The first day of the new school year was the absolute bane of Jane Foster's existence. Some might think she was overreacting; this was only her third year of teaching second grade. As a rebuttal, Jane would like to dare those people to take over her job for that day. Just that one single day, and see if they don't come out of it with a splitting migraine headache and chaffing. Unless they were a drill sergeant or a Navy SEAL in another life, they weren't going to make it.

It wasn't so much the kids that were the problem, otherwise every school day would be hell instead of just the first one.

No, it was the parents, because every year, without fail, there was that one couple…

That one couple who was so enamored with their child and so convinced that they were perfect and could do no wrong, that no amount of bad behavior or failing grades could make them change their minds. They would always find some mind-numbing excuse to make it look like their child was innocent and someone else was at fault. Anyone else: a friend, a fellow student, the child whose lunch money was stolen or toy was broken, Jane herself. Anyone but that 'beautiful angel of light who would never hurt a fly!'

The Hayers were this year's couple: Mrs. Hayer, with her thick waist and gaudy makeup, and Mr. Hayer, with his barrel chest, handlebar mustache, and wandering eyes. Every time Jane turned around, she was pretty sure they were on her backside.

"Now, please remember, Ms. Foster, my Harvey must have his afternoon snack at a core temperature of 42 degrees Fahrenheit. In case you get confused, his lunch bag comes with a built in device for measuring temperature. You just have to look at the left hand side-"

"Thank you Mrs. Hayer, I know how a thermometer works."

Jane wore a smile so fake that someone could have cracked it with a hammer, but Mrs. Hayer was as oblivious to it as she was to the kid whose building block house she'd just knock over with her swinging pocketbook.

"Oh, I'm sure you do, dear, I just want to make sure. I know that being a teacher of children so young can't provide much mental stimulation and that it's easy for things to slip out."

Jane felt a sudden urge to laugh that she couldn't explain, except for that she might cackle madly as she took the stapler off her desk and beat Mrs. Hayer's head into her neck with it.

"I'm pretty sure being an elementary school teacher doesn't dumb one down, Mrs. Hayer. You have absolutely nothing to worry about."

"Oh, of course I don't." She pulled Jane to a most unwelcome hug and then started walking again with her arm around Jane's shoulder, Mr. Hayer following silently behind and winking at Jane when his wife wasn't looking.

'Not on your life, pal,' Jane thought.

"Now, regarding recess. My Harvey is a boisterous child who loves to roughhouse with his friends, but he had a light cold over the summer in July, so please inform his classmates to be extra careful-"

It took ten minutes of reassuring and promising things Jane would not remember later, but she was able to get the Hayers off her back and out the door. She unfortunately had to hold off on getting rid of them a little longer when she saw they had forgotten to give her an emergency contact number. Mr. Hayer scribbled the number into Jane's role call book for her and winked one more time before departing with his wife. Jane tried not to weigh the odds of that being his personal number instead of the business number he promised.

Once again, not on his life.

"Okay, let's see." Jane pulled out a pen and ran it down the list of names. "Met with the Hayers, the Kaplans, the Golds, the Nevaras, the McCallisters, the Johnsons, the Manns, the Feinbergs…"

Jane would probably have been a lot better off if she kept her role call book in alphabetical order like all the other teachers did.

"…the Devernas, the Germains, the Fitzgeralds… hmmm."

Jane held her pen over the final name, which was really three names all huddled together and parted by some well-placed forward slashes. It seemed this family went for the old school style Scandinavian naming. While Jane didn't recognize the first two names listed: Lokison and Lokidottir, looking at the first names told Jane that these were the ones she'd been told about: the three new students who had just transferred in over the summer. She'd been wondering why she hadn't met them yet.

"Fenrir Lokison," she read quietly aloud, "Jormungandr Lokison, and Hela Lokidottir."

And the proud parent was a Mr. Loki Odinson. Now therewas a name Jane knew. Business Mogul, founder and CEO of Asgard Industrial. Pretty much everyone knew his name, if not because they were interested in matters of business and finance than because Mr. Odinson tended to appear in the 'Hot' category of all the 'Hot or Not' fashion articles (not that Jane read those), and just last year was named the most eligible bachelor in the country (some people thought he should have been second, except Tony Stark got engaged right around that time).

And today, Jane was going to meet him.

Jane smiled serenely and nodded to herself as she put the roll call sheet down and awaited the arrival of her final three stude-

She was about to meet a freaking billionaire CEO.

Jane ripped open her desk drawer and rummaged furiously for her handheld mirror. The students who were already seated had to be very surprised by their new teacher's silly behavior. Some of them where laughing.

After throwing aside a wad of old gum wrappers and loose pages from the first draft of her thesis that she'd probably discarded a month ago, Jane finally struck gold as the tiny, infrequently used compact peeked out from behind an old crossword puzzle book. Jane fought hard to work it open, sticking her nails into the edges and pulling with all her strength, until she realized she was trying to open it on the wrong end.

She checked her hair, which looked decent enough for someone who did their own hair most of the time and was no professional. She'd given herself a trim just last week that everyone said gave her hair much more body and bounce (whatever that meant). Jane checked her teeth for trapped bits of egg or toast from breakfast, unaware of the door opening a crack and three sets of feet scuttling across the room to her desk, until three little voices rang out loud and clear.

"Good morning, Ms. Foster."

Jane dropped the mirror. Before it fell, three heads of the purest black stuck out over it, and then their faces appeared, all unique in some ways and yet similar in others.

To the far left was a boy, the tallest of the bunch, with wolf-like features and eyebrows knitted in a scowl. Jane would think he was in a surly mood, except when he smiled, it seemed as bright and as reall as his siblings'. Next to him was the second boy. He was small and skinny for his age, with neatly cut hair in contrast with his brother's shaggy mop. He had thin lips and a birthmark on the bridge of his nose between his eyes, which shined in a way the others' didn't, even though they all had the same color green. Finally, there was the girl. Her hair was long and braided, leaving nothing to hide her face or the puffy pink half that made her whole head look a tad lopsided. Jane had heard something about an accident when the girl was much younger, but she hadn't known the true extent until now, and her heart ached for her. She was still a very pretty child regardless. There was just something about her and the clear half of her face that told Jane she would be a beautiful woman someday.

They were all of them good looking children; it was clear they took after their father, the very same man who hadn't followed them into the class and wasn't waiting by the door either as Jane had expected.

"Good morning," Jane tentatively answered. Her eyes flicked over the children's heads. Any minute now, an honest-to-God celebrity could come walking through her door, and she'd rather not be caught off guard by his kids.

"My name is Hela Lokidottir," said the girl with a tiny bowing of her head. "I'm very happy to be in your class this year, Ms. Foster."

As if on cue, the next one it line stepped forward.

"I'm Jormungandr Lokison. I like to learn new things, so I hope we have a good time in your class, Ms. Foster."

He backed up, and Jane forced herself not to wince. That was a mighty big voice coming out of such a tiny mouth.

The third boy took his time introducing himself. In fact, he didn't do it at all until Hela reached over and poked him hard on the shoulder.

"My name is Fenrir Lokison," he grumbled. "And if you give us homework on the first day, I'm not doing that shi-"

"Fenrir!" Hela shouted.

He scoffed, mouthing an irritated 'What?' at her before crossing his arms and falling back into line.

On some level, Jane was aware that she was the one who should be scolding the boy (and, if she were her dearly departed grandmother, shoving a bar of soap down his throat), but before she could re-attain the necessary higher brain function to do or say anything, she needed to quickly reboot and make sense of what she was seeing.

It appeared she had just become teacher to the Von Trapp children.

Not once in all her three long years on the job had she seen something like this. She'd been pretty sure- after one too many incidents with that nine year old across the street putting sticks in her path when she took a bike ride- that this sort of politeness was reserved for upper class European people and old movies. Granted, the kids all had clear British accents, but still…

Realizing that after a while, she'd have to stop gawking and start acting like a proper authority figure, Jane closed her mouth and laced her fingers together on the desk ("always do that when in doubt," another, much older teacher had once advised her, "it lets them know that you mean business.").

"It's very nice to meet you all," Jane said. "I'm sure we will have a great time together, but I was expecting to meet with you guys and your father today."

Hela nodded. "Yes, we know. Unfortunately, he had business to take care of and couldn't make it."

"Our father sends his sincerest apologies," said Jormungandr.

"He wrote you a note." Fenrir jerked his head at Hela. "She has it."

Hela had already pulled out a long white envelope with fancy gold borders. The paper felt thick between Jane's fingers when she took it. In fact, upon further inspection, it wasn't paper at all. It was parchment.

Jane didn't know people still used parchment, at least not for something as simple as a letter excusing absence. Flipping it over, Jane read her own name written in ridiculously elegant cursive that she would never have believed someone physically wrote until some of the ink smudged on her finger. Looking at this, Loki Odinson would have to be, as Darcy might accurately describe it, some kind of divine penmanship god.

Jane laid the letter flat on her desk to open later. The kids didn't seem too bothered by it, any more than they were of having to come to school on their own and introduce themselves.

"Okay, that's fine. You three can go take your seats now if you like."

The boys wandered off to the remaining empty desks by the windows, while Hela hung back, walking backwards away from Jane's desk and never taking her eyes off her. Later on, Jane would be baffled by how hard it was in that moment to break eye contact. More than her words, there was a way about Hela and her brothers that bespoke maturity and understanding unheard of in children their age. Just from eye contact alone, Jane felt like she was about to start another heated debate with one of her classmates at night school.

No child alive should have this kind of focus.

"Did you need something, Hela?" Jane asked, a smile masking her uncertainty.

A long moment passed, before Hela robotically shook her head, and a faint smile of her own appeared.

"No, nothing," she said. "You're just very pretty, Ms. Foster."

She turned and walked to her desk before Jane had a chance to think of an answer.

If the first day of school was like walking into hell, the first week was like taking a nosedive straight into the seventh circle. The whole reason Jane had opted to teach second grade instead of first or third was because of how easy it seemed. Seven year olds, in her experience, were right smack on the threshold between the self-control lacking six year olds and the cruelty of eight and nine year olds. Seven year olds were quiet, they listened, and they were too young to think about rebelling against her authority.

In her experience.

Jane should've known not to trust her experiences prior to becoming a teacher. The one well-behaved seven year old she baby-sat in college was her experience. She should have known better. As a whole, seven year olds were basically no different than six and eight year olds, beyond being a little bit bigger than the six year olds and a little bit smaller than the eight year olds.

Case in point: Harvey Hayer Jr. In the first four days of school alone, he had stolen three other kid's lunches, pushed four more off the slide at recess, threw one girl's favorite doll in a mud puddle when she wouldn't let him have her chocolate chip cookie, and had yet to turn in a single homework assignment on top of everything else. Clearly, when Mrs. Hayer had gushed about her 'boisterous child who loved to roughhouse,' what she should have been saying was 'America's answer to Dudley Dursley.'

When Jane wasn't trying for the fifth time in a row to scold Harvey, she was dealing with some other kind of grade school travesty. Little Timmy McMill had developed a crush on Sally James, and could find no other way to express himself than to pull on her pigtails while sitting next to her in storytime. In response, Sally his pudding snack out of his hands at lunch. The two kids came crying to her, and it took Jane ten minutes to calm them down and move their desks to separate sides of the room.

And then, there were the triplets.

Jane had been right about them being more mature for their age, a bit too right.

Because said maturity seemed to extend to certifiable genius. All of them.

On the first day, once the parents were gone, Jane had gathered the kids together in a circle on the storytime carpet and asked them to talk about one of their favorite things. One kid talked about baseball. Another one liked ponies.

Jormungandr liked Post-Modernism.

Jane had had to do a double take and ask him to repeat that.

"Well, admittedly, I'm not a fan of Jackson Pollack's overall body of work. To me, he seemed very pretentious for someone just scribbling things on a canvas or throwing paint at the wall. I know three year olds who can do that just as well, and they don't expect anything more than a spot on the refrigerator, so I don't know who Pollack thinks he's kidding."

Following that, Hela spoke at length about the revolutionary accomplishments of Marie Currie in the field of radiology. Finally, Fenrir gave a short, toneless, yet very detailed, speech about the New York Mets' 1969 line-up, right down to the positions and numbers of the players.

It would have been fine if it had ended there, but no. Each and every one of them proved to be more adept to everything Jane was trying to teach them than she was. Hela especially had her hand up every time Jane asked a question, and it was all Jane could do not to call on her or one of her brothers every time they were the only ones with their hands up. This was distressingly often.

And when Jane did let them answer, they always had the perfect response… for a college student. Though Jane was pretty sure her night school classmates didn't give answers like they. A simple less on the planets had turned into a heated debate between the three of them on whether or not Mars would ever be inhabitable (also Jormungandr took Pluto's demotion rather personally). Jane was barely one page into Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea when Hela started complaining about there being no way a submarine advanced enough to reach that depth could have been made in the book's time frame, which led to Fenrir shushing her, because 'it's just fiction, egghead, let it go,' while Jormungandr was more bothered by Jane's reading them the 'kid' version of the book instead of the real one.

By the end of the first week, Jane was pretty sure there was nothing she could possibly teach these kids. They needed to be in college- possibly even Graduate school- working on their MBAs and Ph.D.'s in time for their thirteenth birthday. The meeting she had arranged to discuss the matter with the principal had been inexplicably canceled, and at 3:15 in the afternoon with no other work to complete, Jane would've loved nothing more than to be out of here.

"Listen, Harvey, I have told you time and time again this week. You cannot take things that don't belong to you. Now you need to tell me where you hid Robbie's backpack, and you need to tell me now."

She was standing over Harvey. The last few times she had tried punishing him, she'd crouched down to his level, and met his eye. That never seemed to work, so maybe looking down her nose at him with her arms crossed and her foot tapping would make her scarier to him.

Harvey's face was covered in brown, and he smelled strongly of chocolate that probably hadn't been his either. His pudgy fingers had been licked clean of all excess ages ago, but he had yet to go and wash his hands for real, and they gleamed with half dried saliva. Jane's stomach churned just looking at them. Next on the agenda was to get one of the male teachers to escort him to the bathroom, if she could ever get him to admit what he did first.

"Harvey," she repeated his name. "You have to answer me, Harvey. If you don't, you'll have to stand in the corner during story time tomorrow."

"It's a stupid story anyway," said Harvey, "and you're a stupid teacher. You can't tell me what to do. I didn't steal anything. I'm just a growing boy who likes to tease his friends. Just ask my mommy."

Harvey ran out the door as fast as his round body would take him. It was fast enough, as he was long out of sight by the time Jane got to the door and was ready to call him back. Further deterring her was the horde of fifth grade girls stampeding out of the locker room, some of them having barely pulled their shirts over their heads or gotten their shoelaces tried. While they all tried desperately not to trip over themselves (or each other), Jane found herself weaving around the swarm of frantic preteens to get to the locker room. She would never be able to explain how she knew it was them. There was just something in her gut, something pushing her onwards, passed the swinging door and down the L-shaped hall, that knew it could only be them.

The sound of buzzing hit her when she turned, and then she didn't know how she could have missed it. It had been intermingled with the screaming of the girls. No wonder they had been so loud. There had to be hundreds of them, a writhing black mass locked inside a clear box. The three children huddled around it had their heads down as they whispered in speedy voices Jane couldn't hear over the white noise.

For the longest time, she just stood there. Her shoulders were hunched and her jaw had fallen. It would have been very comical if one of them chose that moment to look up, only to find their teacher looking like something out of a horror movie. When the moment passed, Jane's shock was replaced by something much easier to direct.

"Excuse me!"

Rare was the instance where Jane had to really yell at a student. When she did, she found that she had a real talent for it. No matter whom the kid was or what they had done, be they a high achiever or a criminal slacker, when Ms. Foster was angry, they paid attention.

The same could be said for super genius kids, as Jane found out when the kids bolted upright and formed an uneven line before her, a strange repeat of the first day of school. Where it usually fell to Hela or Jormungandr to be the designated speaker, today it was Fenrir who stepped up.

"Hey there, Ms. Foster," he said, and behind that cool façade, Jane could see he was quaking in his boots. "What's going on?"

"What's going on?" Jane repeated, hands on her hips. "I don't know, Fenrir, why don't you tell me what's going on."

Fenrir gulped. He looked to his siblings for help, but they had none to give. Jane would just have to do it for them.

"Would you mind telling me why a group of girls just ran out of here screaming? And I don't want to hear that you had nothing to do with it." She added quickly, having had far too much experience with that particular excuse.

Again, Fenrir silently pleaded with Hela and Jormungandr, and this time, Jormungandr answered his call.

"Ms. Foster, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this," he said. "You see, my sister and I have been working on a little pet project involving a very rare breed of fruit fly indigenous to South Africa. We picked up some specimens during summer break, and we were just checking up on their development when those girls came in. It was never our intention to scare anyone."

"Why do you have them in the school locker room?"

"Well, Ms. Foster, our father wouldn't let us breed them in the indoor garden at home. He thought they might disrupt the natural ecosystem, and uh… well…"

Jormungandr cleared his throat, but never completed the sentence. One of the things Jane had noticed was that out of all of them, Jormungandr was the real wordsmith, so to see him so lost with no help from his siblings had to mean that they were all clear on how much trouble they were in.

"All right," Jane said, letting her voice lower to a normal volume. "Come with me, all of you."

They followed obediently back to the classroom, never protesting that the school day was over or that they had some top secret government project to work on after school or whatever other excuse Jane expected them to give. On Jane's command, they took the three seats closest to her desk and removed their notebooks and pencils from their school bags.

"Now, you three are going to sit here and you're going to write 'I will not breed fruit flies in the locker room' a hundred times each. Nobody is leaving until all of you are done, or I will send a note home to your father."

Really, she should be calling Mr. Odinson no matter what, and to her dying day, she will never admit that part of her (relative) leniency came from intimidation by the man's power and influence. Someone like that could make the Hayers look reasonable. She might have also thinking ahead, to all the amusing stories she'll tell other teachers twenty years from now about the crazy genius kids who actually bred tiny insects in the locker room. No, really!

While the triplets wrote diligently for the next hour and a half, Jane flipped through her Theory of Astrophysics text. She was unable to properly read anything, so for the most part she just looked at the pictures. A couple of years ago, she'd discovered that the photos of space astronomers took were actually black and white, and that the vibrant colors of space that dazzled the earthbound were just special effects. That had been an unfortunate reality check. She settled on a wide angle shot of the Hubble telescope and dreamed of the day she could have a chance to operate it, as Fenrir dotted his last 'I' and pumped a fist. Finishing first seemed to mean a lot to him.

Hela and Jormungandr were not far behind, and once their sentences were complete, the three of them bowed their heads and awaited Jane's judgment. After the first ten or so iterations of the phrase, Jane skimmed the rest and nodded her head.

"Okay. Have you all learned your lesson?"

"I learned that teachers actually do that copying lines thing," Fenrir said through his teeth. "I thought that was just TV."

Jane got the feeling from the aloofness inherent in that comment, that he didn't think she would hear him. It made her grin.

"You're just lucky you don't have my old second grade teacher to deal with. When I tried to cut class to watch the older kids in the science lab, she made me write down 'I will not be a truant' three hundred times."

Jormungandr whistled, Fenrir fell silent, and Jane decided not to mention that she'd had no idea what a 'truant' was back then and succeeded on her second try a month later.

"Well, I can't speak for my brothers," Hela said, her fingers laced over her stomach, "but it was my idea to bring the fruit flies to school. I was the one who wanted to study them, so it's my fault. I'm really sorry, Ms. Foster."

"I'm sorry too," said Jormungandr.

Fenrir's apology came with him glancing away and mumbling, but Jane would take it.

"I'm glad you all understand that what you did was wrong," she said. "I also want you to know that I am not doing this to bully you or make you feel bad. I'm doing it because even though you're all good students, that doesn't mean you're exempt from punishment when you do something wrong, and what you did today was very wrong."

"Technically, we did it last week," said Fenrir, earning a glare from Hela.

"Regardless, I want you to take away from this that there are other people in the world and in this school whose well-being you have to consider, and that sometimes, just because you want to do something doesn't mean you should, all right?"

They all nodded their heads, and Jane was never more thankful for Erik and those child psychology books he'd given her the Christmas she first started teaching. Once again, they've saved her butt.

"Maybe we can donate the fruit flies to one of the foreign labs on our dad's payroll," Hela sheepishly suggested.

"That sounds great," said Jane with an encouraging smile. "Go on home now."

They filed out one at a time, Fenrir in the lead, Hela right behind, and Jormungandr bringing up the rear, dialing their driver to let him know to bring the car around. His voice disappeared down the hallway with the tapping of their feet. Jane was just sitting back at her desk to pick up her steaming decaf, close her eyes, and rest a while in her ridiculously comfortable swivel chair when Fenrir's head popped up in the doorway.

"Hey Ms. Foster, are you single?"

Jane slipped, choking on her coffee (or maybe that was just the coffee itself) and knocking some very important paperwork off her desk, but apparently that was all Fenrir needed to see. He was long gone by the time Jane collected herself.

Fenrir had to run to catch up to his siblings, but being the tallest of the three with the longest legs, he barely exerted any effort. He slowed to a jog when he reached them and nodded at Hela.

"She's single," he said. "I could tell from her reaction. Also she doesn't wear a ring, so that should've given you the hint."

"Sometimes couples take off their wedding rings when they're having marital issues," said Jormungandr, like the smug little smartass he was. "I read all about it in Psychology Today."

"You need to stop reading that stuff before you need to see a shrink yourself," said Fenrir.

Jormungandr gave him a flat look. "Sure, if you stop watching female oriented television before you grow your hair any longer and start wearing dresses."

"My Little Pony is for everyone! And you watch it too, Mr. Sleeps-with-a-Rainbow-Dash-pillow, so shut up."

"Both of you shut up!" Hela shouted, ready to pinch her brother's lips if need be. "I swear I have to do everything for you two. We have important matters to discuss about Dad and Ms. Foster."

"Hela's right," Jormungandr said, though he continued to stick up his nose to Fenrir. "We need to create a plan of action if we're going to make this work."

Fenrir raised an eyebrow. "You guys seriously think Ms. Foster is a good choice to marry Dad and be our Mom? I didn't know you liked getting punished so much."

"Of course we don't like getting punished, dummy," said Hela with her hands on her hips in a perfect imitation of Ms. Foster. "But don't you understand that that's what parents are supposed to do? All the other teachers, tutors, and babysitters we've ever had let us do whatever we wanted because they were too scared of Dad to try and discipline us. Ms. Foster is the only one who ever punished us for anything."

"No she's not," Fenrir said. "Dad does it all the time."

"Yeah, because he's our dad, which is part of the point," said Jormungandr. "I agree with Hela. Their treatment of us alone indicates potential compatibility. In addition, they're both young, attractive singles, Dad has a preference for brunettes, and they are in an ideal situation to enter into proximity with each other, Dad being our parent and Ms. Foster being our teacher."

"That would mean we'd have to do something to make them meet," said Hela with a hand on her chin.

"Let me know when you figure that one out," Fenrir said. "Don't forget Dad's going to be in and out of the country on business for the next five months. He can't even make the Open House night next month."

Jormungandr hummed. "Then we'll have to use the coming months to our advantage, find out as much as we can about who and what we're dealing with. The more information we have, the better an idea we'll have about what to do and if we're making the right choice."

"We are," Hela said, and she looked ahead to the front entrance with a look of pure and unbending determination that Fenrir knew all too well. While Hela was always something of an open book, this was something a blind man would pick up on, and Fenrir knew then that he'd have to resign himself, and remind himself that he did like Ms. Foster after all, even if she did make them do lines like a big TV cliché.

He didn't really have a choice anyway. Come hell or high water or stained permanent records, Jane Foster was going to be their new mother no matter what Hela, Jormungandr, and maybe even Fenrir himself had to do to make it happen.

"Good Morning, Ms. Foster!"

They arrived at school first thing Monday morning before anyone else. That alone was nothing special, but the fresh bouquet of flowers was new.

"They're chocolate cosmos," Hela explained. "They're native to Mexico."

"Extremely rare," Jormungandr put in.

"Our gardener grows them and a bunch of other flowers you can't find anywhere else," said Fenrir.

"We thought they'd really brighten up your workspace, Ms. Foster."

Though their story gave Jane pause (if these flowers were so rare, why would they pick them just for her?) she brought them to her nose and inhaled a rich scent that brought her back to days of helping her grandmother with her flower bed.

"They're beautiful," Jane said. She discarded the fading daises she picked up at the store and inserted the new ones. All questions aside, they really did make for a springy mood in the duller and drearier days of autumn.

"Just think of it as our way of apologizing for the fruit flies," said Jormungandr. "And we really are sorry about that by the way."

"Don't worry, you guys, I'm not going to make you write more lines," said Jane. She did not miss Fenrir's sigh of relief.

"We just want you to know how great a teacher you are and how much we appreciate your honesty and your intelligence and your top notch teaching methods," said Hela, and now it was starting to get a tad embarrassing.

"Well, you guys don't need to bring me rare flowers to tell me that," she said. They also didn't have to butter her up like this.

The triplet shared secretive glances, almost like they were speaking telepathically.

"Okay, we understand," said Hela.

They came in the next day with Kadupul flowers from Sri Lanka. Just as beautiful and slightly less rare.

"Hela, sweetie, what is this?"

In the middle of packing up go home, Hela looked up.

"What is what?"

Jane spun the source of today's troubles around her fingers, careful not to smudge or snap what had to have cost a pretty penny.

"I come into class today to find this pen on my desk." Jane stopped twirling the fountain pen. "I don't remember it being there yesterday, so I'm pretty sure it's not mine."

"Does it write well?" Hela asked hopefully. "The man at the store said it's made with the highest quality ink. It comes out like silk."

That salesman had certainly done his job if that was the case. Jane glanced down involuntarily at all the papers and tests she'd graded with that pen, even when she knew she shouldn't have. It wasn't like she was going to keep it, personalized it may be.

"Do you like the font they used to engrave your name?"

"I thought it should have been less flowery," Jormungandr called out from across the room, his hands cupped over his mouth to magnify his voice (not that it was needed). "You seem like you'd appreciate a less ostentatious, Ms. Foster."

"I still think we should have gotten a paperweight instead of a pen," said Fenrir. "They last longer."

"Some pens are refillable," said Jormungandr.

"I don't think that one is."

"Anyway," Hela shot a hard look her brothers' way, "we wanted to get you something as a thank you for being such a wonderful and caring teacher to us. Under you, we've learned so many valuable lessons."

'It's not even the third week of school yet.' "Well, that's very sweet of you, all of you," Jane said. "But I really can't accept this."

"It's non-refundable," said Jormungandr.

"And we spent an hour in the store picking it out when we could have been picking up that vintage Tom Seaver figurine I've been looking for or getting Hela more of her girl comics or something."

Hela's eye twitched, her happy, doll-like smile becoming strained and cracked for a fraction of a second.

"What we're trying to say is that we want you to have this, Ms. Foster," Hela slid the pen between Jane's fingers. "It's our gift to you, because we all like you so much."

It sounded genuine when she said it like that and had her equally sincere looking brothers to back her up. Not that Jane ever thought they would pull one over on her; it was more that she was absolutely certain they could if they wanted to. The pen was stopped against Jane's fingers and she itched to pick it up again. It really was a very nice pen.

"Okay, I'll accept this one," Jane said. The children's eyes all lit up. "But, I want you guys to promise me that you won't-"

"Hey, Jane! Ja-ane!"

Darcy Lewis took a running leap into the classroom, with Fenrir and Jormungandr's quick reflexes all that saved them from being bowled over. She skidded to a halt in front of the desk and slammed her hands down to steady herself. She brushed the fountain pen and its perfect grip and finish, nearly knocking it to the floor. Jane's heart flew into her throat.

"Darcy, what are you doing here?"

But Darcy wasn't yet finished with her jumping jacks. This was a telltale sign that the girl had been drinking, or else partaking it too many chocolate shakes again.

"Jane, I am just having the greatest freaking day! I am young and I am hot and I am single and everything is just fucking awesome so I have to celebrate! CELEBRATE!"

Darcy continued to chant the word 'celebrate' in different octaves and tempos, leaping into the air very now and then in some sort of incomprehensible drunken dance. Jane sat back at her desk, shaking her head.

So it was the break up with Ian again. That explained everything, except for whether or not Darcy chose to drown her sorrows in cheap beer or milkshakes this time. It looked like the quiet night home with a good book was off the table now, as Jane would be spending the latter part of the evening comforting Darcy when she inevitably crashed and dissolved into a sobbing wreck who could never be whole again without her 'British dork.'

"You and I have to go out and celebrate!"

Jane bit back a sigh. "Celebrate what?"

"Being young and hot and single and totally awesome. Come on, Jane, stay with me here! We're gonna head out tonight and party like there's no tomorrow. Know why? Because fuck Ian and fuck Don, too. We don't need 'em."

Jane cast a glance at the triplets, none of whom had seen fit to excuse themselves and looked half a step away from breaking out into giggles.

"What's so great about being single?" Hela asked, with an innocence that befell her higher intellect.

Darcy didn't seem to catch that, as she laughed and patted Hela on the head, throwing the girl's braid askew.

"Ah, you're one cute kid, whoever you are," said Darcy.

"She's Hela," Fenrir supplied as he sauntered over. "And I'm Fenrir, and that's Jormungandr, and we're Ms. Foster's students, also known as the young and impressionable children you just said three cuss words in front of."

Darcy, contrary to Jane's suspicions, maintained just enough awareness to turn bright red and look sheepish. She muttered an apology that Jane doubted was needed. She still sent the kids a meaningful look of her own.

'Never let me catch you using that kind of language or else,' was the message she hoped to get across. She then picked up her coffee and turned to the triplets.

"Why don't you three go on home now? I'm sure your father is worried about you."

"He's in Manhattan for the rest of the week," said Fenrir.

"Him and our Uncle Tony are investigating embezzlement claims among the Wall street bankers they do business with."

"That… sounds pretty cool," said Jane, who briefly considered asking if 'Uncle Tony' was who she thought he was, but in the end decided against it.

"It is cool," said Jormungandr eagerly. "We'll tell Dad you said hi!"

"You do that," Jane said, or tried to anyway. It didn't come out very clear as she'd made the mistake of sipping her coffee before speaking and her shudders from the bitter aftertaste had yet to wane (and that was after four whole packets of sugar).

"Darcy, do me a favor," Jane said to her hyper friend. "Never drink the coffee in this place when you visit. Also, if we're going to go out tonight, we'd better stop at a Starbucks first, because I need to get this taste out of my mouth."

While Darcy practically did back flips off of all the desks, singing 'Celebrate' at the top of her lungs, Jane was completely unaware of Hela hanging back at the edge of the hall, hearing every word her teacher said.

When Ms. Foster's classroom was out of sight, and Ms. Foster's weird friend who talked about going 'clubbing' could no longer be heard, Hela whipped out her cell phone. Dad was number one on her speed dial, right above Fenrir and Jormungandr and the pizza place down the road that made the best garlic knots in the county.

She waited three rings before her father picked up.

"Dad, it's me. I wanted to know how fast you can get a state of the art cappuccino machine delivered to the school. You can go ahead and take the shipping costs out of my allowance."

"All right, all right! Single file line, everyone. Have your candies and chocolates at the ready. One piece per go on the slide. Step right up!"

"Uh… Mr. Jormungandr sir? I don't have any candy today, but I do have a pack of gum. Is that okay?"

"What flavor is it?"

"Oh, uh… I'm still learning how to read, but it's red, so I think it's cherry?"

"Good enough. Proceed."

The little first grader cheered and ran for the ladder, as Jormungandr pocketed the wrapped package with the rest of his 'earnings' and announced that the daily 'cap' was about to be implemented. Only ten more kids would be allowed on the slide before recess ended. The complaints of the children could be heard next to the school building, where Fenrir and Hela sat isolated from the rest of their peers in front of a certain window.

Harvey Hayer and his two goons wandered by with a kickball they'd probably stolen from someone's game. Upon noticing the siblings, Harvey's fat face broke into a rubbery smile.

"Look, it's monster girl and her weirdo brother!" he shouted. His two friends howled like madmen. They always did that no matter how obtuse or unfunny Harvey's jokes were. That was a marvel, in and of itself.

"What about that was even remotely funny?" Fenrir asked, silencing the two boys. "Have you guys really been forced into submission to such a degree that you can't even tell the difference between real wit and the schlock Harvey lets out of his piehole?"

The boys blinked at him, their dull eyed expressions possibly excused by their age, but while reading people was never Fenrir's strong suit (unless they were really, really obvious like Hela), he was pretty sure these guys would still be wearing faces like this when they were thirty.

"Hey, what does 'romotely' mean?" one of them asked the other.

And now Fenrir was bored.

He cast a glance at his sister. She'd been in the middle of her favorite book when she noticed Ms. Foster back in their classroom, now seated at her desk on the phone and making frenetic gestures. His skills at lip-reading still needed work, but from what he could see, she was speaking to an ex-boyfriend. Something about stuff he left behind at her place. From the way she was ranting at this 'Don' guy or whatever his name was, Fenrir was pretty sure they had parted on bad terms, but he'd wait for Jormungandr to make that call. That little twerp was the psycho-babble one.

"No, this is not a matter up for discussion, Don," Ms. Foster was saying. "I've tried to talk to you about this before and you wouldn't listen to me. That's why we broke up in the first place."

A long pause followed. Fenrir pressed his ear into the window, his sensitive ears picking up a hint of a male voice on the other end.

"Yeah, okay, I get it. If you want your things, either come by tomorrow afternoon or I'll bring them by your place… yes, I still live in the apartment on Ninth Street. Just don't come before noon, because I'll be sleeping… because I'm a teacher, Don. I stay up all night and I grade book reports written in green crayon. Just call me before you arrive so I can have your stuff ready at the door. I know you won't want to stick around for a chat and neither will I.

She hung up the phone, probably without having let the guy say his goodbyes. She tossed the phone to the side and put her head in her hands, rubbing lightly at the temples.

"That sounded pretty rough," Fenrir remarked. He pushed off the wall and went to kick an abandoned soccer ball into the field, where a group of kids picked it up for their game.

"I wonder what this Don guy is like," Hela said to herself, though her eyes flicked to Fenrir as she spoke, and there it was again: Hela's game face. That was a face that said 'I have a plan and I have a drive and I am going into this with or without you so you'd better step up and help or get out of the way.'

Fenrir knew what they'd be doing this weekend.

"Wow guys, wouldya look at that car over there isn't that a nice car I like that car I can't wait until I can drive a car I'll drive all over everywhere and I'll take you guys too so don't worry if you don't wind up with cars but since we're rich you really should wind up with car-"

"Would you pipe down?!" Fenrir clamped a hand over Jormungandr's rapidly moving mouth. His brother kept up the muffled chatter anyway, much to the chagrin of his brother and sister. "I knew you weren't really saving all that candy for the gardener, you big liar."

"No I'm saving some for him honest! I saved a whole half of my total revenue and I'm going to give them to him for Christmas in exchange for not mowing the lawn at six in the morning under my bedroom window because you know he does that a lot in the Spring-"

Fenrir reached around to grab Jormungandr in a headlock, holding his mouth shut as another car pulled into the parking lot of Ms. Foster's apartment building. Since they'd never been able to get Don's last name, and nothing about a significant other appeared on Ms. Foster's background check (ruling out the possibility that she'd been married), they'd had no way of finding out Don's plate numbers to pick out his car. Not that they'd be able to see them from out the window anyway. It was a good thing Dad wasn't due home until tomorrow. They had the whole day to wait for Ms. Foster's old flame to show up and get some idea of what he was like.

So far, seven cars had driven up and parked. One of them had contained Ms. Foster's weird party girl friend, whose presence could have thrown a wrench into their plans, except that she never appeared on Ms. Foster's floor where they were watching, indicating that she probably just lived in this building on another floor.

This eighth car was small and blue; a Prius according to Jormungandr.

"It's a nice car real nice but a little too small for me."

"God, would you shut up?"

The driver of the Prius stepped out, and since Ms. Foster's apartment was on the third floor. He was around Ms. Foster's age with gelled blonde hair and bright blue eyes. His face was clean shaven, and his shoulders were broad beneath the black leather jacket he wore.

"Is that him?" Fenrir asked.

Hela shook her head. "I sure hope not."

The man disappeared from sight as he entered the building. The elevator light went to the ground floor moments later. It moved up to the second floor, then to the third, where it held steady until the doors slid open, and the blonde man stepped out. He jogged into the hall passed the children, not giving them a second glance. Hela looked stricken as he turned left, and walked two doors down to Ms. Foster's door.

"Jane? You there?"

He knocked twice. Silence followed, and went on for such a long time that Fenrir wondered if Ms. Foster had chickened out and snuck out the window on a rope made of bed sheets. He would have loved to know if that actually worked outside of TV too, but then there was movement behind the door. Footsteps and some kind of jingling preceded fiddling with the lock, and then Ms. Foster's arms appeared, thrusting a box full of clothes and assorted knick-knacks at Don.

"There you go," Ms. Foster's disaffected voice said.

Don looked down at the large box, mouthing to himself as he examined its contents.

"I think I left a stethoscope here once-"

"It's at the bottom. So is your souvenir Eiffel tower snow globe and your Barry Manilow Live DVD. Everything's there, so that's the end of that. Nice knowing you, Don."

"Well, I-"

Ms. Foster closed the door in his face, and inside her locks clicked back into place. Don stuck around a bit longer shifting the box in his arms a few times before presumably getting a good enough grip on it. They waited ten minutes after he got back in the elevator, just in case he decided to check the box for anything missing and come back up if there was.

They were in the lobby when Fenrir finally addressed the elephant in the room.

"So, was it just me, or did that guy look a lot like-"

"Uncle Thor?" Jormungandr bellowed, startling a woman with some grocery bags into dropping her eggs. While she gave them the stink eye, Fenrir held the front door open for the other two to walk out. "You were going to say Uncle Thor, right? Because he did he really did he looked just Uncle Thor the resemblance is uncanny- !"

Fenrir pinched the bridge of his nose. Forget about hiding his candy stash. When Fenrir got home, he was burning the whole thing.

"This could pose a problem," Hela said, deep in thought. "What if it turns out Dad isn't her type, and she'd only be attracted to big blonde guys like Uncle Thor?"

"Well, first of all, Aunt Sif would kill her," Fenrir said, unperturbed by how clearly Hela didn't appreciate his sense of humor. (Not that he was off on that. Nobody would forget the day that Amora chick Uncle Thor dated in college came around trying to get back with him after him and Aunt Sif got engaged.)

"I think it might be possible that this relationship which has clearly ended badly might have poisoned Ms. Foster against people with a physical resemblance to her former boyfriend. And if that's true she might be more likely to go for someone with a vastly different appearance such as Dad. Even if she didn't the odds of her having more than a passing fancy for Uncle Thor are fairly slim since they've never met before and Uncle Thor is more attracted to athletic types than academic types which isn't to say Aunt Sif isn't smart she's a terrific woman and very beautiful and I've always thought that if I was twenty years older and she wasn't our Aunt through marriage-"

"You were doing great there, Jormungandr," Fenrir yelled over him. "You were making a good point and then you just wouldn't stop, and now I'm going to be having horrible nightmares forever!"

"Does anyone have a Snickers bar? I could go for a Snickers bar right now!"

A deep chuckle met Jormungandr's proclamation and halted the fist Fenrir was about to sink into his brother's gut. The children froze in place. It felt as though they'd really been encased in ice, as the owner of the voice stepped around them, the tips of his black duster jacket grazing the pavement, and that was all Fenrir could see as he tried and failed to build up the courage to raise his head and look his father in the eye.

Hela and Jormungandr were already there, humbled enough by their father's presence to show nothing but shame. In fact, they had enough to more than cover for him, so Fenrir kept staring at his shoes until someone spoke.

"So, you three are having an adventure today, aren't you?"

His legs bent as he knelt to their height. He'd gone without the hair gel today, as he tended to when he had just come back from a long business trip and felt like winding down. He even had his casual suit on with the tie Jormungandr got him for his birthday and the gold chain from Fenrir.

"Tell me, why is it that when I came home early to surprise you, I was told that I asked you to run some errands today that would keep you out until evening. I've been racking my brain ever since, and I'm afraid I cannot recall making such a request. Could it be that I've forgotten something?"

Fenrir looked to Jormungandr. So did Hela, but he was as speechless as they were. Before Ms. Foster, it had always only been Dad that could do this to him. Not even a sugar high could change that.

"Hmmm, let's see…" Dad glanced up at the building. "If I'm not mistaken, this is where your teacher lives. Did she ask you to come here today?"

They muttered unintelligibly, and between the three of them they sounded like they were looking for a man in a pig suit.

"I see," their father said. "Why don't you tell me more on the way home?"

"What about Richard?" Hela asked, having found her voice at last.

"I've seen him off." Their father led them to where his Jaguar was parked. Jormungandr skipped along, and Fenrir fought the increasingly strong urge to stick a leg into his path.

They buckled up and Dad started the engine. Ms. Foster's building grew smaller and smaller at their backs as home approached over the horizon.

"I think I have an idea what this is all about," Dad said when they stopped at a red light. Fenrir tensed, but somehow, he was the only one.

"We really like Ms. Foster, Dad," said Hela. "She's smart and pretty and a real good teacher. And she likes us a lot too."

"And she doesn't give us special treatment like the teachers at our old school always did remember how you never liked that and you thought it would spoil us well-"

"Jormungandr, what did we say about you and your sugar intake?" Dad adjusted the rear view mirror to get a proper look at his giddy son.

"No more than one a day and two on the holidays but all the kids came with skittles and Snickers and you know how I love skittles and Snickers so I just kind of lost control of myself you know it goes-"

"Be quiet, son."

Jormungandr immediately shut his mouth.

"I even did a numerology chart for her," Hela went on. "It came out very good. It's a lot like yours actually."

"Is that so?"

"In fact, I'd say if I compared your chart to her chart, you two would have perfect compatibility."

"Really."

That didn't sound so good, and the way Dad pulled over right in front of the gates and took a familiar sheave of papers from the passenger seat didn't look any better.

"I happened to find this in Jormungandr's room," Dad said, and Hela's whole face, the scarred portion included, went ghostly pale. "It's an interesting read. Needs a little work, though. Do you plan to keep this for yourselves or present it to Ms. Foster?"

He moved the mirror again, away from Jormungandr, passed Hela, and straight to Fenrir, who thought this must be what a mouse felt like with a hungry cat staring them down.

"Uh… w-we were gonna make that her birthday present," Fenrir had to pause so the next part wouldn't come out a total mess. "It's in a few weeks, and we've been working on it for a while. We wanted to give her something special because we like her so much. All the other kids are giving her lame greeting cards, so…"

"Hmmm…" he flipped through the pages, getting to the part near the end where Princess Ms. Foster fights the illiteracy trolls who wish to burn down the kingdom's grand library. Fenrir had spent hours arguing with Hela over whether they should be illiteracy dwarves or illiteracy demons, and then near a quarter to ten when they were all exhausted, Jormungandr threw out trolls and it stuck. "Well as I said, this needs work. Also I don't believe this is enough conflict for Princess Foster near the middle of the story. Perhaps she should have a minor battle with a different foe, one who perhaps wishes to take her more than her knowledge."

Fenrir and Hela shared a glance. Jormungandr did a dance in his seat to music no one could hear.

"What did you have in mind?" Hela asked.

From his pocket, Dad withdrew the fountain pen with his name engraved on the side, and started writing little notes in the margins.

"Well, let's start right here. This intro needs a complete overhaul. It's completely throwing off the iambic pentameter. You three are lucky I found this when I did."

In the month of January, when Christmas spirit had long since waned and the brutality of winter had everyone reaching for the coats and scarves, Jane was just finishing her lesson on the American Revolution when the lunch bell finally rang.

"Okay, everyone remember to be back on time. Don't forget, recess is in the gymnasium today. Hela, Fenrir, Jormungandr, you three stay a minute. I need to talk to you."

Jane waited for them at her desk, her fingers drumming on the wood over her roll call book and her foot tapping ceaselessly. This was the most antsy she'd felt in days, since Donald Blake's brief, yet unwelcome return to her life five whole months after their break-up, just because he wanted some stuff back. That she had handled with Darcy's tried and true method of 'here you go, now fuck off.' Someday, when her blood pressure was down and the school year had come to a merciful end, Jane would have to treat Darcy to ice cream and booze.

With the promise of an hour of food and no learning, most of the children were gone in seconds. The few stragglers who had misplaced their lunch bag or their money would not take long to find what they needed and go after their friends. Jane was left alone with the triplets.

"You wanted to see us, Ms. Foster?" Hela took the lead with her brothers flanking her.

Jane said not a word to her, but pulled open her desk chair and removed a heavy golden apple, which she placed it on the desk before them.

"Oh, you got our Christmas gift," said Fenrir. "Sorry it took so long to get to you. There was some kind of shipping error or something."

"No, the plane got caught in some fog over Newfoundland, so they had to postpone some deliveries," said Jormungandr, glaring at Fenrir.

Before they could fight about it, Jane silenced them with a hand.

"I just want to know one thing." She pointed at the apple. "What is this?"

The kids began to fidget.

"It's your Christmas present," Hela said. "We thought you could use something to decorate your desk-"

"This is 24 karat gold," Jane felt like she had when the apple had first been delivered to her house the other night: like she was living a surreal dream and her head was about to explode. "24 karat gold. I looked it up. One ounce is worth around thirteen hundred dollars. This thing weighs two pounds. Do you know how much money that comes out to?

"About forty one thousand dollars give or take a few hundreds," said Jormungandr automatically. "We got it at a discount, though. Our dad has done business with the seller before. We got it for twenty five percent less, which brings the price down to around thirty thousand. Of course, that's just a rough estimate-"

"You cannot spend thousands of dollars to buy me a paperweight!"

The kids jumped, and Jane thought at least one of them whimpered. She didn't doubt this was one of the few times they'd ever been yelled at, but that alone couldn't sway her now. She'd done a year of student teaching before taking up the mantle of teacher herself, and if the man she worked under taught her anything about the job, it was that sometimes you just can't hold back with troublemakers. You have to leave an impression on them, so that they won't ever break the rules again.

"The flowers and the pen and the story?" Jane couldn't stop the shudders that last one evoked. "Those were one thing. I let them slide because I knew you were just trying to be nice, but I can't do that anymore. This-" Jane grabbed the apple, "is unacceptable."

"It's also non-refundable," said Fenrir, and this time, Hela and Jormungandr smacked him outright.

Jane slammed the apple back onto the desk with a crack, and once again, the children jumped.

"Listen to me," she lowered her voice. "I don't want to call your father. I don't want to get you three into any more trouble than you already are, but this has got to stop. Now. If you guys step out of line again, I'm going to have no choice but to call your father in for a conference." Jane sighed, her energy sent. She waved at the door with what she had left. "Go on to lunch now, and be ready to take this thing back with you when you go home. I'm sorry, but I can't accept any more presents from you three. This cannot go on."

Nobody felt quite like playing that day, either because Harvey Hayer had taken control of the bag of balls in the absence of a teacher and refused to let anyone else play with them, or just because of the general doom and gloom that surrounded the triplets, as they holed themselves up in the dank yet solitary space under the bleachers.

Hela was absolutely despondent. Fenrir was a smart kid and he knew a lot of words other kids his age didn't, but never had there been a more perfect word for any situation than now. Hela wasn't just sad, she wasn't just miserable, she was just about dead to the world as she laid there against the wall, with an ant crawling over her shoe that she can't be bothered to kick off. Despondent. Jormungandr wasn't much better.

Fenrir wasn't either, but he was never much for feelings and crap like the other two were. He much preferred to take his problems by the neck and strangle them until they gave, a trait Uncle Tony claimed he shared with his father. Though such comments always ended with Dad trying to throw the laughing Uncle Tony out of the house, Fenrir took it as a compliment, and something of their father

he could have that his siblings couldn't. But maybe right now, he'd be better off letting them do the emotional thing and save his metaphorical bloodlust for later.

"She hates us," Hela said, slipping further down the wall onto the grimy floor. The maid was not going to like taking those stains out one bit.

"She doesn't hate us," Fenrir said. "She's just mad right now. Dad gets mad sometimes too, like when he found out what you did for the science fair."

"That's different. Dad can be mad at us, but he can't hate us. He's our dad."

"And Ms. Foster is going to be our mom. That was the plan, wasn't it?"

"How can she become our mom if she hates us?"

Hela was fully in the dirt by now, dust particles clinging to the hair she loved and took such good care of. Fenrir hated the stab of pain in his heart, almost as much as he hated seeing his sister like this. Feelings were for mushy people, and Fenrir was not mushy, not by a long shot.

When he wanted something done, he took a more direct approach. This one started with getting his sister back on her feet. He did so literally first, against all objections and attempts to push him off of her.

"Knock it off," he said, shoving her hand away from his chest. "Since when does the daughter of Loki give up so easily, huh? You think Dad ever gives up? No way he does. When Dad has a problem, he doesn't lay down like a dog, he fights. He never stops until he has a solution, and that's what we're going to do right now."

"You have any ideas?" Hela dully asked. "Because I don't."

Fenrir smirked. "That's the beauty of it. We don't need to come up with one, because Ms. Foster has already given us the answer."

Jormungandr glanced up from his sulking, suddenly listening intently to his younger brother. Even Hela seemed to be perking up, though only just.

"What did Ms. Foster say before?" Fenrir asked. "She said that if we break one more rule, she's calling Dad in for a conference, and then he'll have to come and see her. He won't decline to come or send someone else in his place. No, if Dad thinks we're causing trouble, he'll drop everything. So if we're going to get Dad and Ms. Foster together, we're gonna have to break some rules, and fast."

"What kind of rules?" Jormungandr asked. "Because it might just be my observations, but I don't think Ms. Foster would respond well to another gift. Sure, it might get her and Dad in the same room, but it could also further alienate her from us if she thinks we're not respecting her boundaries."

Fenrir thought about that, and really hated how much sense it made.

"Yeah, that's true," he said, rubbing his chin. "Gonna have to figure something else out."

A bark of high-pitched laughter drew their attention to the opening of the bleachers, where Harvey Hayer and his ever growing band of numbskulls were skulking around looking for easy prey.

"Look, Monster girl and her brothers are hiding!" he shouted. "What's the matter, Monster girl? Scared to let people see your ugly face?"

The numbskulls all laughed like the stupid hyenas they were, but Hela was too sensible and too distracted to get upset over weak-minded and lazy insults like that. She was sinking back to the floor now that Fenrir had given up his pep talk. He would've gone back to her, but he was looking to Jormungandr now, making sure they were on the same wavelength.

Their golden opportunity had just arrived.

People always said that in their own ways, the triplets all took after their illustrious father. Those people had never seen any of them in their 'scheming' modes, especially not Fenrir or Jormungandr. The identical grins that they shared made them mini-clones of their father. Fenrir could all but hear his father's deep, powerful voice layered with his own as he shouted:

"Hey, Fatboy! That's our sister you're talking about!"

The numbskulls fell into a hush. They all slowly turned to Harvey, whose face swelled and turned red as a beat.

"What'd you just say to me?"

"Are you as deaf as you are stupid?" Jormungandr came to stand at Fenrir side, pounding his fist into his hand. "We said, 'it's go time, you pig-headed ignoramus.'"

If Harvey needed time to work that out in his head, Fenrir wasn't giving it. He gave Harvey a scant few seconds to wipe the grin off his face before his fist collided with it.

Jane heard the teachers running, and just like the day months ago in the locker room, she knew exactly what had happened.

Somehow, she made it to the gymnasium before any other teacher, wading through a sea of tiny bodies varying in height, but never quite reaching her (one of the very rare times Jane Foster was the tallest). At the side of the bleachers she found a triumphant Fenrir sitting atop the head of a bruised and beaten Harvey Hayer, with one of his arms pulled behind his back and twisted. Jormungandr, small, yet agile, made quick work of Harvey's friends, and the few who didn't get their heads knocked ran for the hills without preamble. That had to be the smartest decision they had ever made in their lives.

"Say it." Fenrir was saying to Harvey. "Say it now, or do you want another one?"

"Please, don't hurt me anymore!" Harvey sobbed like the big, blubbering baby he was. "Please!"

"Say it!"

"I- I'm sor-"

"LOUDER!"

"I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY!"

"I'M SORRY- WHAT?"

"I'M SORRY, MASTERS!" Harvey was crying so hard, he was barely intelligible. "I'M SORRY, LADY HELA! I'M SORRY!"

The children's cheers erupted and shook the roof of the gymnasium. Jane thought that the other teachers could only be absent because they'd been scared away or someone was calling 911. Jane was ready to sink into a bottomless hole in the ground and never come up again either way.

"No, no, noooooo," she moaned.

This was going to be a rough week.

Loki's office phone rang unexpectedly, and he let it go to voicemail as he finished going over the quarterly reports and double checking for any mistakes. His friend and frequent business partner, Tony Stark, had made a rather glaring error on his company's quarterly reports one year. That was how he and his wife met, but Loki doubted he would be so lucky.

After ten rings, it went to the answering machine. A pre-recorded, cool female voice gave company hours, a re-direct option for customer service, and an opportunity to dial another extension before the actual message prompt came up.

"Hello, this is Jane Foster from East Albany Elementary School for Mr. Loki Odinson. I'm calling regarding an incident earlier today in which your children were involved in a fist fight with another student. None of them are seriously injured, but I am going to need you to come in sometime next week so we can discuss this. I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you in any way, but given the circumstances, I feel it is imperative that we meet. If you could call me back as soon as possible to set up an appointment, that would be-"

The machine clicked off. Loki never liked receiving long messages to his personal line. That was what his secretary was for. He buzzed her with Ms. Foster's contact information once the message had been saved, asking her to return Ms. Foster's call and set up the meeting for the upcoming Monday.

"Sir, you have a meeting with the consult in Bangkok on Monday, and your lawyer called. She's waiting to hear from you."

"Postpone the meeting with Bangkok- they can wait as long as I need them to- and tell Mrs. Barton that I will happily speak to her once her husband apologizes for the black eye he gave me last time I came for a visit. The fool needs to learn not to blow a fuse every time another man speaks to his wife."

"Of course, Mr. Odinson. I'll get right on it."

Loki took his finger off the intercom and rested his chair back. He set aside the quarterly report for later and turned to his computer screen. He pulled up the file on Ms. Jane Foster. Her driver's license picture showed a woman with unkempt hair, a face devoid of make-up, and skin that was spotty in places, like she'd just gotten over a sunburn. This was the kind of picture most women would rather die than let see the light of day, and it really was terribly unflattering.

In spite of that, there was something beyond that messy exterior that intrigued Loki. Whatever it was, he could not yet say, only that his children were caught under her spell as well, to the point where they had turned their little matchmaker game on her, and if they thought they were keeping him in the dark about that one, then those three little devils of his still had much to learn.

Regardless, Loki had a very interesting week ahead of him.

A/N: So, once again I have no idea how what should have been a simple prequel got this long. :/

Nothing to be done, I guess. I wanted to give you guys a decent introduction to the kids and flesh out their characters a bit. There is a slight retcon in the setting of the big climactic fight with the school bully, with it being in the gymnasium instead of the playground like it was in "Meeting Ms. Foster." Sorry about that.

The next story will be titled "A Night with Ms. Foster," and it will continue on from this events of "Meeting Ms. Foster" with Loki and Jane going on their big first date. Will it end well? You'll just have to wait and see.

Also, yes, Uncle Tony is indeed who you think it is. Loki may be a loving father in this AU, but he's still got a few screws loose. He'd have to to name Tony Stark the Godfather of his children (although that would make Pepper the Godmother, so it might not be totally crazy).

Hope to see you all next time.

Until then, goodnight, everybody!