Wanda checks on Loki a few times through the night and all is well when she does. No suicide attempts, no nightmares, just deep and peaceful sleep. Each time, she carefully adjusts any slipped blankets and makes sure the room is neither too hot or too cold, and returns to her own bed for a few hours of rest.

Loki wakes with the grey dawn and dresses in the softest clothes he has clean. Today he feels no strong preference for one gender or another and he wonders if his experience yesterday has turned him away from wanting to be either. He brushes his hair and lets it fall loose, opens the windows to allow the morning chill into his bedroom, and pads down the hall to the guest room. Wanda sleeps deeply, her wrinkled penguin pajamas twisted around her, the blankets sliding off the bed. Loki does his best to adjust them back to her, but hesitates to touch her. Tendrils of red, her whisps, as she called them last night, dance around her body, some close, some snaking out, crackling as they reach too far, snapping back. He avoids them, but decides to take a risk and kiss her forehead the same way she has done for him. He is fine until he goes to stand. One catches his temple, whipping towards him as though she knows he is there, freezing him. He watches the dream in her place, or at least he thinks it is a dream, horrified. The roar of falling concrete. A building collapsing on her. Pietro screaming her name, she screaming his. And then a laboratory. The sceptre. Bodies. So many bodies. So much more screaming. It ends when Pietro dies and Wanda cries out in her sleep, jerking upright, knocking him backwards.

"I am so sorry, I was only in here to see if you were awake..."

"You kissed my hair."

"As I believe you have done for me. A gesture of kindness, is it not?"

She smiles, "Yes, it is." Her smile drops and her face is serious again, "What did you see? I know we...connected."

"So much death. There was a building collapse. And was that HYDRA? The sceptre... And the death of your brother."

"And I woke when he died."

"You woke yourself."

She pulls her knees to her chest, "Yes. That is not unusual."

"What can I do for you?" Her whisps have retreated. He reaches for her arm and she takes his hand.

"Nothing. This is part of my normal."

"Come now. You relive this every night? And yet you do not have an idea of something I can do to make it better?"

"Not quite every night. But frequently enough."

"That does not answer the question, Wanda."

She sighs, "Magda makes me hot chocolate."

Loki's face brightens, "I know how to do that and I have the ingredients. Magda insisted I even have good heavy cream. Come. To the kitchen. Dawn is just breaking and we can watch the sun rise over the balcony."

He tugs her hand and they stumble, sleepy, down the stairs, their brains more awake than their bodies. He catches her as she staggers off the steps and swings her towards the kitchen. She smiles, their movements almost a dance, and leans into him, glad for his warmth in the morning chill. She leans on the counter as he boils milk and whips cream. She shivers. He hands her the bowl and dashes to the living room for a blanket, wrapping it around her shoulders before returning to his mission.

When the two steaming mugs are ready and heaped with whipped cream, he leads her out to the balcony and they huddle together against the railing, waiting for the sun to crest the horizon. Vibrant pinks and oranges shoot across the sky, colours so stunning that he wishes he could capture them in paint. He cannot find the words to express how beautiful it all is, so he sips his hot chocolate and enjoys the moment. The first sliver of sun changes the colours, the sky turning a brilliant clear blue. They hear Magda step out on her own deck.

"Lovely morning. Might I join you?"

Loki nods and Wanda replies, "Of course."

In a few moments, she has let herself in and settles on Wanda's other side, "You are up early."

"Nightmares again. Or, rather, memories."

"I see he took good care of you."

He smiles, proud of himself for this little accomplishment. Proof that he can be human. That there is a small nook in Midgard that he fills perfectly.

"Yes, he did. I told you he would fit in our little family."

He closes his eyes and breathes deep, the scents of chocolate and Magda's coffee mingling. He thinks he will forever associate these things together as the smell of their family, of cool mornings and hot drinks. And he loves that she is using that word, calling him a part of it.

"Thank you both for taking a chance on me."

"I have always said, a friend of Wanda's is a friend of mine."

"Yes, but a friend is different than family."

"Only to some people. If you are worth the time for me to care deeply about you, I will do it fully."

"Ah. Again, though. Thank you."

Magda kisses his cheek, "You are always welcome. Now. What should we do with today? The air is brisk; it welcomes fall."

"It does not feel the same as a Sokovian fall, though. The mountains must have made a difference."

"If it is any consolation, it is different than fall in Asgard as well."

"Ah, yes, but unlike Wanda and I, you do not miss this...correct? Or do you?"

"It was not only the mountains, my dear, but the smell of woodsmoke on the air," Wanda adds.

"And the tang of apples from the cider presses. Do not forget that."

Loki has his eyes closed. He recalls the woodsmoke, too, rising to the palace from the few city dwellers who chose to keep fires in the evenings. The fires from their own gilded fireplaces. The bounty on their tables as the first harvest from the palace farms was brought in, and the first cask of the oldest ale opened at the feast to mark the turning season. And the stories. This was the time of year when victories over the summer were celebrated the most heavily, the tales woven on the warriors' return retold more fantasy than reality, their very own epic sagas. They would change, of course, through the long winter, but this was the best time to hear them, before they grew old.

Wanda leans on his shoulder, "You do miss it. I see it on your face. We have found something about Asgard you love."

"Though I am loathe to admit it, there are many things about Asgard I hold dear."

"Like?"

"The importance of storytellers. That my shape shifting was a curiosity, but nothing to be harmed for. Magic. Vehicles that fly and being the one at the helm. I was quite good. I miss my books. And the elegance of our everyday lives. And that mine mattered so greatly. I miss knowing that we had the power to keep peace or destroy it and all it would take to push us into eternal war was one careless act. Knowing that the king chose peace most often. And the reminders of my mother, the company of my brother. Those may be what I miss most."

"Home is stronger than the things there that hurt you," Magda says. Loki nods and stares at his mug, "I tell this to the people I serve at the refugee centre as well. They do not all come from Sokovia. There are people from many places in Africa and the Middle East, places where there are nations at war and that have been at war for decades. There is usually something there they miss. The sight of clothes on the line their grandmother strung. The smell of a local dish cooked nowhere outside of their village, or one cooked elsewhere, but never quite the same. Food often is part of the memories. Smells. The little details. But the things that cannot be recreated so easily here."

"Might I visit with you?"

Magda smiles, "I do believe this would be a good day for it. Wanda has business with SHIELD, so yes."

"How ought I dress?"

"Like you are a refugee from Asgard."

"But I do not think there are other refugees from Asgard. How am I to know what that means?"

Wanda adjusts her blanket and sips her hot chocolate, "Then let's go play in your wardrobe and we shall see what you have."

Magda claps, "Yes! Dressing time. It shall be fun."

"I assume this," he gestures to his soft knits, "will not suffice?"

"It looks a bit like pajamas. Comfortable, but more home loungewear than for going out and about."

"Ah."

"Do not worry. We will advise you. Come! Wanda and I will be your fashion experts."

They both offer him a hand and he accepts the help getting to his feet, shaking his head at their enthusiasm, but smiling. He has never had sisters and he thinks this is quite possibly what it might be like.