The God and the Shifter

Chapter 7

I must have fallen asleep on the sofa the night before as I woke up in the lounge to the team arriving home.

"Liz! We're back!" Caps' voice came from the door to the landing pad outside. "Was everything okay while we were gone?"

I uncurled myself in my cat form and noticed I was on a fluffy cushion I had never seen before and also had a blanket over me.

Strange, that wasn't how I was curled up last night.

"Hey, kid. Reindeer Games wasn't any trouble while we were gone was he?" Stark asked, following Cap inside.

I shook my head at him and walked over to them all and rubbed my face against their legs in greeting.

"Hello tiny cat!" Thor boomed when I rubbed up against his leg and he picked me up and curled me in his arms. For such a large man he was very gentle and he scratched in between my ears and a pur rose from my chest.

"Come on, Thor, we have to debrief Fury" Nat said as she walked past and gave me a scratch on the head too.

I jumped from Thor's arms and trotted off towards the elevator to go to my room to grab a shower and change my clothes from the day before.

Walking down the hallway I shifted back to human form and knocked on Lokis door. "Loki, it's Liz. I'm just grabbing a shower then I'm going back down for breakfast if you want to come down"

*

On my way back out of my room I grabbed the remaining books for Loki and gave them to him as I went back past his room.

"Oh the almighty God has decided to join us today!" Stark sarcastically remarked as Loki and I walked into the kitchen together.

Loki looked uncomfortable at this and looked down to the ground. "Leave him alone" I snapped at Stark. The look of shock on his face made me smirk but I heard Clint snicker from somewhere above me. He was probably somewhere in the vents again.

"Why're you defending him?" Stark asked, confused and taken aback.

"Just leave him alone" I mumbled back, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks as I glanced in Lokis direction and he gave me a small smile.

I put the coffee pot on to heat up and popped 4 slices of bread into the toaster.

"Don't you ever have anything different for breakfast?" Stark grumbled as he reached past me for the coffee

I shrugged "Sometimes i have cereal"

After breakfast Loki joined me in the lounge where we continued reading for the morning until I had training with Nat again in the afternoon after the team had rested from their mission.

*

The following weeks Loki and I spent our time reading together in the lounge between my training and while the team went on their missions and it was nice to see him looking more comfortable around me. We even took part in small talk every now and then and I showed him the library that no one else other than myself ever visited.

One afternoon Loki closed the last book in the series and put it on the coffee table in front of him.

"Soooo, did you like them?" I asked, looking up from my own book apprehensively

"They were quite enjoyable," he replied, smiling.

"Who was your favourite character?" I asked

"Professor Snape"

A huge grin spread across my face when he said that

"What?" He asked

"I thought it would be. He's my favourite too" I answered

"He was misunderstood right up until the end and everything he did was for the woman he loved, even after she had died"

"Always" I smiled as I took the book from the table and vanished it back to my room. "Would you like me to get you another book?"

"I was actually wondering if you'd like to train with me this afternoon?" He asked warily, worried I might reject the request.

"Oh, sure! I've only been training with people bigger than me for a while so I might not be the best for you to train with though" I blushed, knowing my skill level was far less than his in combat. I had stopped by the training rooms a couple times and watched him and Thor engaged in combat training and it was beautiful to watch. It was more like they were dancing than training.

"Not to worry, Lady Liz. I am sure you are a formidable opponent" he mused