The Sweetest Rose-LokixOC

Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Photo (c) Universal Studios

Loki shifted position in the plastic chair beside the woman's bed, holding the folder against his thigh while he got more comfortable. Cassandra had been unconscious for three days and hadn't twitched so much as a finger, but she had finally stopped glowing at least.

Fury's dossier on the woman was annoyingly thorough. Loki flipped through the loose sheets of paper to an old newspaper clipping featuring a story about a nurse finding a baby in a dumpster outside the hospital cafeteria on her lunch break.

A dumpster.

Thrown away like trash.

Conflicting emotions trickled through Loki as he gazed down at the clipping and read the beginning of Cassandra's life story. The middle-aged woman beamed proudly in the black and white photograph holding a small bundle in her arms. A tiny fist protruded from the heap of blankets as if waving in defiance of her mistreatment.

He brushed his fingers carefully over the teared and frayed edges of the yellowed paper. Fifty-year-old Madeline Pierce, unable to have children of her own, adopted the pitiful abandoned child.

For many years they lived in a small town in upstate New York. Cassandra attended a private college in the same region before moving to New York City to attend NYU for her graduate degree. Shortly after completing her studies Cassandra was hired at Rosenbaum Auction House as an associate curator.

SHIELD intelligence had even acquired copies of her bank statements and other financial records. Texts and emails. They probed their grubby fingers into every crack and crevice of Cassandra's life, leaving nothing untouched.

Loki's brows rose at a string of particularly heated break up texts exchanged between Cassandra and her former boyfriend Casey of two years ago. Apparently, Casey was a cheating asshole that deserved to be castrated and have his dick crammed down his throat.

He chuckled despite himself. Cassandra had fire in her to threaten a man with eunuch-hood. He flipped back to her financial records.

The auction house paid Cassandra well. One hundred and fifty thousand a year. Loki skimmed the bank statements briefly, pausing on a recurring transaction for Green Meadows Assisted Living Facility in Syracuse. Most of Cassandra's income went to the facility, the rest covered her monthly living expenses. So, the good daughter supported her adopted mother in her dotage.

Loki thought he might vomit from the appalling sweetness of it all.

Unfortunately, the parallels between Cassandra's past and his own were undeniable. It brought up old memories of Frigga, the Asgardian queen who raised him. Loki always regretted the last conversation he had with his mother.

Scrunching his eyes shut, Loki exhaled sharply, mentally locking away the pain in a deep dark pit before he spiraled down into the familiar helpless rage that only ended in disaster for him. It was no use dwelling on Frigga. Her death could not be undone.

Loki had his own problems to contend with. Like deciding whether to accept Fury's bargained. He wanted to refuse on principle. The bitter anger between him and the director was rote by now. To be ordered to care for a mortal was the greatest insult to his dignity.

What value existed in preserving Cassandra's life when she only had decades at best? He shook his head slightly at the ridiculousness of it.

Closing the folder, Loki set it on the bed tray, shifting his gaze toward Cassandra's sleeping form.

He did not anticipate a pair of warm brown eyes staring back at him.

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