He finished his Pre-Calc homework cross-legged on the ceiling, a block eraser between his teeth and a pencil flying through equations on the paper held up by his forearm. A half-eaten sandwich was squished in his free hand and beside him were three capri-suns dangling from webs just within arms reach. There was no AcaDec practice today, meaning Karen had just finished reading the entirety of The Great Gatsby on double speed while he took notes for AP World History. Finish this week's notes, show all this section's work for the math packet, write that essay for the American Dream unit in English all before they were let out for winter break...

"Oh, shoot," Peter groaned. "I forgot to leave Happy a voicemail after patrol yesterday!"

He webbed his phone from his bed and dialed Happy's number—it was kind of embarrassing he had it memorized but, you know—and put it on speaker.

He let the rings pass. They always did.

"The number you have called is currently unavailable. Please leave a message after the tone."

Beep.

"Hey, Happy! It's Peter." How many questions were left? Fifteen? Ugh, why was Mr. Dallas such a hard-butt? "Sorry I didn't call after patrol yesterday! I was caught up with a few things after and ah—" He'd stopped by the bar for a bit before he went home, something about Mr. Weasel needing him to get measured because some dumb merc needed a disguise for a job and couldn't get a real three piece suit to save his life and Peter was close enough to his size anyway— "yeah. I stopped a robbery at a shop next to May's favorite bakery, stopped a car from falling off an overpass, and stopped a bus from running over a bunch of pedestrians when its brakes gave out. Lots of stops, huh?"

He didn't mention how he'd seen Genevieve-from-the-bar staking out from a cafe across her target's workplace. She came down every now and again, always asking for extra cheese on her nachos and never cleaning off the blood from the toes of her boots.

An executive assistant died that day. Murdered. And all his money laundering and labor racketeering came to light in the papers the very next morning.

"Anyway I'll, uh, stop taking up so much of your time. Patrol wasn't that busy yesterday, so." He tapped his phone screen and a bright 6:18 pm stared back at him. "I'm gonna be late! Bye Happy, have a nice rest of your day!"

He flipped onto the floor. It was a bit early to be heading out to Sister Margaret's, but it was a big shipment day and Mr. Weasel definitely couldn't haul all those firearms into the break room all by himself. There were also a couple swords coming in too, apparently? Not that it was really his business, but inventory-ing swords sounded awesome.

He sucked down all three capri-suns and tossed them in the trash, stuffed his homework in his backpack and threw it all onto his bed, snagged his wallet and keys, shoved the rest of his sandwich in his mouth as he tugged on a beanie and slipped on his thicker jacket.

Peter picked up his black Vans and laced them up on his chair in record time and just before he left, he caught sight of that round wooden box sitting innocently on his desk. And he stopped.

He hadn't touched the necklace. Hadn't even opened the box again since reading the note and suffering a minor freak out that had him slamming the top shut and pushing it to the far side of his desk where it was too easy to pretend to forget about for a few days.

'And what about the obviously not normal way the box just straight up glowed and opened?! What about that, Parker?!'

So maybe that was part of why he didn't want to get anywhere near that thing again.

If you wish to meet me, wear the necklace and I will find you.

Like that didn't sound vaguely threatening, but okay.

"This is going to end so badly," he mumbled as he reached for the box. "Please don't end up being some weird magic spell thingy that's going to summon some vengeful wizard to kill me."

The latch glowed and opened for him, revealing that same stone necklace and folded up note.

The gold chain almost shimmered when he held it up and there was no clamp on the smooth, shining metal. Luckily it was long enough to slip over his head, and when it didn't shock him or strangle him or try to melt into his skin, he tucked the stone in the inside of his shirt and rushed out the front door.

Hopefully "Death By Jewelry" doesn't get etched into his gravestone.

::

When May set all the groceries on the table, she knew Peter must have gone to work since he wasn't bounding down the hallway like an excited puppy asking if there was anything left in the car and if there was, don't worry I can go get them!

She sighed fondly. Peter was just such a good kid, save for the times she thought he dropped out of all his extracurriculars because he was up on some new drug habit or alcohol binge as impossible as that sounded, but finding all of that attributed to the 'Stark Internship' where he was actually beating up criminals in Queens and the outskirts of Manhattan seemed a whole lot worse than teenage rebellion.

Sometimes she wished the problem had just been drugs or alcohol because nowhere in a book store could she find a How-To about caring for your suddenly superhero nephew.

She stored away an entire bag of chicken breasts in the freezer, pushing aside the tubs of ice cream to barely make space for the meat. Maybe it wasn't all that good for her to swallow down all her worries and concerns and let Peter do his thing with no curfew and the one condition that he update her every few hours, but what else was she supposed to do? His new job let him out in the very early morning and it'd just be plain unfair if Spider-Man wasn't allowed the same freedom, not that the vigilante ever really stayed out past one.

She put away the gallon of milk and all the fresh vegetables Peter insisted she invest in with his newfound chef-ing skill he said he learned from the cook at the pub, and she admitted that the meal-prepped tupperware of simple pastas and rice he made for her to bring to work only made her tear up a little bit.

After all the groceries were stocked away, she let herself into Peter's room to start any laundry he might've forgotten about with how busy he'd been lately.

In his closet his hamper was full and behind it his Spider-Man suit hung like a perfect decoration. The mask was nowhere in sight, and idly she wondered why he didn't take it to work with him. He always had it during school and whenever he went to Ned's, but lately...

May shook her head and picked up the hamper. Just as she was about to head out of his room, her eyes caught on the box that had haunted the back of her mind for years. It lay wide open on her nephew's desk atop scratch paper and sticky notes, and whatever had been inside it was long gone.

A dull pain hummed in her chest as she stepped into the hallway.

Whatever Peter wanted to do, she would support him one hundred percent.

::

Sixteen years ago he'd been Lora Olstad: businesswoman, Stanford University graduate, and had a primary interest in the histories and ancient Nordic culture. Granted, all of those things about her had been fabricated under documents and a few well-placed illusions, but it was enough to escape the stone eye of the Allfather when all he ever wanted was to step away from life on Asgard and breathe.

These past few months since settling on Earth and the adjustment—he liked to think—was going as well as it could as a returning inhabitant initially belonging to another realm. His brother believed him to have died nearly four years ago on the wastelands of Svartalfheim and he knew his mother had made a full recovery from the impalement the Dark Elves inflicted upon her; a hair's width away from her heart did that blade run, and perhaps had it hit he truly would have done something he regretted.

But he did not return to Asgard. Nor did he hold any desire to.

He flipped through the book in his hand, green eyes shaded brown behind the spelled glass of his spectacles. The long black hair he'd cut and with a touch of his seidr he'd colored it to match his eyes, and for all those who had come across him not a single flicker of familiarity had awoken in their gaze.

To them, they did not see Loki Odinson, Fallen Prince of Asgard.

They saw Loren Fjeld, conservator and historian at the New-York Historical Society Museum and Library minutes from Queens.

Loki smoothed out the page he'd been searching for and set a bookmark in the crease before laying it atop the stack accumulating on his desk.

Perhaps settling in New York and Queens in general was far too great of a risk to take. Even if his invasion was old news and even if the city had been rebuilt anew, it was not a place he'd want to get caught by any of those Avengers, least of all Stark—The Iron Man. And truly, would he try to mask his real reason? There was only one other thing that could pull him back to these tall metal structures once the Tesseract cleared itself from his mind and all chains of servitude had finally unshackled from his wrists. One other person.

Midgard had a novelty he entertained himself with long before, and it sat inside a wallet most of these humans insisted on carrying around with them day to day. A small slip of glossed paper it was, a frozen moment of a baby boy with pinkened cheeks and a gummy grin. It was the one thing Loki ever cherished, and there was every chance it could be the one thing he would ever see of him again.

Now fourteen years later, he had taken one of those 'apartments' in Queens with the stifled hope that they would pass each other by on the street and she would get to see if he still smiled the same way he did as a babe.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was pathetic. What made him think his boy would ever want to see him again, after everything? He abandoned his child before he grew to have a chance to remember his own mother. That warranted nothing but anger and resentment and fury and—

"I only wanted to protect you from the truth."

"Why?" he cries. "Because I-I am the monster that parents tell their children about at night?"

"Loren!" someone behind him called. "You're still in? It's ten past six!"

Loki turned in his seat to see one of the older curators making their way to his desk. She was a wizened old woman with a wide smile and a never-ending stream of tattoos she'd gotten from the traditional artists of her home on the Polynesian Islands. She'd been the one to hire him and, consequently, had been the one to fall for all the lies that spewed from his mouth. Not that he hadn't the skills for the job.

"Mrs. Iolani," he greeted. "My apologies, I have merely gotten caught up in this work. The volumes you have at hand in this library are quite interesting, and I'm making headway in a handful of the artifact cases you've left for me."

"Well it's nice to see someone so invested in their work, but that doesn't mean it should hole you up in the building two whole hours after you should've been home." She sighed and shook her head, but the smile never dropped from her lips. "Nowhere to be on a Thursday evening, young man?"

Loki almost snorted as he picked up another book. A young man, was he? "Not at all. But if it soothes your nerves, I will only be an hour at most before I head back for the night."

Iolani laughed and smacked his back, the force strong enough to send the book sprawling out his hands. He grimaced.

"I'm bringing in some of my coconut pie tomorrow. If you want some, I suggest you get in bright and early and snatch yourself a piece before they're all gone!"

His face pinched slightly. "Yes, I will be sure to be in to try some of your... charming pie."

She patted Loki's shoulder. "Don't push yourself too hard, Loren. You do good work here."

And with one last pat on the shoulder, she was out of the offices and he was left with stacks of books and case folders and artifacts in need of restoration.

The work reminded him of the artists in the palace and the metalsmiths in the forge. As a child he'd watch from afar, marvel at the hands that could create something from nothing before being ushered away to his tutors.

He huffed a short laugh. Here he was avoiding Asgard, yet there he still was. Chasing its memories.

How pitiful he'd become as a villain thought dead—

The necklace pressed against his chest underneath his button-up suddenly flared with a deep heat that burned through skin and muscle and bone and marrow; the necklace he'd never taken off in fourteen years and had desperately hidden using the last vestiges of his seidr when he'd been cast into the palace dungeons.

The necklace he clung onto like a frail thread of hope. It burned hotter than the fires of Muspelheim, stronger than anything he'd ever felt in over his thousand years of living.

He stood, knocking the books off his desk and staggering backwards into his chair.

"I am on my way," he whispered, his voice hoarse to his own ears. "Wait for me, just wait—please."

::

Heels clicked on the icy sidewalks alongside the dark street. This part of the city was not the most... respectable of places, and it made Loki apprehensive as to why the necklace led her down this way. She'd waited about an hour or two before she pursued the path the necklace drew her on to be sure it wasn't a fault in the enchantment—as if she could make a mistake on something so simple, but it was a thought—then she followed. Shady figures lurked in the corners of her eyes and she knew they weren't foolish enough to try anything once they caught sight of the warding sneer poised on her black-painted lips.

Not many tried their luck when she assumed herself as Lora. Her seidr made a seamless shift into the feminine form as the brown melted off the true blackness of her hair and her eyes resumed that deep, unsettling green. Her dark double-breasted coat brushed against her knees with each step and the more she walked, the more her worry flourished.

He was here? In one of these decrepit buildings?

The necklace thrummed and Loki stopped at the door with the visage of a snarling dog. A few people loitered around the front, smoking cigarettes and eyeing her up and down the closer she approached. To the right, a golden plaque bore the title Sister Margaret's School for Wayward Girls.

"Sorry, sweetheart, this isn't a brunch spot where you can sip mimosas," one of them said once she was a few steps away from the door. Loki stopped and met his gaze. "I'd turn around now unless you'd want to get into an accident that gets that pretty face full of glass."

"I appreciate the sentiment—" Her hand shot towards him and a dagger materialized from inside her sleeve, the blade pushing up against his neck just light enough to send a trickle of blood down the silver— "though I would appreciate it even more should you mind your own business and allow me to attend to mind."

"Fuck, chill out—"

She forced him onto his knees, the blade digging deeper into his skin as she towered over his form. "Move."

"Yeah, yeah! I got it, shit!"

The rest of them scurried out her way as she grasped the handle and pulled it open. The hallway she stepped into engulfed her in some sort of red light she found rather unpleasant, but just past it was a dimly lit establishment filled with the scent of something not unlike mead mixed with Volstagg when he lost himself in a feast.

The patrons of this—tavern?—seemed to be plucked of a similar vine. Weapons she recognized as guns were on everyone's waists and on tables and attached to hands that waved and gestured. It was certainly a busy place synonymous with leather and roars and clinks, and Loki walked herself to the strip of table that ran from the door to the side of the tavern and seated herself on a stool.

"Here to paint a name?" the barman asked. The frames of his spectacles are thick black and brown-blond hair fell around his face. Loki quirked a brow.

"Paint a name?"

"Okay, so that's a no," he nodded. He turned to face the bottles that lined the shelves. "Pick your poison. Margarita? Straight whiskey? Don't know any of that classy shit so don't start naming Apple-Fapple whatevers."

She thought back to when she first met Richard and the alcohols they'd consumed at that convention. It had been the only time she'd been anywhere near that sort of thing. "An Old Fashioned will do. You have my thanks," she said. The barman threw a thumbs up over his shoulder and as he started on her drink, her gaze drifted back to the clientage. Most everyone here was older and violent and even the maidens that served drinks on trays had a wildness around the eyes as they smacked wandering hands and threatened bodily harm with any empty glasses they picked up.

How... quaint.

The longer she looked, the more she found no sign of him. Yet the necklace on her chest only burned warmer.

The barman slid a glass of amber liquid over to her, topped with a swirled rind of an orange. "An Old Fashioned," he presented. "But before you keep hanging around let me cut to the chase here, lady. I haven't seen you around here, so you probably don't know the rules. Unspoken, you know, for safety and shit."

Loki rapped her nails against the table and considered the man before her. "Believe me when I tell you that there is nothing in your building that may even begin to harm me, but please, carry on."

"Jesus, you're one of those types," he mumbled under his breath before he cleared his throat. "So, one, don't go telling any of your Breakfast at Tiffany's friends about this place. See all these fuckheads out on the floor? We're not great, but seeing that you got in, you're probably not too great either." Her lips quirked and she lifted the glass to take a sip. "We mind our own business here and we don't rat out to the Feds. You hear something you don't like, you keep your mouth shut, but that's negotiable for pedophiles or those types of fucks. If any of those undesirables pop up, let me or one of the girls know and we'll get it taken care of. That type of nasty shit I don't tolerate and neither will a lot of the other guys. 'Specially Wade, and the last thing I need is an aggro Wade fucking up my bar."

"Wade?"

"You'll see him when you see him. Red suit, loud fucker, annoying as hell." The barman flapped a hand. "Anyway. Name's Weasel and—"

"Say that to my fucking face, Booth!" someone snarled behind them. Both he and Loki peered out and spotted a burly man with a long gray beard pulling someone up by the shirt to spit in their face.

"—that's the first fight of the night. God, we should really have a grace period or something. We opened a fucking hour ago." Weasel sighed and dealt Loki an exasperated look. "Call if you need anything, but like after I take care of whatever this is." He walked around the long table and raised both hands above his head. "Hey! Booth! What the hell did we say about breathing exercises?!"

Loki chuckled under her breath and turned back to her drink. Humans really were peculiar sometimes, and it seemed even the worst of them had some humorous value to them. But that amusement was quick to crumble to concern when she doesn't spy a fluff of brown hair anywhere in or near the growing brawl.

She dragged her finger along the rim of the glass. Had she truly been wrong?

"Ferret!" one of the men from outside called over the din of shouts and thrown fists. He poked his head in from the red hallway. "Got someone checkin' in!"

"Coming!" a young, young voice shouted back from beyond the white swinging doors on the other side of a metal staircase. "Send them to the end of the bar, please!"

The man soon disappeared from the hallway, replaced by a not-quite middle-aged woman with a bruise on her cheek and her arms wrapped around herself. She shuffled into the tavern and took a careful seat just a few stools away from Loki's own perch. Only a few seconds after, a boy came through the swinging doors with a stained white cloth around his waist and short-sleeved shirt with some sort of... mathematics symbol on them? Perhaps as some Midgardian whimsy?

But it was dark and his face was rather shadowed, and the sight of him sent her necklace into a frenzy.

Oh.

"Hi," the boy greeted the woman. His voice was far too off to be akin to a man's, but it was comforting in that childish, innocent kind of way. The woman peeked up through her curtain of red hair and blanched. "Manuel said you were in for a Gold Card?"

Gold Card?

"You're... you're a kid..." the woman murmured.

"My genes give me kind of a baby-face, I guess," the boy laughed, and Loki instantly saw the avoidance for what it was. He pulled out a yellowed notebook from somewhere under the table and flipped to the newest page while clicking a pen. "You can call me Ferret, and I'll be leading you through the process while Mr. Weasel's busy." A glass shattered, and the boy beamed. "May I please see your ID?"

The woman was a thirty-two year old fitness instructor named Kristy Watson-Price and she never stopped casting apprehensive glances over her shoulder. She flinched at every loud thud or sharp crash, and Loki was sure to avert her eyes at the right moments and took sips of her drink to show that she wasn't focusing on the conversation beside her.

'Ferret' scribbled a line of notes on the paper before sliding back the ID. "Who's this Card for, Ms. Watson-Price?"

Her bottom lip wobbled. "My husband, Henrik, he... he was so much nicer before we got married. He was alright with not having children and we even got a dog but—but he just gets angry and starts hitting the dog when she tries to stop him from hitting me and he's got so many friends on the force that I-I just can't go to any precinct to tell them that he's been-been..."

Ferret set a reassuring hand on her wrist and offered her a small smile. Loki saw the anger brewing in the tense muscle just beneath his skin. "It'll be taken care of, I promise," he said. "So I'm guessing this is a full hit?"

Watson-Price bowed her head, her next words barely making it past her lips. "Yes." Shakily, she reached into her jacket and brought out a thick envelope. "How much?"

"For your situation? Five thousand."

She blinked. "That's... That's a lot less than I..."

"Yeah, we get that a lot," Ferret said. He pushed a few buttons on the machine next to him. "Are there any upcoming events that can get you out of town any time soon? Or is there like a vacation you can take, a convention, a road trip...?"

"Um, I'm going to my cousin's wedding in a few weeks and Henrik won't be going with me."

"Cool! What dates will you be gone? Also I'll need your husband's full name, age, occupation, photo." Once her husband's name was out her mouth, Ferret typed something into the machine and it hissed and spat out a metallic gold card. He picked it up and pocketed it, but not before Loki spied the name Henrik Price printed on in silver.

It wasn't until the end of the transaction that Loki finally realized just what had been done. Watson-Price had paid five thousand dollars to have her abusive husband killed. Assassins were a known practice on Asgard but were not utilized by much of the common folk, yet Midgard had an entire system operated on the very idea. Fascinating.

Though what had captured the majority of her attention had been how kind the boy appeared when he spoke to this woman, how at ease he'd put her and how polite he'd been. It swelled Loki's spirits to see he'd been raised so well. But, that didn't explain the fact on how he'd become a merchant for this business in the first place. Did Richard and Mary know? And if they did, how could they allow this to happen?

Loki turned her head as the guilt in her stomach wound around her organs and squeezed like a vice. Then again, she hadn't set foot on Earth until working alongside the Chitauri in a haze of blue and blinding pain. She hadn't once asked Heimdall for updates and never snuck onto Earth herself to inquire of his well-being.

She had no excuse. No place to talk. If she'd been any ounce of a mother Frigga had been to her, maybe...

"—and that should be about it? If you have any questions, though, you'd have to ask Mr. Weasel." Ferret leaned to the side. "Looks like the fight's wrapping up so he'll be back in a sec." He held up the new Gold Card and smiled, but there was no trace of joy in his face. "I'll send your hit info to the best merc for the job."

But then his posture relaxed and when one of the low lights cast a ray along his cheekbone, it was so glaringly obvious he was just a child, an infant in Asgardian time who would still need another several hundred years before he would even be allowed to hold a sword.

Loki shut her eyes and breathed. At least now she knew one of the things he'd inherited from Richard.

"Will you be okay for the next few days?"

Watson-Price nodded. "As long as I stay out of his way, h-he shouldn't try anything..." With tougher resolve, she clenched her fists in her lap. "I can make it until the wedding."

"You're really brave," Ferret told her sincerely. "I'm... sorry about Henrik. I know you probably don't want to hear it, but nobody deserves what you're going through."

The woman smiled, just as unsteady as the rest of her. "Thank you."

As Weasel walked back up to Ferret's side and drew him into a brief conversation, Loki glanced down to observe the plastic sheet under her glass. Now would be an opportune moment to approach him, would it not? If he normally relegated himself out of sight, perhaps there was another entrance to the tavern and she could approach him from there. Or she could call him over? No, that would only alert the Weasel and cause more problems that she hadn't the energy to deal with at the moment.

"Oh, uh, hi, miss! I haven't seen you around before! Do you want to order anything?"

Loki's gaze snapped up.

In the same instant, her breath caught.

One look into that face and the whole realm fell away. That face belonged to a babe swaddled in soft green blankets, a babe that only calmed his cries when pressed close to her chest, a babe transfixed when she sent wisps of her seidr to mold horses and wolves and serpents in the air like a moving mural.

One look into that face and she saw her heart.

"Peter," she murmured as quiet as the stillness of an Asgardian night. But he still heard her, and his entire face drained into a startled pallor. "Do you remember me?"