Prince of earth

Chapter 43

Loki stood in his room, packing up the last of his things he'd been keeping on base. May told him his apartment was ready and obviously wanted him out as soon as possible, And Loki was pretty eager to get his own home back as well, so he wasted no time packing up.

He'd been by himself for a while as he packed up his stuff, then heard a light lock on the door.

"Come in" he called over his shoulder.

The door opened and Loki turned to see Mack, who greeted with with a slight smile.

"Hey E.T, I hear you're leaving?" Mack asked. He knew that Loki could move back home if he wanted to, but he was a little concerned when he heard Loki was leaving right away.

Loki just shrugged.

"Yeah well there's really no reason to stay, and May seemed pretty eager to be rid of me. For some reason she hates that I'm friendly with Skye" he explained.

Mack nodded, but had a bit of a concerned air about him.

"Well don't think you have to leave" Mack said "May is... May. she's blunt and a little cold, but you don't have to leave if you don't want to"

Loki looked a little confused and continued packing his things, not sure why Mack was so clearly bothered by his leaving.

"Why wouldn't I want to leave? I only stayed because my apartment was damaged in the fire, Now it's fixed up. I don't need to stay"

Mack nodded a bit, but he knew Lokis type. Mack knew from the minute he asked that Loki was staying because he wanted to stay, not because of convenience, and he didn't want Loki to feel pushed out if he still wanted or needed to be here.

"Alright, well if there's any reason you'd want to stick around, you're welcome to"

Loki shook his head.

"Thank you, but no. I'm not interested in staying longer than I need to"

Mack wanted to point out that Loki never needed to stay at all, he did it by choice. But he knew Loki was being guarded and lately he had been a bit forced to open up, so Mack left him alone about it.

"You're taking everything?" Mack noticed that Loki was packing up all his stuff. All of it. Loki had been keeping some basic necessities on base in case he needed to stay for days at a time or if he just didn't feel like going home one day, but now he was packing it all up like he didn't plan on returning.

"Oh, right... well I only kept things here for when I stay for days at a time. With me being taken off the team I doubt I'll be spending much time here for a while" he said with a slight chuckle, but his face didn't carry humor.

"Temporarily" Mack corrected, to which Loki just looked confused again "temporarily taken off the team. Just until Garner clears you"

Loki didn't seem moved by Mack's correction and shrugged carelessly.

"The point is I won't be needing anything here for a while. May as well take it home"

Mack nodded, but still didn't like how empty Loki was leaving his room.

"I just want to make sure you don't think we're trying to get rid of you"

Loki was quiet for a moment, then chuckled a little bit.

"I'll be honest, the thought had occurred to me. But after thinking about it for about a minute I decided that wouldn't make a lot of sense. If you want to get rid of me you could just tell me I was no longer needed, there would be no need for this charade. So while it is quite annoying that I'm being temporarily cut off, i don't think it's an attempt to phase me out"