Loki woke you fairly early the next morning. Your cat ears were gone and he was back to his male form. They'd both gone back before you'd gone to bed that night.

"Wake up, darling. I have a surprised planned," he told you gently as he shook you awake. You opened your eyes and smiled up at him.

"What kind of surprise?" you asked, too curious for your own good.

"The kind that is a surprise," he replied dryly. You laughed and climbed out of bed. "Allow me," he told you warmly. He took your hand and with a shimmer of green magic, you were suddenly wearing a dress that could have worked as a Sigyn cosplay. The dress was floor length and beautiful. It wasn't quite her dress from the move, but it was very close. You wondered why you needed a cosplay outfit for this outing, but Loki wasn't sharing.

Loki kept hold of your hand and you realized that he was wearing a tunic and leggings, clothes that could have come from the movie too, but more casual than the battle leathers. He opened a spellbook in front of him and rattled off the spell. You saw the effort it took him, so you knew it was major magic. A swirling green portal appeared in front of you when he had finished. Loki laughed in delight and looked immensely proud of himself. He took your hand again and half led, half pulled you through the portal.

You stepped through the portal

And into his bedroom.

That was a disappointment.

"Loki... you can teleport us from your room to yours," it was just across the hall after all. "You don't need a big, draining magic for that," you reminded him. He could be careless with his magic, but usually not this careless. Not to use major magic just to teleport across the hall.

Loki laughed, the sound full of true joy. He was so excited and full of mirth. "Not this bedroom, darling," he told you warmly. "You did a good job with it, but look closer," he gestured to the window, as if the answer laid there. You took the couple of steps over to it and looked outside to a city with three moons over it.

"We're on Asgard?" you asked, surprised. You didn't know he had the power to get you all the way to Asgard. You thought only Heimdall had that ability with the giant sword and the Bifrost. Loki inclined his head with a proud grin. "I thought you were banished?"

"I said that banished was the closest word for it. I am allowed to visit home," he replied warmly. "It just took awhile to find the correct spell for it. I could have asked Heimdall, but I hate relying on him,"

"You did clear this with everyone on Earth, right?" you asked him, warily. You didn't want him in trouble. Especially with Tony. Tony would kill him if he took you off world, even if you were technically of age now.

"Of course. Now, come, I would like for you to meet my family, though of course you know my idiot brother already," He offered you his arm with a warm smile. He was so excited to be home, you could see it in his eyes. You laid your hand on his arm and let him lead you from his suite. He had a whole suite, not just a bedroom, you realized.

When he was living on Earth, it was sometimes hard to remember that he was a prince. It wasn't hard to remember now.

You walked down the halls of the palace on Loki's arm. Servants bowed to you, murmuring polite greetings to Loki as you walked by. It was so strange. You weren't used to being bowed to, even if you knew they were only really bowing to Loki.

Loki led you to a cozy dining room in what he said was the family wing of the palace. When you entered, you recognized his parents, Thor, and Thor's wife Lady Sif, at once. The movies had portrayed Odin, Frigga, and Sif fairly accurately, and Loki had shown you an illusion of them once before. Plus you'd lived with Thor when he was at the tower. He wasn't around much lately, as he had duties on Asgard with being official heir.

That didn't make you any less terrified to have breakfast with them. Especially since you weren't expecting to have breakfast with the royal family of Asgard that morning.

Hell, you hadn't expected to be in Asgard that morning.

Loki's family looked up when you entered and it took every single ounce of willpower you possessed to not hide behind Loki. Frigga was the first one to move. She stood gracefully and rushed over to Loki with a speed that would be unseemly for a queen. "Loki! You came home!" she exclaimed, hugging him around the neck. "How are you dear? How is your journey going? Have you been eating?" she asked all the questions you expected a mother who hadn't seen her son in awhile to demand. Especially a son who was so far from home.

You took a step back, letting them have their moment while Loki reassured her that everything was going well. That he was eating, and happy, that everything was going well with the team. He was making friends and making his way in the realms, as was his duty to the throne.

Frigga finally looked over at you. "I'm sorry, dear. It has just been so long since we last saw Loki," she told you with a warm, gentle motherly smile. "I am Frigga, queen of Asgard, it is a pleasure to meet you,"

You desperately wished Loki had prepared for you to meet his parents. Especially since his parents were the King and Queen of the fucking realm. "Mother, I would like to introduce Lady Y/N Stark. She does me the honor of being my Kærasta," you heard the word translated as 'girlfriend, love, dear one' in your mind when Loki spoke it.

"It is a pleasure to you meet you, ma'am," you replied politely, hoping it was polite enough. You were way out of your element talking to royalty.

Though the moment Loki had said Kærasta, Frigga's focus had turned from royalty meeting a foreign visitor, to mother grilling her son's girlfriend. She grilled you on every detail of your life and your time with Loki. It was a long time of grilling and Loki eventually had to save you.

You spent the entire long weekend on Asgard. He showed you all of his favorite sites, especially the library and gardens. There were feasts and introductions to all of his friends and family. Lady Sif even showed you some new dagger tricks when she found out Loki had been teaching you.

There was a huge farewell feast the night you had to leave. You knew it was bittersweet for Loki.

"We can come visit again," you reminded him gently when you caught his mood.

He nodded, though looked sad. "However, for today, we must return you back to your home. There is still school tomorrow," he reminded you.

You groaned. "I didn't get any of my homework done," you whined at him. You hadn't been able to plan ahead for the trip, so you hadn't done your homework.

Loki laughed. "Do not worry about that. I completely it for you before we left," he told you warmly.

"I shouldn't accept that, but I'm not going to complain."

Loki opened the portal back to Earth and you stepped through into your sittingroom. You were both laughing until we saw that Fury and Tony were waiting on your couch for you. Neither of them looked happy. The portal snapped shut behind you. "You two are in so much trouble," Fury growled.

Loki held up his hands in surrender. "Place all of the blame on me," he insisted. "Lady Y/N did not know that this trip was not authorized," he told them.

"You lied to me?" you demanded incredulously. You had specifically asked him if it was approved or not. You hadn't wanted him to get in trouble.

"I had to, darling. You cannot be blamed if you did not know. I wanted to take you on the trip and knew that it would never be approved,"

"Your damn right it wasn't approved," Fury yelled, standing to face down Loki. "I don't care if you are an adult. You're grounded for this stunt. You can't take a girl under our protection off world without permission!" Fury rarely had to punish the supers under his command. Usually it was extra chores or training for being late, or losing control of their powers or something. Never for deliberate disobedience. "You come with me," Fury grabbed Loki by the arm and dragged him from the room to hash out his punishment. Loki went willingly, he'd expected to be punished for this stunt.

Tony jumped up from the couch and pulled you into a tight hug before you could run after Loki to protect him from Fury. "Kat, I was so worried about you. All we had was a note from Loki saying you went on a long weekend trip to Asgard,"

"It was amazing, Uncle Tony!" you told him, gushing about how awesome and palace was and how much fun you'd had with Loki's family.

Tony rolled his eyes. "Can't you even be a little sorry you left with no notice? You're my responsibility, kid," he reminded you. Your parents had left you in his care in their will so you hadn't had to go to foster care.

"I'm sorry I worried you," you finally admitted. You didn't want to scare him.

"You're such an imp," he growled at you. "At least he made sure that you stay out of trouble for this," he sighed. "It's late. Get some sleep,"

He left your room, but you weren't actually going to sleep until you found out what happened to Loki. So you changed into your pajamas and waited for him in your sittingroom. He came back up a couple hours later in his typical pajamas of black pajama pants and a green t-shirt. His wrists were shackled again.

"Fury is quite upset with me it seems," he grinned at you as you let him in to your room.

"Loki," you worried over his wrists and the unfair punishment. You were 18. You were allowed to go on trips with your boyfriend. Though apparently Fury disagreed when you were a ward of the Avengers and he hadn't been told of the trip. Control freak.

"I'm fine, love. This will blow over and he will remember that I am more useful to him with magic than without,"

It didn't blow over for a month. The only real effect was that you and Loki couldn't go out on dates. You spent a lot of time watching movies inside the tower instead. Loki was still your guard in the evenings. You felt like you were the one who was punished more, since you had to have Nat come with you to all of your classes, and couldn't talk magically to Loki during them. It made Loki's life more difficult when he couldn't use magic openly, but he still had a little, even through all of the blocks the chains put on him. It stopped him from carrying you to bed, but didn't stop the kisses, or from him waking you from nightmares with his ice cold hands.

Fury did finally remember that Loki was more useful when he was on patrol and set him free on probation. You were left alone for a few nights, but Loki somehow wormed his way back onto being assigned as your guard. His silver tongue was very useful against Fury, it seemed.

Though the most worrying thing was that you found that Loki's nightmares and visions of you dying hadn't dissipated when you heard him scream your name one night, tossing and turning in his bed.