Guardian

Chapter 21

1887.

Levina closed the door to her husband's bedroom, trying to control the rage welling up inside of her. She understood that she could not bear him a child, or at least she would not allow herself to do so, but that was not permission for him to screw some tart. And with her luck she had to walk in on the two of them.

Take a deep breath to control her emotions, she smoothed out her gown and descended the stairs so that she could distract herself with a book from the first floor library. She was startled however from a knock on the front door, wondering who it was visiting and how she could distract them so that her husband would have time to throw on some pants.

"I am here to see the Condesa de Lugo," She overheard the man speak, piquing her curiosity. She hardly ever had visitors and the only friends she made were the wives of her husband's acquaintances. And he certainly would not be happy to discover that there was a man calling on her.

But what she did not know was that this was not simply some man, this was a doctor who was working for her husband so that they might figure out why Levina was infertile and how to fix her. Heirs were of the utmost importance and Levina's husband was desperate to have one.

-

(Loki's POV):
As soon I gave the address to Olivia, I slipped out of the bedroom window and made my way to my new apartment. Once there, I received the proper paperwork and changed it so that it looked like I had moved in a week before. The apartment itself was incredibly bare and I knew that I did not have much time before the pesky Avengers decided to bust down my door.

Using my magic, I began to make it seem like it had been lived in for a week but left a few boxes of stuff which would imply that I had not yet finished moving in. Thor knew I would never just leave stuff sitting around for that long and it would help convince him that they had the wrong man. I tried to decorate it in a way that I found acceptable, yet was unlike my actual taste. This meant swapping out greens for reds and using muted tones instead of bold.

Remembering that Olivia had claimed that I was a painter, I also created some paintings to lie about the room on canvases. Most of them were of the New York skyline, figuring that an artist new to the city would be quite inspired to paint his surroundings. I also created a few based off of the productions of Shakespeare plays I had seen with Olivia and then one that portrayed her herself.

I knew I also had to change my appearance, which luckily Tyler had not seen so I had free reign with that. After taking about an inch off of my height, I also cut my hair short and made it blond, something I suspected I would not get used to anytime soon. I changed my eye color to blue, then figured that I looked different enough to fool the idiots. Except for perhaps Ms. Romanov, but I figured that by acting differently I could probably keep her from suspecting that I was actually Loki as well.

Just as I was pouring myself a glass of whiskey, one of the midgardian beverages I had actually taken a liking to, the pounding on my door that I was awaiting came at last. I downed the amber liquid and then walked over to the door, feigning surprise when I saw the Avengers standing there. Unlike at Liv's apartment, every member of the Avengers had shown up which I supposed would make this interaction a bit more exciting.

"Can I help you with something?" I asked innocently, noticing that they all had their hands on their weapons as I opened the door. I let my accent remain almost the same, but Americanized it a bit.

"Are you Loki, friend of Olivia Davis?" Thor asked, his eyes scanning my face, as though looking for some likeness to his brother.

"Well, I don't know if she still considers me a friend," I growled, allowing my eyes to glisten with tears. "How do you know her?"