After Loki falls from the Bifrost (in "Thor"), with his last burst of magic he opens a portal to the last place he had sent himself to - Earth/Midgard. The events in "Avengers" have not taken place. He is still believed to be dead by Thor, Odin and all the other Asgardians.

This is a Loki/Mystique (aka. Raven) pairing, which I have affectionately dubbed MYSTOKI. (pronounced mist-oki)

It's not just that they're both blue.

They've both been rejected, thought themselves hideous, hidden their true forms away from the world. They have both become estranged from their adoptive older brothers (Thor and Charles Xavier). They both see "normal" people (Mortal or Non-mutants) as below them and want revenge. They both are immortal, and they both can shape shift. BUT, while Mystique has come to terms with her true appearance, Loki has not. She might be just the push he needs.

At this point in time, this is a Oneshot.

An abyss.

There was no sense of time, no reality, no feeling.

He had no name, no face, no past and no future.

In what direction was he spinning?

Was he falling, rising or floating? Was he moving at all?

How long had it been? An hour, a day, a year or a moment?

Is darkness still darkness when light does not exist?

There was a flash. A flash of brightness, of pain –yes, he remembered pain- and of consciousness.

There was light and then, there was only darkness.

******LOKI******

Pain. It radiated from his every pore. He gasped and coughed out a lungful of dust. He shuddered, painstakingly drawing his body out of the fissure in which he inhabited. His arms shook and he could not even find the strength to halt them. He pulled himself out of the crevice, and his limbs buckled underneath him. He laid his back down in the dirt, inhaling shakily. He was drained. Never before had his magic come so close to forsaking him entirely such as it was now. He could feel his body starting to cool, not with death but with something he found far more monstrous. He fought to keep the illusion from collapsing.

"Who are you?"

His breath caught and he shot straight up, repressing a wince. He glared at the mortal who had dared to approach him in his weakened state.

"I beg your pardon?" His lip curled. He glanced at the mortal woman, appraising her and finding himself, unsurprisingly, less than impressed. She was of small stature, with limp brown hair down to her shoulders and dull blue eyes that were now staring right at him. Who was this little woman to think she could meet his gaze with so little hesitance?

Her eyes narrowed. "I am not a fool. No 'Normal' could have survived that fall, now I ask again, who are you?"

"Normal?" He started laughing, almost hysterically. He was not normal, not anywhere! Too small for Jötunheim, too ambitious for Midgard and too Loki for Asgard. Of course he wasn't normal!

"Oh my dear mortal child, how right you are." A maniacal grin stretched across his face. "There is nothing you could ever consider normal about one such as me. I am, what you could call, unique."

To his slight, only slight, surprise she seemed relatively unimpressed. "We are all 'unique' around here. Best not let it get to your head or I'll have to put a bullet through it like I did the last jerk who thought he was more special than the rest of us."

"Oh my dear, sweet, ignorant girl, you could not harm me even with all the strength in that fragile little body of yours if you tried."

He was now on the receiving end of a deadly glare that he almost wanted to flinch from. "Appearances can be deceiving."

He scoffed, "Yes, that I have heard. But I am the master, the king of deception, and no soul in the Nine Realms can deceive me."

Her gaze dropped to his chest. "You're weak from the fall-"

"I am not weak!"

"-and your appearance is flickering. You are a shapeshifter?" Her eyes held an interest.

"…Yes" He reluctantly hissed out with gritted teeth.

"Turn into your true form, you do not have the strength to hold a transformation. I will take you to Erik."

"I will most certainly not!" The nerve of this chit! And who in Helheim was this 'Erik'?

Her patience had officially reached its end. "Because if you do not do so willingly then you will continue to suffer exhaustion until your body finally betrays you and you change anyway. Do not be such a child, you have no reason to fear the transformation. We will not report your identity to outsiders here."

His already fragile hold on reality snapped. "No reason? No reason? I am a monster! I am the very creature of nightmares, and you do not wish to look upon it for it shall haunt you for the rest of your pathetic mortal existence. Leave me be or I swear that I shall give you something to truly fear."

Her breath caught in her throat and she desperately fought against the flashback his words had provoked.

She hopped out of bed, rubbed her eyes and yawned, making her way down the stairs to the kitchen.

"Momma, can I have-"

"Ahhhhh!" Her mother let out a scream of terror and dropped a plate, causing it to smash into a hundred pieces on the floor.

"Momma? Are you ok?" She took a step towards her frightened mother.

"No! No! S-stay away!" The woman stumbled backwards, uncaring of the shards of pottery slicing her bare feet as she stood shaking behind the table.

"M-mommy?"

"NO!" She dropped to the ground and curled up into a protective ball. "What is happening, what is happening…monster, a monster! Leave me alone, go away, don't hurt me, please!" She sobbed. "Please, please don't hurt me."

She heard her father coming down the stairs, sounding alarmed. "Anna? Anna what's wrong?"

"JOHN! JOHN GET IT AWAY!"

She turned and saw her father halt in the doorway, glancing first at her mother before coming to stare at her with a hung jaw. His hands balled into fists by his side and his mouth moved, unable to form words.

"…W-what…"

"Daddy!" She was crying now, she didn't know what was happening. "Daddy something is wrong with Momma."

He sucked in a sharp breath, eyes narrowing. "You…WHAT ARE YOU?"

She jumped in shock at his sudden yell. Why, why was he angry at her? Why was Momma afraid? "D-daddy?"

"DO NOT CALL ME THAT YOU - YOU MONSTER!"

She was shaking in fear now, taking tiny steps away from him. She didn't understand, did she do something bad?

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH OUR DAUGHTER?" He roared.

"N-nothing! I'm m-me Daddy!"

Her mother let out a strangled, wailing cry. Her father was now in a rage.

"DO NOT LIE TO ME! YOU VILE DEMON!" He grabbed her mother's cake knife from the bench and lunged at her. She tried to run out of the house, but she was not fast enough.

As she lay there bleeding, she noticed for the first time that her arm…was blue…

She pulled herself back to the present. "Do not think I scare so easily as my closed-minded counterparts."

He was now crouched over, almost touching the ground. He could feel his strength failing, and so tried one last time to hide the monstrosity.

"You will regret it."

"Try me."

He let out a resigned sigh of rare defeat and allowed the change with a shudder of sickened relief. He immediately tensed, waiting for the reaction. Not that he cared what some petty little midgardian thought. He just…was too tired to deal with any hysterics.

He heard a shocked gasp and smiled bitterly.

"Yes, I told you it was horrifying, did I not? Had you taken my advice earlier you would have spared yourself the sight. Now leave, I will not follow. I have no interest in you."

"NO!" She put a hand over her mouth. "I am just…surprised."

He tsked angrily and turned his head away.

"No, really. You are…stunning."

"I am repulsive."

"You have nothing to be ashamed of!" Her voice was filled with a passion that took him aback. "You do not need to hide your true form behind some pathetic mask of normality! It will only hinder you! I once allowed the opinions of another to dictate my appearance and never have I felt so free as the first time I relished in my own skin."

He looked her up and down doubtfully. "Oh yes, and how positively out of the ordinary you seem."

She ignored the obvious sarcasm, and felt her skin prickle delightfully as she shed her previous skin and returned to her own bare form.

Loki's eyes went alarmingly wide. "You…"

Her skin was like the deepest oceans of Asgard, such a shade of blue that was not found even on Jötunheim. It was darker than his own, more appealing. Where he had slightly darker, raised markings claiming him as one of royal Jötun blood, she had patches of an almost dragon scale-like texture, just barely covering her modesty. Though, given the fact that she wore no clothing, nothing was left up to the imagination. Her eyes, unlike his own crimson stare, were a warm yellow, almost a golden shade that reminded him painfully of the Throne of Asgard. Her hair, now shortened to reach only the back of her neck, was a deep, burnt orange, almost red, and was slicked back to frame her face.

She smiled ever so slightly. "Me?"

Her voice had a ringing quality, which he did not find altogether unpleasant.

"Now," she began, and he suddenly had the ridiculous urge to close his eyes and just listen to her speak, "Are you going to tell me who you are?"

Well…He couldn't see the harm in it. "My name is Loki."

He was rewarded with a smile.

"My name is Mystique."

Mystique…Yes, he found he quite liked that name.

In X-men, Mystique reveals that her family tried to kill her because they thought she was a monster, so I didn't totally make that part up ^_^

Also, for those who have not seen X MEN: First Class, she lived with Charles Xavier as a sister since she was young, until finally she left him to join Erik/Magneto because he told her that she was beautiful, while Charles always told her to hide her true form.