The familiar four, Yang Luoluo, Loki, Wanda, and Pietro.

Vision had wanted to come along. The longing to go out shopping with Wanda had been building for ages, but the day before, while experimenting with cooking, Vision had accidentally blown up the compound's kitchen. Tony Stark, nearly combusting with rage, sentenced Vision to stay behind and clean up the mess properly.

Vision was left to watch, utterly aggrieved, as Wanda and Pietro disappeared through the door.

Already in a sour mood, Vision then had to contend with Loki's spite, Loki quietly turned around and gave Vision a cheerful little wave. Yang Luoluo happened to glance back at exactly the wrong moment, and she was pretty sure Vision went several shades redder with fury.

"..." Yang Luoluo silently pushed Loki's hand down. "So childish. Are you three years old?"

"Mm-hm. More or less."

Loki shamelessly owned it, the picture of a person who took genuine joy in watching others suffer. Yang Luoluo was left completely speechless. She grabbed his arm and hauled him forward, hurrying to close the gap with Wanda and Pietro.

......

Since they were picking out a gift for Hulk, the four of them went straight to the biggest shopping mall in the area.

Their goal was clear at the start, they made a beeline for the boutiques. Then Yang Luoluo and Wanda's attention began to drift, drawn steadily toward the glittering spread of clothing stores lining both sides of the walkway.

Loki and Pietro felt their hearts drop at the same moment. A sense of impending doom rose in unison.

Trouble.

The two girls looked at each other. The exact same thought was written across both faces.

Sure, new pieces from all the major brands got delivered to the Avengers Compound regularly, but having things sent to you was nothing compared to the sheer pleasure of wandering through a store and picking them out yourself.

Let's go.

In an instant, the two of them forgot entirely about the original mission. They forgot about Loki and Pietro too. They linked arms and breezed happily into the nearest clothing store.

Yang Luoluo knew perfectly well that once they got started, there would be no getting out in under a few hours. She paused just long enough to throw a suggestion over her shoulder to the two they were leaving behind.

"Why don't you go catch a movie upstairs? There's supposed to be a new one out — I think it got pretty good reviews."

Loki and Pietro watched Yang Luoluo and Wanda walk away hand in hand, not once looking back. Standing in the middle of the busy mall, surrounded by the constant flow of strangers, the two of them fell into silence.

"Should we..." Pietro glanced at Loki. A pause. "Go check it out?"

Loki's expression was flat. "...Fine."

......

Some time later, Wanda and Yang Luoluo checked the time, found a spot to sit down, and set their bulging bags on the floor around them.

Each had a cup of milk tea. They sipped.

"I think it's just about time — they should be almost done with the movie. We can wait for them and then go pick something out for Hulk."

"Mm... honestly I still haven't decided what to get. What if Hulk doesn't like it — "

A piercing alarm screamed to life, cutting the sentence in half. Both of them were on their feet in an instant, every sense sharpened.

Then the sound hit, a stampede of footsteps, shouts colliding from every direction, the entire mall surging into motion at once.

Yang Luoluo caught it beneath the noise: someone screaming in sheer panic.

"Fire!"

The next second, two figures appeared at their sides out of nowhere.

"There's a fire." Pietro's face was grave.

"We need to get people out."

Wanda got it out fast, turned to Yang Luoluo with a single sharp word, "Go", and then both were gone, launching toward the smoke.

Pietro was fast. One blink and a customer was already outside, safe. Wanda worked differently: a burst of telekinetic force punched a hole clean through the glass, and people were guided through the opening and out into the open air, one after another.

Silver-white and crimson light flashed side by side as the siblings threw everything they had into it.

Yang Luoluo had just lifted her foot when Loki's hand closed around her arm, hard enough that she stumbled a half-step toward him.

"Have you lost your mind?"

Loki's frown was sharp, his look flat with disapproval. He would bet anything the direction she'd been about to move was not toward the exit.

"Of course not." Yang Luoluo laid one hand over his and met his eyes, expression steady. "I'm going to help."

She lifted his hand away, gently, and set it aside.

Yang Luoluo was not the type to play the hero for the sake of it. If this had happened before she gained her abilities, she would have been out of this building at full speed, protecting herself and staying out of everyone's way.

But things were different now. Her abilities were real. Her physical condition had improved beyond anything her old self would have recognized. On top of that, ever since the kidnapping, everyone had insisted on equipping her with gear until she was practically a walking arsenal. She was confident, genuinely confident, that she could both help and keep herself safe.

It was exactly what Peter Parker had always believed: with great power comes great responsibility.

If she had the power to help, why wouldn't she?

If she walked away today to protect herself and left people behind, Yang Luoluo knew she would carry that with her for a long time.

"Besides," she said, and smiled at him. "I'm an Avengers reserve member now."

She told him to wait outside. Then she turned and walked, without any hesitation, in the other direction.

Loki stood watching until she was gone, the expression in his eyes dark and difficult to read.

All around him the crowd surged and shouted, but Loki didn't move. His stillness made him easy to spot, a fixed point in the middle of everything falling apart. Slowly, he pressed a hand to his forehead.

"Crazy. Absolutely crazy..."

He stood there a moment longer.

Then he vanished.

He reappeared in a deserted corner of the mall, where the air had already gone thick with drifting smoke. He stood quietly. Long lashes cast a shadow. His eyes, deep, green, unreadable, were like still water over something you couldn't see the bottom of. Cold radiated from him in slow, steady waves.

Loki stood there a moment. Then he made up his mind.

A rectangular box materialized in his hands, deep blue throughout, its surface etched with patterns that were ancient and severe, the whole thing radiating an air of quiet, unmistakable power.

The Casket of Ancient Winters.

......

"Don't be scared, little guy. I've got you."

Yang Luoluo scooped up the small boy in front of her, face soaked with tears, clearly separated from his parents, pressed a wet cloth into his hands, and ran low and fast toward the exit.

Smoke packed the air inside. The wet cloth helped, but not enough. With every breath it crept in anyway, burning, and her eyes had gone red from it, tears leaking at the corners against her will.

The crackling of explosions came from all sides. Walls of scorching heat broke over her in waves, like being dropped into the center of something with no edges, no way out, the kind of atmosphere that pressed despair into you without asking.

"I'm scared..."

The boy's voice was small and shaking, a faint sob hitched at the end. Both hands were twisted tight into the front of Yang Luoluo's shirt.

She could feel the dampness spreading through the fabric. She patted his back quickly. "Hey. It's okay. We're almost at the exit. You'll see your mom and dad in just a second."

She pushed faster.

Two more steps, and then something shifted. The fire around her seemed to pull back. The heat dropped. And then, almost impossibly, Yang Luoluo felt something cold brush against her skin.

Had rescue teams arrived?

She didn't let herself relax. Not until she was out the doors with the boy held against her chest did she finally turn around and look.

The smoke pouring from the mall was thinning. Visibly, steadily, thinner and thinner, until it stopped entirely. And the temperature kept falling, past cool, past comfortable, into something that could only be called cold.

Then the crowd around her erupted.

"Look inside!"

Yang Luoluo turned.

The fire was gone.

In its place, white. Pure, absolute white. The entire interior of the mall had been sealed under ice and frost. The charred ceiling, the shattered merchandise across the floor, everything broken and burned, all of it locked beneath a solid layer of ice, without a single exception.

At a glance, it looked like some kind of ice sculpture exhibition.

A thought surfaced before she could stop it, and her heart rate jumped.

She scanned the crowd in every direction. Nothing. Then, without another second's pause, she turned and ran back into the mall.

She did a full circuit of the interior.

No trace of Loki anywhere.

Not here, which left only one place.

Yang Luoluo sprinted back outside and spotted Wanda and Pietro immediately, both scanning the crowd with tight, anxious faces.

Thank goodness.

She ran straight for them and grabbed Pietro's arm, breathless.

"Pietro — can you get me back to the compound? Right now. It's urgent."

The exertion had her forehead slick with sweat, and the barely-leashed urgency on her face was apparently enough, because Pietro didn't ask a single question. One hand went to the back of her neck, the ability kicked in, and the mall was gone.

The moment her feet touched the ground at the compound, the dizziness hadn't even begun to clear before she was already moving. She ran for the entrance so fast she nearly tripped over her own feet after the second step.

Inside, she skidded to a halt and called out immediately, voice pitched toward the ceiling.

"J.A.R.V.I.S., is Loki back?"

"Mr. Loki returned one minute ago. He is currently in his room."

"Thanks, J.A.R.V.I.S!"

Yang Luoluo ran straight for his room.

➤ Next: Blue-Skinned Loki

Chapter 88 - Blue-Skinned Loki

"Loki? Are you in there?"

Standing outside Loki's door, Yang Luoluo caught her breath and shook her head, trying to clear the lingering dizziness. Only then did she raise her hand and knock.

"Loki?"

"If you don't say anything, I'm coming in!"

She waited another few seconds. Still nothing from inside, as though Loki simply wasn't there.

Yang Luoluo steeled herself, pressed down the handle, and walked straight in.

The room's decor matched her impression of Loki perfectly, noble and lavish, yet effortlessly elegant.

Under normal circumstances she would have gasped over every exquisite, expensive piece in the place. Right now, Yang Luoluo only stared at the lumpy mound of blankets on the bed and went quiet.

A blanket mound. That's right.

He probably hadn't expected her to actually walk in without a word. The instant he heard the door, Loki had grabbed the blankets and yanked them over himself completely, not so much as a scrap of clothing showing.

Fast as he was, Yang Luoluo's sharp eyes still caught that flash of blue.

The sudden frost at the mall. It really had been Loki's doing.

Having confirmed that, she pressed her lips together, crossed to the edge of the bed, and sat down.

Honestly, she had never imagined that the god who once looked upon every living thing as insects beneath his notice would actually step in to save people.

She didn't know why he had. But Yang Luoluo knew exactly what happened when Loki used his frost powers, he would turn into that Frost Giant, blue all over, the form he had once despised himself for having.

He was definitely quietly hurting right now.

Having filled in the rest of the picture on her own, Yang Luoluo's eyes went soft with sympathy. She tried tugging at a tucked-in corner of the blanket, but Loki had an iron grip from inside, holding on with everything he had, and she couldn't budge it a single inch.

Left with no choice, she obediently withdrew her hand.

"Loki... thank you. For everything you did today."

The blanket didn't move.

"You saved a lot of people. When I was leaving, I heard everyone praising you."

This wasn't something she'd made up, leaving the mall, she had genuinely heard onlookers and customers who had just escaped danger singing the praises of this mysterious, unknown superhero.

"Hmph."

From inside the blanket, a disdainful sound.

Yang Luoluo somehow understood him perfectly, who needs their praise!

He wasn't staying completely silent, though. He was reacting to being complimented. Yang Luoluo pressed her advantage. "They all said you must be an incredibly powerful superhero!"

"Hmph!"

Louder this time. No guessing needed, he was offended at being filed under the category of "superhero."

Yang Luoluo kept going. She talked for a good long while, piling on praise until she had practically crowned Loki a one-of-a-kind legend unlike anything that had ever existed under heaven or on earth. She talked until her mouth went dry.

And what she got in return,

Twelve "hmphs." Seven "hahs." And an uncountable stretch of silence.

Yang Luoluo was thoroughly exasperated, glaring at the blanket mound with eyes fierce enough to burn a hole straight through it. She had absolutely no idea that inside the blanket, Loki's ears had gone red from the relentless stream of praise.

She fumed on her own for a moment, then finally let out a sigh and talked herself down.

Fine. Hadn't she always known Loki was this kind of sensitive, contradictory creature?

A brief silence. Then, quick as lightning, Yang Luoluo shot her hand under the blanket and, with unerring precision, grabbed Loki's left hand.

Hiss, so cold!

Was the body temperature of a Frost Giant always this low?!

She shuddered from the chill, but held firm to her intention and opened her mouth anyway.

"Loki, the way you look when you turn blue is actually really cool. Super cool. I'm not joking."

She genuinely was not joking.

Loki was handsome and aristocratic to begin with, and the bewitching quality that belonged uniquely to a god of mischief only added to his pull. When he took on the form of a Frost Giant, the blue skin, the crimson eyes, the intricate markings crossing his face, every single detail lent him a striking, otherworldly beauty.

The blanket mound, which had shifted slightly when her hand plunged in, went completely still.

Yang Luoluo knew he wasn't without reaction. At the very least, the hand she'd slipped inside was already seized in a firm, unyielding grip.

"Loki, you're the God of Lies — you can definitely tell I'm not lying. So are you really not going to come out?"

Of course he could tell.

Loki ground his teeth inside the blanket, answering her in silence.

It was precisely because he could tell that he was too embarrassed to come out!

After turning into his Frost Giant form, he had fled back here in a panic. He'd simply not wanted Yang Luoluo to see him like this. He never expected her to barge straight in and ramble on and on, and now, even if he wanted to come out on his own, he couldn't.

Loki tightened his grip on her hand, seething.

Still no response. Yang Luoluo lowered her head in defeat and let out a sigh.

This guy... why was he so impossible to comfort? Her mouth was practically going dry and she still hadn't made any progress.

Wait.

Yang Luoluo stared in stunned disbelief at the layer of soot covering her. She reached up and touched her face in a daze. When she looked at her own blackened palm, she went completely still with horror.

OMG!

She had been sitting on Loki's bed this whole time covered in all of this?!

This was bad. This was very bad. If Loki the obsessive neat freak found out, he was going to lose it.

Yang Luoluo sucked in a sharp breath and instinctively started to stand. The sight of the black smudge already pressed into the bedding made her face crumple like she was about to cry.

Loki, however, thought she was angry at his attitude and about to leave. His chest clenched, and with one sharp pull, he yanked Yang Luoluo straight back down.

Still sunk in guilt and remorse, Yang Luoluo felt the world tilt. Before she could process what was happening she was already lying on the bed, everything plunged into darkness, Loki had pulled the blanket over her.

What was happening?

"Lo — wait! I'm covered in soot! It'll get your bed dirty!"

She hadn't figured anything out, but Yang Luoluo was already thrashing on principle: she absolutely could not dirty someone else's bed.

"Don't move."

A familiar voice, just above her head. In the darkness, a flash of green light. She guessed it was Loki using magic to clear the soot from her body, and so she settled, and stopped struggling.

The moment she relaxed, though, Yang Luoluo abruptly registered just how compromising their position was.

Her back was pressed flush against Loki's chest. His left hand was still clamped around her left hand. His right hand was locked across her stomach, leaving her no room to move at all.

She could even feel the soft, even puffs of breath drifting down from just above her head.

Yang Luoluo's entire body went rigid.

"Lo, Loki..." Her voice pitched with nerves. She quickly cleared her throat. "Ahem. I think we should probably go talk outside..."

As she spoke, she tried to inch her way toward the edge. The very next second, Loki pulled her back.

Not only that, perhaps afraid she'd fall, he shifted further back himself, gauging the space carefully before settling her back against him.

"Lo —"

She barely got one syllable out before Loki's languid voice cut across hers, that familiar, unhurried cadence drifting from just above her head, carrying a trace of amusement she almost couldn't catch.

"Ah, I'm exhausted. Today took too much out of me, let me rest a while."

Loki was making that up entirely.

Blanketing an entire mall in frost did consume a considerable amount of energy, yes. But he was holding the Casket of Ancient Winters, the divine artifact of the Frost Giant clan. With the Casket in hand, that small expenditure amounted to nothing at all.

The lie landed perfectly. Yang Luoluo had a vantage point from which she could see past and future events, but the specific mechanics of the Casket of Ancient Winters, the fine details of how it actually worked, were beyond what she knew.

And in the dark, she couldn't see his face. Based only on the exchange just now, her mind had already conjured an image of Loki utterly drained and barely holding on.

She immediately stopped daring to move. The panic in her eyes gave way, in an instant, to worry.

"Then — then rest well..."

The voice that rose from within his arms, carefully softened so as not to disturb him, sheltered by the surrounding darkness, the corners of Loki's mouth stretched nearly all the way to his ears.

The audacious god tightened his right arm, savored the warmth held against him, and closed his eyes.

There was a saying in Midgard: humans are creatures who fear loneliness. It turned out the same held true for gods.

When one had been lost in the dark for far, far too long, once a light blazed before you like the morning star, you would charge toward it without a second thought. To embrace it. To kiss it. To possess it.

He listened to the breathing in his arms slowly even out.

Loki smiled. He lowered his head, and with something close to reverence, pressed a soft kiss to the top of that fluffy head.

Thank you.

My light.

➤ Next: Transfer Students — Face to Face