I was hired as a long-term sub and then as a real art teacher, so my personal life is officially nonexistent now. My projects are slowly updating on here. Bear with me.

If you want Caleigh's orange chicken recipe, let me know.

Chapter 4

The process of making dinner was a welcome distraction for Loki. The only conversation consisted of directions or explanations of the food and the thought process that brought her to the decision (all foods essential to replacing his lost blood, apparently), and a minor mention of her job that he made note to have her elaborate more on later.

The pan of sauce he had been stirring not long ago left the apartment smelling delightfully citrusy, and earned him more mild embarrassment at the antics of his mostly empty stomach. Caleigh assured him the food was nearly ready as she turned to toss a few greens together in a bowl.

Though his arm still ached, his headache had all but gone, which had prompted him to insist he have at least some part in making the food he was to partake in. Caleigh was quite firm that his role remain small, however, which had relegated him to stirring sauce and then setting the table with an odd assortment of place sets.

"Gifts," was her answer when she noticed the look he was giving the plate in his hand. A stylized wolf stared back at him.

All of her dishware was mismatched.

In the end, the wolf plate had ended up at his seat while Caleigh received one with a wrongly-colored tree and an equally strange bird perched on it. She at least had glasses for the mead, though quite a bit smaller than he was used to. He was not sure how anyone could be satisfied with the amount of alcohol that could fit in a glass no bigger than his own hand.

They had quietly fallen into a comfortable silence for a span of time, until an alarm sounded from the stove, surprising Loki but merely alerting the woman who was expecting it.

"Food's ready."

He made to stand, but was met with a gesture to remain seated. For a moment he contemplated being persistent about it, and then thought better of it and simply sighed.

"Are you ever going to let me help?"

"I did," she reminded him. He was not sure stirring sauce and setting place sets counted for much in the way of helping, but it was apparently enough for her.

"It hardly seems fair for you to be serving me when you have done more than enough to assist me as it is."

"Who said anything about trying to be fair?"

He gave her a long look as she collected his plate and proceeded to dish a generous helping onto it.

"Loki, I enjoy hosting people," she eventually continued, "and I haven't been able to host anyone for some time. Be a proper guest and simply thank me for my fantastic cooking skills."

"I am far from a proper guest."

"True," she shrugged, finishing off his plate and placing it back in front of him to fill her own. "You did break into my apartment at four in the morning and lead a bunch of would-be do-gooders into my bedroom while I was half-dressed. That's hardly proper guest behavior."

"Well, you did leave the door unlocked," he noted with amusement.

"Oh, so it's my fault?" she laughed light-heartedly.

"I do apologize for that," he quickly added on a more sober note. Though she appeared to find the situation more amusing than something to be angry about, he realized he had never formally apologized for putting her in the situation he did. "Had it not been, however, I fear those who were chasing me would have left me with much more than a wounded arm. I truly am grateful that it was your home I found shelter in."

And that it was her specifically who occupied the home. The odds of barreling into the apartment of a mortal sympathetic to at least his continued existence, in the very city in which he had opened the gateway, should have been zero. That he defied those odds left him somewhat humbled. He really had been lucky.

"Well, being a grateful fugitive is good, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm hosting a guest and enjoying cooking a meal for someone other than myself. I haven't put this much effort into dinner since I moved here."

"I would think meals require some effort, even for one," he noted.

"Not with fast food restaurants around. I keep stopping into this Shawarma place after work. My order is ready in five minutes or less, which really beats having to cook things myself, not to mention it's cheap."

"Shawarma?"

"It's a way to prepare meat, and it's delicious," she explained, placing her plate down and moving to fill their respective glasses with water from a container she removed from the fridge. "Fast food is one of the most convenient things about this world. It's rather impressive, though not always healthy. I take it you didn't try any during your last stay here?"

"I wasn't exactly here to sightsee," he gently reminded her.

"You should take the time to while you're serving your banishment," she suggested. "There are things mortals have created that you won't see anywhere else."

"I do not mean to offend, but this realm is rather young," he explained. "Compared to others I have traveled to, there is very little of interest to me here."

"Says the man who tried to take it over."

He smiled wryly, conceding that point.

"You might find yourself surprised, though," she continued. "Mortals are creative, even if they are comparatively young. Every realm has its unique wonders, no? I doubt you will find this one to be an exception simply because its inhabitants are mortals."

He wondered about that, holding her gaze for a moment before shrugging lightly and replying, "I suppose you have a point."

"Of course I have a point," she smiled. "Now dig in – the chicken's going to get cold."

"...No mead yet?" He tried not to sound disappointed, but he had been looking forward to it more than he had first realized.

"I'd be irresponsible if I gave you alcohol before ensuring you have actual food and water in your system," she explained. "Mortal bodies are much more susceptible to its effects, especially on an empty stomach and while recovering from bloodloss, not to mention the fact that the medicine you took shouldn't be mixed with alcohol."

"So food first."

"Food first."

Caleigh had moments that reminded him strongly of Frigga, and yet not of the woman he called his mother all the same. The exchange they had just had about Midgard was another. She was nudging him toward an understanding, gently explaining in a way that was not forceful, but commanding nonetheless. She wanted him to see that her people were worth something. She wanted him to consider the various factors that made the realm unique, and how its inhabitants lives, though so fleeting and infantile to him, were not so in their own eyes.

She was also caring, tending to his wound, staying aware of his condition, picking specific foods based on how they would help him, preventing him from making matters worse; all for apparently no reason other than the thought that he was not yet entirely lost.

It was odd and mildly disorienting to him to find a mortal he could liken the Frigga. Were there other humans like this?

Had he killed other humans like this?

He quickly forced his attention on the food in front of him, shoving the abrupt image of the woman lying dead out of his mind.

Her cooking was as good as it smelled, and Caleigh's company kept his appetite and his thoughts from skirting away from him again. Instead, he was focused on trying to discover more about his host, who he realized he knew next to nothing about. Her dwelling, with its mismatched contents and sparse decoration, gave him few clues about the woman sitting across from him. The strange familiarity he was beginning to attribute to her likeness to his mother made her even more of a mystery, and he wanted to know what made the two of them so alike. He fell finally to questions when he could not come up with a profile beyond what was obvious from her personality.

"So, what is this job of yours?" he began, assuming her work would enlighten him a little. "Anything interesting?"

"Depends on your definition of interesting," she noted with a smile. "I work for a foundation that provides relief assistance during disasters."

He paused with his glass at his lips, realizing what that should mean. Perhaps he was wrong, though, because the implication was not one he could imagine anyone overlooking, this woman especially so.

"What exactly do you do for this foundation?" he pressed after a moment.

"I started out as a volunteer for the relief effort here, just working on the cleanup and collecting personal belongings and the like, but then I started talking with the people affected by it, and a coworker of mine ended up recommending me to the mental health team."

She took a bite, entirely relaxed and seemingly ignorant of the irony unfolding before him.

After swallowing, she continued, "The mental health team focuses on counseling victims and helping them work through their grief. I mostly see people once or twice, but I have a couple cases on-call if they need to see me afterhours. It's good work. I meet a lot of wonderful and interesting people in the process of helping them."

The cup still hovered forgotten by his lips as he attempted to comprehend her response.

"...Forgive me if I missed something, but should that not give you reason abound to have turned me over to those who were pursuing me?"

"Because I'm helping the people who were hurt by you and the army you brought along?"

He nodded, continuing, "It seems a great contradiction that I should be served a meal by someone personally involved in helping those I have hurt. How do you not consider this a betrayal to your people?"

She gave him a light smile, and he found himself greatly confused by it. It was conveying something to him, but he could not understand just what it was.

"My position is a neutral one, Loki," she explained. "You are a person in need, and so I am helping you, regardless of who you are or your role in the attack. I am considering you a case, if you will."

"But how?"

"In my line of work, past simply does not matter in that regard. It is not that I agree with your actions; I just cannot use them against you. A handful of the people I have seen with my job are criminals, too, but they still need the counseling. If I refused to help a person in need based on their history, I would be breaking an oath I made."

That tone had returned, the one that made her words seem to be a Frigga-like lecture, speaking of something he needed to understand, some kind of lesson to be learned or a clue that could unravel everything before him. He could not comprehend it, though. There seemed no possible way for him to wrap his mind around the reasoning that allowed her to help him while helping his victims.

Resigned to leaving this mystery alone, he concluded, "You are quite contradictory."

"I'm consistent," she corrected him. "Helping people has always been my duty. Speaking of which, if you want mead, you'll finish that."

He looked down at the food he had forgotten the existence of. Right; eating.

After a few more bites, he shook his head again, attempting to sort through the conflicting position she held. Perhaps his many years as spy for Odin made him hyper-aware of betrayal and inconsistency that told of lies (there was more to the name Liesmith than his penchant for inviting misunderstandings, after all), and he was projecting the understandings learned through that work onto this situation. A loyal Asgardian would never have sheltered an enemy simply because helping people was their lifework.

(Then again, Odin harbored him - no wonder the reveal of his true origins had been so jarring.)

He assumed mortals would have their own sense of loyalty to their race, and they had quite well demonstrated that during the battle. Caleigh's loyalty instead lie with her occupation; in that sense, her argument that she was consistent rather than contradictory was sound. Loyalty to helping people rather than the people themselves was strange, but then so was she.

He still could not understand how her need to assist him could override the complete betrayal to her fellow mortals, though, and resigned himself to never fully comprehending such a thing. At the very least, he had learned that she took her work very seriously, and that explained a few things about her.

"Have you always lived in this city?" he continued several minutes later, wondering if she had been away at the time of the attack. Surely she would have a different opinion had she been witness to the damage firsthand.

"No," she said with a small laugh, though he was not sure what she saw amusing about it. "I moved here just over two weeks ago."

Well, that explained the lack of furnishings in her home.

"What made you want to move here, then?"

"Work," she replied simply, and stood to retrieve, to his delight, the mead from the counter. Apparently he had cleared his plate enough. She pulled the cork from the opening and poured as she continued, "I had been doing similar work in Puente Antiguo, though informally while living with a kind-hearted diner owner. After the attack occurred, I decided to come here to volunteer."

Loki mulled that over as he sipped the mead, testing its flavor. Sweeter than he was used to, but honey all the same, he found himself satisfied by the taste and the warmth it brought to him. He tipped back more.

"Don't drink too quickly," she warned him. "You'll find you can't hold as much with a mortal body."

"Duly noted."

So she had come here simply to help those in need. It seemed absurd to pick up and move to a place for the sole purpose of offering assistance, but then she had mentioned she had been living with someone at the time. Perhaps she traveled often and very lightly.

"Do you travel much?"

She shrugged.

"I go where I'm needed. Sometimes that involves traveling only a small distance, sometimes greater. In this case, I had to learn the art of hitchhiking. New Mexico is quite a ways from New York."

"Hitchhiking?" He understood the meanings of the root words, but forcing them together gave him a strange image.

"Hitching a ride to get where you're going," she explained. "You pick up rides from strangers willing to take you as far as they can before yours and their route deviate from each other. Isabel was rather worried I'd end up missing if I got picked up by the wrong type of person, but she sent me off with one of her delivery services to get me started anyway. Took me two days to get here, and then I found out the organization was paying for busing and flights for volunteers."

She rolled her eyes, and he laughed quietly at the wasted effort.

"All of that for people you have never known," he mused aloud. He sloshed around the liquid in his glass before taking another drink. "Tell me, what reason do you have for helping others in the way you do? Surely you must gain something from all of this."

"Satisfaction?" she supposed, appearing to have only just thought about it. "Happiness that someone else is made happier by you? I'm not really sure what I want to gain from it, if anything. It's my duty to help others. It's rather simple."

"You do this for no reason other than that it is your perceived duty?"

"Do you always need a reason to help someone?"

He frowned, staring at his mead before knocking back the rest of it. Caleigh tentatively refilled it, casting him a look that reminded him to take it slowly.

"…Is that how you justify helping me?" he asked after a moment. "Ignoring my past, you are helping me simply because you can?"

She chuckled slightly, shaking her head.

"Your reluctance to accept it is reason enough to continue, but no," she admitted. "I have a few reasons for taking you in."

He looked up, interest suddenly renewed.

"One of them being that I am curious about why you made the decision to invade this realm."

That was a prompt for him to explain, but he would not yet answer it. Explain to a mortal? Explain to this mortal? How could he?

It was that blasted guilt that turned his eyes back to his glass.

"New York was a poor decision," she added when he said nothing, apparently sensing his hesitation. "This place is resilient. It's a frequent target for terrorists and witnesses its share of battles, and yet despite that, the people here bounce back stronger every time. It is home to many with the power to defend it. Tony Stark, for example; you can't exactly miss that building of his. Strategically speaking, Manhattan was about the worst place you could have chosen."

He found it strange that she could speak so subjectively about the battle her own people had gone through, but it numbed something that had made him reluctant to speak. The choice of location he could explain easily enough.

"…When a grand city falls, morale goes with it. I had miscalculated their strength, however, and that last bomb crippled the Chitauri beyond anything I had anticipated."

"Nuclear missile," she corrected him in a subdued tone. "Whatever power launched it is being debated, but had it hit, there would have been nothing left of this city for miles. Tony Stark sending it through your portal saved a lot more human lives than the Chitauri might have taken."

That struck him.

"Someone intended to destroy the city rather than allow it to be taken?"

"When people are desperate, they make poor decisions," she noted. "I believe the same applied to you. What made you so desperate to rule that you made all of the worst decisions a commander could make? What changed you?"

She made the focus transition back to him so abruptly that he was caught off guard, and he contemplated his glass again before taking another drink from it.

"...I do not believe you would understand much of it."

"You would be surprised how often I hear that, Loki. Let me listen, at least. We shall see if your assumption is correct."

He had drained more of his glass as she spoke, taking comfort from the warmth it left sitting in his chest. The edge that the medicine had taken off of his arm was pushed yet further by the mead, and he realized belatedly that he should not feel nearly as much as he did from the alcohol after barely two glasses (and not mugs, even). He finished off the glass and set it aside to keep himself from drinking more for now. Caleigh refilled his water instead.

"…You might believe Thor a valiant hero for saving this city, but he has always been bullheaded and far beyond the subtleties ruling a kingdom requires. He is slated to be Asgard's next king, always was."

"And you believe him unfit."

"Far from fit, I should say," he laughed humorlessly. "He only thinks of the glory of battle and winning. He is arrogant, easily goaded, more easily manipulated, and yet, because he embodies the strength and values of Asgard, it is he who will be king."

"...You would be a better king for Asgard, then?"

"I have at least made an effort to read our governing documents, which is more than I can say for him," he scoffed. "I have dealt with the finer workings of politics, have more knowledge than he has ever thought to understand; he knows so little and yet is handed the throne.

"And so this all began because the throne you felt entitled to was given to Thor."

Her tone made him realize the arrogance he accused Thor of was ripe in his own words, and he sighed.

"It is more than that, Caleigh," he returned quietly, leaning heavily into one hand as he rested his elbow on the table. "In the process of proving to the old man why brother dearest was far from ready, I discovered that no matter what I do, no matter how worthy I was or how fit, I would never have been given that throne. The right to rule I was always told I had had always been a lie."

"What makes you say that?" she asked him, her tone more intrigued. "Surely there are other reasons he has for denying you the throne. You and Thor are both princes of Asgard; each of you share that right."

He knew from his reading that some Midgardian countries were ruled by kings, and supposed she understood at least that much about monarchies.

"Thor is a prince of Asgard; I am a prince of beings called frost giants."

This time, it was her glass that froze at her lips. For a moment, she looked down at the liquid within it with a curious look, and then back up at him with the same.

"…Most people are taller than me, sure, but you don't particularly look like a giant," she deadpanned.

The observation unexpectedly broke the tension of their conversation, and he found himself laughing.

"I am apparently quite small," he explained around his mirth. "Not a trait frost giants want in a future king, so I was abandoned at birth. At the time, Odin was at war with Laufey, and took me with him as it ended. For spoils of war, for future rule over Jotunheim, for fun, whatever his intentions, I grew up believing myself an Aesir who could eventually rule all of Asgard. He could never allow a frost giant to sit on the throne, though.

"He always favored Thor," he continued, bitterness seeping into his voice. "I never quite fit the stereotype of Asgard's people, and I found magic easier to grasp than others. It all suddenly made sense."

"How did you find out?" Caleigh gently pressed.

"I goaded Thor into retaliating against the frost giants I used to interrupt his coronation ceremony. It was meant to prove to Odin that his thin skin could endanger Asgard were he to be king. Thor decided to confront them personally and we went to battle. One of the frost giants got hold of my arm, but instead of a nasty case of frostbite, I turned blue. When I confronted Odin, he admitted the truth."

Caleigh was quiet for a long while, staring into her own glass and contemplating the amber liquid in silence. Loki wondered how much she had followed of his explanation; she would not have understood what being a frost giant meant to the Aesir, of course, and without that knowledge, much of his turmoil was likely lost on her. At the very least, though, she understood that a war between the two races meant neither side saw the other in a great light.

"...What purpose do you believe Odin had for keeping your origins a secret?"

He blinked up at her, not expecting the question.

"If he had indeed taken you with the expectation that you would one day rule Jotenheim, would it not be more beneficial that you be raised knowing your origins?" she continued. "An ambassador without that knowledge would lack many skills necessary for drawing the two realms together, not to mention a future king."

He was taken aback by the analysis the mortal had given him, and took a while to come up with an explanation. She should not understand that much, given the meager knowledge Midgardians had of other realms, but perhaps she was an exception. Caleigh did at least own a light book on myths and legends; perhaps she was more of a scholar than he had pinned her for, and simply borrowed books as a means to keep her possessions on the light side.

"...Understand that being a frost giant carries with it the picture of a monster for Asgardians," he clarified, expecting to bring her around to a more complete understanding. "I am the monster under the bed, as it were. Knowing that one was in their midst, adopted prince or not, would have caused panic."

"But if he was crafting you to bring the two realms together, would he not have at least told you? To start you on such a task after so long would be foolish."

"Odin has been known to make foolish decisions."

She gave him a pointed look before it disappeared behind the glass she tipped back.

"You are avoiding my point," she accused him after emptying it. "If Odin meant to use you as a bridge between the realms, he must have changed his mind on the matter before you reached an age he would have begun the training for. Why would he bother with the effort of caring for you otherwise? If he kept you as a trophy, why raise you as a son? Why waste time crafting you as a son of Odin when he could have simply made you a servant of Thor?"

He recoiled at the thought of serving the Thunderer, reminded of losses that had demanded such outcomes when they were children.

...Loki could admit that Caleigh made a good argument, though. Odin had said something to the effect of his plans no longer mattering when he had confronted him, but he had been so angry with him at the time that it had not registered until much later, and by then, it had not mattered to him one way or the other.

"It seems like he raised you as a son for a reason, Loki," Caleigh concluded. "Have you even talked about it since you confronted him? Did you even get the time to really talk about it then?"

He shook his head.

"He fell into what is known as Odinsleep right after our argument," he revealed, spinning the water in his glass for nothing more than a distraction. "The next I spoke to him, he still disapproved of me. I did not see any point in sticking around to hear more of a lecture."

"Disapproved of you or what you were doing?" she countered. The water in his glass settled.

"It seems no matter what I do, he disapproves," he admitted, leaning back in his chair. He felt angry, but did not wish to direct it at his host. Distance helped. "I lack the physical strength of most Aesir, so I turned to magic. He calls it a coward's trickery. I prefer to read or negotiate with words rather than to fight – a woman's traits. I reveal Thor's shortcomings as a leader, and I still am not seen more fitting for the throne. I decide the best thing for Asgard would be to remove Jotenheim from the picture, and Odin still finds fault with it."

"You thought to destroy Jotunheim?" she asked him incredulously, empty cup meeting the table with a crack he was not sure she intended. "On what grounds is that even a plausible solution, Loki?"

"You do not understand-"

"I understand perfectly well!" she insisted, her voice raising for the first time since her confrontation with his pursuers. Loki jumped at the unexpected volume. "War with Jotenheim may always loom, but to think that you have the power to decide upon their existence is ludacris! You think yourself king of all realms when you have not even ascended Asgard's throne?"

Something within him snapped, and the sound of his chair hitting the ground behind him was a distant thump compared to the blood pounding through his veins.

"When they threaten our lives, what right have they to exist?!" he countered, staring her down with challenge and anger and madness all at once. He knew this was more appropriately aimed at Odin, but Caleigh seemed now a suitable stand-in. "Frost giants murdered mortals like you not long ago; have you no sense of loyalty to your own?!"

"And you murdered mortals yourself two weeks ago – what right have you to exist when you threaten the peace of another realm?!"

"I-!"

The reminder cut through him, and the rage boiling within him abruptly faltered and quickly dissolved as her words hammered him with several realizations at once. He looked away from her, unsure how he had let her become his target over Odin, and less certain that his own argument had any standing at all anymore.

He really was Laufy's son.

"...Forgive me," he apologized, hand a tight fist on the table.

"It is not my place to," she replied, referring more to his actions against the realm than his outburst, he assumed. "But you see my point. You cannot justify your argument when you have mirrored such actions yourself. You argue for the safety of the realm, but you act for your own ambitions. Surely you understand this."

He did, and was left confused by how he had not seen that before. He was not one to make such blunders in arguments. Regularly working angles to serve his point was his specialty, as it were. Even his decision to attack this place was riddled with issues, issues Caleigh so easily pointed out.

Loki felt more lost than ever, and was not sure that he could blame the mead.

He righted his fallen chair and folded himself back into it, giving the bottle a long look as he tried to piece things back together.

"You have lost your identity," Caleigh noted with a sadness he was not expecting, and proceeded to refill their glasses. Loki was unsure if he should drink more, but part of him wanted the escape it could provide. He opted for his water until he could make up his mind.

"…I have lived many of your lifetimes with the understanding that I was Odin's son and all that it entails," he replied. "It has not been so long since that changed."

"And so you are struggling with this new identity, which changes nothing and yet everything all at once."

For a moment, he did not understand what she meant by nothing having changed, since everything most certainly had. It clicked a moment later; he had always been a frost giant – he was simply ignorant of that knowledge.

"It is not a pass for your actions," she reminded him. "You still have the blood of several hundred innocent lives on your hands. I have a better understanding of why your actions took place, though."

"You might understand more than I do, in that regard."

"Sometimes, an outsider's perspective is clarifying," she explained. "When you are the one directly affected, it can be difficult to analyze yourself."

Caleigh paused for a drink, which prompted him to switch his water for the alcohol again. He was not far enough gone that he could not handle a bit more, mortal body or not, he rationalized. It was sweet on his tongue and warm in his chest.

"So, identity crisis led to a desire to prove yourself loyal to Asgard and not your Jotun heritage, which resulted in a decision that might prove your loyalty, but was way too extreme to be acceptable. You didn't want to listen to your father lecture you, so you ran away," she summarized. It seemed over-simplified, but he did not point that out, as she did not seem to be talking to him so much as herself. "Fast forward a year, and your need to prove yourself worthy of a throne, any throne, it seems, is now the focus. Being a king is a part of the identity that you lost and want to regain, but loyalty is notably absent. Why the change?"

The last question was directed at him, and he frowned as he thought about it.

"…I suppose I simply stopped caring for Odin's approval," he eventually answered. "I stopped caring about a lot of things. I did not run away after he disapproved of my actions; Thor had destroyed the bridge that had connected our realm to others, and the result nearly sent us falling into the void. Odin grabbed Thor, Thor had hold of me by Gungnir, and I…"

He paused, realizing he was embarrassed to admit it now. He took a breath and sighed.

"I let go."

"Loki…"

Caleigh wore a haunted expression when he looked up, which prompted him to continue, if only to wipe the concern off of her face.

"I needed an out," he explained. "At the time, I did not expect to survive, but I quickly discovered that the spaces between were not as empty as we had understood. I had both interesting and horrifying experiences in my time exploring it. I have… changed from them. I am no longer the man I once was before I chose to fall. I lost many things but gained many others."

He did not elaborate on those experiences, and she did not press him about it, so he continued.

"I was eventually confronted by a man who promised me a throne, and I accepted his offer. I was given the Chitauri to use and the plans for Midgard were revealed to me. I am afraid turning him down was not an option I ever considered. I was angry, still am, with Odin, with Thor, with many things. It seemed acceptable."

"Does it still?"

He regarded her with a long look and she waited ever patiently.

The child flashed through his mind.

"No," he admitted. "My anger is not gone, but I realize my actions were far from rational. Midgard was never my target, and I should never have made it such."

Caleigh smiled behind her glass.

Loki believed she would be disappointed that his mind quickly corrected his target to Odin. His head felt much clearer than it had in days.

I believe I have this exchange the way I want it to go (but there are no guarantees that some of this won't change as this story progresses). I end up going back to edit things quite frequently on a lot of my longer projects, simply because they take so much time and my opinion on it changes in between. When I finish this up, I'll end up combing through it to adjust things until I'm truly satisfied with it. Still trying to make it work between Avengers and Dark World nicely.

Because of the heavy dialogue, this chapter ticked up in page length. I've slipped references and other things in here for your enjoyment. Kudos if you catch them.

Thanks for reading (and being patient)!