Playing With Fire (EDITING)

Plastic Wrap and Riddles

Author's Note: all prank ideas were contribution of 8justenjoylife8. She's an amazing, incredible, fun, spontaneous, lovable evil genius. Seriously. Please go check her out and follow her!

Behind Kurt, Megan and Kitty both swore. It was a while before repeatable words could be heard, and when those words came, I had trouble comprehending. I pushed myself to a sitting position and saw Doug on his knees beside me and Kurt standing above Loki's body. He had an arm stretched out to keep Kitty and Megan away.

"He's out cold," I said, using Doug's shoulder to stand. I limped the half a step away from the rubble when I felt myself falling.

Kurt's arm caught me and he lowered me carefully back to the floor. "Stay," he told me.

I stuck my tongue out at him and massaged my throbbing wound. "What took you guys so long?"

Doug shot a harsh glare at Kurt and muttered, "Ask him."

Confused, I looked to Kurt for explanation but he was facing Doug with defensiveness written in his stance. "Oh, so this is my fault? You're the one who wasn't sure, the one who said she should go alone, the one who said she could handle herself."

"And she was fine!" Doug responded, rising to his feet and crossing his arms. He wasn't one to give in to anger easily and this was so unlike him, I was surprised.

"Fine?!" Kurt argued. He waved a hand at the wreckage and Loki's body. "Yeah, everything looks just fine," he said, voice dripping in sarcasm.

"At least I wasn't the one who wanted to stop her from going at all!"

I had never seen Doug this riled before and I felt responsible to stop the fight before it became physical. While I struggled to my feet, their voices rose to full shouts and Kurt shoved Doug roughly backward. "Shut up!" I shouted at them. "The both of you! Arrête!"

They barely spared me a glance until I pulled my knife and flicked it at them so that it passed narrowly between their foreheads. The strong grips they'd locked on each others shoulders loosened and both heads snapped toward me. "Idiots!" I scolded.

Their blank stares still smoldered with the fire of their argument but neither spoke. Slowly, Doug released Kurt and pulled away a step.

I was furious at them both for not only wasting the time Loki would be unconscious for, but also for being loud enough to alert anyone three floors below us. "I don't care!" I hissed. "It's over alright, it doesn't matter anymore!"

Their postures visibly softened and I hobbled across the debris-strewn floor until Doug caught me and supported me the rest of the way. I knelt beside Loki's body and rolled him onto his back, taking note of a large welt swelling on top of his head and a trickle of blood running down the back of his neck. Hopefully, I hadn't caused too much damage...like denting his skull...

"How did you know?" I asked Doug, looking to where he stood above me.

He smiled ever so slightly and knelt on the patterned floor, picking up a chunk of the broken sundial. "I knew something was wrong but I didn't know that it was really this wrong. If it had really been Odin, he would have simply asked his guards to take us away and spoken with you privately where we were. Also, Loki made a major mistake. Odin has been blind in his right eye for several hundred years. Simply wearing the eyepatch won't effect the changes in posture and head position that actually being blind would. Loki still faced everyone straight on as if he had both eyes. Odin would never have done that."

"Thank you, Sherlock," Kurt snapped moodily.

I shot him a warning glare observed Loki's motionless face. "What should we do to him?"