Whispers followed you throughout the rest of the school day. You tried to convince yourself that you didn't mind. It only worked so well. Mostly, the whispers were people commenting about how awesome that kiss was. You couldn't say you disagreed with them on that point; it had been an amazing kiss. Only jock-boy and his friends had anything negative to say, and they quickly gave up when they realized no one was listening to them.

After school, Loki walked you home, carrying your bag the entire way. He threatened to carry you along with it when you stopped too long to look in one of the shop windows. "Just a quick look!" You pleaded, staring longingly in the new release window of the bookstore. You couldn't help your love of books. They'd been your only friends for so long.

Loki shook his head. "My apologies, darling, but you are still grounded, remember?" he asked you gently. Of course you remembered. You sighed and grumbled, but kept walking. "I would normally not care and risk a little mischief and fun, but Fury has made it quite clear that he will lock you up if you do anything else to anger him. And there would be nothing I could do about it." Loki reminded you. He was taking your freedom seriously, especially when you had put it in danger by rescuing him.

"At least it's just one more day," you grumbled. You didn't want to end up in chains or whatever other punishment Fury thought appropriate if you pissed him off again before your grounding ended.

"And I have plans for your first Saturday of freedom," Loki told me. You looked over at him with a mix of shock and excitement.

"You do?" you asked, curious. He chuckled.

"Of course, I do. So you must behave until then, so my plans do not get spoiled." You grinned and took his hand. He was going to surprise you. That was definitely something to look forward to, knowing Loki, the surprise would be a lot of fun.

You had combat practice when you got back to the compound. You were still focusing on the mini daggers, as Loki felt they were practical for a surprise first attack. Plus, they were immensely easy to conceal.

Loki helped you with your homework and you curled up on the common room couch, chatting occasionally with the supers who came and went while you did. You were glad that they seemed to finally be accepting Loki.

Fury came by at one point to tell Loki that he was off of twenty-four hour guard duty and didn't have to go to school with you in the morning. He accepted it, but you could see the disappointment in his eyes. The next day would be lonely without him and you both knew it.

He walked you up to your room when it was time for bed and kissed you goodnight outside of your sitting room. You were surprised that he wasn't coming in. He had been so much your shadow for the last few days that you had forgotten that wasn't how things usually were. You knew it was one thing for him to spend the night in your suite when he was on guard duty. It was another thing when he was not. You knew the difference, but it still felt weird. It wouldn't be appropriate for him to spend the night when he wasn't guarding. You both knew that. It was still hard, when you also both knew that nothing inappropriate would happen. "Sleep well, darling," he bid you warmly before he left you.

"Goodnight," you replied and slipped into your room. You left your sitting room door unlocked. He was welcome to come get more books. You knew, however, that this night he wouldn't, but he would also appreciate that you hadn't locked him out.

There was an ice rose on your nightstand when you entered your bedroom. You smiled at it and sent Loki a thank you text. You would have to find something cute like that you could do for him at some point.

You had your chance the next morning. Once you were dressed, you knocked on Loki's door and weren't surprised when there was no answer. Or that the door was unlocked. No one in the tower ever locked their doors. You slipped inside and left your gift for him on his bed where he wouldn't miss it later. You ducked back out quickly and headed downstairs to breakfast.

"Kat, I'm sorry, I can't take you to school, today. We just got new intelligence. Can you get someone else to take you?" Tony asked as you walked into the dining room with your breakfast. Loki was already there. You looked over at him, questioningly. You knew that he had heard Tony's question. The entire room would have. Loki nodded in answer to your silent question. You nodded to Tony. "Thanks. And thank you for not arguing. I know how you feel about feeling babysat, but I want to make sure you're safe. Even if it is Reindeer Games keeping you that way. Plus, if he fails, I can kill him and no one will complain," Tony added with a laugh. You knew he was joking. Or hoped he was joking. Well, at the very least you knew he didn't want Loki to fail. Tony gave you a hug and rushed off to go do work. You sat down with Loki.

"Thank you," you told him. He nodded, then gave you his put-upon look, but this time mixed with the mischievous glint in his eyes.

"It is such a hardship to have to spend time with your beloved," he replied with a grin.

You rolled your eyes. "You are a creature made entirely of silliness," you laughed at him.

"Mischief and chaos," he corrected, laughing along with you. "Not silliness,"

"I'm not seeing the difference." You stuck your tongue out at him.

"You wound me, lady," he held his hand over his heart with mock-surprise. You erupted into more giggles. You were still laughing when you left the dining room and started your walk to the school.

"You don't have to wear your battle armor," you told him when you got to the door. "This isn't official guard duty," you reminded him. He thought that over, but didn't change his outfit.

"I am still guarding you. I would rather be prepared." You nodded, and didn't complain when he took your bag from me. We walked to school hand-in-hand. Today was different, though, in that he had to leave you at the entrance to the school. He couldn't follow you in today.

"I'm going to miss you," you told him softly.

"And I, you," he replied formally. He leaned down and kissed you. "I will be paying attention though. Just call for you if you need your help and I will be here. Promise me you will not hesitate if that boy bothers you again. Just because he is human, it does not mean he can get away with hurting you." You heard the pleading in his voice.

"I promise," you told him. You stood up on your toes to kiss him again before you consented to going inside and pretending you cared about school. You cared about getting good grades. You didn't care about school.

You avoided jock-boy the entire day. He didn't go out of his way to try to harass you, which definitely helped. You hoped he would leave it at that. You didn't want to deal with his drama.

You still got notes from Loki throughout the day. He had memorized your class schedule and knew which classes you needed to pay attention in and only sent you notes during those where you could afford the distractions. You appreciated his thoughtfulness. You sent him notes back when you could and sent him a selfie at lunch. You got one in return of him shirtless in the workout training room. He looked like he had been working out for awhile. You grinned at the picture and made sure to save it.

You weren't surprised when he was waiting for you at the entrance to the school when classes ended. "That was a very nice picture you sent me," you greeted him with a grin when he took your bag from you.

"Was it?" he asked, all innocence. Innocent didn't work on him. He didn't have an innocent bone in his body. Especially not this time.

"Yes, Trickster, a very nice picture indeed." He hmmed and seemed to ponder that one some more. You got your phone out and held it in front of us in selfie mode. You were still standing a step or two above him, so it was the perfect height difference for this. "Smile," you told him. He took the phone from me, since his arms were longer. You wrapped your arms around his neck from behind, so our faces were together in the picture.

"Out of the way, lovebirds," you heard a sneering voice behind you, before you were knocked into and thrown down the stairs outside of the school. Loki managed to grab you and pulled you to him, steadying you before you could fall. He glared into the crowd, but couldn't find the culprit.

"Come on, love, let's get out of here," he said as he scanned the area, on alert now. You nodded and walked with him with his arm around your waist. When you got back to the compound, you stopped him before he could insist on combat training.

"Aren't you tired? You were training this morning," you reminded him. You didn't want him wearing himself out on your account.

"I will be fine. No squirming out of practice," he told you firmly.

So you spent an hour working on your dagger and staff fighting skills.

You had a quiet dinner together that night, as all of the supers were out on patrol again. It was dusk when he asked. "Would you like to go for a walk in the gardens?"

"I'm grounded," you reminded him. You would be glad the next day when your stupid grounding was be over.

He gave you a mischievous smirk. "The gardens are part of the compound, where you are allowed, even grounded," he reminded you. You smiled at him.

"That sounds like an excellent idea." You jumped to your feet, tired of being cooped up. He laughed and took your hand. The green glow of his magic flowed over you and you were dressed in jeans, your black converse, and a coat over a long sleeved t-shirt and a hoodie. He had even magic-ed a hat and gloves. You rolled your eyes.

"It would not do for you to catch a cold," he informed you. You rolled your eyes. You wasn't that fragile, and it was getting warmer. Spring had already started trying to make an appearance in the two days since the flurries the night of the meteor shower.

You removed the hat, gloves, and heavy coat. Loki looked worried, but didn't argue with you. He took your hand and you strolled out of the main building into the gardens. They were lit at night and the lights were just coming on. You spent a long time walking and checking out every inch of the gardens. It felt great to be outside and out of routine, even if you were still on compound property.

You were at the very back of the gardens, at the point where they touched the boundary of the property when you heard voices and laughter. Not normal laughter, the creepy laughter of psycho clowns. They had a very distinctive laugh.

Loki pushed you behind him and you started backing the way you came, towards the main building, hoping they wouldn't hear you. You could tell by the laughter that you would be way outnumbered.

Luck was not with you that night.

At all.

Stupid luck.

With a pounding of feet, and more psycho laughter, you were surrounded by at least twenty clowns, all in horrible costumes and makeup. You wanted to kill them all just on principle. "Give us the girl," one of them laughed. This started a chorus of more creepy laughter and all of them making the demand.

"I'm sorry, love," Loki whispered.

You looked over at him, horrified and confused by those words, until you saw the glowing green circle form under you, around your feet. When it completed, you fell through. You shrieked as you kept falling. You landed hard on a soft bed. Loki's bed, you realized. You had just been there that morning, delivering his gift to him.

You were going to kill him for fighting all of those clowns alone, for teleporting you to safety while he stayed behind to fight. You moved to get up to go run and try to help him, but quickly realized that that wasn't happening.

You were going to kill him even more dead for this.

Your hands were shackled with the chains Loki had worn his first month in the tower. That might not have stopped you on its own, neither would the fact that you were barefoot and back in your pajamas, but there was a chain leading from the shackles and secured around the bed post. You tugged uselessly at the chain, but it was stuck fast and the bed post wasn't going to break, not under your human strength.

You were stuck here in safety while Loki was out there risking his life. You growled and tried again to free yourself, but your bonds weren't giving at all. The only, only good thing was that there was enough chain that you could sit comfortably on the bed while you waited for him and worried over his safety, as well as plotting how you were going to kill him when he got up here.

You were going to kill him so very, very dead for this.

If the clowns didn't beat you to it.