You were unsteady and disoriented when you stepped out of the Bifrost next to the Avenger's tower. You swayed and clutched onto Loki's arm for a moment until you got your balance and bearings again. Loki wrapped his arm around you to steady you. "Are you alright, darling?" he asked you, concerned. He'd already been worried about you travelling so soon after everything you'd been through.

"I'm ok, I'm ok," you reassured him quickly and stood on your own before he got too worried. "Travelling by Bifrost is an experience..." you used as an excuse. It was a valid excuse, if not quite the truth of why you were so unsteady. You needed to rest, despite how much you didn't want to admit it.

Loki chuckled, but still seemed concerned about you. He didn't quite believe you. You didn't blame him. "That it is. Come along, love, let's get you inside," he told you warmly.

"Good idea," you agreed softly and wrapped both of your arms around one of his, laying your head on his arm as you walked into the tower with Thor. Thor stayed on your other side. He was concerned about your state as well.

As soon as you stepped into the lobby Bucky and Nat rushed over to check on you. You could clearly see how worried they were. "We saw the Bifrost lights," Nat explained to you all as she pulled you away from Loki to hug you and look you over properly. "Sestrichka, you look dreadful. What happened?" She demanded, her words were addressed to you, but she was addressing all three of you, demanding answers.

"Thanks ever so, Nat," you replied dryly. It wasn't nice of her to announce how shitty you looked. You already knew that. She didn't have to draw attention to it. Nat didn't let you go from the hug, though and you stiffened. She wasn't Loki. She was warm and human and you could smell her hot blood in her veins.

Shit.

That was a bad sign. You usually barely noticed that your friends were all warm blooded, Loki excluded of course.

You felt your fangs extend.

Fuck.

/Lokes? A little help? I have got to get upstairs and eat something/ You asked him telepathically. You needed an escape, preferably without letting your friends know how edible they smelled at the moment.

Loki, however, panicked and rushed over to extract you from Nat's arms. "I need to get my little vampire upstairs to eat something," he said much too bluntly, making you turn all sorts of shades of red. "We will explain everything when she gets settled. She's been through a lot," Loki apologized to Nat and started to steer you to the elevator quickly.

You turned even more red. "Geez, Noodle, silver-tongue turned to lead? I was hoping for a bit subtler of a save..." you grumbled at him, embarrassed as you wrapped both of your arms around one of his as you walked to the elevator. "I don't exactly enjoy advertising to my friends that they smell like food..." you added softly enough that the others couldn't hear you since they'd decided they were going to wait for the next elevator.

Loki gave you a warm gentle smile as you stepped into the elevator. "They are concerned about you, sweetheart. They could care less about what I just implied," he reassured you. You were grateful that he'd gotten you away from the situation, but he hadn't had to be quite so blunt about it. He was worried though, and wanted to make sure you and your friends were all safe. Mostly you. You'd feel bad if you accidentally hurt one of your friends.

You sighed heavily. "It usually doesn't bother me, but today... today they smell like food and I hate it," you whined, exhaustion and stress messing with your emotions. You knew you were being unreasonable, but you were so tired and weak still and hated it.

"It's alright, darling, everything's alright," he reassured you gently. "Let's just get some blood in you and you'll feel better in no time," he told you warmly, unconcerned as ever with the fact that you had to drink blood to survive.

"Ok," you said softly, giving up fighting against him, your exhaustion evident in your voice.

Loki ushered you safely to your room where you had a refrigerator full of blood. "Do you wish for me to stay?" he asked you gently. He knew you were shy about drinking blood, even in front of him.

You thought about it for a minute, but you were exhausted and wouldn't be good company anyway. "You don't have to," you finally told him. "I'm just going to eat something and go pass out. Thor probably wants your help explaining what happened to the others anyway," you reminded him that it wasn't nice to leave all of the explanations to Thor.

He gave you a warm smile. "Alright, darling. I'll be downstairs if you need me. Get some rest," he bid you and kissed your forehead before he left to go talk to the others. You smiled at his kindness and heated up a mug of blood to down while you changed into your warmest comfy pajamas and fuzzy socks. It wasn't long before you laid down to pass out for awhile.

When Loki got downstairs, Thor was being grilled in the living room by the entire team, though mostly Nat and Bucky were ganging up on him. "Brother, kindly stop Lady Natasha and the Sergeant from figuring out how to go to Asgard to kill Father," Thor whined at Loki to save him.

"Lady Natasha, Sergeant Barnes, please stop harassing my brother," Loki chuckled a little at their adamance that they go kill Odin for being mean to you. "We will explain everything to you. My mother and I have already taken care of the Allfather," he added to appease them. And he appeased them with the truth this time, how rare.

Nat looked over at Thor. "You could've said that he already took care of the Allfather," she said pleasantly with a wicked malicious grin over at Loki. His reputation led her to believe that Odin was properly dealt with. And he was. Frigga and Loki had very much taken care of Odin. Bucky took his cue from Nat and nodded agreement to leave Thor alone...for now.

"Spill it Reindeer Games, what the hell happened to get Tinkerbell in that state?" Tony demanded gesturing to one of the screens which was currently displaying security tape footage of the Asgardians and you, wobbly-legged and frail, entering the tower.

Loki sighed heavily. "The Allfather sent guards here to take her to Asgard. They threw her in one of the cells and starved her, and from what I can gather beat and tortured her for information. Odin wanted her to turn one of the Einharjar, one of the guards. He wanted to study her like a lab rat," his words were turning into snarled growls as his temper flared at the knowledge of what Odin had done to you.

"And of course she refused to turn anyone..." Nat surmised. She knew you too well and knew that you wouldn't want to make anyone into a monster like you. "So I assume he refused to feed her again until she did, since drinking the person's blood is part of turning them," she added because Nat knew everything, including how to turn someone into a vampire apparently.

"And if he kept normal food from her as well, she would deteriorate faster," Bucky added sadly. He'd lived with you and knew exactly how much blood you needed to survive. You'd somehow both survived the hell Hydra had put you through. At Thor's confused look between the pair of them he added defensively. "Your brother isn't the only one around here who reads, and I lived with her when Hydra was torturing her. I know what happens to her when she doesn't get enough blood or food,"

Loki nodded sadly. "You're both correct. My darling refused the Allfather's commands until it very nearly killed her. I am simply relieved Mother found her before it was too late..." his tone made it clear that it very nearly was too late.

You wandered into the room then, half awake at best. You should have very much have still been in bed, but you couldn't sleep alone. The team looked over at you shocked, all of them knowing that you should be in bed. They decided that it was safest for everyone if they let Loki deal with you. He ran over and wrapped his arms around you to make sure you stayed on your feet. "Dearheart, you should be resting. What are you doing?" he asked you worriedly.

You wrapped your arms around his waist and laid your head on his chest with a soft smile. "Couldn't sleep. Came to find you," you told him tiredly. He sighed in exasperation and led you to your usual couch. He settled you next to him, pulling the throw blanket from the back of the couch down to wrap around you. You resolved to sit and talk with the team for awhile to reassure them that you were ok. You managed it for a little while until you dozed off in his arms, practically midword.

Loki chuckled softly and kissed the top of your head when you'd fallen asleep. "We have a long way to go before she's back to her original self. The Allfather is not known for being kind to those that disobey him..." he said a little sadly.

"She'll be ok," Bucky reassured him quickly. He saw how concerned Loki was. "She's a resilient little thing," he added fondly. "Though she's also stubborn as hell and will try to convince us all that she's back to normal long before she is..."

Loki chuckled and smiled kindly back at Bucky. He really liked the soldier "You couldn't be more right. This will doubtless not be easy for any of us..."

*

To prove Loki's point, a couple of days later, Stark came into the common room with you draped over his shoulder dead asleep. He looked at Loki. "Found this in the lab, I think it belongs to you," he told Loki dryly.

Loki gave him a grateful look, which was about as close to a pleasant interaction those two ever had, and moved to take you from Stark's shoulder to cradle gently in his arms. "Thank you, Stark," he said politely. He was trying to be nice when Stark was working to take care of your stubborn ass too. Loki started to leave the room when he turned back "Oh, before I forget. I should inform you know that Mother contacted me and indicated that she wishes to make a surprise visit soon. I thought you would wish to be prepared," he told Stark actually kindly before he continued out of the room to take you to bed where you belonged.

"Great, just what we need around here...more Asgardians," Stark mock grumbled, but his tone made it clear he was joking. He gave Loki a reassuring look "I'll make sure one of the guest rooms is set up for her, Reindeer Games," he added with his usual tease and smirk. That was as close to nice to Loki as Tony got.

It was a vast improvement from Tony being constantly defenestrated.