Becoming, Part 3b
The other half of part 3. Loki returns to Asgard.
Part 3b
There are many directions he could take, hidden doorways over all of Asgard. He could walk to the throne room or the vaults, to the market or the gatehouse (there were some words to be had with Heimdall after all). He could announce himself without shame, reminding all of them how they had failed to contain him. He could creep out of the shadows, taking valuables back with him when he departed.
Loki does none of these things.
When he slips out of the hidden paths the first sense to hit him is scent and the fragrant sweetness of the apple trees around him. Before he opens his eyes Loki takes a moment to relax and sink into the wind and the smell of fruit and earth; it is not The orchard, but that hardly matters. Compared to the lacquered and plated surfaces of the capital this field of trees is a different world.
He climbs the tallest one he can find, stretching out in the branches and cutting one of the apples apart with a knife, enjoying each slice slowly. The pieces are not eaten, but the feel of the blade sinking into the fruits’ flesh is methodic and calming. He prepares two more and then drops out of the tree, making his way to the stables past the fields and fenced in pastures.
Like the gardens, the fields where the horses are kept have always been one of his favorite places. It was not an area he frequented as a child, but when he had been cast out into the world by the Queen’s decree he had searched out new spaces to call his own. The fields were not quiet by any means, yet they were also not busy; the only creatures that disturbed him there were the animals, who didn’t care what he was made from as long as he was kind and plied them with treats. Which he did, readily.
By the time he actually arrives at the stables half of his apple slices are gone, given the animals in the fields he walked through. He can hear his horse whinny inside before he even reaches the doors.
A weight is lifted from him when he finally sees her, just as she was when he left. Her coat an unfading blue-black that shone as though she was covered in velvet, with strong legs and a temper. He reaches out for her at once, holding her muzzle softly when she is close enough.
“Did they take care of you?” He rubs her nose, running both hands up along her jaw. She head butts him in the shoulder.
She appears to be well tended to, her stall clean, her long mane and tail smooth and untangled (he had been worried, so worried, once he had come back to himself enough to realize he should be. He had not wanted to believe the stable hands would neglect her, he had known each of them, but he was not sure).
He digs what is left of the slices out of his pouch, listens to the crunches as she chews them. Her ease allowing the nerves he was still feeling despite himself to leech away. The only reason Loki does not take her out for a ride is because there are others he would like to see; if they go running together it is likely they will run all day and never come back.
One of the stable attendants walks by while he is there, stopping to stare at him a moment before continuing on with his duties, only coming back again a few minutes later with grooming tools and little other acknowledgement of Loki’s presence.
Loki stays for another hour.
She nips him in the side while he is leaving, the sting a lasting reminder that he left her alone too long and should under no circumstances do it again. As he stops to rub Sleipnir’s neck, who nickers at him as he passes, Loki wonders if there is a place on Midgard he could take her. If there would be space in one of Stark’s dwellings (he tucks the thought away for later).
There is still time yet before Father’s council will be dismissed and so he walks by the library. He does not have enough time to study in length (and he is sure he smells of horse by the looks he is getting from the minder of the archives) so he instead pages through the tomes on healing and medicine, skimming sections to make sure they will be helpful and then tucking them into the satchel he took from the barn.
He finds Father in the war room, repurposed for political negotiations. The shelf of old scrolls still where it was during his first visit as a child. When the council is gone he steps out from the shadows. Odin smiles at him, resting a hand on the back of his neck and pulling him closer, leaning their foreheads together and breathing as though that is the only thing that is important.
When they draw apart Father moves to sit on one of the benches at the edge of the room. There is not what Loki would consider a conscious invitation to sit down, but there is enough space for him to perch beside Father and because attempting to move a chair at this point could be perceived as an insult or rejection, Loki sits.
They do not speak about the bridge; perhaps, Loki thinks, because Father knows he is not ready for it. Instead Odin talks about his blood-brother, Loki’s namesake. How Loki’s intelligence and skill with sorcery remind him of the man every day. How they had gotten into trouble in their youths, at times almost as arrogant as Thor was. How he had died saving Odin’s life in the war against his own people.
“Thor knew him as Loki through stories, he was too young to form any solid memories of his uncle, but he usually went by Loptr. It fit him, to be named after air. It was impossible to hold him in one place for long unless he had a mind to be there.” He runs a wrinkled hand over one of his bracers as he speaks, a story hidden there that Loki wants to know, then shakes the thought from his mind and turns his full attention to his son. “I suppose I am always meant to have a Loki by my side.” The hand combing through Loki’s hair comes to a rest again on the back of his neck. “That is why the fates blessed me with you.” Then he smiles, mirth at some inner thought all but glowing from his eyes. “It might surprise you to know that you are significantly less trouble than him.”
Loki tries to give a mischievous grin in return, but it feels uncertain, and he cannot stop himself from speaking because he can never just let good things happen to him; it is as though he has a subconscious need to ruin everything (that apparently had not come from his bond with Thor).
“Which of us is your favorite?”
The answer he expects wavers between being told that it was of course his brother and a casual diplomatic walk around of an actual choice. The one he gets is firm, with clear fondness for both of them.
“He was my brother, but you are my son. I believe he would invent a special kind of punishment if I were to say anything but you.”
-
Loki stays with him through the afternoon repast. There will likely be a feast in the evening, but for now the Allfather is content keep his own company. An older ambassador from Vaneheim joins them, one Loki remembers visiting several times before when he was small, but that is all. They touch on policy once or twice, but generally stay to more informal topics which somehow manages to include comments about how Loki has grown since the first time they met and how pleased the Allfather must be to have his son returned to him. The ambassador does not speak of Thor at all.
After the meal is cleared, leaving Father to his work, Loki meanders through the palace without bothering to spell himself invisible. There is no one he needs to hide from. Those that matter know he is there, and those that don’t, well, he doesn’t really care what they think right now.
He does avoid the common gathering places of the courtiers, but he does not want to visit those areas anyway, so it is no great sacrifice. The less frequented halls are the ones that hold items of interest (several of which he tucks away for future use, just because he can). The only people he crosses are servants, which seems odd; he won’t fight his luck though, besides, it rather pleases him that most of them react little different than they had before his fall when he was still their prince.
In fact, the afternoon goes so smoothly that before he realizes it he finds himself wandering through the wing that held his old room. This is of course when everything goes wrong. Why everything always goes wrong.
Thor.
Loki immediately turns in the other direction.
“- wait, please! Let me-”
“I do not have to do what you ask of me anymore; there is no reason for me to stay.” There is the sound of running, a hand touches his arm. “Don’t-” he jerks away “ever touch me again.” Loki does not look at Thor because he doesn’t want to notice how destroyed he looks, doesn’t want to care. “Things will never be as they were before. And even if they could be, I wouldn’t want it. We may have the same father, Thor. But we are not brothers.” He tries to walk away, several strides away something draws him back. “I… I-” he covers his face with his hands, only for a moment. “I loved you!” rips out of him “Don’t you understand that?! You were my everything. I would have given- did give- anything to make you happy. My soul, Thor! And even then you couldn’t- do you know what it felt like?! When the only thing that mattered- all I knew- was you and you still threw me aside because what you made me into wasn’t good enough for you! Why was I not good enough?! Why am I NEVER GOOD ENOUGH?!”
Silence hangs between them, Thor reaching for words that won’t come to him.
“You-” he whispers. “I… ”
“SHUT UP!” Thor does. “Shut. Up.”
Loki walks away.
A week later he will realize that Thor had been stripped of his armor, evidence of his rank dissolved to nothing, but at the time he notices only the rawness inside of him.
-
It takes a servant asking after his welfare for Thor to move.
Down in the vaults there is a pedestal tucked away from the other artifacts, hidden back in the darkness. Resting there is the hammer forged in the heart of a dying star.
It is not where Thor wants to be, but there is nowhere else for him to go.
He walks down the curving stairs, arms hanging limply at his sides. There is a hollowness in the center of him, but otherwise he is numb.
He does not try to lift her. He does not know how long he is there.
Guards come to escort him back to his chambers.
-
Conditioned in Loki is the idea that the gardens are a place of safety, and so, whenever he is upset, that’s where he goes. It is a traitorous, disgusting, predictable habit, but he cannot help himself.
Loki doesn’t stop until he is leaning against the stone archway. The smell of the flowers (each with a purpose, nothing decorative) hits him, ruining his ability to move, and he stays there head tipped back, breathing wretched, until he hears a quiet exclamation and opens his eyes.
Eir stands in front of him, basket on the ground at her feet, dropped gatherings spilled over the grass and path.
When she opens her mouth, he thinks it is to say his name, but her voice chokes out and his stomach is filled with a horrible burning shame as he rips away the remnants of the spell he had cast on her before his fall.
“I’m sorry,” is all he is capable of. Just sorrysorrysorryplease, and he thinks he must be saying this out loud because her posture shifts and then she’s reaching out.
“Oh, you stupid child. Come here.” She wraps her arms around him and clutches him close. It takes a moment for Loki to respond, but when he does it is to circle his arms around her waist and bury his face in her shoulder. “I was frightened for you.” Eir pets his hair, threads her fingers through what is at the base of his neck. “And of you a bit, I suppose, when you had your hand around my neck…”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know, dear. Just don’t do it again.”
After everything, all he has done, all he is, those five words hit him and with a vivid clarity he knows how unworthy he is of her kindness. Her insistence on giving it to him without question leaves him confused and disoriented.
“I am not…” The words escape him, he tries to follow them away, but Eir will not allow him to leave.
“Why are you not.” She holds his face in her hands, refusing to let him look away. “Why. Were the first men not made of the Ash tree? The first women of Elm? How are you different? Birch is strong,” she whispers, pulls him closer. “You. Are. Strong. It has adapted, and so will you.”
He leans into her.
They stay in the gardens until evening falls. Meticulously picking up all that has fallen, combing the plants for anything missed, and sitting under the trees sheltered in the shade. When Eir finally stands she reaches a hand down to him. “Come back,” she says. Loki nods. Then she shuffles him out the gates and takes his arm. He walks her to the Healing Room while she answers questions he has about the healing tomes he pilfered earlier in the day. When he is done reading them he will come back for a more substantial conversation.
Fandral meets him outside the doors, not giving any excuse for how he knew where to find him.
“I thought I could… see you back to the Bifrost?”
“Fandral,” Loki says slowly. “I do not use the Bifrost.”
The man’s shoulders slump a little in disappointment, but he still trails after Loki when he walks in the vague direction of one of the pastures. “You will be returning to Midgard then?” Loki glances at him, but does not respond. “The inventor, the Man of Iron Thor spoke of, he will continue to be your host? He is good for you.”
“Yes,” Loki nods, he hadn’t actively considered it, but it is true. “Yes, he is.”
“Good.”
They walk aimlessly, Fandral following Loki’s lead even though he has no clear destination in mind.
“You will… return? Sometimes? To visit Eir and the Allfather?”
“I may.”
“I would like the chance to speak with you again. If you would permit it.”
Fandral studies the ground they walk on. Loki half smiles only because he knows the other man won’t see it and allows their shoulders to bump.
“Perhaps.”
-
A week and a half after they return to Malibu, Ms. Potts arrives with dinner catered in and a bottle of wine.
Loki is reclining by the wall of windows, cheek pressed to the cool glass and legs splayed on the floor, staring into the distance at the expanse of clear blue water before him. The opening door snaps him back and he sweeps the tome on healing magic he had been largely ignoring for the last hour into a leather satchel and wedges it behind a standing plant before rolling his eyes at himself in irritation and spelling it back to his room.
By the time he stands up the food is already on the closest table and she is unpinning her hair.
“Oh, there you are,” she says when she notices him approach behind her, jumping as if he had appeared out of thin air. “JARVIS told me you were in the living room, but I didn’t see you on my way through.”
“I was…” he gestures aimlessly at the windows, not quite sure what he had been doing. She smiles at him, shifting nervously as the last of the pins comes out and the copper strands fall about her shoulders.
“It’s a beautiful view, one of my favorites here. JARVIS, get Tony please.”
“Of course, Ms. Potts.”
As she moves to the kitchen for plates and silverware Loki follows. She asks about his stay so far, what he thinks of the West Coast, how he is handling… and then she trails off. JARVIS interrupts before either can restart the conversation.
“I regret to inform you that Sir says he is occupied with a delicate part of his current project and is not able to stop at this current time.”
“No he’s not.” She has taken three plates out of the cupboard and pauses once she realized what she’s done. “Tell him if he doesn’t come up he’s sleeping on the couch.”
“Sir would like me to remind you that is not a privilege you have if you are not staying at the mansion, and also that he is on his way up.”
“I’m sorry,” Ms. Potts turns to face him after JARVIS is finished speaking, leaning back against the counter. “Is it that you don’t need to eat or that you can’t eat?”
Not a question he was expecting. “I… I don’t suppose I know. I’ve never tried because I’ve never felt compelled to.” She watches him, brow furrowed, and then puts one of the plates back.
“Have you ever considered asking?”
They are walking back to the food when Tony arrives, bounding up to Pepper like a child until he gets within a foot of her and suddenly reconsiders whether or not the action is welcome. The hesitation is covered up by bravado.
“The couch Pep? Really?”
“Sit down and eat something.” She leans in to kiss him. Tony melts into her, arm wrapping around her waist.
Loki is about to cross the room and make his way up the staircase to give them some privacy when Tony detaches himself and disappears into the kitchen. When he comes back it’s with a large glass or water that is tinted pink, probably with some kind of berry. They look at him expectantly as they move back to the couches. He follows.
The fixed plates are set on the coffee table and Pepper steps out of her heels, picking them up by the straps and walking barefoot over the cool wooden floor on her way to find wine glasses.
“What do you want to watch?” Tony calls after her.
“I don’t know, let JARVIS pick.”
While Tony argues with his A.I. over the merits of explosions versus actual plots, Pepper drops gracefully on the couch beside Loki. She sips from her wine flute, lets the taste resonate, then nudges his shoulder with the tip of her finger, voice quiet.
“You said that Thor would protect people, when they need it.”
“I-… yes.”
“What about you? When you needed it, did he protect you?”
“I am complicated Ms. Potts.”
She looks at him thoughtfully.
It should bother him he thinks, being surrounded by these mortals. Thoughts of the invasion swirl at the corners of his mind.
It doesn’t.
-
He is not an Avenger, doesn’t ever want to be, but he likes Dummy and his brothers, and he thinks he likes the Man of Iron, so if an occasional protective spell gets woven into the circuitry of the suits and the machines then what of it. Besides, it’s not as though he is telling anyone what he’s doing. And if no one knows than it’s not a feeling he has to dwell on too deeply.
The visit to Asgard had let loose a torrent of emotion that Loki had neither expected nor been prepared to deal with. The need to spread out, to find secret places and learn and Be cries for freedom; the feeling is worse than before, eating away at him. It had been happy enough to stay, but Loki can’t. His quarters and the lab, though they feel safe (mostly), chafe him. The move to Malibu had helped some, the estate new and peaceful, but still not enough.
He has never done well trapped within four walls, even if they are beautiful.
“You can’t keep me here.” He says one day sitting on the couch in the lab (the same one that had been in the tower, flown out at the same time as the robots), legs crossed on the cushions in front of him. Tony looks over from where he is doing maintenance on Butterfingers.
“I know.”
-
Thor returns once, after Stark has moved Loki out to California. Clint is the only one in the tower. He doesn’t tell anyone else about the visit.
“Can I ask you something?” When he speaks, his voice is calm and quiet. Collected. Everything he is not feeling. “Do you really know what you’re apologizing for? Do you even get why this is fucked up? Do you? Because it’s like you don’t even have a rudimentary grasp of anything right now.” Thor has stopped with his mouth open, like he’s trying to respond, but nothing comes out. Clint doesn’t care. He keeps talking, keeping his tone light and pleasant because if he doesn’t- nothing, nothing good will happen. “Let me try to break this down for you. So your parents decided, what- that real kids weren’t good enough to play with you? But they want you to have a friend- a friend Thor, do you know what that means?- so they make one. They make one that is capable of thinking and feeling and needing. They make a living being. Except it’s not one, is it.”
“Clint-”
“So despite the fact that they built a child, it’s not real. It is treated as a toy because it was made to be a toy. And toys do not think.” He stands. “They do not feel.” Thor’s eyes follow him. “And they do not need. And when that child, that little boy, goes to his family, and he feels, and he needs, they decide they are entitled to treat those feelings and those needs as beneath them,” his forces his voice not to crack. “As crap. They can’t be real, so the family is justified, because toys are incapable of any of any of that.” Clint does not think of Barney, and he does not think of his father. “Are you apologizing, Thor, because you realized what you did last year. Or because you realized what you’ve done his entire existence.”
“You defend him, I do not understand,” Thor had whispered. “You do not like him.”
“No,” Clint walked out of the room. “I hate him.”
Thor does not come back.
Epilogue
Part 3b
There are many directions he could take, hidden doorways over all of Asgard. He could walk to the throne room or the vaults, to the market or the gatehouse (there were some words to be had with Heimdall after all). He could announce himself without shame, reminding all of them how they had failed to contain him. He could creep out of the shadows, taking valuables back with him when he departed.
Loki does none of these things.
When he slips out of the hidden paths the first sense to hit him is scent and the fragrant sweetness of the apple trees around him. Before he opens his eyes Loki takes a moment to relax and sink into the wind and the smell of fruit and earth; it is not The orchard, but that hardly matters. Compared to the lacquered and plated surfaces of the capital this field of trees is a different world.
He climbs the tallest one he can find, stretching out in the branches and cutting one of the apples apart with a knife, enjoying each slice slowly. The pieces are not eaten, but the feel of the blade sinking into the fruits’ flesh is methodic and calming. He prepares two more and then drops out of the tree, making his way to the stables past the fields and fenced in pastures.
Like the gardens, the fields where the horses are kept have always been one of his favorite places. It was not an area he frequented as a child, but when he had been cast out into the world by the Queen’s decree he had searched out new spaces to call his own. The fields were not quiet by any means, yet they were also not busy; the only creatures that disturbed him there were the animals, who didn’t care what he was made from as long as he was kind and plied them with treats. Which he did, readily.
By the time he actually arrives at the stables half of his apple slices are gone, given the animals in the fields he walked through. He can hear his horse whinny inside before he even reaches the doors.
A weight is lifted from him when he finally sees her, just as she was when he left. Her coat an unfading blue-black that shone as though she was covered in velvet, with strong legs and a temper. He reaches out for her at once, holding her muzzle softly when she is close enough.
“Did they take care of you?” He rubs her nose, running both hands up along her jaw. She head butts him in the shoulder.
She appears to be well tended to, her stall clean, her long mane and tail smooth and untangled (he had been worried, so worried, once he had come back to himself enough to realize he should be. He had not wanted to believe the stable hands would neglect her, he had known each of them, but he was not sure).
He digs what is left of the slices out of his pouch, listens to the crunches as she chews them. Her ease allowing the nerves he was still feeling despite himself to leech away. The only reason Loki does not take her out for a ride is because there are others he would like to see; if they go running together it is likely they will run all day and never come back.
One of the stable attendants walks by while he is there, stopping to stare at him a moment before continuing on with his duties, only coming back again a few minutes later with grooming tools and little other acknowledgement of Loki’s presence.
Loki stays for another hour.
She nips him in the side while he is leaving, the sting a lasting reminder that he left her alone too long and should under no circumstances do it again. As he stops to rub Sleipnir’s neck, who nickers at him as he passes, Loki wonders if there is a place on Midgard he could take her. If there would be space in one of Stark’s dwellings (he tucks the thought away for later).
There is still time yet before Father’s council will be dismissed and so he walks by the library. He does not have enough time to study in length (and he is sure he smells of horse by the looks he is getting from the minder of the archives) so he instead pages through the tomes on healing and medicine, skimming sections to make sure they will be helpful and then tucking them into the satchel he took from the barn.
He finds Father in the war room, repurposed for political negotiations. The shelf of old scrolls still where it was during his first visit as a child. When the council is gone he steps out from the shadows. Odin smiles at him, resting a hand on the back of his neck and pulling him closer, leaning their foreheads together and breathing as though that is the only thing that is important.
When they draw apart Father moves to sit on one of the benches at the edge of the room. There is not what Loki would consider a conscious invitation to sit down, but there is enough space for him to perch beside Father and because attempting to move a chair at this point could be perceived as an insult or rejection, Loki sits.
They do not speak about the bridge; perhaps, Loki thinks, because Father knows he is not ready for it. Instead Odin talks about his blood-brother, Loki’s namesake. How Loki’s intelligence and skill with sorcery remind him of the man every day. How they had gotten into trouble in their youths, at times almost as arrogant as Thor was. How he had died saving Odin’s life in the war against his own people.
“Thor knew him as Loki through stories, he was too young to form any solid memories of his uncle, but he usually went by Loptr. It fit him, to be named after air. It was impossible to hold him in one place for long unless he had a mind to be there.” He runs a wrinkled hand over one of his bracers as he speaks, a story hidden there that Loki wants to know, then shakes the thought from his mind and turns his full attention to his son. “I suppose I am always meant to have a Loki by my side.” The hand combing through Loki’s hair comes to a rest again on the back of his neck. “That is why the fates blessed me with you.” Then he smiles, mirth at some inner thought all but glowing from his eyes. “It might surprise you to know that you are significantly less trouble than him.”
Loki tries to give a mischievous grin in return, but it feels uncertain, and he cannot stop himself from speaking because he can never just let good things happen to him; it is as though he has a subconscious need to ruin everything (that apparently had not come from his bond with Thor).
“Which of us is your favorite?”
The answer he expects wavers between being told that it was of course his brother and a casual diplomatic walk around of an actual choice. The one he gets is firm, with clear fondness for both of them.
“He was my brother, but you are my son. I believe he would invent a special kind of punishment if I were to say anything but you.”
-
Loki stays with him through the afternoon repast. There will likely be a feast in the evening, but for now the Allfather is content keep his own company. An older ambassador from Vaneheim joins them, one Loki remembers visiting several times before when he was small, but that is all. They touch on policy once or twice, but generally stay to more informal topics which somehow manages to include comments about how Loki has grown since the first time they met and how pleased the Allfather must be to have his son returned to him. The ambassador does not speak of Thor at all.
After the meal is cleared, leaving Father to his work, Loki meanders through the palace without bothering to spell himself invisible. There is no one he needs to hide from. Those that matter know he is there, and those that don’t, well, he doesn’t really care what they think right now.
He does avoid the common gathering places of the courtiers, but he does not want to visit those areas anyway, so it is no great sacrifice. The less frequented halls are the ones that hold items of interest (several of which he tucks away for future use, just because he can). The only people he crosses are servants, which seems odd; he won’t fight his luck though, besides, it rather pleases him that most of them react little different than they had before his fall when he was still their prince.
In fact, the afternoon goes so smoothly that before he realizes it he finds himself wandering through the wing that held his old room. This is of course when everything goes wrong. Why everything always goes wrong.
Thor.
Loki immediately turns in the other direction.
“- wait, please! Let me-”
“I do not have to do what you ask of me anymore; there is no reason for me to stay.” There is the sound of running, a hand touches his arm. “Don’t-” he jerks away “ever touch me again.” Loki does not look at Thor because he doesn’t want to notice how destroyed he looks, doesn’t want to care. “Things will never be as they were before. And even if they could be, I wouldn’t want it. We may have the same father, Thor. But we are not brothers.” He tries to walk away, several strides away something draws him back. “I… I-” he covers his face with his hands, only for a moment. “I loved you!” rips out of him “Don’t you understand that?! You were my everything. I would have given- did give- anything to make you happy. My soul, Thor! And even then you couldn’t- do you know what it felt like?! When the only thing that mattered- all I knew- was you and you still threw me aside because what you made me into wasn’t good enough for you! Why was I not good enough?! Why am I NEVER GOOD ENOUGH?!”
Silence hangs between them, Thor reaching for words that won’t come to him.
“You-” he whispers. “I… ”
“SHUT UP!” Thor does. “Shut. Up.”
Loki walks away.
A week later he will realize that Thor had been stripped of his armor, evidence of his rank dissolved to nothing, but at the time he notices only the rawness inside of him.
-
It takes a servant asking after his welfare for Thor to move.
Down in the vaults there is a pedestal tucked away from the other artifacts, hidden back in the darkness. Resting there is the hammer forged in the heart of a dying star.
It is not where Thor wants to be, but there is nowhere else for him to go.
He walks down the curving stairs, arms hanging limply at his sides. There is a hollowness in the center of him, but otherwise he is numb.
He does not try to lift her. He does not know how long he is there.
Guards come to escort him back to his chambers.
-
Conditioned in Loki is the idea that the gardens are a place of safety, and so, whenever he is upset, that’s where he goes. It is a traitorous, disgusting, predictable habit, but he cannot help himself.
Loki doesn’t stop until he is leaning against the stone archway. The smell of the flowers (each with a purpose, nothing decorative) hits him, ruining his ability to move, and he stays there head tipped back, breathing wretched, until he hears a quiet exclamation and opens his eyes.
Eir stands in front of him, basket on the ground at her feet, dropped gatherings spilled over the grass and path.
When she opens her mouth, he thinks it is to say his name, but her voice chokes out and his stomach is filled with a horrible burning shame as he rips away the remnants of the spell he had cast on her before his fall.
“I’m sorry,” is all he is capable of. Just sorrysorrysorryplease, and he thinks he must be saying this out loud because her posture shifts and then she’s reaching out.
“Oh, you stupid child. Come here.” She wraps her arms around him and clutches him close. It takes a moment for Loki to respond, but when he does it is to circle his arms around her waist and bury his face in her shoulder. “I was frightened for you.” Eir pets his hair, threads her fingers through what is at the base of his neck. “And of you a bit, I suppose, when you had your hand around my neck…”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know, dear. Just don’t do it again.”
After everything, all he has done, all he is, those five words hit him and with a vivid clarity he knows how unworthy he is of her kindness. Her insistence on giving it to him without question leaves him confused and disoriented.
“I am not…” The words escape him, he tries to follow them away, but Eir will not allow him to leave.
“Why are you not.” She holds his face in her hands, refusing to let him look away. “Why. Were the first men not made of the Ash tree? The first women of Elm? How are you different? Birch is strong,” she whispers, pulls him closer. “You. Are. Strong. It has adapted, and so will you.”
He leans into her.
They stay in the gardens until evening falls. Meticulously picking up all that has fallen, combing the plants for anything missed, and sitting under the trees sheltered in the shade. When Eir finally stands she reaches a hand down to him. “Come back,” she says. Loki nods. Then she shuffles him out the gates and takes his arm. He walks her to the Healing Room while she answers questions he has about the healing tomes he pilfered earlier in the day. When he is done reading them he will come back for a more substantial conversation.
Fandral meets him outside the doors, not giving any excuse for how he knew where to find him.
“I thought I could… see you back to the Bifrost?”
“Fandral,” Loki says slowly. “I do not use the Bifrost.”
The man’s shoulders slump a little in disappointment, but he still trails after Loki when he walks in the vague direction of one of the pastures. “You will be returning to Midgard then?” Loki glances at him, but does not respond. “The inventor, the Man of Iron Thor spoke of, he will continue to be your host? He is good for you.”
“Yes,” Loki nods, he hadn’t actively considered it, but it is true. “Yes, he is.”
“Good.”
They walk aimlessly, Fandral following Loki’s lead even though he has no clear destination in mind.
“You will… return? Sometimes? To visit Eir and the Allfather?”
“I may.”
“I would like the chance to speak with you again. If you would permit it.”
Fandral studies the ground they walk on. Loki half smiles only because he knows the other man won’t see it and allows their shoulders to bump.
“Perhaps.”
-
A week and a half after they return to Malibu, Ms. Potts arrives with dinner catered in and a bottle of wine.
Loki is reclining by the wall of windows, cheek pressed to the cool glass and legs splayed on the floor, staring into the distance at the expanse of clear blue water before him. The opening door snaps him back and he sweeps the tome on healing magic he had been largely ignoring for the last hour into a leather satchel and wedges it behind a standing plant before rolling his eyes at himself in irritation and spelling it back to his room.
By the time he stands up the food is already on the closest table and she is unpinning her hair.
“Oh, there you are,” she says when she notices him approach behind her, jumping as if he had appeared out of thin air. “JARVIS told me you were in the living room, but I didn’t see you on my way through.”
“I was…” he gestures aimlessly at the windows, not quite sure what he had been doing. She smiles at him, shifting nervously as the last of the pins comes out and the copper strands fall about her shoulders.
“It’s a beautiful view, one of my favorites here. JARVIS, get Tony please.”
“Of course, Ms. Potts.”
As she moves to the kitchen for plates and silverware Loki follows. She asks about his stay so far, what he thinks of the West Coast, how he is handling… and then she trails off. JARVIS interrupts before either can restart the conversation.
“I regret to inform you that Sir says he is occupied with a delicate part of his current project and is not able to stop at this current time.”
“No he’s not.” She has taken three plates out of the cupboard and pauses once she realized what she’s done. “Tell him if he doesn’t come up he’s sleeping on the couch.”
“Sir would like me to remind you that is not a privilege you have if you are not staying at the mansion, and also that he is on his way up.”
“I’m sorry,” Ms. Potts turns to face him after JARVIS is finished speaking, leaning back against the counter. “Is it that you don’t need to eat or that you can’t eat?”
Not a question he was expecting. “I… I don’t suppose I know. I’ve never tried because I’ve never felt compelled to.” She watches him, brow furrowed, and then puts one of the plates back.
“Have you ever considered asking?”
They are walking back to the food when Tony arrives, bounding up to Pepper like a child until he gets within a foot of her and suddenly reconsiders whether or not the action is welcome. The hesitation is covered up by bravado.
“The couch Pep? Really?”
“Sit down and eat something.” She leans in to kiss him. Tony melts into her, arm wrapping around her waist.
Loki is about to cross the room and make his way up the staircase to give them some privacy when Tony detaches himself and disappears into the kitchen. When he comes back it’s with a large glass or water that is tinted pink, probably with some kind of berry. They look at him expectantly as they move back to the couches. He follows.
The fixed plates are set on the coffee table and Pepper steps out of her heels, picking them up by the straps and walking barefoot over the cool wooden floor on her way to find wine glasses.
“What do you want to watch?” Tony calls after her.
“I don’t know, let JARVIS pick.”
While Tony argues with his A.I. over the merits of explosions versus actual plots, Pepper drops gracefully on the couch beside Loki. She sips from her wine flute, lets the taste resonate, then nudges his shoulder with the tip of her finger, voice quiet.
“You said that Thor would protect people, when they need it.”
“I-… yes.”
“What about you? When you needed it, did he protect you?”
“I am complicated Ms. Potts.”
She looks at him thoughtfully.
It should bother him he thinks, being surrounded by these mortals. Thoughts of the invasion swirl at the corners of his mind.
It doesn’t.
-
He is not an Avenger, doesn’t ever want to be, but he likes Dummy and his brothers, and he thinks he likes the Man of Iron, so if an occasional protective spell gets woven into the circuitry of the suits and the machines then what of it. Besides, it’s not as though he is telling anyone what he’s doing. And if no one knows than it’s not a feeling he has to dwell on too deeply.
The visit to Asgard had let loose a torrent of emotion that Loki had neither expected nor been prepared to deal with. The need to spread out, to find secret places and learn and Be cries for freedom; the feeling is worse than before, eating away at him. It had been happy enough to stay, but Loki can’t. His quarters and the lab, though they feel safe (mostly), chafe him. The move to Malibu had helped some, the estate new and peaceful, but still not enough.
He has never done well trapped within four walls, even if they are beautiful.
“You can’t keep me here.” He says one day sitting on the couch in the lab (the same one that had been in the tower, flown out at the same time as the robots), legs crossed on the cushions in front of him. Tony looks over from where he is doing maintenance on Butterfingers.
“I know.”
-
Thor returns once, after Stark has moved Loki out to California. Clint is the only one in the tower. He doesn’t tell anyone else about the visit.
“Can I ask you something?” When he speaks, his voice is calm and quiet. Collected. Everything he is not feeling. “Do you really know what you’re apologizing for? Do you even get why this is fucked up? Do you? Because it’s like you don’t even have a rudimentary grasp of anything right now.” Thor has stopped with his mouth open, like he’s trying to respond, but nothing comes out. Clint doesn’t care. He keeps talking, keeping his tone light and pleasant because if he doesn’t- nothing, nothing good will happen. “Let me try to break this down for you. So your parents decided, what- that real kids weren’t good enough to play with you? But they want you to have a friend- a friend Thor, do you know what that means?- so they make one. They make one that is capable of thinking and feeling and needing. They make a living being. Except it’s not one, is it.”
“Clint-”
“So despite the fact that they built a child, it’s not real. It is treated as a toy because it was made to be a toy. And toys do not think.” He stands. “They do not feel.” Thor’s eyes follow him. “And they do not need. And when that child, that little boy, goes to his family, and he feels, and he needs, they decide they are entitled to treat those feelings and those needs as beneath them,” his forces his voice not to crack. “As crap. They can’t be real, so the family is justified, because toys are incapable of any of any of that.” Clint does not think of Barney, and he does not think of his father. “Are you apologizing, Thor, because you realized what you did last year. Or because you realized what you’ve done his entire existence.”
“You defend him, I do not understand,” Thor had whispered. “You do not like him.”
“No,” Clint walked out of the room. “I hate him.”
Thor does not come back.
Epilogue