"How the hell did you get in here!?"
"I teleported." He says matter of factly. "Now, if you don't mind..." He gestures down to his chest.
Rhiannon looks down to where Loki was pointing and sees that his hands are covered in blood. She quickly grabs a towel and rushes over to him to inspect the wound and apply pressure in an attempt to stop the bleeding.
"Loki, this is really bad...I'm going to call Bruce so he can help."
She goes to stand, but Loki grabs her arm. "Are you mad?"
"Well, I don't know what else to do! I don't have enough first aid knowledge to treat a wound this size."
"You have magic. Use it to heal me."
"Don't you think if I knew how, I would've done it already!?"
"Calm down, there's no need to shout."
If he wasn't currently bleeding out on her floor she'd give him a piece of her mind. But at the rate he was bleeding it wouldn't be long until...
Crap! Come Rhi, focus.
She closes her eyes to think and focus her on her magic.
Ok, magic is just energy. And to heal, Loki needs energy, and lots of it. That means, I should be able to just give him some of my energy, right?
Rhiannon presses her hands against Loki's wound, causing him to groan. "Ready?" Loki nods his head in response and Rhi focuses on taking her magic and pushing it into Loki.
But instead of seeing the orange color of her magic energy, she sees the yellow energy of the mind stone taking over her body.
Interesting...
She focuses harder to keep pushing the energy into him and can feel Loki's energy getting stronger and the wound is starting to close.
"Just...a little...more..." She says breathlessly as she starts to feel herself getting weaker. "There."
With the wound completely closed she leans back against the wall to try and catch her breath and turns her head towards Loki. "You know...normally...one says, thank you...when..." Too weak to finish her sentence, Rhi ends up passing out from exhaustion.
* * *
A few hours later, Rhi wakes up in her bed instead of the bathroom floor.
"Well, it's about time."
She sits up and is taken back a bit when she notices Loki sitting at her desk and reading a book.
"You're still here?"
"Obviously."
"I figured you'd be long gone by now."
Loki closes the book he was reading and places it back on her desk while clearing his throat. "Yes well...I needed to...rest for a bit before I took off."
"And you carried me to my bed after I passed out?"
"I was just simply returning the favor."
"Thanks. I guess that makes us even now."
Loki nods his head, stands up, and starts walking towards the door. That's when Rhi noticed he still looked pretty worn down and was also still wearing his torn, blood covered armor from earlier.
"There's no rush." She says as Loki stops and looks at her a bit surprised. "You're more than welcome to clean up a bit first, and maybe have a bite to eat, if you'd like."
Loki stares at Rhi and thinks to himself for a moment. "Alright."
"I'll go grab you some clothes to change into and then make us some food." Rhi says and then heads out of her room to give Loki some privacy.
Since Steve was the closest to him in size, Rhi runs up to his room to grab some clothes for Loki to change into and places them on the bed in her room. After that she goes to the kitchen to prepare some food for the pair of them.
As she's plating the food, she notices Loki leaning against the wall watching her.
"What?"
Loki doesn't say anything and walks over to the table to sit. Rhi brings a plate of food for each of them along with a couple of cans of soda. Loki suspiciously eyes the plate as Rhi starts eating.
"Now what?"
"What...is this exactly?"
"Grilled cheese. Try it." She says with a smile.
Loki cautiously takes a bite. "Well it's nothing compared to the food on Asgard, but I'll admit it's not entirely bad."
They continue the rest of their meal in silence. When they're done Rhi pulls out a bottle of wine she had tucked away and two glasses.
"Technically...I'm not suppose to be drinking yet." She walks over and hands him a glass. "But I think we could both use a glass. Want some?"
"Yes, thank you." He takes the glass she poured for him and takes a sip. "You're not allowed to drink?"
"Legal drinking age is here is 21 and I'm only 20." Rhi takes a big sip. "I stole this bottle from Dad's bar. He's more of a bourbon and whiskey guy so he won't miss one bottle."
"Only one bottle?" Loki gives her a knowing look.
"Ok ok, maybe I have a couple more in the cabinet. Besides it's only for the taste, the alcohol doesn't really effect me."
"Ah yes. Similar to Asgardians, Light elves generally tend to have a high tolerance for alcohol."
Rhi practically chokes on her wine. "How did you know?"
"I could feel it in your magic when you were healing me. That, and I caught a glimpse of your ears after you passed out."
"Oh." Rhi says as she checks to make sure her ears weren't sticking out too much.
"I thought, Stark was your father."
"He is." Loki eyes her suspiciously when she says this. "I'll explain here in bit. But first, you have to answer some of my questions." She sets down her glass. "For starters, how did you end up in my bathroom?"
Loki takes another drink of his wine. "It's a long story."
Rhi crosses her arms. "We have all night."
"Right. Well, this whole mess started when Thor brought a midgardian named Jane to Asgard, claiming that her body absorbed a dark matter energy known as the Aether."
Aether...why does that sounds familiar?
"When her body absorbed it, she became like a beacon, signaling out to the universe of its presence. This caused the dark elves to invade Asgard and..."
"Did you say dark elves!?"
"Yes. Their leader Malekith-"
"Malekith!?" Rhi thinks back to what her Mom.
"How do you know about him?"
She takes a deep breath. "He's the reason why my mom left Alfheim. He tried to kill her when she wouldn't marry him."
Realization hits Loki. "Your mother was the Queen of the Light Elves."
"Yeah. How..."
"I've done a little reading about Alfheim and it's history."
"There's more." She proceeds to tell him about everything her mom told her in her vision.
"Well that explains why my scepter didn't work on you." Loki pauses for a moment to think. "It still doesn't explain why the mind stone reacted the way it did."
"Your guess is as good as mine." She pours herself more wine. "Anyways. Please continue."
"Ah yes. The dark elves invaded Asgard to kill Jane and take the Aether. They didn't succeed, however..." Loki pauses to take a deep breath. "My mother, Frigga, was killed."
"Loki..." Rhi leans in to comfort him but he pulls away.
"I don't need your pity."
Rhi wanted to snap back at him, but she knew that wouldn't do any good. So instead she takes a deep breath and continues, making sure to speak softly. "I didn't mean to offend you, just...I know what it's like to lose someone."
Loki doesn't say anything and nods his head in acknowledgment. She could sense that there was something he was holding back about his mothers death that made him feel guilty. "Hey..." She was about to ask more about Frigga's death, but chose not to for the mean time.
"Here, let's grab this wine and go sit over there." She says as she stands up and leads him over to the living room area where they sit on opposite ends of the couch. Loki still silently lost in his thoughts, so Rhi decides to continue.
"When my mom died, I felt like it was my fault since I was the one driving." She pauses for a moment to take a deep breath as Loki looks up at her.
"We were driving past a construction area, when out of no where, one of the trucks backed onto the highway. I slammed on the brakes, but...it was already too late. We crashed head on and the impact caused the car to spin out and plunge into the Hudson River. I blacked out and woke up some time later in the hospital. The doctors where amazed that I was able to walk away without a single scratch on me. My mom on the other hand..."
Rhi pauses for a moment to blink back some of the tears that were starting to form in her eyes before continuing.
"At the time I didn't understand how she died and I was able to walk away totally unscathed. But, it's pretty clear now, that she used the last bit of energy she had to save me."
"What happened to the truck driver?"
"I heard he went to jail for involuntary manslaughter and walked away from the accident with only a couple of scrapes and bruises." She says unable to hold back any tears now.
"I could kill him if you'd like." Loki says jokingly but with a tone of seriousness, earning him a small chuckle from Rhiannon.
"Thanks, but no."
"Suit yourself."
After a few minutes of silence, Loki continues with his story. "Since they were unsuccessful with retrieving the Aether, the dark elves retreated back to Svartalfheim. Thor wanted to go after them and find a to way to get the Aether out of Jane because it was killing her, however, Odin forbid it and shut down access to the bifrost.
"In a desperate attempt, Thor came to me and offered to break me out of the dungeons and a chance at revenge against Kurse, the beast that killed Frigga. In exchange, I'd help him sneak out of Asgard, get the Aether out of Jane, and defeat Malekith. It was a sound plan, but I had a far better one in the works.
"At some point during the altercation, I was going to fake my death using an illusion. Then, once I was believed to be dead, I was going to sneak back into Asgard and with a different illusion over myself as Odin and take over the throne."
Rhi chuckles. "Clearly that didn't work. So, when did shit hit the fan?" Loki gives her a confused look so she clarifies. "When did things go wrong?"
"Right. During the fight, I grabbed a long sword and stabbed Kurse through the chest from behind. However, I wasn't expecting it to turn around and pull me onto the sword as well.
"I still faked my death in the hopes of continuing my plan. I tried to heal myself after Thor and Jane took off. However, the illusion of my fake death, took more energy than I thought so I didn't have enough left to heal myself."
"So how exactly did you end up in my bathroom?"
"Normally, the easiest and fastest way to travel between realms is the Bifrost. The only way to access it is to ask the gatekeeper of Asgard. However, sometimes you can find hidden portals that are capable of said travel. I found quite a few of them in various places back on Asgard.
"The only portals I was aware of on Svartalfheim, was the one that would take me back to Asgard or the one that Thor and Jane went through that was only there to begin with because of the convergence, and I very well couldn't use either of those."
Rhi gives him a confused look. "The convergence?"
"It's a cosmic event that happens every 5000 years or so where nine realms come into alignment. It causes the boundaries between the realms to be very thin, therefore travel between them is more attainable. However, since I'm not very well liked across the nine realms..."
"Gee, I wonder why."
Loki shoots her a glare before continuing. "As I was saying, I really only had two options. Go to Asgard, get healed there, and spend the rest of my life in the dungeons. Or, take advantage of the convergence and teleport to you on Midgard."
"I'm honored." Rhi says sarcastically. "How were you able to find me? Or, better yet, what made you think I would even help you?"
"Call it...a hunch." He says as he winks at her.
"Right..." Rhi says as she eyes him suspiciously. "You know, I think I felt when you were stabbed."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I was in the lab, when out of nowhere it felt like someone had stabbed me in the chest."
"Fascinating."
"It wasn't exactly the most pleasant feeling. So if you could avoid getting stabbed or severely injured again, I would appreciate it."
Loki chuckles at her request. "I'll try to keep that in mind."
"So what happened to Malekith? Is he...dead?"
"Yes."
"Good. One less thing to worry about now." Rhi says as she let's out a sign of relief. "Anyways, since "Plan A" to rule over Asgard and the nine realms didn't work, what's "Plan B"?"
Loki thinks to himself for a moment. "For once, I have no idea. I can't use the Bifrost, and even if there were any portals here, Midgard is so massive that it would take ages for me to find one."
Both of them sit there in silence thinking for a moment until Rhi comes up with an idea.
"Well since you don't really have anywhere else to go...you can stay here for a bit. My floor has an extra bedroom that you can use."
"I don't think that's a good idea."
"Think about it for a second. Everyone in Asgard thinks you're dead, so they're not going to be looking for you. Plus, no one on Earth knows you're here, nor would they ever suspect that you would be staying in the tower."
Loki takes a moment to think it over. As he's thinking Rhi continues. "At least stay the night so you can rest a little more. You could use it after the day you had."
Loki nods in agreement so she gets up to show him where the extra room is.
"Ok, here's your room. There's no bathroom in here, but it's right there, across the hall."
Right as she is about to shut the door, Loki calls for her. "Rhiannon?"
"What's up?"
"Why are you helping me?"
Rhi walks back into the room and sits on the bed next to Loki. "If I'm being honest, I'm not really sure. I guess part of me feels like I should." She pauses as she feels her face starting to blush a bit. "Another part of me does genuinely care for you, and part of me thinks you deserve a second chance.
"And what makes you think that?"
"Like I said during our encounter last year. Ruling with an iron fist isn't what you wanted, at least not really."
"You don't know me nor what I want." Loki says through gritted teeth.
"You're right, but I know you regret it...I could feel it and I could see it...in your eyes." Loki gives Rhi a confused look so she continues so she can clarify.
"When I first saw you, your eyes were bright blue, like the stone in your scepter, and full of rage. They changed, after the mind stone blasted us, to more of a blue-ish green, like they are now, and filled with sadness, regret, and fear." Rhi pauses for a moment. "The scepter...it had some sort of influence over you, didn't it?"
"It's a bit more complicated than that, but yes."
"I think I can handle complicated."
"You wouldn't understand."
Rhi places a comforting hand on Loki's shoulder. "Then tell me, so I can."
"No!"
"Why not?"
"Because, it doesn't matter!" Loki says as he gets up and walks towards the window.
"It does matter!" Rhi gets up and walks over towards him. "If the scepter was controlling you, then that means your not totally at fault and..." She cuts herself off as she thinks back to something he has told her during their first encounter.
"Sadly, what's done is done and I must go and hold up my end of the bargain."
"The bargain..." She pauses as she notices that Loki suddenly tensed up. "Who gave you the scepter?" He doesn't answer. "Loki-"
He cuts her off. "If you don't mind, I'd like to get some rest."
"Fine." Rhi knows there's more that happened, but she choses not to push it for now and gets up to head to her room. "Good night, Loki."
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