Chapter 20

                                    

                                          


                          
  "Hey Loki, Thor?" you asked one evening while staring at a writing assignment you had been given in class that you had been procrastinating on. Both men turned their attention to you. "I have to write a stupid paper about mythology for one of my classes. Do you mind helping?"
                          
    "Did you decide to write about Norse mythology just to make us help you?" Loki asked, his tone impressed by your mischievous method of getting a good grade. You stuck your tongue at him.
                          
    "Of course I did. I'm literally living with two of the gods from Norse mythology. Besides, my teacher basically threatened to fail me if I picked anything besides Norse mythology. I think she wants me to bring Thor in as some kind of show-and-tell,"
                          
    "What is show-and-tell?" Thor asked, obviously wondering what he was possibly getting drafted for.
                          
    "It's an assignment usually given to small children in school to bring something from home to show off to the class and stand in front of the class to talk about it," you explained quickly.
                          
    "And your teacher wants you to bring me in and show me off?" Thor asked.
                          
    You rolled your eyes. "She thinks you're hot. Handsome," you added before he could question why his physical temperature mattered. "I should just bring you in," you directed that comment to Loki. "And kiss you in front of the class. Unfortunately, I'd probably get failed for that..."
                          
    "It would be fun, though, especially if she thought you were bringing in Thor," Loki chuckled. They did finally agree to help you with the paper, though, which was a huge help.
                          
    "Did you really give birth to a horse?" you asked Loki incredulously, looking up from one of the websites you were using for research.
                          
    "Did I what?" Loki demanded, ripping the laptop from your hands to stare at the screen in angry shock and horror while you and Thor roared in laughter. "No, I did not give birth to a horse," Loki grumbled, handing the laptop back while grumbling about stupid Midgardians making up illogical stuff.
                          
    "I take it you are also going to say you aren't the father of Fenrir the wolf or Jörmungandr the world serpent?" you asked him, teasing. He glared at your laptop while you laughed.
                          
    "I have no children," he finally answered grumpily, sulking. "I have also never been married," he added quickly when he saw the next paragraph. "Where did these mortals get such stupid ideas?"
                          
    "You were to be betrothed once," Thor cut in extremely unhelpfully. Loki glared at him and drew a dagger. You reached over and took the dagger from Loki before he could throw it at Thor.
                          
    "You were?" you asked, softly. Loki nodded, but wouldn't look at you.
                          
    "It was almost twenty years ago it was just a political arrangement. Odin was the one setting it up. It fell through before I even met the girl," he said quickly. You could tell he wanted to change the subject.
                          
    "Did you really pretend to be Freya to get your hammer back from giants?" you asked Thor to help change the subject. He laughed and nodded.
                          
    "That was great fun indeed!" he exclaimed and went into the story about how his hammer was stolen by the giants and they demanded Freya's hand in marriage in exchange for its return. So Thor dressed as Freya with Loki as his handmaid to go get the hammer back.
                          
    "Oaf nearly got us caught by eating the entire wedding feast," Loki grumbled, but had a look of fond reminiscing on his face.
                          
    "I was hungry it's hard to pretend to be a lady all day. Not all of us can shapeshift into females, brother,"
                          
    "I offered to use my magic for you too," Loki shot back. Neither of them knew that you were recording this conversation and it was totally ending up as part of your paper.
                          
    "How'd you get the hammer back?" you asked, trying to get them back on track.
                          
    "During a wedding ceremony a hammer representing mjolnir is placed in the bride's lap. The giant literally set mjolnir in my lap!" Thor laughed.
                          
    "Then we had to fight our way out of there, because Thor refused to sneak back out after he had his hammer back,"
                          
    "There was no need to sneak once I had mjolnir back. The giants all died. It was a glorious battle!"
                          
    You got your paper written that night with plenty of input and stories from the boys and some audio files to include in the email as interview material.
                          
    You got a perfect score on that paper and brought your teacher a signed picture of Thor and Loki after the grade was posted. It was hard enough to get them to pose together for a picture, but Loki did it because you asked and even pretended to smile for the picture.