"I'm going outside for a bit," Yang Luoluo shouted close to Wanda's ear, pointing at the stage and then at her own ears. "It's too loud — my ears are killing me."

Seeing her face scrunch up like a steamed bun, Wanda couldn't hold back a laugh. "Go ahead. I'll come find you in a bit."

Yang Luoluo nodded, grabbed the glass of water from the table as she stood, and wove her way through the noise toward the balcony.

She found a hanging chair, no idea who'd bought it, and dropped into it with a long sigh.

The compound sat far from the city, isolated and quiet. The moment she pulled the balcony door shut, the party's roar sealed itself inside, and the world around her went still.

A cool breeze moved through. In the nearby treetops, layer upon layer of leaves rustled softly in the dark. A streetlamp beside the trees threw a dim yellow wash of light through the thick branches, and dappled shadows scattered across the ground below.

For one strange moment, Yang Luoluo almost believed she was the last person left in the world.

She let herself sink back into the chair, set her cup on the low table beside her, and gave the ground a light nudge with her toes. The chair swayed gently in the breeze.

Night wind. Moonlight. Birdsong.

Her thoughts drifted back to the party, to a few minutes ago, without her permission.

She had heard it clearly. Thor had said —

Loki already had someone he liked.

She'd only ever thought of Loki as her favorite character. So why... why had a sudden rush of bitterness hit her the moment those words landed?

It shouldn't be like this.

Yang Luoluo looked down.

She hadn't wanted anyone to notice. Back there, she'd frozen for maybe a second before burying the feeling, smoothing her face back into place, and kept on chatting with Wanda and the others like she'd heard nothing at all.

Only she knew how hard she'd been gripping the hem of her shirt.

She closed her eyes, and the memories came flooding up, one after another —

The God of Mischief in the doorway, battered and bleeding, smirking at her: Aren't you going to invite me in?

The two of them on the couch watching a movie, her face wet with tears, and a long-fingered hand sliding a tissue toward her like it was nothing.

A small black cat strutting into the bedroom with its chest puffed out, making one full circuit of the bed before choosing the coziest corner and settling in.

That bowl of steaming brown sugar ginger soup on her nightstand, during her period, without her ever asking.

A broad back stepping in front of her every time danger came close.

That embrace after they escaped the Death Eaters, cold as ice, but smelling of warm, sweet pudding.

...

Yang Luoluo opened her eyes.

In the moonlight, a single tear slipped down her cheek without a sound.

She understood now. Somewhere along the way, without her ever noticing, what had started as a fan's affection had quietly turned into something else entirely.

But Loki already had someone he liked. Who?

Could it be her?

No. No, no, no. That was absurd. That was pure narcissism. Loki was only kind to her because she'd brought him and Frigga back. He protected her out of gratitude, nothing more.

Then who?

There weren't many women at the compound to begin with, and most of them were already taken. Unless... an Asgardian goddess?

Damn it. Was the secret crush she'd only just discovered going to die before it even started?

Yang Luoluo scratched her head in agitation and reached for the cup beside her, tipping it back in one go. The liquid hit her throat, and instantly, something felt wrong.

!

Wait. Wasn't this Thor's alcohol?

How did,

The memory crashed in: Pepper Potts pushing that glass away from Tony Stark.

I'm done. I grabbed the wrong cup when I left, I didn't look,

Too late. It was already down. The burn arrived a second later, a ball of fire spreading through her chest, and she bent forward coughing so hard she thought her lungs might come out with it.

"Luoluo? What's wrong!"

Wanda had gotten restless indoors and come out early to find her. Pushing open the balcony door, Wanda caught sight of the scene and rushed over, rubbing and patting her back.

After a while, once Yang Luoluo had finally settled, Wanda picked up the cup beside her, intending to give her a sip of water.

"...?"

Something felt off. Wanda leaned in and sniffed.

The sharp, fiery smell shot straight up. Wanda immediately moved the cup as far away as possible.

In Wanda's experience, Yang Luoluo was nothing like Peter Parker and Pietro Maximoff, those two would let curiosity override every rational thought and sneak a drink anyway, even knowing they couldn't handle it. Yang Luoluo wasn't like that.

"You, this... let's just hope you're not the type who causes trouble when you're drunk..."

Wanda said carefully, speaking from painful experience with a drunk Pietro Maximoff.

But before Wanda could think much further, Yang Luoluo finished her last round of coughing, let out a wail, and threw herself directly into Wanda's arms.

"Waaah — Wanda!"

Wanda caught her on instinct. A beat later, broken, hiccupping sobs rose up from somewhere against Wanda's chest, and Wanda went still.

In all the time Wanda had known Yang Luoluo, nothing like this had ever happened. Eyes red and swollen, face buried, crying without stopping, like she'd been wronged in the worst way imaginable.

Wanda had heard that some people got like this when they drank. Maybe Yang Luoluo was one of them.

Wanda patted her back slowly, uncertainly. "Hey. It's okay. Don't cry. What happened?"

At the same time, Wanda glanced at the cup. Judging by what was left, she'd probably only had one sip.

Good. If she'd downed the whole thing in one go like Peter Parker and the others, she might already be unconscious.

Still... was her tolerance really that low?

Yang Luoluo kept sobbing, with something murmured underneath it that Wanda couldn't quite catch. Wanda's mouth twitched.

...Honestly, maybe it would've been better to let her finish the whole cup.

Then Wanda finally made out the words,

"I don't want to like him anymore..."

!

Like whom?

Him?

Which him?

Wanda frowned, running through the men in Yang Luoluo's life, turning it over, and then looked down sharply.

"You mean Loki?"

Yang Luoluo nodded against Wanda's chest, miserable.

It only took a moment to piece together. "You heard everything just now?"

Yang Luoluo nodded without hesitating.

Wanda pressed a hand to her forehead, sighed, and sat down on the hanging chair, pulling Yang Luoluo down beside her.

Everyone at the table had heard what Thor said. But Yang Luoluo had masked it so perfectly that they'd all assumed it hadn't registered.

It had registered. She'd heard every word, and she'd been carrying it since.

This was a problem.

Under normal circumstances, the Avengers were all remarkably enthusiastic about tripping Loki up, and Wanda would have jumped at the chance to come up with a hundred schemes to support that, glad for any reason to widen the distance between those two.

But looking at Yang Luoluo right now, Wanda couldn't get a single word of that out.

"Have you considered," Wanda said finally, after a long pause, "that the person he likes... might actually be you?"

Yang Luoluo scrunched up her face, pressed against Wanda's shoulder, and shot the idea down without missing a beat.

"How could it be me... I'm just a normal person. He only keeps protecting me because I brought him and Frigga back. That's all it is... wuu..."

The alcohol wasn't helping. She was back in tears within two sentences. Wanda let the subject drop.

"What if you just asked him directly? Or I could ask for you?"

"No." Yang Luoluo shook her head, her fluffy hair tickling Wanda's cheek. "That would make me look so full of myself. I'm not doing that. And you're not allowed to, either."

Right. Too proud to ask, too stubborn to let anyone else ask.

Wanda shook her head quietly and let it go.

Wanda and Vision, a witch and a synthezoid. Whatever they knew about love, it didn't translate to anyone else's situation. Yang Luoluo's particular flavor of heartache was outside Wanda's area of expertise, and that was a frustrating thing to admit.

Though, there was this: drunk Yang Luoluo was noticeably more honest than sober Yang Luoluo. Under normal circumstances, none of this would ever have come out.

"Anyway, I don't want to like him anymore!"

Yang Luoluo said it like a declaration, and Wanda had nothing to offer in response except a steady hand patting her shoulder.

The balcony went quiet.

Only Yang Luoluo's soft, uneven crying carried in the dark.

Wanda was still turning the problem over, looking for an answer that didn't exist, when a gentle weight settled against the shoulder. Wanda tilted her head.

Yang Luoluo had fallen asleep. Tucked against Wanda's side, breathing slow and even, the swollen redness around her eyes still vivid in the moonlight.

"Sleep," Wanda said softly.

Wanda waited until her breathing had gone fully steady, then gathered her up and carried her inside.

"After tonight, you are never going near another drop of alcohol in your life."

Wanda muttered it low, wearing a stern expression for the benefit of someone fast asleep, and Yang Luoluo only burrowed instinctively toward the warmth.

A gust of night wind swept in behind them. Wanda picked up the pace.

➤ Next: Tony's Mischievous Streak

Chapter 94 - Tony's Mischievous Streak

Wanda carried Yang Luoluo back to her room and stopped in front of the closed door, uncertain.

If she put Yang Luoluo down to open it, there was no guarantee she wouldn't wake her.

Wanda's fingers gave a small flick. A tendril of crimson energy flew out and curled around the door handle. Click, the door swung open.

At the same moment, the door to the neighboring room opened too. Loki strolled out lazily and leaned against the doorframe. Taking in the sight of the two of them, a flash of surprise crossed his face.

"What happened to her?"

After what had just happened on the balcony, Wanda had zero interest in talking to Loki. Carrying Yang Luoluo, Wanda walked straight into the room without so much as a sideways glance.

Loki was somewhat at a loss, but the next second, the moment Loki caught Wanda moving to shut the door, quick reflexes took over and Loki slipped inside after them.

Wanda couldn't be bothered to deal with Loki. Wanda set Yang Luoluo down on the bed, eased off her shoes, and pulled the blanket over her. Only once Yang Luoluo was satisfactorily cocooned in the covers, tucked snug, not going anywhere, did Wanda finally feel at ease.

Throughout all of it, Loki stood behind them and watched in silence.

Wanda drew the curtains, then turned to leave. Wanda's footsteps slowed as they passed Loki.

"Loki." Wanda turned and spoke quietly, eyes dead serious. "For Luoluo's sake, I'll give you one piece of advice."

Wanda still didn't fully trust this god of mischief with a sky-high danger rating. But watching Yang Luoluo suffer like that had made Wanda's chest feel heavy too.

If that was the case, Wanda might as well give them a nudge.

"Some things are better said sooner rather than later. Otherwise, you'll regret it eventually."

Wanda held his gaze a beat longer, then walked out.

Loki stood alone in the room. Loki looked at Wanda's retreating back. Looked at the deeply sleeping Yang Luoluo. His head was nothing but question marks.

What did that mean?

Why would he regret anything?

He was still turning it over when Yang Luoluo, dead asleep, seemed to dream something. She turned over and curled herself into a ball beneath the covers.

"Don't want to like you anymore..." A mumbling, aggrieved little voice drifted into Loki's ears.

!

Like who?!

Undisguised shock written all over his face, Loki crossed to the bedside in a single stride, yet all he could see was the back of Yang Luoluo's head.

He stood there and waited. Yang Luoluo sank back into deep, silent sleep and did not say another word.

"It had better not be what I think it is."

Loki muttered under his breath, furrowed brow and all, tucked the corner of Yang Luoluo's blanket in, then quietly slipped out of the room.

Back in his own room, Loki lay down with both hands folded behind his head. The moment he closed his eyes, his mind filled entirely with Yang Luoluo's red, swollen eyes, and those words. Don't want to like you anymore.

So she liked someone. And that person didn't like her back.

Was that it?

"Fuck!"

Loki sat bolt upright. In the darkness, those deep jade-green eyes churned with a violent storm of feeling. His mind twisted and turned, and a nameless, smoldering fury burned low inside him.

Damn it, who on earth did she like?!

And that cursed idiot didn't even like her back?!

The furious god of mischief, for once in his life, could not sleep.

......

After several days of careful observation, Loki had confirmed one thing.

Yang Luoluo was avoiding him.

Why?

Loki stared across the table at Yang Luoluo, seated as far from Loki as physically possible, and his face was all bewilderment. Yang Luoluo could feel that scorching gaze on her clear as anything, and poked at the sausage on her plate with a guilty conscience.

The dining table was dead quiet. Everyone present could feel the strange atmosphere hanging over the room, and honestly, the developments of the past few days had left them all fairly baffled.

For starters, Yang Luoluo and Loki, practically joined at the hip until recently, hadn't appeared together in ages. Whenever both were in the same place, Yang Luoluo would find some excuse or another and vanish. And even when circumstances made it absolutely unavoidable for everyone to be present, she'd plant herself as far from Loki as she could get. Where she used to take snacks from him without a second thought, now she would only politely decline.

Just like right now. At mealtimes, Yang Luoluo and Loki had always sat next to each other.

But now Yang Luoluo had been eating beside Wanda for days. Pietro, unceremoniously displaced, had no choice but to sit in bewildered confusion next to Loki, and in doing so received a look of pure disdain from the god of mischief.

Pietro: Am I a pawn in your game too?

"Are you sure you want to keep this up?" Wanda leaned quietly toward Yang Luoluo, shot a glance at Loki, who was staring straight at them, and asked under her breath.

"What else am I supposed to do?" Yang Luoluo murmured back, and then, under that gaze of indeterminate meaning, steeled herself and put the thoroughly-mangled sausage into her mouth.

God only knew how panicked she'd been when she woke up the morning after the party and realized she hadn't blacked out at all.

She had accidentally drunk the wine Thor brought, and then spent the whole time sobbing into Wanda's arms and spilling everything.

The fact that she liked Loki was something Yang Luoluo had planned to keep buried in her heart forever. She never imagined one careless bout of drunkenness would make the whole thing come tumbling out.

Help, could someone please erase her memory?!

"I think this approach..." Wanda chose words carefully, "...isn't really working."

This one, Yang Luoluo. Too scared to ask questions in case it got awkward. Too scared to confess outright in case she couldn't even stay friends afterward. So she'd landed on this half-baked scheme instead: gradually pull back, return to being ordinary friends.

According to Yang Luoluo herself, since Loki already had someone he liked, the somewhat-closer-than-friends dynamic between them had become inappropriate, and it was better to return to an ordinary friendship.

Yang Luoluo had no idea how desolate her expression had been when she announced that decision, or how much it had hurt Wanda to watch.

From Wanda's perspective, this was frankly a bit immature. To suddenly go cold after just one night, if Wanda were in Loki's position, Wanda wouldn't let the relationship fade the way Yang Luoluo was hoping. Wanda would only grow more curious. More determined to dig to the bottom of it.

And Loki, Wanda could figure out with eyes closed that Loki was not going to do what Yang Luoluo expected.

"But what am I supposed to do? I can't think of anything else." Yang Luoluo muttered.

"Ahem. No whispering at the table."

Tony cleared a throat pointedly at the two of them and cut the conversation dead.

Tony had been quietly watching them chat for a while now, but their voices were low enough that no matter what, the gist of it was out of reach. So Tony simply interrupted them.

Caught suddenly in the attention of the entire table, Wanda and Yang Luoluo laughed awkwardly and hastily shut their mouths.

Tony had no intention of letting them off the hook, or more precisely, had no intention of letting Yang Luoluo off the hook.

A devoted lover of chaos, Tony had naturally picked up on the shift between Loki and Yang Luoluo over these past few days. In excellent spirits, Tony made the decisive call to stir the pot.

"Come to think of it, Luoluo, it's about time you found yourself a boyfriend. Want me to set you up with a few candidates? I can guarantee they're all accomplished young men." Tony winked at Yang Luoluo.

Honestly, causing trouble for the god of mischief never got old.

"!" Yang Luoluo nearly dropped the cup in hand. Yang Luoluo stiffly pulled the corners of her mouth into something resembling a smile, the awkwardness on her face was plain for anyone to see. "N-no need for that, Mr. Stark, I think these things depend on fate..."

But Tony had clearly found the whole thing amusing. Leaning forward with the air of someone settling in for the long haul, Tony pressed on without mercy.

"What do you think of Peter? And Pietro — both of them are one of us, completely trustworthy."

"Or maybe you prefer someone more mature? What about the Captain and Thor? I seem to recall that girls these days all have a thing for blond and built."

"I hear there are plenty of good-looking guys in the Wizarding World too — worth considering?"

Pietro, Steve, and Thor, all three dragged into it for no apparent reason, wore matching expressions of blank confusion and instinctively glanced over at Loki, who had been sitting quietly to one side without a word.

Snap.

The fork in Loki's hand broke clean in two.

Yang Luoluo, face burning red from all the teasing, downed the last of the juice in her glass and bolted.

"I-I-I-I have to go, Mr. Stark — Peter and the others asked me to hang out!"

"All right then, I'll finish the introductions when you get back."

Tony leaned back in the seat with a faint air of disappointment, watching as Yang Luoluo stumbled at the doorway at those words. Loki was silent for a moment, then without a word followed after her. Something sly and satisfied surfaced quietly in Tony's eyes.

"..." Steve took a slow sip of water. "You really ought to rein in that mischievous streak of yours, Tony."

Tony raised an eyebrow, lifted a cup, and called upward.

"This is far too entertaining — J.A.R.V.I.S., did you catch Bambi's face just now? I swear I could laugh about that expression for a whole year."

"I did capture it, sir." J.A.R.V.I.S. paused briefly, then offered a gentle reminder. "Also, sir, I believe you should look at your cup before drinking from it."

"Hm?" Tony looked down.

The rich, fragrant coffee that had been in the cup was gone. In its place sat chili oil, sharp and pungent.

Tony:...

"That guy is way too petty!"

Tony's indignant shout rang out through the Avengers Compound.

➤ Next: Poor Thor — Face to Face