Loki knew how to clean up well, with a nice suit and deep blue tie since Nebula had told him that was the color of her dress. He had a corsage for her and everything. A deal was a deal, and if her price was him posing as the perfect date to the dance, then he wouldn't disappoint.

After ringing the doorbell, he wasn't left waiting for long. An absolutely massive man opened the door. Loki was not short by any stretch of the imagination, but this man towered over even him. With the physique of a lumberjack, he was an imposing figure. If he'd never seen Thanos before, he would have been deeply shaken, but Thanos never missed a game where his little princess Gamora was cheering, so instead Loki just smiled politely. "Hello Mr. Thanos, it's lovely to see you again."

"Good to see you too," Thanos nodded. "Come on in. Now we're just waiting on Quill."

"He'll be here any minute," Gamora said as the two men came into the living room where she and Nebula were waiting.

They both looked beautiful, with Gamora wearing a long purple dress, and Nebula in a knee length blue one that flared a bit in the skirt. It was lighter than his tie, but that worked because they didn't look too matchy-matchy.

"Hey," she smiled and got up to hug him.

"You look beautiful," he told her honestly, with one arm around her in a brief, friendly embrace. When she pulled away he kept his hand lightly on her lower back as he presented the corsage he'd brought. It had a beautiful white daisy as the centerpiece, surrounded by baby's breath.

"Thank you," Nebula said genuinely. "I love it. How'd you know daisies are my favorite flower?"

"I do my homework," he answered.

Thanos looked rather pleased with him, though Gamora was making a gagging gesture behind her sister's back. Loki wanted to flip her off, but couldn't risk Thanos seeing.

The doorbell rang and Thanos slipped away to answer it again. Loki could hear him gruffly say, "Quill," and nothing else before returning with the other boy.

Loki wanted to strangle him the second Peter walked into the room. How dare this guy say what he had to Thor. How dare he think he was too good for Thor. He should have been honored Thor would even glance in his direction! Loki wanted to beat that stupid smile off his face, but he didn't let any of that show. Instead, he simply took Nebula's hand and gave it a light squeeze. When she returned the gesture, he knew she was also thinking about how they were going to take this guy down, even if she didn't know how yet.

"Hey, cutie," Peter grinned at Gamora and held her hand as she did a quick twirl. "You look hot."

"Thanks," Gamora blushed, though Thanos did not seem impressed with the compliment.

"Let's get some photos," Thanos said, picking up an expensive camera off the coffee table.

To his surprise, Thanos wanted photos of him and Nebula first, having Gamora and Peter wait on the couch while the first couple posed in front of the gorgeous fireplace that took up one wall of the room. Loki smiled and put his arms around Nebula at Thanos' direction, even twirling her a bit for some more candid shots. At one point he whispered something stupid in Nebula's ear to make her laugh, which he heard the camera capture with an automated click.

The couples switched spots, and Loki watched as Peter gave a cocky grin for the camera. When Thanos directed them to dance for candid shots, the idiot actually grabbed Gamora's ass at one point, right in front of her father.

"Enough," Thanos said sharply, causing Gamora's laughter to quickly cut off and Peter to at least look ashamed. Thanos looked over towards the couch, and his voice softened, "Nebby, Loki, hop in there, I want some group photos."

They took several of those until Gamora finally said, "Dad, enough pictures, we're going to be late."

"Just a couple more," Thanos said.

"No, we need to go," Gamora answered as she stepped away from the group.

"Can we at least take a look at some of them real quick?" Loki asked, just to win points with Thanos. Sure, he didn't necessarily need to win points, but he was enjoying being the favorite at the moment.

Thanos grinned, "Absolutely!" So the four gathered around the camera and watched the screen as he flipped through all the photos. Loki was very pleased when he saw how good his and Nebula's photos looked in comparison to Peter and Gamora's. The other couple looked stiff, with Peter seeming to care more about how he looked in the photos rather than Gamora, while Loki and Nebula's photos looked relaxed and happy, like he was the perfectly charming and romantic partner for her. Especially the photo of her laughing with him grinning at her. Loki wished he had a photo of himself making Sylvie laugh like that…

No, he couldn't think about that right now. Right now was about keeping up his end of the deal with Nebula.

Sylvie couldn't help but gasp when she walked into the gym to see it all decked out for the dance. She'd never been to a school dance before, but she suspected they weren't all this cool. There were perks to going to school in a rich neighborhood.

The theme was Ancient Egypt and the dance committee had really committed to it. There were large posters with hieroglyphs on the walls, with golden balloon clusters hovering over them, the strings disappearing behind the poster board. On one wall there was a photo station, with a large backdrop of the Sphinx well lit by the professional photographer's lights. But the centerpiece was the dance floor. A huge square carpet with a sandy stone pattern marked the area, and from each of its corners a golden streamer ran up towards the ceiling, meeting each other in the middle, creating the illusion of a pyramid taking up most of the room.

Val's golden dress matched perfectly, with its stiff corset-like top and short, flared skirt with a train in the back that fell to the floor behind her golden heels. Sylvie had been studying how the outfit flattered Val's silhouette since she first opened the door. She couldn't believe she'd gotten so lucky as to bring this goddess to the dance.

"Oh, there's Nat!" Val exclaimed and started pulling Sylvie over towards the bleachers where Nat was sitting next to Clint, talking to Wanda and Vis. Sylvie was so glad the two girls seemed to have genuinely clicked.

"Hey," Sylvie smiled as they approached the other couples.

"Hey! You look so good," Nat grinned, getting up to give her a hug, then giving one to Val.

"So do you!" Sylvie grinned back. "And you too!" she said as she hugged Wanda.

"Vis is a lucky man," Wanda winked, teasing.

"I very much am," Vis smiled warmly down at her, not the least bit joking, which just made his girlfriend blush almost as red as her gown.

"Where's Loki? Is he coming?" Sylvie asked.

"Yeah, but I haven't seen him yet," Wanda answered. "Weird, he's usually early to everything."

"Yeah, weird," Sylvie agreed.

"It's a good thing, we can get some punch before he spikes it," Vis joked. Well, half-joked.

"Why would we want that?" Val laughed. "There's no point until it's spiked!"

"You're a mess," Nat laughed.

"You know it," Val winked at her, reaching into her purse and slyly showing the group a flask hidden inside, but hid it quickly as someone else walked up. "Oh, hi Thor."

"Hey," he grinned. He held up the cup of punch in his hand. "I see I got to this before you did."

Val laughed. "You know me so well." She gave him a one armed hug, but Sylvie wasn't jealous. Now that she knew their relationship had been fake, she had no reason to be. Val was here with her, she'd chosen her and that was all the assurance Sylvie needed.

"Where's your brother?" Sylvie asked Thor.

"I don't know. He went to pick up his date, so we didn't come together," Thor answered.

Sylvie felt a weird pang of distaste run through her. "He's bringing a date?"

"Yeah, Nebula," Thor answered.

"Oh. She's pretty," Sylvie said unenthusiastically. Why was she being such a bitch about this?

"Yeah, she is," Val agreed. "Tragically straight though," she sighed dramatically.
"Hey!" Sylvie teased, but found she didn't really care.

"I'm teasing," Val laughed, giving their still entwined hands a squeeze and kissing Sylvie's cheek. That did make Sylvie blush a bit and her insides go all warm.

"There they are!" Thor announced, looking over at the gym entrance and waving at his brother.

Loki waved back, and he and Nebula made their way over to the group. "What's up?" he smiled.

"Trying to figure out how to distract Mr. Mobius so I can spike the punch," Val answered.

"Easy," Loki grinned. "Shall we?" He let go of Nebula's hand and held it out to Val.

"Absolutely," Val grinned, taking his hand.

"Get me a drink!" Sylvie called after her date as she sauntered away with Loki. Val gave her a thumbs up. "Those two could be real trouble together," she laughed.

"You're telling me," Thor laughed.

Sylvie was already tipsy by the time the teachers noticed the punch was spiked and changed it out for a fresh bowl, as was most of their friend group. They were all sitting on the bleachers, talking, laughing, and just generally having a great time. It was amazing to have her two friend groups merging like this, cheerleaders and theater nerds all hanging out together. Clint seemed pretty cool too, though he didn't say much, mostly just sitting by Nat and observing. Thor was the only one not drinking, offering to drive everyone home.

"Awww, that sucks," Val groaned when she watched them change it.

"Doesn't have to be," Loki smirked, tapping on his jacket, right where an inner pocket would be.

"You'll have to be careful," Sylvie told him. "They'll be hypervigilant now."

"You insult me!" Loki declared, dramatically putting his hands over his heart, causing Sylvie to roll her eyes at him.

"Sorry I don't want you getting expelled!" she laughed.

Thor shook his head, smiling affectionately in amusement at his brother. "Let me get another drink before you do anything to it," he said, standing up.

"I love this song!" Wanda gasped when the music changed. She hopped up. "Come on, let's dance," she said, holding her hand out to Vis. He took it and followed her. If anything, alcohol had made him more affectionate towards her. He was absolutely heart-eyed.

"Want to?" Nat asked Clint, nodding towards the dance floor.
"Sure," he shrugged, and followed her.

The rest of the group decided to follow as well, until they were all in a circle dancing to the beat. Sylvie found herself in between Val and Loki, brushing against both of them in the tight space.

But Loki seemed more interested in Nebula than her. Which was to be expected. He'd brought her as his date after all. Sylvie was with someone else, of course he'd moved on. There was no reason for her to be upset over this, especially not when having Val so close still sent her stomach aflutter. But when Thor joined their group, and Nebula seemed to start dancing with him instead, Sylvie was secretly pleased.

And then…a slow song came on.

Their group of friends looked around at each other. Wanda and Vis immediately put their arms around each other and started to sway in time to the music. They both looked all gooey-eyed and disgustingly in love. Clint took Nat's hand and put his other arm around her waist. Neither of them looked at each other, and it seemed awkward in that sweet way that told Sylvie their date was going well. But that left five.

Nebula turned to Thor. "Wanna dance?"

"But aren't you-" Thor began, but was cut off by Loki.

"Go ahead, we just came as friends."

Thor studied Loki's face for a moment, seeming to decide that he was telling the truth. "Alright then." So he pulled Nebla into a dance.

"I'll go get some punch," Loki announced, seemingly to no one, but before he could turn away, Sylvie stopped him.

"Dance with us," she said.

"What?" he asked, eyebrows scrunching together. Val was also looking at her with confusion.

"Dance with us," she repeated.

"How?" they both asked at the same time.

"Like this." Sylvie took his hand and put it around Val's waist, then took his other and put it around her own. Then Sylvie put one arm around Val's waist, and the other around Loki. It took a moment, but they got into a synchronized sway.

Sylvie could tell from Val's expression that she was still confused about this, but she hoped Val would just assume she was being a good friend, not wanting him to be left out. Honestly, she wished she could believe that was her motivation as well, but with both of them holding her, she knew it was more complicated than that. She felt unnaturally warm where both of their arms were, not just Val's. She couldn't get what Wanda said out of her head. Loki had feelings for her.

And she had feelings for him.