Falling for the Enemy || Captain America || Book 1

Chapter 33: Trouble Is My Middle Name

I pace around the glistening glass coffee table, most likely wearing a path into the expensive looking carpet. Clint is currently attending to Rogers' wounds from flying rubble and previous scraps he's been in – most likely bar fights – and required that I remain here while Steve is doped on morphine. Not like morphine does much to him anyway; it's the same effect as alcohol.

"You wished to speak with me Lillian?" That loud yet hushed deep voice I would recognize from anywhere. Not at all shocked by his sudden presence – okay a little shocked, but I didn't show it – I face his over-towering frame and gesture to the squeaky leather couches, inquiring of him "Yes please. Uh... sit?"

Obliging happily, Thor slightly shrinks in size yet still has shoulders as broad as Fabio on steroids as he takes a seat on the three-seated couch, me taking a seat beside him.

Swallowing as much saliva as I can yet still not enough to quench my parched throat, I ask him what has been gnawing away at me for a few years now.

"Was Loki always that way?"

He seems startled by the abrupt question, having to blink at me a few times before finally composing himself and staring at the floor in front of him in deep thought, his elbows propped up on his knees and his hands clasped together.

"I... to be honest Lady Nightshade.... I do not know. I thought him to be my amusing yet quarrelsome younger brother for many a year. He knew his way around everything and everyone with his mischievous trickery, but always stuck with Sif, the Warriors Three and I. He was but acting like any troublesome young Asguardian—"

"You call a couple of centuries young?" I mumble to myself, too incoherent for Thor to pick up on.

"— so I did not suspect that he desired the throne so much. I thought he accepted my claim towards the throne the entire time. Then the Frost Giant incident occurred.... I did not know so much envy could exist in my younger brother. I always believed that there was still some of my younger brother in there, no matter how many times he betrayed me. After New York though.... I do not know if the monster who he is now took over my younger brother, or if the monster was my younger brother all along. Do not fret though Lillian, you are nothing like him. You do not share the same nefarious spark in your eyes. You have the spark of a strong individual, a spark you must have inherited from your mother."

For a few moments, I simply stare at him, my entire face devoid of emotions. He almost appears worried at my blank look, trying to decipher what I am feeling. So instead of allowing him to decipher it, I show it.

I lean forward and hug him as strongly as a bear, and at first, he tenses, surprised by the sudden contact and show of emotions. After allowing the thought to process though, his giant arms wrap around my small frame in comparison, practically screaming at me the real definition of a bear hug.

Allowing my head to rest just below his chin, I muffle into his chest "Thor.... Is it alright if I call you uncle?"

His chest moves up and down in time with his throaty chuckles. "You may call me whatever you wish Lillian. I understand you see as you would put it 'Patchy the Pirate' as you father, but you do not only have to have one father, and blood does not define family. Love does."

And queue the waterworks.

I don't cry. No, not really. I get angry, but I don't cry. There have been but a few times where I've cried in my life, Ally passing being one of them. Yet these tears aren't sorrowful ones, but happy ones. Thor just offered me another addition to my broken family. He just offered to step up to the mantle and take the role as my father. Sure, Nicky was my first true father, and he always will be. Like Thor said though, I do not need to have only one father.