You were plagued by nightmares that night. Your brain had helpfully decided that showing you every single possible negative outcome of your night at the club was the best way to deal with the situation.

Stupid brain.

So your dreams were filled with fear, death, and pain, and you couldn't wake.

Suddenly the dreamscape changed. You were sure you were still dreaming where there was a kiss on your forehead, soft cold lips gentle against your skin. You were extra sure you were dreaming the cool strong arms wrapping around you, holding you safely cradled against a cool chest while you slept. "Those men will not bother you ever again," a sweet honeyed male voice with a wonderful accent. Gods, your brain was doing a wonderful job creating this imaginary man... too bad this was a dream and he wasn't real. "Sleep, love. You're safe. nightmares cannot harm you while I am here." This was a dream already, but still, you listened to the words, relaxing further into a peaceful sleep.

*

When you woke there was, unsurprisingly, no sign of the imaginary man your brain had dreamed up during the night. There was a disheveled Lokitty in your arms who looked like he'd been squashed like a well-loved stuffed animal all night. You laughed and kissed the top of his head. "Sorry, Lokitty. Bad dreams. You should've just left when I started hugging you too tight," you reminded him as you sat up cross-legged on your bed, settling the cat in the circle of your legs. He mrowed indignantly, seeming grumpy that you'd even suggest that he leave. Typical cat would only leave when he decided he wanted to. You summoned a cat brush and began brushing out the mess Lokitty's fur had become. Nearly the second the brush touched him he turned into a purring melted puddle of happy cat. You smiled and brushed him much longer than he needed just to listen to his purrs.

Eventually you did have to stop. You had things to do today. "I'm going shopping after breakfast. You're welcome to come, unless you'd rather stay here and annoy Clint. I think he's working on the AC before summer hits. And of course, when Tony designed this place he made it so the only way to get to the AC for maintenance was through the air vents. I think he did that just to give Clint an excuse to be in there." You used magic to change into jeans and a t-shirt with your superhero logo on it, which was uncreatively your witch's hat.

Lokitty leapt lightly into your arms and you settled him on your shoulder. He licked your ear and you scratched behind his ears as you left the room to go find breakfast. You grinned when you made it downstairs and saw that the entire team had decided to wear their superhero logo shirts today. "Mrrt," grumbled the Lokitty when he saw them.

"What? Are you feeling left out?" you asked him as you set him on the table. You drew your wand from its usual hiding spot as a bracelet on your wrist and waved it over the cat. A moment later his golden horned helmet was on his head, shrank and modified to fit a cat head of course. You smirked and took a picture of him preening.

"Kid, I made pancakes!" Clint called from the kitchen.

"I am over 400 years older than you! I'm not a kid!" you called back, but went to the kitchen to get a plate of pancakes. Lokitty followed you meowing plaintively. "I know, I know. I think every single person here knows that pancakes are your favorite," you told him exasperated as you also grabbed his plate from Clint. "I have your plate right here. Hold your horses," you scolded the impatient fluffy god. "If you trip me, you won't get any," you grumbled at him as you had to fight the cat twining around your legs on the way back to the table. At least he'd vanished the helmet before he impaled your legs on the horns.

You set his plate next to yours. Clint had cut up his pancakes into kitty sized pieces for him. The team really had warmed up to Lokitty over the last few months. Loki was up on the table happily devouring pancakes a moment later.

After breakfast, you pulled your keys out of thin air. "I'm going to the store. Anyone need anything? Thor, I know you need more poptarts," you added quickly before he opened his mouth. You summoned a feather quill and notepad to write down the requests before shoving both in your purse. "Are you coming? Or staying here?" you asked Loki. He hopped up on your shoulder in answer.

You settled Loki in the passenger's seat of the car you usually drove. Tony didn't mind sharing his cars, at least the selection of them he offered, as long as they weren't destroyed. Hell, since he actually seemed to like you, he preferred that you drive his car which had Jarvis built in. So you had claimed one as your own. "You have to behave while I'm driving," you told the cat firmly. He climbed up on the dashboard so he could look out the window. You gave him a smirk. "We'll go somewhere fun first," you told him and set out on your adventure.

Your first stop was the biggest bookstore in town. Loki's eyes lit up when he saw where you were. You cradled him in your arms as you walked inside. "Miss, you can't bring your cat in here," the employee at the front entrance told you. Loki mewed softly, hurt at being turned away. You held him more securely.

You turned and gave the employee a too-bright smile. You could completely wreck his day if you felt like it, but he was just doing his job. It took him a minute, but when he saw your shirt and took in your appearance, he seemed to finally realize who you were. You held up your Avenger's ID anyway. "I'll vouch for the cat. He wants a new book and he won't cause any trouble while he's here picking it out,"

"O-of course, Sorceress," he answered quickly and let you inside. You nodded at him, vanished your ID and entered the store. You wandered your way up and down the shelves, pulling books for yourself and added them to the stack of books floating behind you.

"Mrow?" a paw pointed at a book. You lifted it off the shelf so Loki could see it. A headshake.

"You can pick more than one, you know, I was just feeding that line to the guy at the door." Loki perked up and the adventure truly began.

The amount of books you left the shop with was ridiculous. Beyond ridiculous. It might've been cheaper to just actually buy the store. The happiness of the Loki in your arms was totally worth the hours in the shop. He licked your cheek after you'd vanished all of the books so you didn't have to try to carry them. They reappeared in your room to sort through later. "You're welcome," you told Loki and kissed the top of his head, in the perfect spot between his ears.

"Miss, you can't bring your cat in here," the manager at the grocery store told you as you tried to enter the store with Loki in your arms.

You rolled your eyes and summoned your ID again. "Yes, I can," you told him firmly and stomped past him into the store while he was spluttering. You set Loki in the child's seat of the cart and rushed your way through this store. Shopping for groceries wasn't fun, but you needed to replace the ice cream you'd eaten yesterday and get supplies for the girls' night that was coming up. And Thor's poptarts.

That chore done, you could finally go home.

Loki helped you put the food away by trying to trip you and generally being in the way. He actually helped you sort the books afterwards. "Was this one mine or yours?" you asked over a few of them. You carried his books to the room that had been set up for him. You weren't sure if he'd ever actually been in here, but there were multiple bookshelves lining the walls, and you added the new books to his collection.

You realized that you hadn't been in here either. Thor had said he set the room up for Loki, but there'd been no reason to come in until today. Loki never spent time here, he was usually with you, Thor, or someone else on the team. The room was fairly unremarkable and standard, bed with a forest green comforter, desk, dresser, door to the closet, and a door to the bathroom. Besides the bookshelves, the only remarkable things were the framed pictures on the desk. Loki had stayed in your room, so you couldn't help snooping.

You'd have to ask Thor or Loki about the technology behind the pictures later. You hadn't thought there were cameras on Asgard, but the pictures were too old for them to be from Earth. The first was a picture of a man with one eye, Odin, a lovely woman, Frigga, and two young boys, maybe around ten years old. Thor had told you about his family, so it wasn't hard to guess who the people were. One of the boys was Thor, you could tell by the cheerful grin on his face and Mjolnir in his hands. The black-haired boy must've been Loki. He'd been an adorable child.

You realized as you looked over the picture that you didn't have a clear image of what Loki looked like in human form. Sure, you'd seen him on the news during the alien invasion. But he had always been in costume. They only showed images of him wearing his helmet, so it was hard to get a good idea of what the man looked like.

You had a very good idea what the man looked like after looking at the other pictures Thor had left on Loki's desk. One of them was of Thor and Loki in what looked like formal ceremonial clothes, including helmets on both of them. One looked like a candid shot of Thor swinging Mjolnir while Loki was curled up on a window seat in the background, his nose in a book, they looked to be in their teens.

The last of the old pictures made your heart skip a beat. It was again of Thor and Loki, but in casual tunics. Thor's arm was around Loki's shoulders and they were both laughing. You stared at the picture, at the handsome man with long jet black hair and bright green eyes as it clicked that he looked exactly like the man you had caught a glimpse of in the club last night.

Loki had made an illusion to check up on you. Sneaky god. But still, it warmed your heart that he had cared enough to. You knew it would embarrass him, though, so you didn't comment on it. Yet.

Instead, you looked at the last picture on his desk. It was the selfie of you and Lokitty that you'd sent to Thor. You smiled at it and left the room, closing the door carefully behind him.

"Mrow?" Loki asked from the stacks of books in your room.

"Sorry, it took a minute to find room on the shelves in your room for the new books," you told him with a smile and scratched behind his ears when you'd returned to him.

*

"You sure you want to stay here tonight? You did get a little squashed last night," you reminded Loki that night as you were preparing for bed. In answer, he curled himself on 'his' pillow and refused to move. You laughed. "Fine, fine. It's your fault if you get squished again,"

You woke in the middle of the night and noted that Loki wasn't curled in your arms like a plushie like usual. You rolled over to see where he was and found...and found... and. found. that there was a human shaped Loki sleeping peacefully on top of the blankets on the other side of your bed. At least, he was mostly human shaped. He still had cat-ears and a tail, and of course the collar that Tony had put on him, bigger now to accommodate a human sized throat. He was adorable, contentedly, soundly asleep, dressed in a casual green tunic and soft black pants, his raven hair falling to the pillow beneath his head.

You wanted to shout and jump for joy that he'd finally come to trust enough to change back, but you realized that he probably hadn't purposely changed back, not in the middle of the night, not as dead asleep as he was. Magic had a way of doing things on its own accord.

You also wanted to cuddle up with him, protect the adorable sleeping Loki.

You couldn't do either of those things. Instead, you carefully reached for your phone, took a silent picture of the adorable sleeping mostly-human Loki and summoned an extra blanket to cover him with. Anything more might scare him away, might hurt his trust. You had to be careful with him. He was so bruised, so scared of rejection. It would still take some work to win his trust to get him comfortable enough to stay in human form.

So you wouldn't do more tonight than cover him with the blanket and let him sleep. He was safe with you.

Yet, you couldn't help placing a soft kiss on top of his head, in the perfect spot between the cat ears on top of his head. You fell back to sleep, thinking of the soft smile he'd had after that friendly, familiar kiss.