Thor shrugged.

"I know not," he replied. "But it seems important to Friend Steve, so I offered what assistance I could."

Loki nodded and was quiet the rest of the way back to the house.

"Tell me why exactly you think I should tell you how to contact gods, and why you want this information, and I'll think about telling you." Loki looked at Steve and Elaine evenly, though he did glance at Kae, who did nothing more than throw a bottle of juice at him. Which he caught, of course, surprised that she'd paid attention to what kind he liked.

"We need to bully Cupid into undoing what he did," Elaine replied. She bit her lip slightly. "I get why he did it, but it needs to stop, and it needs to stop now."

Loki snorted. "He won't be easy to convince," he said, looking at the two before he shrugged carelessly. Hey, it would be amusing to watch them try. "Picture him in your mind and call him. Don't just think at him, call him with a will. That will attract his attention." Probably in a somewhat unpleasant way, considering he knew Steve Rogers was rather strong-willed, and he figured Elaine was as well. But, again, the amusement factor was high.

"We still have to try," Elaine said. "This needs to stop." Reaching over, she nudged Steve gently. She trusted him more than herself, at the moment.

Steve hesitated for a moment before he nodded, closing his eyes and doing as Loki had instructed.

It took less than a minute for Cupid to appear, looking slightly rumpled and grumpy.

"What the hell?" he demanded. "That is not how you're supposed to summon me. You're supposed to do so with supplication and humility and offerings."

Loki just snickered, not at all remorseful, even as Steve looked surprised that it worked.

Elaine heard the snickers, but didn't say anything. That was par for the course, as far as Loki was concerned.

"You know something? I think this time, we're allowed, all things considered," she said instead. "Don't give me that look," she added. She just knew he was giving her something akin to a disbelieving glare.

"You're humans. I'm a god. Tell me exactly why do you think you're entitled?" Cupid's eyebrows shot up.

"Because this was your choice," Steve said quietly. "You started this. We didn't ask for anything."

"That's what I do." Cupid heaved a sigh. "Fine, just tell me what you want so I can go back home."

"Make it stop," Elaine said frankly. "Pull out one of your iron-and-owl arrows and make this stop. It's not helping, and I can't handle it anymore."

Cupid's eyebrows shot up. "Not helping what?" he asked, fully aware that he was being a dick. "Not helping the natural attraction that you two already had? Or not helping you make up your mind to jump him?"

"I need it to be on my terms," Elaine replied. "Not because it's being forced."

Cupid shrugged. "Hey, not my problem. You two needed it, still need it if I'm reading things correctly. Besides, I have no reason to take off the compulsion and let you two figure things out yourselves."

"It's counterproductive at this point," Elaine said. She paused for a moment. "And now that you're here and we know the summoning works, what's stopping me from finding Mercury and asking for every bit of blackmail he has on you?"

For a moment, Cupid looked flummoxed. Then he huffed. "He'd sooner smite you than give you blackmail on me," he said, although there was the tiniest shadow of doubt in his eyes. "But fine. Since clearly you don't appreciate my gift anyway, I'll take it back."

"That's all I wanted in the first place," Elaine said. She nudged Steve a bit. "Make sure it's an iron tip and owl feathers," she said quietly to him.

Steve nodded and watched Cupid carefully. Cupid pulled out the correct arrow, eyeing the two for a moment, before he sighed again and prodded Elaine with it. He didn't need to actually shoot her, after all.

Elaine sighed slightly when she felt the effects, and she relaxed just a little.

"Thank you," she said.

Cupid huffed. "Now can I go?" he asked, glowering at both of them. "Or are you going to try to bully me into something else?"

"No, that was what we needed," Elaine replied, waving a hand distractedly. She was mentally taking stock of herself again.

Cupid snorted at being dismissed but he vanished, more than happy to get back to his own affairs now.

"How do you feel?" Steve looked at her carefully, ignoring the others in the house for the moment.

"Better," Elaine said softly, smiling a bit. "I feel like me again."

"Good. That's good." Steve smiled a little and relaxed slightly. That was one less thing to worry about, but now he wasn't sure what to do.

"Now we can see if this will really work," Elaine said to him softly. Of course, just knowing the Avengers brought with it its own set of potential dangers, which the girls discovered for themselves a few weeks later. It was one of those paid days off Fury tended to order them to take (perhaps as compensation for dealing with the team so often for so long) and the girls were in the city proper on a day out. It just didn't stay that way, the first explosions saw to that.

Kae grabbed Elaine's arm as soon as she heard the explosions, starting to look around. "Well, that's not a good sign," she said, glancing around again. Then she snorted. "And my cousin is already on it. He must have been fiddling with his suit again."

A few moments later, Tony whizzed past far above them in a blur of red and gold, going to investigate the explosions. The others were coming in from various directions.

"Yeah, there he goes, I can hear him," Elaine said. She stayed close to Kae, well within reaching distance. "What do you see?"