Barely awake in the middle of the night, but more safe and security in the Avenger's tower than you'd felt at home in years, your body and brain reacted automatically to the intruder in your room. The automatic reaction was the one from your childhood and early teens, not the one of recent years. You slid over on the bed, moving closer to the wall next to the bed, pulling the blankets back from the other half of the bed in the same well-practiced movement, without opening your eyes, facing the intruder, or really waking. Whoever the intruder was, their scent wasn't enough to rouse you, which meant it was someone you knew extremely well and trusted. "The sun isn't awake, so I refuse to be either. If you're joining me, get in before all of the warm escapes and you better be wearing pants or fur. If you're here to wake me, come back when the sun's up. If you're Ethan being creepy and just standing there while I sleep, go the fuck away," your brain told your mouth to mumble the words without bothering to wake you the rest of the way. There was a soft chuckle as someone climbed into the bed behind you. They pulled the covers back up and wrapped their arm over you, cuddling against your back, spooning protectively around you.

"Who is Ethan, love?" Loki's voice asked softly against your ear.

"Idiot brother," your wolf murmured for you. She didn't want to be awake yet either.

"I thought your idiot brother's name is Dan,"

"All brothers are idiots,"

He chuckled and kissed your hair. "That they are. Go back to sleep, little wolf." You snuggled back more comfortably in his arms and did what you were told for once.

*

Your alarm blaring woke you the next morning. You reached over without opening your eyes to shut it off. Instead, your arm smacked into a body. Your eyes shot open while the body 'oofed' at your impact. It was a Loki in your bed. The wolf quickly reminded you of what happened in the middle of the night while you'd been asleep. You leaned over Loki to reach your phone and shut off the alarm. "Sorry, Lo," you told him, giving him a quick kiss, as you settled back on your half of the bed.

"It's ok," he replied with a small smile.

"Do you make a habit of sneaking into ladies' bedrooms in the middle of the night?" you teased, keeping your voice extra light. You weren't upset, just wanted to know why he'd wound up in your bed.

He chuckled. "Not at all. Though I hope I didn't offend-" you waved off the last of his concern.

"I don't mind. The wolf would've woken me if there had actually been a problem," you reminded him. "Just wasn't expecting it, especially after yesterday..." you prompted. You really didn't mind that he had joined you, especially as he was wearing pants as ordered. You just wanted to know why.

"I was...lonely and couldn't sleep. I only came to see if you were awake too. When you invited me to stay... that sounded like a better option than looking for an adventure," he said softly. "I should have known you were too far asleep to offer properly when you thought I might be Ethan,"

You laughed at that. "Sorry, I've recited that speech to my brothers so many times growing up that I can do so in my sleep, as you well noticed. Wolves are cuddlers. Even stupid idiotic brothers, but they were too manly growing up to just admit when we went to bed that they wanted cuddles. Instead, they would wait until the middle of the night to insist they needed to sneak into my bed to protect me from nightmares. Idiots. Eventually they started asking in the middle of the night, or just standing there until I noticed them, so I got really good at reciting that speech in my sleep, or mostly asleep," you explained. He had sat up while you were explaining. "Really, I don't mind. If there's a night I do, I'll wake enough to tell you, I swear," you added. He looked relieved at that. You held out your wrists to him. "Can these come off now?" you pouted, indicating the bandages.

He laughed and held one of your wrists in his hand while the other hovered over it, his eyes closed in concentration. You sneezed at his magic. "Nearly," he finally said. "Another couple of hours," you sighed heavily.

"I have work to do," you whined, wondering how you were going to cook. Or even fix your hair, when you could barely hold anything and couldn't move your wrists.

"Then you will just have to allow me to help you," he replied with a smile. You hated needing help, you had tried to prove yourself your entire life, which meant often not accepting help even when you needed it. You were tempted again to shove his help away, but at the same time you knew he wanted to make amends for hurting you. Helping you would help him make those amends.

"I guess I will," you finally said softly, your tone clearly telling him how hard the words were and how hard it was to let him help. He kissed your forehead.

"Then for today, little wolf, I am yours to command," he said grandly with as much of a bow as he could manage while sitting in a bed. You laughed at his antics.

"Well, first I need real clothes, which I do not need help with, Silly Trickster, then we'll get to work," you told him and climbed over him to get out of the bed. You grabbed clothes from your dresser and ducked into your bedroom to change, figuring Loki wouldn't leave your room unless you forced him to. You were right. When you came back out, dressed, he was dressed as well and your bed had been made. You glared at your hair in the mirror over your dresser. It was sticking up in every direction.

Loki took your hairbrush from your hand when you lifted it to deal with your uncontrolled hair. "You can barely hold that," he scolded gently as he steered you to sit on your bed with your back to him. He was right of course. With the way the bandages were wrapped, you didn't have fine enough motor skills this morning to deal with anything as delicate as your stupid hair. "You said you would let me help you," he reminded you softly when you had stiffened, bristling at needing the help.

"Stubborn god," you grumbled.

"Stubborn little puppy," he teased right back. He was gentle brushing out your hair and you relaxed when he didn't hurt you or become impatient with the task. Any other man would have done both. He set the brush beside you on the bed and deftly braided your hair back away from your face. "There, that wasn't so bad, now was it?" he purred in your ear when he had finished.

"Not at all. You really are good at that," you replied and turned to kiss him. You were soon on your knees on the bed so you were taller and he didn't have to lean over to kiss you, kissing him in earnest, your arms around his neck.

"Darling, as enjoyable as this, you did say you have work to do today," Loki reminded you between kisses.

"But I missed you," you pouted. He laughed and hugged you to him.

"I missed you too, little wolf, but our friends will be home soon and you wished to feed them,"

You sighed. "I do," you agreed and took his arm for balance to climb off of the bed. He helped you, then stopped you with a mischievous grin when you started to bounce off downstairs. He held out a hand and a beautiful golden tiara appeared in it. You laughed as he carefully placed it in your hair.

"My Queen," he said with an elegant bow.

You laughed and took his hand. "Come along, Silly Trickster, we have work to do,"

Cooking with Loki was fun. He was enthusiastic and wanted to learn, but no one had taken the time to get past his shy, sometimes abrasive, exterior to actually get to know him. So you taught him and played in the kitchen and he helped you get the meal prepared for your friends. He was so confident everywhere else, but he let you see the vulnerability while you taught him a new skill.

He did most of the work, following your directions without question, or complaint, though he did grumble at you when you kept trying to help or take over. So he kept picking you up by the waist and setting you on the stool he had placed in the kitchen for you to supervise from.

He finally removed the bandages from your wrists while everything was in the oven and you got a little downtime. There were still light bruises in the shape of his hand across your wrists, but they'd fade and didn't even hurt.

The fact that you didn't need his help didn't stop his game. "My Queen, menial labor is beneath you!" he protested over dramatically when you reached for the plates in the cabinet so you could set the table. He took the plates from you while you were still laughing at his silly antics.

The rest of the team arrived just as you and Loki were setting the last dish of food on the table. "Welcome home!" you greeted them all brightly when they got off of the elevator. They followed your voice and all looked shocked at the huge feast that was laid out on the dining room table. "We couldn't celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday," you told them shyly when their shock didn't subside. "I thought we could today when everyone was home,"

"I believe they are all shocked by the gesture, lady," Loki commented before your heart could fall, thinking they were turkied out or didn't want to celebrate with you after all. Loki's words seemed to break the shock of the others. They gave you hugs and said how great everything looked. Loki disappeared briefly and returned with Thor.

"What's with the tiara?" Tony demanded as everyone took their usual seats.

You flushed. "Loki was being silly," you replied, truthfully enough. It seemed an acceptable answer since no one pressed anymore. Apparently 'Loki' was a valid explanation behind a lot of things around here. The guys started arguing over who was going to carve the turkey. "Tradition decrees that it's the patriarch's job," you reminded them, quite used to calming these sorts of petty squabbles. "That would make it your job, Cap. Though if Thor wants to challenge you due to age, he would have a claim," you amended. Thor gestured to Cap, allowing him the honor since Cap was American and Thor...well...wasn't.

You all ate way too much turkey and all of the sides. Even you and the Asgardians were too full of food. Then came the pies. "Why is this a holiday?" Thor groaned. Even he was uncomfortably too full, and he'd eaten an entire wedding feast by himself once. You'd made enough food to feed a family of werewolves and the superheros had still devoured nearly everything.

"Because we're thankful to spend time with friends and family. And we demonstrate that by eating too much," Clint grumbled, his head on the table while he whined.

"And everyone besides myself and Loki have to do the dishes," you added with a grin. That earned your glares from the entire table. "We cooked," you reminded them.

"Oh, I brought you-" the entire team had reached behind their chairs to pull out souvenirs to present to you. You laughed at them all saying the same thing at the same time. Clint and Nat presented you with pictures that Clint's kids drew for you. They hadn't gone anywhere interesting enough to bring back an actual souvenir from. You were still touched. Cap brought you back one of the WWII baseball hats and a tourist souvenir book of famous sights in DC. Pepper gave you a bunch of beautiful seashells, which you really appreciated since you'd never been to a beach. Tony brought back his first arc reactor in the frame Pepper had made for it. It was ridiculous as a souvenir, but it was perfect coming from Tony. Bruce brought back a flying pig piggy bank. He said it was the only Ohio-y thing he could think of even though he hadn't gone to Cincinnati.

It was perfect and your makeup-Thanksgiving ended with the group watching movies together in the living room. You curled yourself in Loki's arms, your cold toes buried under Thor's leg on the other end of the couch. He rubbed your feet absently, his attention on the movie. Loki kept turning and kissing the top of your head, as if to remind himself that he was really home and you were really there. You watched the group relax in your presence as your contentment and happiness filled the room and your family.