A/N: Wow! Oh my gosh, just an hour after posting I got a first review. Next day, there's five more, and the next, two more appeared, and some more afterwards! Thank you guys, I appreciate the support of this story. I wasn't expecting for a reaction this quick! Just wow! I got a question from a reviewer about OC!Loki (as I will dub her), and to answer that question: read and find out. Trust me Provi (can I call you that?), you will not be disappointed. When I do things, I like to think that I would elaborate all the way of character development and the people surrounding them throughout the protagonist's (antagonist?) journey.

Sorry I took this long to update, I had been vacationing in the UK with my dad and siblings. It was a fantastic places, despite the rain and bleakness, but the tour was wonder, our guide kept us happy, our driver was the BOSS of the skinny streets with the big bus, and tea was actually quite delicious! Also~!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Okay, to do a quick recap for anyone who read the warning in the first chapter regarding a TRIGGER and skipped to the next chapter, here's what's happened so far:

The protagonist was studying for finals while her friends and acquaintances were talking about the Marvel movies when they were attacked by a shooter on campus. Unfortunately, the protagonist died—and woke up, in a cold place. She is then found by a strange, old man who is later identified to be Odin after he had called her Loki. She breaks down.

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THE AVENGERS

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guardian

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Here was the one cold fact that would haunt me for a long time.

I was dead. Was being the biggest key word in that short, simple sentence.

I was dead, and now, I was... I was somewhere else where I shouldn't be. Could not be.

Because the truth was, as outlandish and impossible as it sounded, I was in Asgard.

Norse mythology wasn't exactly a common belief that people followed—not for nearly thousands of years, at least—but it was a common folklore that came from Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and few other places I couldn't actually recall very well. Basically, the vikings conjured up weird ideas about the gods that overlooked them when in battle as they conquered, pillaged, and raped their way through other countries in search of glory and treasures. The closest I actually formed any interest with Norse mythology was the epic of Beowulf... and watching Antonio Banderas kick ass with the Nordic bunch. The mythology also drew inspiration for J. R. R. Tolkien to create his wonderful and quite famous books known as The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and other works of his regarding Middle-Earth.

Norse legends wasn't known well to most of the populace, but people have heard of it. Just not the old-school story that only people studying specifically for, but rather a version of it that served as a media entertainment on paper or screen.

Marvel's version of Asgard.

Weeks after I arrived into the new world, I was exposed to much more than what was seen from a television screen. There was more to the golden city that erected spire-like towers that towered above all, the entire kingdom looking more like a futuristic city with its flying ships and turret guns stationed on high walls, and the people that dressed themselves like said legends but with materials that was otherworldly and unlike anything that I was familiar with back Home: it was mind-boggling. The sky looked like in a constant twilight, brightening up and then dimming some, and I wondered now and then if they had found a way to control the light hours of their world. I had an inkling, what with the vast superior technology that they prided themselves in having, that they probably could.

After all, Tony Stark did speculate whether or not if there was something encoded in Mjorlnir to create thunderstorms as Thor willed it.

Back to the point at hand. I had died, but then I was revived and stuck within the fleshy confines of an infant. And not just any infant, no.

I was reborn as Loki, the abandoned babe from Jotunheim whom Odin, the All-Father, had taken under his wing in the attempts to unite the warring kingdoms one day. A hysterical part of me found it absolutely laughable that the rebirth cycle, a Hindu concept, landed me in the Norse paganism. Quite ironic considering I grew up in a Christian household (a religion that grew and expanded, destroying any paganism in its path).

I had been reduced to frustrated and frightened tears from all this. It was crazy enough to discover that you had died and been reborn anew, but it a whole different level of ludicrous when discovering you were reborn as a fictional character you've only heard, read, and seen in stories and television screens.

I wasn't me anymore, as much I wanted to pretend; I was Loki now.

And Loki was me.

It took a while before I noticed something was off.

My only excuse was that I was too busy wallowing in my identity-crisis and futile denial of this new reality I was living in. From clear memory, the story went that baby Loki had been discovered by Odin, abandoned for being small and weak, when the Asgardian King had captured the Frost Giant's weapon: The Casket of Ancient Winters. From then on, it was seen that Loki grew up in the palace alongside his adopted brother, brought up to be a prince.

... so why did it feel like I was placed inside what looked to be a very advanced-looking but common nursery rather than one of those large rooms I had seen in the movies?

Not once did I see a familiar shine of silver-golden armor of the old man, nor was I ever introduced to the Queen of Asgard and a certain little God of Thunder...

What did this mean? Had something changed? It's been a month and still there was no signs of them coming back for me. My questions and concerns of this could only bounce inside my head, unanswered.

Her name was Dagny. I think.

She was my guardian, care-taker, and surrogate mother all at once.

Looking between nineteen and twenty-four (but let's be honest, she could be a thousand years old, you can never tell with Asgardians), she was assigned to look after the child of the enemy her kind had warred against. I was wary and scared of her at first, wondering once again how most people had truly viewed of the adopted prince before his downfall. Just how many people even knew that he was a Frost Giant? Was this like a Naruto thing where the King ordered that everyone shut their mouths up or find their throats slit open if they so much as breathed the words Frost Giant in the same sentence as Loki's name?

Seeing as this wasn't Frigga or any of her own handmaidens looking after me, I was in this woman's mercy for whatever wrath she had against a vulnerable resident of Jotunheim. A baby couldn't do anything but lie there and gurgle.

When she fed me, I was afraid that the food was poisoned and it would result in having my innards melting away or something just as horrific. Thankfully, nothing of the gruesome sort happened, in fact, I found that I liked Asgardian baby food than whatever Baby Gerber brand cooked up, it felt like being fed some sort of yogurt. Easy, nutritious, and just plain delicious to boot.

When she bathed me, that was when I was truly afraid. I whimpered when she lowered me inside a wide bathing tub, not like the porcelain ones from back Home, but it was big enough to fit an infant. And it deep to reach Dagny's elbows. It could be simple, to fill enough water to the brim of the tub that I could watch through the water surface as the nursemaid watched me drown in the bath.

Death by drowning was one sort of torture I could truly do without. The choking and inhaling of water as if fill your lungs while your trying to hack it out, it was an experience I never wanted to go through. Dagny, seeing my whimpering and fearful sobbing, was always quick to go through with the bathing process, murmuring sweet nothings as she did so before finally lifting me away and tucking me in the warmth of a towel.

Simple things like being near when she was cooking a hot pot of soup where it could tip over and spill on me, close range of her incisors when she cut the weeds out of the growing flowers of her little garden, and putting me in an overly soft cradle that the cushions would sink too deep that it would smother me made me cautious of every little thing she did. But over time, when nothing happened (spontaneous combustion from eating food, drowning in a tub, smothered by baby pillows, ect.), I finally came to the conclusion that Dagny was not the bad guy here.

She was just a girl doing her job by looking after me. Either Odin had promised her reward for her cooperation in raising me, or there was something I was completely missing.

Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, and well, nothing more but growing up (which was utterly dreadful, I couldn't wait to grow up (again).

I was treated simply as a baby, a foreign baby that housed the soul of an unsure young woman who still had some doubts of where she stood (and thinking of the people left behind). My body grew stronger as time went on, no longer fearing having to lie down in bath tubs when I could simply sit up when doused with warm water. My gums swelling until little milk teeth grew out of them, it was so great to have some teeth back.

My arms and legs carrying me as I crawled about on the furs and rugs spread in the small home, my curiosity growing as I explored the world. Dagny never too far, a smile a shine in her eyes as she watched me with an expression of fondness.

Things were different, and I would probably never get used to it, but this was okay.

Loki hadn't known, but I knew everything. He was angry and jealous of Thor, but I wasn't with Thor, so I wouldn't be bothered much about him.

I was going to make sure that I, Loki, would be okay.

That idea, however, was shattered. I was once again reminded of how such a simple evening could turn into a disaster the next minute when you least expected it.

-...-

It was nearly two weeks after my first birthday (well, what I suspected a birthday as Dagny had done nothing but cooked, sang, and played little games for me than I had ever seen her do few days at time), and I was in the midst of walking on my own two feet. It had been a glorifying triumph for me when I had took my first step without the aid of some hard surface to lean against when my body dangerously wobbled in the signs that I wasn't ready.

But I succeeded.

It was quite an eye-opening experience to know that all the stuff I had taken for granted was now slowly gained back with my efforts of re-learning how to do things I had normally done when I had been an adult. It was quite the liberating feeling, too, when I could finally go beyond just crawling around the crib, I could finally pull myself out (which was a pretty herculean task considering I was nothing but baby fat) and walk around the nursery room.

That was what probably saved my life.

Having waddled my way to Dagny's chair (the one where she would sit when she was sewing me clothes or reading me books I still couldn't make out, despite my tries to learn her language), I was mostly hidden away when I heard the ominous creaking of the door being pushed open. Dagny ever rarely visited me in the nights, I was mostly a quiet baby that didn't make much of a fuss unless I was really hungry or I made a mess of myself (I was a baby, I didn't have much control, yet). I looked beyond the arm of the chair—and froze.

Entering my room, dressed in dark clothes with a hood covering their face, a stranger quietly strode for the crib where I should have been. As they went closer, a glimmer of light caught by one of the many moons that loomed over Asgard caught my attention.

A dagger.

They were holding a fucking dagger in their gloved hand, and they were looking for me.

My body was once again hit with the fear that I had felt when I saw a person walking across campus, shooting and killing anything that moved. I was running, but then I was dragged by Stacie as she pulled me, the stupid girl never letting go despite the threat of being shot herself. But I loved her. I loved that she did not leave me to die alone.

And right now, I was going to die. Alone.

In my fear and panicked state of mind, I hurried towards the door, my feet clumsily pounding on the floor as I tried to escape. My spine shot up with quakes of chills when I heard cloth moving, the soft footsteps hurrying towards my direction with every intent to kill me.

Beyond scared, I let out a shriek.

It was shrill as a baby's wail, but the twisted fear that mingled made it more hair-raising than any scream you would usually hear when watching a horror film. I was going to die again, I could practically feel this person gaining on me quickly, their clawed hands reaching out to grab me and thing plunge their shiny knife inside my gut. Because I was inside the confines of a clumsy baby who was in the works of learning how to walk that running was still a feat I couldn't perform, my clumsy feet tripped over the many rugs that was scattered across the home.

That had saved me from the swipe of air I felt from over my head.

Against my will, my head looked back to find the insidious cloaked individual standing over my defenseless form, their body crouching over me with the dagger raised for the plunge. I let out another scream, tears and mucus blurring together as I watched my life snuffed out once more, helpless and defenseless just like Before—

"Loki!"

A blur of golden-brown flew, slamming against the dark and blackness that threatened to engulf me.

Dagny, small and young Dagny, sweet and loving Dagny, was pummeling the shit out of the hooded intruder that almost killed me. Her thin and small hands bashing and bashing against the person's head and chest, ignoring the gloved hands that yanked at her long, blond hair and her sleepwear. I saw splatters of blood, no doubt from the frenzy slicing of the air, but Dagny kept giving a punishing beat-down on my attempted murderer.

I crawled, feeling smaller and less triumphant than I had a few minutes ago (or a lifetime ago, it seemed). Hiding under the table, I watched as Dagny was thrown off, rolling across the floor before shooting up at the same time the other darker one had. They circled each other, and their voices began to hiss at one another.

A woman. There was another woman, and she sounded older and sinister with the way she talked. She sounded like she spat a few words, and while I couldn't understand an inkling of what they were saying, a part of me knew that I was the topic of their argument.

I startled when Dagny gave a war cry and charged, but she was immediately thrown away by the other woman dressed in black. I watched the young nursemaid crumble against the shelves lining the hallways, books and trinkets colliding against her as she fell into a heap on the floor. I scampered further under the table when I saw the cloaked woman approach me, letting out another pathetic squeal of fright. I swore I felt my blood drain when the woman snatched me by my small, chubby arm and ruthlessly dragged me out from underneath and straight up high into the air.

For the first time, the hood was off (probably having been ripped off when Dagny was beating the shit of her earlier), and I was exposed to the woman's terrifying features that were molded into fury and hate that pointed towards me.

I had known, I remembered thinking, that there had to have been people who knew that Odin had adopted a Frost Giant child into his realm, and I knew that there had to have been some that disagreed... but to face that fury and opposition directly... my mind was reduced to a blank made up of nothing but hysterical fear.

Once again, she raised her dagger—and struck it towards me.

There was a scream, the sound of flesh being torn, and a body dropping to the floor with a pained squeak.

I stared up, my eyes could only stare and do nothing. Too shocked to do anything, really. The thick scent of copper filled the air like a tangent cologne, a smell I started to hate over time. It was a smell that followed me in my dreams that reminded me of the fear, helplessness, and the inevitability of a bad situation. The blood that dripped pooled all around me, staining my once clean face in red raindrops and turning my pure white sleepwear into a bloody polka dot dress.

This was not my blood.

Above me, my eyes took in the long sword that protruded from the now silent woman who choked on her own blood. She stared down at the blade with wide eyes, eyes with familiar terror as my own, and she let out a gargled noise when it was quickly removed from out behind her. Immediately, she crumpled to the floor like a puppet having their strings cut. Behind her, there stood an armored man holding a bloody sword while staring down at the dead woman.

I flinched when I felt my body hauled into the air before being crushed into a tight hug.

"Loki! Loki!" lips pressed against my forehead, I turned my head away and buried it against her neck.

Dagny... Dagny.

I was alive.