Imma say this once, don't make me say it again: packing for an indefinitely long trip to who-knows-where with a Nordic god SUCKS.

Now, the indefinite and who-knows-where parts would be pretty obvious as to the suck factor. You don't know whether to pack breathable shorts or furry sweatpants, so you decide to pack both with the full knowledge that once you arrive you will be stuck wearing one of them for days on end. So you attempt to stuff your whole wardrobe in your suitcase, which is absolute agony for me because I'm a huge nostalgiac and I can't bring myself to leave the least of my nerdy t-shirts or faded jeans behind. But the clothes ain't the half of it-you feel compelled to bring everything else, too, because you haven't the faintest clue what's going to happen or where you'll wind up and your traveling buddy wouldn't drop you one anyway. My usual bag count for a camping trip or something equally predictable is two. Max. This one came to four, plus utilizing both pockets from my baggy sweater and all six in my cargo pants. And I'm not talking dinky travel bags, I'm talking duffel and suitcase status. Like, bags you could humanely fit large dogs or small ponies into. A final word of warning for anyone who wants to travel anywhere ever: 'indefinitely long' and 'who-knows-where' are two phrases/concepts you should avoid at all costs.

Okay, fine, I'm done. Wait, Loki. No, I'm not.

As if this weren't hard enough, the Nordic god part is almost as bad as both of them combined. Imagine having to pack for a trip like this with a person hanging over your shoulder who is your nagging dad who thinks he knows everything, your high and mighty elder sibling who thinks you're always doing everything wrong, and your sarcastic friend who doesn't know anything but won't shut up all rolled into one guy. Oh, and don't forget the superpowers that enable him to phase in and out of reality and make certain of your uncertainty as to when he will pop up and whether or not he is present. He'd pop in to drop a snide comment about what I was packing (sometimes an uncannily feminine comment about my choice in apparel), we'd go back and forth for a little bit, and as soon as I would score the measliest point he'd just wink out of existence. He probably hung around to watch my reactions to such an act, as I'm sure it's drop-dead hilarious to watch me fume since I refuse to swear. Yes, he teases me about that, too, despite the undeniable fact that I've never heard him say so much as 'dangit.' Must've picked it up from Tony.

All right, now I'm done. I promise.

I'm beginning to suspect that Loki put a ward or charm on my door, because despite having stayed up for hours with my lights clearly on and talking to myself and/or Loki aloud nobody stopped by. Despite my aforementioned woes, I made surprisingly good time, especially taking into account my predisposition for being all-around horrible at packing. Even more surprising, I didn't feel the need for sleep until I looked at the clock and beheld an ominous one-colon-o'four. About then I realized that I was about to hit the deck.

I suppose I must have sleepwalked into bed, because I don't remember anything at all after that bit. But my sleepwalk autopilot had neglected to put me in pajamas, either because I had already packed them up and getting them out would have taken too much cognitive effort or because I was too dog tired to care. Loki must've figured out by now that if I'm sleepy enough I won't think things through or even bother arguing, because when he woke me up it was still dark. In case you're wondering how that's relevant, at the time it was summer and we were hovering over Maine. I'm surprised that I was functioning well enough to even comprehend speech.

"Hey."

The whispered word plus the shaking of my shoulder was just enough to wake me up but not enough to make me react violently. I grumbled and buried my head further in my comforter, utilizing every body language cue known to humankind to inform Loki that I needed more sleep. Needed.

"It's time to go."

I grumbled at him as his footsteps echoed out the door, mentally cursing him and his immunity to sleep depravity. I'm so jealous.

However, I knew that this mission was too important for me to delay it, no matter how little hours of sleep I was going on. I didn't bother to freshen up too much, so I was able to be ready to go in what I guessed to be about ten minutes, since I'd slept in not-too-shabby clothes. But just before I left, I couldn't help but stop to look at that note. The note I'd spent two out of those three hours working on. The shabby paper note sealed in a deceptively white envelope with a Star Wars Imperial insignia from my ring stamped into a red wax seal. The note in which I'd pleaded for forgiveness and tried as valiantly as humanly possible to make it clear that I didn't want to do this. Not to them. The note that told them I loved them even though they would never believe me after this day.

Turning away at the feel of tears beginning to flood my eyelids and pulling down my favorite and oldest grey hat over them, I hefted my bags and stepped out the door.

"For the last time, will you stop that?"

For the umpteenth time, I let loose a string of Elvish and Klingon curses in my head, the target of which was none other than my favorite God of Mischief. Well, at the moment I was feeling more least-favorite, as evident by my aforementioned curses. Loki was undoubtedly swearing at me in his own cranium, as he had been telling me to 'stop it' for the past half hour. Stop what, exactly? Oh, nothing, just checking over both shoulders every minute and a half for some extremely angry agents that should be due any second now. How could he expect me to not be looking around? Yeah, this is how you successfully be on the lam, kids! Whatever you do, don't make sure you're not being followed.

"Stop what?" I retorted, flashing him some eye lightning which he didn't catch because he was too busy looking ahead through the milling crowd of passive fliers and fickle tourists and disgruntled businesspeople. "Keeping ourselves from getting caught? Yeah, sure, okay. Bet you'll still be saying that when we do get caught?"

"If you think you can do a better job of that than I am as we speak, be my guest," he invited sarcastically. Loki was pretty good at making me feel like a complete idiot when the fancy struck him. Of course he would be protecting us magically, what else would he be doing? Heck, he was still wearing his typically atypical outfit, which would have earned either a geeky smile from a LARPer or an awkward stare from everyone else. If he weren't covering us S.H.I.E.L.D. would be all over us by now. I thought of all this in a second or two, but then it occurred to me that I could still be right.

"Wait, but if you're covering us, why does it matter if I check our backs once in a while?" I inquired. He sighed and rolled his eyes at me as if I knew nothing and pretended I knew everything. "Couldn't hurt, could it?"

"If I was wasting energy telling the world we weren't even here, you would be correct," he replied coolly. Menos puntos for Hufflepuff. "But I'm not, and you aren't. I only changed our appearances. But if you keep acting like you've got something to be guilty about, for example being on the run from S.H.I.E.L.D., someone's bound to notice."

Grumbling an apology under my breath, I narrowly avoided getting run over by a family of humans and rolling suitcases who was very clearly late. Coincidentally I had a notion to check my watch, having abandoned my phone as to not be tracked. After a second or two it registered to me that it said 9:26.

"When's our flight, again?" I asked, as casually as I could manage.

"9:30, local time," repeated Loki for the umpteenth to the second power time.

"So in four minutes?"

That woke him up like an ice bucket over the shoulders.

"Come on," he growled, seizing my only semi-free arm and accelerating akin to a panoz.

I'm pretty sure I knocked over one or more people, but what was more pressing to me was the undeniable feeling that we were being followed. Maybe it was because I was hearing footsteps behind me. Despite my omnipresent grudge against physical exertion, I brought myself to speed up, frantically scanning the terminal numbers as they raced past even though Loki was the only one who knew which flight was ours. I could've sworn they were getting louder, combat boots clomping on the precarious tile floor like horse hooves chasing a fox. Incredibly fast paced combat boots. If the agents chasing us were the agents I thought they were, there was no way we could outdistance them flat-out. The only way to outrun something or someone faster than you was-

Loki made a turn so fast and sharp that at first I thought he'd just disappeared.

Too bad I wasn't half as graceful as he was.

With an unladylike yelp, I went flying, skidding across the linoleumed floor like a goal-winning hockey puck. As I whirled on my stomach and attempted to make sense of the spinning world, I sensed the agent decelerating to a halt beside my prone form. I winced and closed my eyes, not from present physical pain but from the emotional wrecking I was about to endure. I was caught.

"Need a hand, ma'am?"

Blinking and making a querulous sound, I rolled onto my back to see Steve bent over me and offering me a hand. That genuine smile was radiant enough to make me smile right back before I could bring to mind anything about wanting to avoid this man. In a surprising show of faith, I managed an awkward thank you and took the hand. I cast my eyes about to begin regathering my bags, but Steve had already grabbed all of them and now handed them to me as if they weighed nothing. As deftly as I could I took them all, scarcely daring to believe it. Steve gave me a warm smile, as if he'd already forgiven me for everything. But looking up into his face, I didn't see recognition in his eyes.

"You all right, miss?"

My smile faded along with the light of faith that Captain America had sparked in me. Of course. If he knew who I was, he wouldn't have helped me up. Not before putting me in handcuffs. He didn't see me. I didn't even know who he was seeing.

"Yes," I said curtly, nodding and smiling perfunctorily. "Thank you."

With one last hand on my shoulder, he brisked past me and was gone.

It was all I could do to not look around at him.

"Kinners!"

Glaring into my eyebrows as to not set anything else on fire, I turned the other way, booking it to my now officially least-favorite god.

"Yes, yes, you insufferable wyrm, I'm coming!"