed to be keeping a relatively cool head, all things considered, but I was still anxious.

"And you are aware of what she is capable of?" The Jotun King inquired.

"Beyond any reasonable doubt," Thor agreed, his voice very dark, his eyes grave. I felt Loki stirring in the back of my head, watching everything, calculating everything. I was too nerve-wracked to pay much attention to him, but I was grateful that he was there nonetheless.

I cleared my throat, feeling the need to add something, and at the same time feeling as though I would be resented for it. I wasn't supposed to have any political authority, after all…

Well, tough, I thought to myself, trying to strengthen my own resolve. I have it now.

"Fraye has attacked Midgard a number of times now; a planet which is currently under the protection of Prince Thor." I inclined my head towards the Thunderer, making certain to use his proper title. We may drop all formality around each other in normal circumstances, but these were not normal circumstances. And here, we had to be what we weren't. It was the nature of politics. "And there was a recent attack on Asgard as well; which ended in one of our own being…" I swallowed and picked my way around the words as though walking through a minefield. "Well, currently, we are uncertain as to his fate."

"One of 'your own'?" The Jotun King questioned, his features turning dark as he looked directly to me once again. "An Asgardian?"

"An Avenger," I corrected mildly. "Midgardian. One of the powerful few that I discussed with you previously."

He seemed to recall the conversation. Considering how it had probably shattered his perception of the universe and what mortals were capable of, I imagined that was not difficult for him to do. He nodded once, slowly. "And the other… 'Avengers'?"

"Alive, on Midgard." A lie. I could see that Thor was startled by how flawless it was, and how easily it came to my lips. Thankfully, the Jotuns' attention was on me, and not on the Thunderer. "Still prepared to fight."

I knew that this was what he was asking; if this most recent loss had done anything to weaken the resolve of the few powerful mortals in the universe. It, of course, had not; if anything, the Avengers were more ready and willing to cut Fraye to shreds than ever.

"And the son of Laufey is among them?" Big Boss Man inquired, and there was suspicion in his ruby eyes. He had yet to see the son of the dead king; the one that had not been thought to exist.

I hesitated. Thor and Odin watched me-Thor mildly worriedly, Odin with a steady gaze- and, again, I chose my words delicately. "He is working with them," I said carefully. "But he is not with them at this time, no."

"Then where?" the Jotun King's eyes glinted.

"Is that truly relevant?" I asked, infusing ice into my tone. I was surprised by how well it worked, how powerful my voice suddenly sounded. Mortal or not, I saw the faintest, briefest sheen of fear flash across the Jotun's eyes. Then again, he'd seen what I could do; or seen a small part of it. I realized then that I was still an enigma to them. They did not know the extent, nor the limits, of my abilities. I found my spine straightening at this new inner revelation. "Do Laufeyson's whereabouts have anything to do with your mission here, whatever that may be?"

I thought that Thor might have stiffened. I definitely saw his lips pressing into a hard line; this was more confrontational than he or his father would have handled things. But, as Loki said, this was me. And me was what they had responded to.

The Jotun King studied me for a very long moment before he replied, "Nay." He leaned just the slightest bit closer to me, towering above me. "And I believe you would be lying if you said that you do not already know what our mission is here."

I could feel the tension radiating off of Thor, alive, choking, stifling. He and Odin had been cut off through a majority of this conversation. While Odin looked willing to allow it to play out, to see the chess pieces fall into the proper pattern, Thor was unused to being… helpless. But I did not look at him. I did not take my suddenly-icy eyes off of the Jotun King, despite the sharp, stabbing, wrenching pain in my stomach, despite the racing of my heart, despite the trembling in my hands. My voice rang clear as a bell, and did not quiver, startling me with its intensity. "Of course." I agreed with his assumption. Because of course I knew this was the reason. Why else would he be here?"Though I am hardly necessary if you wish to discuss an alliance with the Asgardians. And I never claimed to speak for Midgard." I didn't allow my gaze to wander, and barely allowed myself to blink. "My only real question is why you wished for me to be here during these proceedings."

Big Boss Man sat back again, sitting completely upright, drawing himself to his full, impressive height. I brushed my thoughts against Loki's for reassurance, though he had been oddly quiet. "That," the Jotun King said, "I believe you also know."

I did, and I didn't. It wasn't something that I could put in words, or say out loud in front of the Asgardians. I was here because the Jotuns didn't trust the Asgardians. Because the Asgardians hadn't warned them about Fraye's return. I had. I was important; and by that very fact alone, they trusted me. I was the unspoken bridge between the two worlds, despite how I stood beside neither. I was their verification; if I said that the Asgardians were trustworthy enough for an alliance, then I would be believed. I was, in fact, their lie detector.

But I could not say this out loud. And so instead I simply gave the Jotun King a smile; one of my biggest, most knowing, and most deadly. It was just a quick gesture, brief, but it was enough.

"And you also know why we would request that the son of Laufey also be here during these proceedings," Big Boss Man said, his gaze leveling out to look at the entire room once more. I blinked. Okay, that one I didn't know.

"Yes…" A voice drawled from the other end of the room. "Yes, I rather thought you might."

All eyes turned to the voice; a voice I knew all too well, a voice that had me battling back an insane, lunatic-style grin. Fortunately, the sight of him stunned that smile right off of my face. My breath caught in my throat.

Damn, Loki, I thought, though I didn't particularly intend for him to hear it. You sure know how to make an entrance.

I don't know who was surprised more by what. Was it was Thor, by Loki's Jotun Form? Was it the Jotuns, by the scars that, while healing, still riddled his body? Or was it me, by what the hey he was wearing?

Loki had pulled no punches with the outfit; there was no skirting along the lines, no shirking away from it, no doubt in any minds that he was a Jotun, through and through. Who knew where he had gotten the outfit, but it was definitely not Asgardian; nothing about him was Asgardian. His skin was dark blue with darker patterns, his eyes redder than those of the Jotun King, and the blood that stained the edges of his no-longer-bandaged wound was as blue as blue could get.

My eyes flicked over him, a quick scan up and down. It had been a while since I had seen him in Frost Giant form, but it wasn't as new to me as it was to Thor, who I could see swallowing out of the corner of my eye (it only then occurred to me that Thor had never seen his brother in this form). Personally, in a lot of ways, I did not see a difference. Jotun, Asgardian, whatever; he was still just 'Loki'. The color of his skin and eyes might change, but it was still his face, his gestures, his voice. Still his freezing hands. So I didn't pay much attention to that; but rather focused on the clothes; and what, exactly, he was saying with them. It was pretty blindingly clear.

He was shirtless again (big surprise, he seemed to be doing that a lot lately) but then, Frost Giants don't feel the cold, and the other Giants were shirtless too. But he wore Jotun-style pants and wristbands, and, like everything about him, the lack of a shirt seemed to make a very obvious and poignant statement; particularly seeing as all of his scars- and the gnarly injury he'd taken to his side- were now intensely visible to everyone in the room.

He was leaning against the side of the entrance, looking very… relaxed. It was a casual, arrogant sort of posture, exuding power while at the same time managing to avoid showing any kind of authority. With a single graceful, languid movement, he straightened and took a step forwards; two or three more steps, and he had taken his place beside me, standing directly beside my chair. He purposefully, calculatedly turned to me, so that the inscription on his back was plainly visible to the Jotun embassy; who, along with the Asgardians, had stood up at the sound of his voice. Loki looked to me, and though his eyes were no longer green, they were still dancing in that exact same way that they always did whenever he had the upper hand in a game that he liked; and he liked every game in which he had the upper hand. "I apologize for my tardiness, Lady Frost. I had thought that I would not be required for this particular interaction."

I shrugged mildly, immediately seeing the roles he wished for us both to play and falling into it effortlessly, without even the barest breath of a pause. We had to retain the appearance of equal allies; while at the same time having a healthy amount of respect for each other. "I've been handling things," I said, keeping my tone cordial and honest, while at the same time trying to keep my speech patterns following along a mortal path.

His hand fell on my shoulder. Turning to me-and his back to the Jotuns- had made sure that there could be no doubt as to who had given those scars to him. And the very fact that, despite these old injuries, and the very recent one on his side, he was still alive… well, perhaps respect had been bought for him, regardless of his smaller stature. These Giants towered above him as they did everyone else here; but out of the four Jotuns in the room, only one had confronted Fraye and lived.

He now looked to the other three Giants, his gaze even. Big Boss Man studied him with a lingering trace of mistrust. "Fairly convenient," he said slowly, "That you should arrive here now… Loki."

So the King recognized him. Well, it would be difficult not to; I could see the Giant's mind working, trying to figure out what this meant, to figure out where this newcomer's loyalties lied. Somehow, I doubt it ever occurred to him that the disgraced Asgardian Prince had been playing a part in this game. But the Jotun garb did its job; Loki looked anything and everything but Asgardian; and the scars announced his plans (and desire) for vengeance against Fraye, as clearly as if he had shouted them.

"Actually, it is not convenient at all," Loki mused slowly, acting as though the discovery of his 'true' identity was pointless. And, I guess you could say that it was; the man who stood before them was clearly no Asgardian, former Prince or not. Why would his claim to being Laufey's son be untrue?

His hand gripped my shoulder tightly, almost… possessively. I understood his reasoning behind the gesture and did not protest it; in fact, I straightened, allowing myself to sit taller, to seem stronger, because of it. "As your Keeper of Legends herself noted," Loki's voice lowered, became more intense, so sincere that it bled. "I never leave the Lady Frost."

"My eyes and ears are his eyes and ears," I concurred. I did not have to ask Loki what he wished to reveal; I knew. And silently, somewhere in the back of my mind, I was dancing like a crazy person. He was here. He was standing right next to me, and everything would be okay. Any stupid thing that I said, he could rectify. Any stupid thing that he said, I could do the same. "And vice versa."

"I see," The Jotun King said diplomatically, though his eyes had narrowed considerably. Loki lowered himself into his seat with a catlike grace. He seemed very calm and at ease with his surroundings; the world of politics, though difficult for me, was as natural as breathing to him.

I did not look to Odin or Thor until the Jotun King spoke again; and when I did, it was a quick appraisal, just to make sure that they were not going to object to this move. It did not seem that they would. Loki may have been a prisoner at one time, but his presence here was now a very important and strategic move. The Jotun King himself had asked for him to be here. The Asgardians could hardly kick him out, not if they wished for this to go well.

Besides, wasn't Loki following along with what Odin originally intended for him? Was he not acting as the bridge between the two once-warring worlds, as Odin had planned when he first saved him from the ice, all those years ago?

"Then, now that everyone is present," The Jotun King nodded once, slowly, "Perhaps we can discuss the matter of our mutual enemy."

There was a general consensus of nods or implied affirmatives around the table. Loki and I forced our faces to become impassive. I was again fighting a smile; it felt right to have him there, next to me. We hadn't been apart very often or for very long over the past few days; it only stood to reason that he would be right next to me when I needed him most, when his expertise far surpassed my own. But I was still the one that the Jotuns had learned to trust; and so I was still very much a player in these games. The pawn had been promoted.

"Asgard's warriors have been made ready for any attack from Fraye; they stand at our world's defense." Odin said firmly.

"And Midgard has assembled its mightiest," I put in, folding my hands in front of me. They were no longer shaking in the slightest. "They also stand ready."

Though we showed no trace of emotion, I think it surprised both Loki and I that I said 'they' instead of 'we'. I was also a protector of Earth, wasn't I? Avenger or not, it was still my planet. My world.

But maybe not my home.

I blinked away the disturbing thoughts as the Jotun King nodded. "And Jotunheim has done the same."

I sighed deeply, deciding that I was tired of dancing around motives. "So I suppose the question stands: when Fraye's attack does finally come, are we to stand alone?" My eyes purposefully traveled between Odin and the Jotun King. "Or shall we place past differences behind us, and unite against a common foe?"

Loki silently approved of my stepping in. He watched the two Kings, his brother, and the other two Giants very carefully, studying reactions.

The Jotun King sat back after a moment, somehow-impossibly- stiffening in his seat, his spine pressed against the back of the chair and turning rigid. His eyes turned to me. "Our quarrel with Midgard is from eons ago; and all reasons for such a war have long since become irrelevant. Our battles were orchestrated by Fraye; I would consider it nothing more than justice, if our worlds were to unite against her."

"As would I," I said slowly. "Unfortunately, I do not speak for my entire planet. Concerning the Avengers, however…" I pretended to contemplate this for a moment as Loki shot a meaningful, questioning look at Thor for me. He was an Avenger. I was fairly certain that they would agree with this, but I wanted to be absolutely sure. And he could confirm it for me.

Thor seemed to recognize that it was my question behind Loki's eyes- I couldn't currently look to him without the gesture being noticed by the Jotun King- and he gave his brother the minutest of nods. Seeing this as Loki did, I informed Big Boss Man, "I am confident that they would be more than willing to fight beside you, if it meant our enemy's defeat."

Loki cleared his throat, speaking in soft but ringing tones. He did not exude the regality that he usually did; but then, I assumed that was because he did not wish to seem strictly 'royal' in front of a king who could easily become defensive, knowing Loki's claim to the throne. Still, the Trickster still had a certain… dark grace to his words and movements. "As one of the members of the Avengers is an Asgardian," he said slowly, "Compliance between the two worlds is mostly assured."

It surprised me that Loki would reveal this now; but I supposed it was currently better to be up front with as many truths as we could; particularly with the truths that we could not get away with falsifying later. It was far too important that the Jotuns would work with the Avengers; they would know that Thor was one of those Avengers soon enough, anyway. I saw the Jotuns react to this, but they said nothing aloud.

"So basically," I said, again deciding to just hit the problem on the head with a hammer and forgo tact entirely. "The only thing standing in the way of us all working together peacefully…" I looked between Odin and the Jotun King. "Is you two. And whatever lingering hostility there may be between you."

The two Kings followed my gaze and looked to each other. The tension in the air went up by about a thousand percent; but Loki and I were calm, collected. He was even fighting a smirk. We knew that the Asgardians would be amenable to working with the Jotuns; the only problem was the Frost Giants themselves. And, seeing as they were the ones who had come here… Well, now it was just a matter of getting both sides to actually voice their agreement aloud. I sat back, getting a little more comfortable. This should be interesting.

Odin spoke first. "We have always desired nothing more than peace between our worlds." His one-eyed gaze was solemn, but sincere. "And if such a peace must be won due to a powerful foe… then so be it." His tone shifted as he decreed, "Asgard can put aside all conflict to destroy this enemy; if Jotunheim is willing to do the same."

Loki and I did the mental equivalent of exchanging a look; we could not do so in reality, for it would have been seen. Loki hid a smile as I mentally murmured, Thought so.

There was a long silence. And then the Jotun King opened his mouth to speak. Before he could do so, however, one of the giants at his side leaned over to whisper in his ear. Loki's eyes immediately zeroed in on the Jotun's lips, in an attempt to read them, a skill that we were both somewhat lacking in. A skill that he had been trying to sharpen for years; as it was something he found incredibly useful. I listened as closely as I could; the nanos' original function was to enhance certain things-speed, strength, agility, etc- and one of those things, I'd noticed, was hearing. I could see and hear better than I used to be able to; better than most humans, probably. It was just enough to allow me to catch a few words here and there, and with Loki's sketchy lip-reading, we were able to piece together a majority of what was said.

"With respect… not what Laufey…done. Your subjects may not…"

I blinked, trying to comprehend that. Loki glanced to me, a thousand different responses flashing between the two of us. But this was all background noise to our proper conversation.

So there are problems with the throne, Loki mused. They may not accept him.

He is not directly from royal decent, I agreed. They may not feel that he is leading them as their former king may have done. I tried very hard not to bite my lip. If they don't accept this decision…

We fought a frown. This wasn't something we had anticipated. Just because the Jotun King had some degree of common sense did not mean that the entire planet did. I cursed inwardly, but kept my face smooth and neutral. Loki was still considering how to respond to this when I cleared my throat and smiled blissfully.

"Forgive me," I said, keeping my face innocent. "But it seems to me that something has been overlooked."

I waited until all eyes were on me-including Loki's- before I continued, folding my hands on the table in front of me. "Midgard and Jotunheim's quarrels, as you yourself have noted-" I nodded to the Jotun King as I said this, then went on, "Were entirely orchestrated by Fraye." I lifted an eyebrow. "By extension… does this not mean that your quarrel with Asgard was her doing as well?"

A different feeling stirred in Loki's chest as everyone fell silent. A feeling that he had never felt for me before: pride. He stepped back entirely, allowing me the reigns of the conversation, his ruby eyes dancing. It may have been an obvious fact, it may have been something that everyone knew… but no one had truly recognized it. There was too much blind vengeance between the worlds to recognize it. And I had applied it at just the right moment; just as he would have done. And he was… proud of me, for doing so. It made me feel oddly elated.

But, like him, I kept my face aligned in the expression that I still wished to have; one of innocence, a soft smile still on my lips. "It seems to me that it would be…" I hesitated, then used the very words the Jotun King had: "Nothing less than justice, as you say, that your two worlds should unite against her as well."

"Throw off the manipulation," Loki concurred, stepping in. "She has been maneuvering you, controlling your movements, for far too long. End this dispute, and you may destroy what hold she has on you. End it, and her power diminishes."

The room fell silent again. The Frost Giant who had whispered into the King's ear was giving me a dirty look, even if it was muted and disguised. I turned my gaze to meet his steadily for just a brief moment before looking around at the table.

"Sir-" The Jotun looked to protest again, but the King held up a hand to cut him off, saying, "Enough."

He shut up. The King closed his eyes and pressed his hands together in front of his face, thinking, concentrating. It may have been a show, or it may not have been, but Loki and I did not care. He had been convinced, we were certain of it.

Finally, he sighed and looked to Odin. "It seems that there is some wisdom even in mortal words."

I lifted an eyebrow. Gee, thanks, I thought scathingly. Loki forced down a laugh.

The King knew nothing of my inner sarcasm. He kept his focus on the Asgardians. "We shall fight beside you, until this threat to our worlds has ended."

Odin gave him a low, deep nod. "Then it is settled."

Following that, there was peace between the two realms; and a truce between three, something that had not happened in the history of our worlds. But first, there were a few more political points that had to be taken care of; a little bit of fine-tuning to a new, more recent treaty that was written up and signed by everyone in the room; including me and Loki, surprisingly. Since we stood as our own party, not affiliated with any world, nor holding any power in any (including Midgard) Steve was also called in, so that he could vouch for the Avengers-the only Midgardian power than anyone in this room cared about. I felt positively giddy as the whole thing went down, though it got surprisingly boring towards the end. It seemed that nothing could be solved in politics without a bazillion miles of red tape added to it, clearing away all of the little details.

Finally, however, after a few hours, we dispersed, standing from our seats and exiting the room. Loki and I stuck by each other as we left; we had fallen into a natural, easy rhythm. We truly were a flawless team, despite our differences; whether in battle, conversation, or the simple everyday movements of life, we were always perfectly in sync.

As the delegates from every world left- with Thor and Steve striking up a conversation with each other, and two of the Jotuns doing the same - a voice stopped Loki and I in our tracks.

"Laufeyson."

It was the Jotun King (whose name, I had discovered when he signed, was 'Kiross'). Loki turned, and I followed suit. "A word?"

It was less of a question and more of an order, as seemed to be the way with every royal that I had ever met (and believe me, I'd met more than I ever thought I would, and more than I'd ever like to). Loki considered for a brief second, then walked towards the other Jotun.

"Of course," he answered, indicating that I should follow. I did so; this indication had not been an order. Throughout the entire meeting, Loki had kept his air of strength and power, while at the same time abandoning his aura of authority. He did not wish to act in any way like a king; it would not have been taken well, in all likelihood.

Kiross did not quite frown at me, but his eyes were stern as he ordered, "Alone."

Loki blinked, his head tilting to the side. He did not look to me, but I shrugged and backed away, willing to leave. It wasn't as though I wouldn't find everything out, anyway. But Loki's hand shot out and wrapped around my wrist, stopping me. He stood tall and met Kiross' gaze as he reminded the Jotun King, in a clear, ringing voice, "My eyes and ears are her eyes and ears. What you say to me, she will hear, regardless." He drew himself up to his full height; impressive when compared to me, but not so much when compared to this other Giant. His voice made it clear that he would tolerate no more debate. "Miss Frost stays with me."

I looked at him, curious, as the Jotun King studied him, then turned away. "Very well."

We followed him back into the 'conference room,' and Loki's hand fell away from around my wrist. I closed the door when we made it inside, inwardly questioning Loki's actions. But he didn't say a word about it; not out loud, and not in our heads. It was somewhat odd.

Kiross had his back to us for a long moment, hands clasped together behind him. A long, contemplative silence rang in the air. Loki and I exchanged a look as we waited for him to turn; and when, finally, he did so, we looked to him steadily.

"You know why I have asked to speak with you, Loki." It was not a question. And it confirmed our suspicions. Loki sighed very heavily.

"I do," he agreed. "But I believe that the Lady Frost already told you that I have no interest in Jotunheim, or its throne."

Kiross gave him a long, unconvinced look. He did not even bother to voice his doubts, and after a second, Loki sighed again. "Even if I did desire the throne, I am not such a fool as to think that I could ever claim it. I have no armies to my name. My only ally is the Lady Frost; and she would not assist me in such a foolish quest." He smiled wryly, self-deprecatingly. "After all, I could not hold the throne for very long, even if it were mine. No self-respecting Jotun would follow a Giant of…" he hesitated, glancing down at himself, then, still smiling, seemed to find the right phrase. "My stature."

Kiross was observing Loki with dark eyes. "You underestimate the power of the scars you bear," he said in a dangerous tone. "Armies have rallied around less; and we have always valued courage. To stand against the Shadow Child and survive, to have the proof of such a deed carved into your skin…" his voice lowered and became almost… challenging. "It is an advantage that even your bloodline does not give."

I wanted to roll my eyes. For once, Loki was uninterested in the throne, and still everyone was suspicious of him.

There was a long, silent moment as Loki thought that over… I could feel the idea turning, around and around in his head, like clockwork cogs of machinery. Then, in a split second, he seemed to make a decision.

He lowered his voice and glanced around the room in a quick sweep, checking for any prying ears. "Perhaps that is true," he admitted in a quiet mummer. "But even if it were…" he took a conspiratorial step forwards, head ducking a little as he lowered his voice ever further. "Even if the Jotuns were to follow a king of my size… it is highly unlikely- nay, impossible- that they would follow a king…" He looked down, almost as though… embarrassed. He looked around the room one more time, then, in a very quiet voice and, with a pointed glance in my direction, finished, "With a mortal lover."

Dead silence.

Dead silence.

I blinked.

And then…

WHAT? I screamed into the Trickster's mind; and, to his eternal credit, he somehow managed to keep from flinching, holding Kiross' stare evenly. The Jotun King looked similarly surprised, though he, like me, managed to keep it hidden, for the most part. My face remained entirely neutral, as though this was not a shock to me; I knew that Loki would not have said it if he didn't have a reason, even if I was pissed that he hadn't explained it to me first.

Kiross blinked twice. "I was not aware…" He started.

Loki cut him off. "It is not something that we publicize," he pretended to admit, speaking in a confidential tone, as if he were trusting this man with the greatest of secrets. Which, if this story had been true, he would be.

I could see Kiross figuring it all out, making sense of the little things that he had noticed and ignored before. From the perspective of an outsider, of one who was not aware of the depth of our mental connection, it would look very much like Loki and I were lovers. We revolved around each other. We were always in perfect sync with each other. He moved, I moved, and vice versa. And of course we viewed each other as equals, if we were in love; after all, love could easily erase all of the normal barriers and standards, the differences between our cultures and species. Through my neutral look, I gritted my teeth and kept my hands open and unclenched through sheer willpower.

"You understand, of course, why we would wish to keep such a thing secret," Loki continued, looking at Kiross imploringly. "With Fraye at our heels and our survival dependant on the fragile edge of coexistence between our worlds." He gestured between himself and I as he said 'our worlds'. "For a disgraced prince of Asgard, the unknown son of Jotunheim, and one of the few power players of humanity to be in love… it would be considered disastrous."

Kiross nodded slowly, contemplatively. "Of course," he concurred. His mood seemed to have lightened somewhat, more thoughtful and less accusatory. Loki's story was having the effect he'd intended to, as I'd known it would. That didn't make it any better, but the knowledge of that kept me in line. For now.

"But if I became King of an entire realm… I would of course need a Queen," His head tilted, his features still confidential, conspiratorial. "And even if they would follow a stunted Giant… they would never follow a mortal Queen."

Kiross seemed to agree with this sentiment without question (which kinda somehow made me even more pissed off), and he nodded slowly. "Of course," he repeated, as Loki slipped his hand in mine. I gripped it too tightly and smiled weakly, awkwardly, counting on the redness in my face to help with my supposed embarrassment at the revelation of my 'darkest secret'. Loki managed to hide his pain when I squeezed his hand tightly enough to bruise.

"And you understand that I had to be certain," Kiross said, leveling his gaze with Loki's. The son of Laufey nodded.

"Of course, your majesty." He bowed, a bad taste filling his mouth as he did so. "But, if you will excuse us, I'm afraid that the Lady Frost and I still have a great number of things we must accomplish today."

"Of course," The Jotun King dismissed us with the wave of a hand. Loki, still half-bowing, turned to exit the room. I followed, keeping my hand in his until we were outside; then we both released each other, though we still walked side by side.

I said absolutely nothing to him, keeping silent, as the two of us left the area, walking back towards the Healing Room. I did not say a single word, even when we found ourselves completely alone. My jaw ached from clenching it so tightly.

We were far from anyone else and almost halfway to the Healing Room when Loki stopped abruptly. He, too, had been silent up until this point. "You can hardly blame me, Frost," he said with exaggerated patience. "It was a lie that you originally fabricated. It worked for you; why should we not put it to use again?"

It was true; I was the one who initially forged this tale, by telling Benjamin that Loki was my 'boyfriend', all that time ago. "I know," I answered tersely. I was still staring straight ahead, though he had turned to face me. "And believe me, that is the only reason that I am not currently ripping your head off."

He chuckled lightly. "What would you have me do? You know as well as I do that we can not have Kiross believing that I am after his throne. Too much rests upon him and his army to risk it over something so… ludicrous."

"See previous answer."

He pretended to ignore that. "I would have informed you beforehand, had I known that I would be forced to use that particular fabrication again."

"I know," I snapped at him, turning to him at last, eyes burning. "I know, I know, I know, okay? I get it, it was the right thing to do, it was smart, okay, you're a freaking genius." I glared at the ground, the words making my teeth hurt as they came out. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths to restore my sanity. "That does not mean," I said tersely, once I had calmed myself down a little, "That I have to like it."

A smile touched his lips just briefly. He did not reply. I took a few more moments to calm my heart, to allow the heat to die down from the back of my neck.

I was being stupid. Crazy. Ridiculous. This was the right thing to do. It didn't mean anything; it was just another lie. Loki was the master of lies. This was what he did. He could do or say or promise anything, if it achieved his ends; and every one of those deeds and words and promises would be hollow. I knew this. I knew this was a lie. Why did it matter so much?

I took another long, deep breath, holding it for a few seconds before letting it out in a slow sigh. It didn't matter. I just had to use my head and forget about my own insane emotional resentment towards this particular lie. It was exactly the right thing to say. It fit the situation perfectly, filled in all of the gaps and tied up all loose ends.

It was my own fabrication, and I had to live with the consequences of it.

It took me a few minutes to cool down completely, but when I did, and when I opened my eyes again, all of my anger had been locked away in a steel box at the back of my head. Loki was watching me pull myself together with an odd look; some twisted cross between a bemused smile and a questioning glare.

He laughed quietly; the sound was… unusual. Almost a lie in and of itself. "Feeling better?" he taunted; my anger was in enough control that I didn't immediately stare daggers at him. He chuckled again, that same lie of a laugh that confused me. "Honestly, Miss Frost. It has been a while since anything I have done has made you so… furious."

"Yeah, well," I said, and didn't bother to complete the sentence. I just shrugged and turned away, starting to walk again. I'd only made it a few steps before I realized that he hadn't followed. Frowning, I turned. He was still standing in the same spot, immobile, his eyes on the ground. Only one thing had changed; his Jotun form. As I watched, the last of his blue skin was chased away by creeping paleness, banishing his monster half from sight. Again, it did not mean as much to me as it probably should have, to see him change forms. It was almost like he was just changing clothes; a part of me noted it, but it was still the same man.

His face had become oddly solemn. His now-green eyes, which had been dancing just a little while ago, were suddenly sadly serious. "Am I truly that repulsive to you?" He asked in a small voice. Though his face was still turned downwards, his eyes peered up at me. "Is it truly such a terrible notion, that you and I would be…" He swallowed and did not finish; my mind filled in the gaps for him. I swallowed, too. "Is it truly so horrific, that you can not even contemplate… that the very idea makes you feel this way? Makes you… disgusted?"

I blinked. Blinked again. Where the hell was this coming from? I turned to face him completely, leaning my weight on my right foot. "Isn't it to you?" I asked, my mouth suddenly dry. My face was hotter than it should have been, my stomach twisting. I felt oddly bad that he should immediately jump to the conclusion that it was him that I found repulsive; and I felt even worse that I hadn't recognized that he would conclude that in the first place. It was his nature to take everything the wrong way, after all. "I mean…" I laughed nervously. "I'm human. Mortal. You… you can't stand mortals." Another anxious bit of laughter. "And besides that, I'm like, your sworn enemy."

He did not laugh in return. The churning in my stomach got even worse. His eyes went back to the ground. "Did I not already tell you that you were my… my friend, Natalie Frost?" He swallowed again, hard. "And perhaps… perhaps the only friend that I have? That I am… capable of having?"

The words stung in a way I hadn't expected. My voice lowered, my hands reaching out to him. "Loki…" I hesitated as he shrank back just a bit. The way he recoiled as I reached forwards for him was almost like the old days; and it hurt. It hurt badly. I allowed my hands to fall back to my sides again. "I just… I don't know, I just… it's not… It was never even on the table, you know? We're not… I mean, we've never been…" My face turned hot at the very idea. We weren't. As close as we were, we could never be 'together' in that way.

Why not? A traitorous little voice in the back of my head squeaked. Loki's voice added to its mute protests.

"Who else?" He asked quietly. "Who better? You and I… we can never love anyone else, not the way we are. Why not… each other?"

Again, I blinked a few times. My throat felt thick. My heart was positively roaring in my ears by this point. Behind the words 'not the way we are' were a thousand others; he was not merely referring to our connection, not merely referring to what it did to us. He was also referencing the fact that the two of us were so twisted, so broken, so torn up inside that we never could love anyone else, that there could be no others in our lives, because other people could lie to us. Other people were not like Loki and I, other people still had secrecy and deceit, and if they could lie to us, then we could never trust them. We could never afford to trust them. We would always be on edge, would always be waiting for them to betray us.

His question rang in my ears: Why not each other? The answer was obvious.

So why can't I remember what it is?

Loki took a slow, hesitant step towards me. I tried to swallow back the hard lump in my throat, and though it did eventually travel to my stomach, another one soon took its place, so that I now had two. "You… You hate mortals," I protested weakly. "And I… I mean, you think… you stand above them. I don't. We're different at our very core; we can't… we couldn't get past that, even if we did…" The fire in my face was intolerable. And my ears were burning even worse, turning red. "Even if we were… you know." I barely whispered the word, "'Together,' like that."

Loki scoffed very quietly, taking another step towards me. His eyes were on mine by now, smoldering. "Have you ever been mortal, Natalie?" His voice made my first name dance. He had been using it more often, but still… "You are certainly not like any human that I have ever known."

Another step towards me. I was shaking by this point. This wasn't him. This wasn't like him at all. He hadn't been thinking this, he… he didn't think this way, did he? Part of me wanted to break through the wall that he had put up between his mind and mine to try and figure it out, but I was trying to clarify my own emotions at the moment. I didn't need his, too.

"You're clever. You're brave. You're not afraid to say what you mean, and even if you could… you would never lie to me." He smiled very weakly, sadly, as he advanced. He was only a few inches from me now, and he stopped, forcing me to look up so that I could see his face. "You have always worked for my best interests, and you must know that I would work for yours."

"Only because you have to," The words were out before I could stop them. He cringed, and I flinched. "Loki, come on, you know… I mean…" I had been stuttering and stammering around my words, but I still couldn't get them right, still couldn't think straight. I could take in a battlefield in a heartbeat, scan for and find all of the exits in a room in nanoseconds, and react in time to dodge a blow without even thinking about it. So why was my brain so addled the instant that someone talked about love?

Love was… a fairy tale, to me. It was a fantasy, something that I could never have. I had resigned myself to that. I quelled any crushes that I had and ignored any feelings of the type. I had become like the spies; whatever I felt, love was for children, and to me, it was pointless.

So why was my heart racing so quickly? Why was I getting dizzy? Why had my heart dropped all the way down to my stomach, and my stomach to my toes?

"We're not…" I looked away from him. "We can't," I said, a little more firmly. "It's not us. It's not you." I looked to him again, and suddenly wished I hadn't. His green eyes trapped mine and made my throat go dry. But still I forced the words out. "You couldn't care for a mortal. Not like that. Never like that."

He smiled very lightly, still sadly. "You know everything about me, Natalie," he said delicately. This time, my first name seemed to be pure, molten silver. "How is it possible that you can know so little of me at the same time?"

I flushed. I was on fire, but not from anger, not this time. Embarrassment sang through me, from head to toe, but I was still trying to stutter out protests. "I… I…"

Nothing more came out. Loki's smile was a little more triumphant now, and suddenly, he was leaning closer to me, moving towards me… His face loomed inches from mine, kick-starting my already rapid heartbeat and making it skip about three beats in its urgent quest to beat itself out of my ribcage.

And then he was moving even closer, closer than he had ever been before. The second I realized what he was doing, time slowed to a crawl.

Is he going to kiss me? My thoughts raged, spinning in hectic circles, frantic, frenetic. No. No, stop this. Stop this now. This isn't you. What are you doing? What the hell are you doing?

Not a single one of these protests made it out of my mouth as Loki came within an inch of my face. I was completely and utterly frozen, petrified, stiffening. I couldn't move to save my life.

I just had time to question why I couldn't feel his breath on my skin when his lips came in contact with mine…

And passed right through.

Loki took another step forwards, walking straight through me, passing directly through my body. For a moment, I was still rigid, held in place, unable to understand it. I couldn't make sense of what had just happened.

The sound of laughter somewhere to my left made all of the pieces click into place, and a massive sigh of relief flooded out of me, an enormous weight off of my shoulders and chest. I groaned aloud, long and exasperated, and ran my hands down my face.

"Son of a bitch!" I screamed, abruptly whirling to where Loki stood, tucked in between the corner of an intersection between the hallway where I was standing, and a second hallway. Leaning against the wall with a stupid grin on his face, his hand flicked out and his wrist twisted to one side, removing the illusion Loki-clone that was now standing behind me with a blank expression frozen on its face. It flickered into nonexistence as I let out another disgusted, rage-filled groan.

"You son of a bitch!" I repeated as he laughed even harder. "You stupid- I can't even- you- you- you complete asshole!"

In an attempt to keep his laughter tightly sealed away, Loki was actually choking on it. He covered his mouth with his hand, snickering uncontrollably. He barely managed to get out his words. "Come now, Miss Frost," another well-disguised chortle, "I thought I was rather convincing!"

I lunged at him. He managed to dance to the side before I throttled him, but I charged at him again. Again, he dodged. "I-am-going-to-kill-you-in-your-sleep!" I raged through my teeth. He finally allowed me to catch up with him, and I smacked him a few times, blows that he deftly blocked. I managed to get a single strike to his chest with my fist. "Ugh, you complete idiot!" I shrieked at him. I stopped trying to hit him for a second… and then my face burned again and I slapped his arms-which he raised to defend himself- a few more times for good measure.

"Damn it, Loki!" I cried. "You scared me half to death!" One more smack for the road. He was grinning. He was actually grinning. My face was still burning. My stomach was still twisting. I felt like such an idiot. How did I not see that coming?

Another disgusted groan slipped out of me, and once more, I buried my face in my hands. "I actually thought you were serious, you frickin'… Bah!" I threw up my hands, unable to think of a word bad enough to describe him. I saw it now, the way he had so deftly avoided telling lies, instead asking me questions, interweaving actual truths between them, even letting me make my own assumptions once or twice… I gripped the sides of my head and groaned again, louder this time.

He placed a hand on my shoulder, still smiling down at me. "I must say, I'm rather impressed by how adamantly against it you were," he said, eyes dancing again. "A lesser woman might have cracked."

I snarled out a few choice swears that would have made 'lesser' ears bleed. Loki grinned again- the cheeky bastard- and I threw his hand off of my shoulder, turning on my heel and walking away with snapping steps. Each footstep was a slap against the golden floor.

Of course, he soon caught up with me, walking beside me easily. "Oh, you can not truly be this upset," he said, strangely cheerily, though he knew exactly how upset I was. "You of all people should know that you can not separate a Trickster from his tricks." The laughter had died, though the smile, wry and ironic and mocking, was still very much there.

"Die in a hole."

"Your cheeks turned a lovely shade of red, I might add."

"A deep hole."

"It was a rather attractive look on you."

"A deep hole, under the ocean, with sharks. Lots of sharks."

"It makes one wonder what would have happened had I truly gone through with such an act." His eyes sparked wickedly. "Perhaps I should attempt to find out."

"THAT'S IT!"

And I chased him halfway back to the Healing Room.

---

Natasha was in the 'waiting room' with the other Avengers, thinking over the conversation she'd had just a few moments before. Her teammates were mostly silent as they all waited for Loki's and my return-and they knew that we would return here, as Loki was still meant to be in the Healing room for one more day- and it gave her ample opportunity to think.

It had been her first priority, after the discovery of what I had done, and that the Jotuns had requested my presence specifically, to report the information directly back to S.H.I.E.L.D. It was usually her first priority in all things; and so, she had gone back to the Tower and contacted the Director.

Fury hadn't been all too happy about this recent development… but he hadn't been altogether unhappy about it, either. He'd ordered Natasha to keep an eye on me since I'd been fired from S.H.I.E.L.D., and she had done so; even knowing that it was something that the Council had told him to order Clint to do. Fury did not know what had happened to Barton, but he recognized when something was wrong with his agents. But, as Natasha hadn't reported it, he had not questioned her on it. Yet.

When Fury had asked for her opinion on the situation concerning the Jotuns, and concerning my actions, she had answered, "I think that she's been built up into a very powerful political figure. And that the Council should learn to recognize that." Her tone had hardened. "She has become the official liaison to Jotunheim, whether they approve of it or not. And I highly doubt that she is someone that they can afford to not have on their side."

Fury had paused for a very long time, before answering, "Agreed," and hanging up.

Natasha knew, from years of spy training, and countless more of experience in the field, that in many cases, more could be said by a pause or a lack of words than by a thousand sentences. And Fury's curt dismissal and refusal to hear more had spoken volumes; volumes that she was still trying to translate in her head when I stalked into the room, eyes ablaze, and hair just the slightest bit frizzed from where I'd gripped the sides of my head earlier.

"Thor!" I barked at the Asgardian prince. He looked to me- he had arrived here a short time before I did. Loki followed soon afterwards, smiling in a way that Natasha had long ago learned not to trust. There was bemusement in his eyes as he watched me stalk towards the Thunderer. "Kill your worthless little brother for me, would you?"

Thor didn't even blink. He looked between Loki and I, then asked, "May I ask what Loki has done for you to demand his execution this time?"

"He doesn't deserve to live!" I raged. Loki was still smiling, but as he walked towards the Healing Room, he winced, his hand automatically rising to his side. The injury there looked worse than it had that morning; he had left early, after all. Having to avoid me while I chased him probably hadn't helped, either, though I hadn't particularly cared about that at the time.

"What's this about killing Loki?" Tony asked, entering the room; he had left to go to the restroom a few minutes previous. "And where can I sign up?"

"Fine, Tony, you do it, I don't give a crap, just someone take his freaking head off for me!"

I was snarling out curses as I stalked into the Healing Room, unwilling to talk to the Avengers- or really anyone- anymore. I'd been talking to people all day; I needed some alone time. (And yes, these days, 'alone time' usually counted Loki as well, unfortunately.)

Thor gave Loki a questioning look. "What did you do, brother?"

The Trickster, still smiling, shrugged. "I made a jest that she did not particularly appreciate."

Tony laughed. He glanced to the door where I had exited. "What did you say?"

Loki opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, I shouted through the door, "ONE MORE WORD AND I WILL PUNCH YOUR FACE IN THE FACE!"

As that sank in and everyone looked back to Loki, he shrugged mildly. "I think it would be wise for me to not incur her wrath any further," he said, his words smooth as glass. "If you will excuse me…" he stepped into the Healing Room, leaving them all behind. A few seconds later, I stalked out and headed to the library. I wasn't speaking to him at the moment. The others gave me questioning looks, but they were ignored.

I spent the rest of the day in the library, purposely keeping Loki shut out. He did not try to breech the void that I had placed between us, despite how boredom got the better of him again. I stayed in stubborn, irritated silence for a good number of hours, reading and researching and keeping him the hell out of my brain.

As usual, however, I could not stay mad at him forever; and though I was still pretty irritated, I returned to the Healing Room that night, when the Avengers had gone back to Earth. I had not brought a fresh set of books, as I usually did, but instead clutched the one that I had brought for myself with selfish hands, and slept in my chair that night as opposed to sleeping right next to him.

Well… I tried to, anyway.

A little after one in the morning, I had a nightmare that could make the dead scream; I didn't even think about what Loki had done before I climbed into the bed next to him. And then, I tried very hard not to think about what we would do when we got back to Earth and stopped sleeping next to each other, when we went back to 'normal'.

With these thoughts in mind, I eventually managed to sleep again; but not for long.

It was only an hour or so later that I was woken by a loud, shrill noise. I sat up abruptly, jolting awake. The room was utterly dark, save for the light golden dusting of magic that hovered and floated in the air, healing everything that it touched. It was a magic that I should not have been able to see, being a mortal; and I still wasn't sure why I could. I swallowed, looking around for the source of the noise that had woken me. It had sounded almost… animal.

I saw the shape sitting on the edge of the bedpost at my feet and immediately jumped back in fear. I swallowed as it watched me, a small and silent figure, perched on the bedpost: a crow.

It opened its black beak and let out another loud caw; it was so piercing and loud in the still night that I was amazed that it didn't wake Loki up; one of the indicators that magic was most certainly at work, here. I studied the creature for a long moment, looking over its every feather with the meager light of the glowing motes in the air.

It was entirely black, particularly its beady eyes, which seemed to swallow all light around it. Its feathers were pitch, cold midnight colors, and there was intelligence on its face. I pushed down the covers carefully, making certain not to wake Loki as I did so. With light feet, I crept off of the bed and walked towards it. I felt oddly fearless, despite how my heart had been hammering when the creature woke me, and my mind was working to determine who had sent the animal. Crows were Odin's thing, right? It made sense that he had sent it; though why he wanted to wake me in the dead of night, I had no idea…

I held out a hand to the creature, reaching out with my index finger and stroking its head. It pushed its head against my fingertip, seeming to revel in the attention, and when I pulled away it nipped my finger gently. I recognized, at that moment, who had sent it, and that it was not Odin. But still, I was oddly unafraid.

"Hello, Fraye," I said, a strange serenity enveloping me, keeping me calm. I allowed my finger to trace down the crow's head, down its spine, into the point between its wings. Its feathers poofed out beneath my touch. "I believe you have something of mine."

It was the polite way of reminding her that she still had Bruce, and that I wanted him back. The crow blinked once more, then let out another shrill caw. I pulled my hand back, and it took to the air, turning and wheeling out of the room, black feathers stirring the golden motes.

I glanced back to Loki before I followed it; he was still sleeping soundly. I didn't wake him. I didn't need to. I somehow knew that this would be one of her tamer visits, that I had no reason for fear. Of course, I couldn't be certain, but at the moment I felt as though I was.

I walked out into the waiting room, and then the hallway, trailing after the crow on silent feet. Though the halls of Asgard were gold by day, at night they appeared to have been washed with silver by the pale starlight. The crow appeared as a silent black wraith, cutting across the moonlight that streamed through the windows, the cold silver illumination which was occasionally brilliant enough to blind me.

The crow led me down a twisting, winding path, deftly and expertly avoiding guards. If I fell behind, it would perch somewhere and wait for me. If it turned, it would call to me; I did not worry about someone else hearing its cawing. Loki had not heard; it made sense that no one else would, either. Not if Fraye did not wish for them to.

After a long, winding, labyrinthine path, I finally arrived at my destination. I was surprised by it, and at the same time, not surprised in the slightest.

The crow had led me to the very edge of the broken Bifrost.

It circled, wheeling in the air, and perched upon the shoulder of the dark figure standing at its edge. I walked up to her, and she turned to face me. For the first time that night, I felt the faintest flicker of emotion as I looked at her; though it was not caused by the deadness in her eyes, nor the weariness in her smile. It was the blood that worried me, the blood all over her pale, thin, bone-white fingers, the blood that splashed across her cheek and dribbled from the corner of her lip. Black blood, her blood. Dark green blood, too; the Hulk's. But more worrisome than any of that was the deep crimson beneath her fingernails and all over her hands, staining her clothes. Bruce's blood?

Still, my emotions had been deadened. Whether it was by lack of sleep, sheer, exhausted exasperation, or magic, I did not know. I did not particularly care to find out. I was serene and empty, the glassy surface of a smooth pond.

Fraye's shoulders were shaking as I walked up closer to her. She turned away from me so that she could sit on the edge of the bridge, legs swinging over the smooth side as opposed to the jutting crystal end. I sat down beside her, and her shoulders kept shaking silently. I realized, as I looked at her, that she was laughing. Laughing very hard; it grew in volume the longer I sat there. But it also grew more frenetic. Insane. And tears were rolling down her cheeks, falling down in trails that had already been carved through the blood on her face.

"Oh!" She laughed, burying her face in her hands. "By blood, Natalie Frost, I honestly thought…" This laugh turned into a sob as she choked, her face hiding beneath her fingers. "I honestly believed it!" She cried, and it was such a sad and lost sound that it pierced even my sudden veil of apathy. "When you signed your treaty, when you made your peace… I honestly thought that you could do it!" She looked to me. For the first time since I had met her, Fraye Burns had life in her eyes. Life, yes, and sheer desperation. The kind of desperation that drives men to madness. And she laughed and cried at the same time, a sound that would rip a person to shreds if they only cared enough about it.

"I thought that you had a chance!" She cried again, and laughter bubbled out of her lips at the same time, her words interspersed with hebephrenic giggles and choked sobs. "For just one second, I thought that you could do it, that you could end this for me!" The sound of her crying was oddly childlike, like that of a little girl who had just scraped her knee on the playground. And yet, it was so ancient that it was withered.

"For one beautiful, blissful second," She breathed, and then gulped down air, swallowing it down, swallowing tears and laughter and pain and ecstasy. The words were so intense that she stuttered as she spoke. "I thought… I thought that this might be enough. Th-That maybe your determination surpassed everyone else's, that-that this might be it, the end of the line… I thought that you m-might have a chance."

She looked to me, and I looked back. Maybe there was pity in my eyes. Maybe there was sorrow in my heart. Maybe I felt bad for her.

"I thought," she hiccupped, "I thought," she gulped down more air. For a second, our eyes met. They were no longer dead. They were alive, they were very much alive, and they were desperate, they were so very, very desperate. And then she threw herself towards me, threw her arms around me, disturbing the crow from its perch on her shoulder as she wailed, "I th-thought that someone could k-k-kill me!"

In my arms, she was suddenly a little girl, a child, like the one she had been when she first appeared to us. She had not changed forms, had not shifted her age, but the person who clung to me… she could be nothing but a broken and lost little girl. The crow, protesting its sudden move, now went instead to my back as Fraye cried into my arms, laughing and screaming, giggling and guffawing and howling and wailing. As numb as I was, my arms went around her, anyway. I didn't try to kill her, as I probably should have. Obviously, it would not have worked. And besides: she still had Bruce.

She was like that for a very long time, torn between joy and pain. Her head was cradled against my collarbone, and she sniffled and snickered, holding me tightly. I held her head there carefully, closing my eyes and resting my cheek against her hair. And the sad thing was, for a second, I could relate. Because this girl had once had an entire world of voices inside of her head, a world of voices like mine, like Loki's. An entire planet's worth of people, with lives and thoughts and emotions, all coexisting together. The link forced them to do so, of course, but they would have been happy to do it, regardless; and why wouldn't they be? What reason would there be for hate in a world such as that?

And they had all been ripped out. Torn from her, torn away from her, a thousand heartbeats taken away and snuffed in moments, burned out from inside of her skull. She was all alone in a universe that now despised her.

She always spoke of the Song in Oblivion, the Melody of Ruin. I was convinced that the noise of such melancholic notes was nothing more or less than absolute silence. Silence was truly the most terrible of all sounds, and it was one that I greatly feared. Silence was the sound of loneliness. Silence was the sound of emptiness. The sound of all things hollow. It echoed in nothing and trailed off into an abyss.

Fraye stayed cradled in my arms for a very long time. But then she sat upright, pulling herself out of my arms. I released her without much prompting. She was still my enemy, regardless of whatever pain she was in.

"I don't know why I even thought that," she said, with a trace of a laugh, wiping the tears away with hands covered in multiple colors of blood. She stood slowly, and I did the same; she gave me a toothy smile, black liquid still dribbling out of the corner of her lip. "No one has ever had a chance before." Her hand waved about, and the darkness swirled across her fingertips, ripping the world open, a shadow portal appearing at her hand. Something tumbled out of the darkness and collapsed at my feet; a dark shape, more bloodied than Fraye herself. She laughed a little, a quiet laugh, as the shadows reached forwards to swallow her. "So why should they do so now?"

She vanished before my eyes, just as quickly as she had come; the crow, however, stayed. It circled above the dark, bloodied shape on the ground; I looked down to it, and my mouth went dry.

Because, of course, it was Bruce.

---

A/N: *le gasp* Cliffhangers! Cliffhangers everywhere! :D

I'm kinda mean like that. Oh, well.

As for the 'almost-kiss' between Loki and Natalie, I have to say one thing, and one thing only:

Come on, you guys! Did you really think that I would take Loki that out of character just for some lame, cheesy, badly-written semi-confession of love? No way, no how. Honestly, I like to think I've kept Loki in character thus far: so where is the trust?

Anyway. See you next update!