Loki/Harry - The Sum Of All Your Fears 1/1 - NC17
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“The Sum Of All Your Fears”
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is property of JK Rowling, Bloomsbury, Warner Bros, et all. Avengers, Thor, Loki, etc belong to Marvel, Stan Lee, et co. I make no money from this and own nothing, don’t sue.
Summary: [Loki/HP] The Chitauri found him after he fell. They promised him revenge and the boy from his dreams, the boy with the lightning bolt scar that Loki should know but couldn’t remember. The Tesseract invaded his mind, polluting it, emptying it, until all that remained was fear and anger and he didn’t know who he was anymore. But Harry would save him. Because that’s what heroes did.
Warnings: Slash. Loki/HP. Pre-Movies; through Iron Man; post-Avengers. Violence. Language. AU. Implied Torture. Typos. Character death. Creepiness. Eventual happy ending. Mind Control. Induced Insanity.
Rating: NC-17.
A/N: Hmm. I seem to have a new obsession. Fellow Lokeans, arise!! ALSO! I HAVE CHANGED THE HP DATES. Harry was born in 1990, not 1980. Add ten years to everything (it was that, or make this another master of death story). Harry born: 1990. Hogwarts: 2001. Iron Man: 2008. Iron Man 2: 2010. Thor: April 2011. Captain America: July 2011. Avengers: April 2012.
XXX
“We have finally learned, at far too great a cost, that if the most powerful weapons ever created are ever unleashed, they will be fired not in anger... but fear.” - President Fowler: The Sum of All Fears (2002).
Words: 21,253
Chapter 2
December 8th 2004. Fourteen.
Ever since his name had been drawn from the Goblet of Fire Harry had found himself sneaking into the Forbidden Forest whenever he could manage it. There were nights where he couldn’t sleep and he’d pull his invisibility cloak on over his pyjamas and wander through the forest bare foot, or days where Ron had been particularly unbearable in class and Harry would skip lunch to sit by the edge of the forest with a book on Runes or Defence or Arithmancy because those were his favourite subjects and he’d just read until Hermione came to get him. Sometimes he’d even skip the last class of the day to sit in the forest, his back against a particular tree in a particular clearing he had grown rather fond of, and he’d sit there and write letters to his father about the tournament and Voldemort and the war that he would never send.
Today was one of those days. Harry found himself trudging gloomily into what he had dubbed his clearing.
Except there was somebody already sitting in his clearing.
“Oh!” Harry gasped, glancing around warily. The man wasn’t a teacher, and he didn’t appear to be a student, but Harry supposed this man’s idea of ‘casual clothes’ could be leather and velvet and gold, but he looked a little too old to be at Hogwarts. “Sorry, I- it’s just, well, no one is ever here. I wasn’t expecting- right, I’m going! Sorry!”
He turned to leave, but there was a hand on his arm keeping him from moving away.
“You are welcome to stay if you desire.” The man’s voice was soft and warm, with an accent like nothing Harry had ever heard before, and he was curious despite his reservations. He should leave, he knew. He shouldn’t stay here in this clearing with a stranger while Voldemort’s forces were rising up in his name again, this stranger could be one of them, he could even be the Dark Lord for all Harry knew, because Quirrell had been and no one had noticed!
“Right,” Harry murmured, turning around and blushing because the man was staring straight at him, green eyes fixed on Harry’s face. The eyes flicked up to his lightning bolt scar and back down to red lips, and Harry licked at them nervously. But then the man smiled at him, and in the last month no one but Hermione had smiled at him. So Harry found himself leading the man back into the clearing and sitting beside him in the grass and listening avidly as the man explained about the origins of runes after catching a peek of Harry’s Ancient Runes textbook as it fell out of Harry’s bag, discarded on the floor.
Loki, as he had introduced himself as after he finished speaking of runes, reached out for Harry’s bag. He pulled out a book on Charms and a book on Potions, and he glanced up at Harry curiously. “This school?” He pointed back in the direction Harry had come from, at the school he had caught a glimpse of just after he had transported himself to Midgard. “It is a school for magic? Your parents allow you to go there or do you sneak out here to study from your sister’s texts?”
“I go to Hogwarts!” Harry told him rather indignantly. “And I don’t have a sister.” He scowled then, before it melted into a confused pout as he caught sight of the awe on Loki’s face. “My dad is proud to have a Wizard in the family, though he didn’t know about magic until I got my invitation to Hogwarts. My mum was a witch, but she died before telling dad anything about magic. Aren’t you a Wizard?” Harry tried to think of what else Loki could be, because he wasn’t a troll or a centaur or a goblin, that’s for sure. Were there vampires in the Forbidden Forest, Harry wondered, or elves, or fairies, or nymphs; for Loki was certainly beautiful enough to pass for one?
“I am a sorcerer,” Loki told him half a truth instead of a whole lie, which was unusual in itself, and in recompense for his truthfulness, Loki demanded Harry tell him of Hogwarts. He listened in awe, something swelling in his chest which could have been pride in himself or bitterness at his father or anticipation because surely if he told his father plenty of males learnt magic on Midgard, Odin wouldn’t be so ashamed! But on Asgard, only women learnt the art of magic, and the men learnt to fight, but Loki had never been good at that. Magic was his strength, magic was his art and his blood and his breath, but that had never been enough for Odin. Though the man claimed to love him, he was always disappointed in Loki, for Loki could not be better, not be enough, but if Loki was of Midgard his magic would not be a cause for shame. He half envied the human for that and the other half of him was desperately curious and interested, and because it had been a while since something had so struck his interest, Loki kept Harry within the forest talking for the rest of the night.
When the sun rose, Loki only allowed Harry to leave if he promised to come back the next night. Harry came back that night, and Loki met him at the entrance to the clearing, their clearing, and that night they spoke of parents and disappointment, and Harry confided in him of the Dursleys who had despised him and of his father who had saved him from all that. And again, Loki was envious and bitter.
“But it’s not always about parents,” Harry had told him, when Loki had scoffed at the idea of his father ever being pleased with him. “I have some great friends. Hermione, in particular, she’s a saint! She’s always there for me, no matter what stupid stuff I do, or what I say wrong, or what I want to learn about because sometimes I read books on the Dark Arts and she doesn’t like that, but she doesn’t hate me for it, you know? And dad has Pepper, she’s his secretary, but really she’s his friend too though he pretends otherwise cause dad is sort of afraid of emotions cause his father was crap too. I think they’ll get married one day, because dad just can’t function without her and she loves him and she takes care of him, and he loves that about her.”
Loki watched him in silence, green eyes fixed on a pale face and on the unusual scar that marked his forehead. Harry smiled softly up at him, lying down on the grass, and twirling the fingers of one hand through his hair. Loki had the sudden urge to lie down over him, to hide all of Harry from the eyes of others, but he restrained himself, because though Loki had been almost three hundred years old when he had looked as Harry did, Harry actually was only fourteen, and regardless, he doubted the boy would welcome his attentions. No one else ever did, after all. But Loki was a shapeshifter, and that was why people took Loki to their beds; it was never for him alone.
“One day, it might be a long time from now, but the wait is usually worth it,” Harry sat up and leaned forward then, pulling Loki into an unexpected hug as he spoke softly, “you’ll find someone that will love everything about you. They’ll leave you nothing to be ashamed of.”
Harry left after that, and Loki waited in the clearing all day, dozing or eating or thinking about Harry’s words. When Harry came back that night without having been asked or demanded to, and every night until the Christmas holidays started, Loki suspected that despite Harry’s age he had found that someone.
XXX
September 1st 2008. Eighteen.
Harry recalled the conversation he had started with his father that summer, the week before his birthday, while a blond woman lay sprawled out on the bed.
Harry made his way through the forbidden forest, his invisibility cloak around his shoulders and over his uniform, and he chewed thoughtfully on the apple he had snuck out of the great hall. He was on his way to their clearing, the place deep within the forest that he and Loki would meet at each night for almost four years. Loki had kissed him, the last time they had seen each other; the day after Dumbledore’s funeral, Harry had stumbled into the clearing in tears and Loki had pulled him into his arms and kissed him until the tears stopped falling. The elder man had whispered something into his ear, and though Harry hadn’t understood the language, he thought he had recognized the tone. His mother spoke to him softly like that in his dreams, and Pepper sounded like that when she joked about loving Tony (even though both she and Harry knew she wasn’t joking), and Harry sounded like that when he whispered, “I love you, dad”, or “I love you, Pepper”, so did that mean he loved Loki too?
He had pushed the thought out of his mind last year, because the Horcruxes were more important than his own feelings and worries, and he had hunted each of them down while Loki watched over him from Asgard, or Jötunheimr, or Midgard, keeping him safe but keeping himself out of the affairs of mortals. Harry understood his reasoning. Loki was a god, Loki had explained it all to him after their first kiss, and though Harry didn’t feel like he was running away from what Loki was, the year he spent away from Loki and their clearing and Hogwarts still felt like a year spent running away. But he had talked to his dad the summer passed, and he had talked to Pepper too, and to his reflection in the mirror, because his summers with his father were the only time that Loki did not look in upon him as was their agreement, and it was safe to say what he thought and admit what he wanted without worrying about scaring the god away.
But now, now he knew that his father wouldn’t hate him for it, and that Pepper was happy for him, and that Loki did love him too (because Harry had had Hermione translate that sentence Loki had whispered in Norse to English), Harry was feeling sure enough, brave enough to admit it now.
Turns out he didn’t actually have to. Loki met him at the entrance of the clearing with a small smile and narrowed green eyes. He was twisting the resurrection stone between the fingers of his right hand, and the ring was in his left, and as Harry watched Loki fitted the pieces of the Gaunt ring back together again and held them out silently. Harry took the ring from him, smiling softly.
“Thanks.” He glanced down at him, considered what he could do with it; because he didn’t actually want it for all that he had mastered it. He had put the Elder Wand back in Dumbledore’s grave, and the ring had been lost or so he thought. Harry had only kept the cloak because it had belonged to his step-father and because he had inherited it. “You keep it.” Harry held it out to Loki. “Consider it a gift.”
“Gifts are met with like gifts on Asgard, Harry.” Loki kept his gaze as he slid the Gaunt ring onto his wedding finger. On his right hand, Loki wore a ring proclaiming him as Odin’s son, made of gold and onyx and emblazoned with his father’s crest. Loki pulled it from his finger and held it out to Harry. Harry reached up for it, a small smile on his red lips, and Loki’s eyes drifted to his mouth, to the mouth that he had tasted once before and never forgotten the taste of. Loki’s right hand closed around Harry’s left wrist just before the boy could take the ring from him. Loki’s ring was pushed forward slowly, giving Harry enough time to jerk his hand back but he didn’t move, until it was sitting snugly on his left hand’s ring finger.
“You know, on earth, wearing a ring on that finger means-” Harry began to say.
Loki raised a hand to cut him off, softly saying, “I know what it means, Harry. Do you?”
They stared at each other for a moment, Loki’s heart beating loudly from nervousness in the sudden silence. A blush spread across Harry’s cheeks, because yes he did know what it meant, and yes he knew what he wanted, and yes to everything that Loki was offering because he loved him, had loved him for years, but was too afraid to admit it, too insecure to put himself out there because this man was a god and what was Harry compared to that? So, instead of trying to explain his feelings or his thoughts, Harry just smiled widely. “Yes,” he said, “but I think we should, you know, confirm this some way?” He waved his ringed hand in the air teasingly.
“Confirm it?” Loki asked, a smirk drawing up pale pink lips. “And how would we confirm it?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Harry drawled, raising his eyebrow the way he did when he thought someone was being particularly stupid, “you could start by kissing me?”
“Kissing you?” Loki smirked again, leaning in to playful nip at Harry’s bottom lip, but he pulled back quickly as Harry arched towards him. “Why would I want to do that?” His hand ran lightly down the length of Harry’s pale cheek, caressing the flush of red with interest and amusement, before he dragged his thumb across a pouting mouth.
“I’ll make it worth your while?” Harry offered before moving to suck the tip of Loki’s thumb into his mouth and biting down on it lightly. “But, you know, only if you want to.”
Loki hummed lightly, “Oh yes, most certainly,” he agreed at last, before leaning down and catching Harry’s mouth with his own. As they kissed all of Harry’s fears fell away, all of his insecurities melted into nothing, and Loki left him with nothing to be ashamed of.
XXX
April 3rd 2011. Twenty.
Loki had had a plan. If you asked him, it was a rather good plan, only as with all plans that involved Thor, it wasn’t working out quite the way Loki had planned for it to.
It was a rather convoluted plan, but to Loki it was simple enough. Thor would make for a terrible king, and so Thor must not be king. Loki’s planning had resulted in Thor’s banishment, which had gone exactly to plan; for all that he denied expecting such a reaction from Odin when Thor’s friends asked about it. The problems arose, unfortunately, when Odin was left with no choice but to finally reveal the lie that was Loki’s entire life. It was the proverbial punch line to the joke that was his existence: a Frost Giant, upon Asgard; the monster parents warned their children of, living in the palace above them all. He could have dealt with that though, in time, because he had Harry and their little flat in London that Harry’s father had bought for them (showing immeasurable trust in a man, monster, that refused to ever meet the mortal). Harry would not be ashamed of him, Loki knew. This, none of this, would ever change Harry’s opinion of him, nor Harry’s love for him, and so Loki could not be ashamed of himself. It just wouldn’t be possible without questioning Harry’s love, but Harry’s love for him was beyond questionable, beyond reasonable, and Loki rejoiced in that. Just as his love for Harry was unwavering, and his pride in showing off the Gaunt ring that rested upon his wedding finger, a symbol of his betrothal, a promise to all Asgardians of their new king’s future husband.
His being a Jötun was a problem, but it was not the problem.
The problem was that Thor’s friends had disobeyed their new king’s orders and Heimdallr had advocated it, undermined Loki, and their actions put his plans in danger. If this plan did not succeed, Loki would have Jötunheimr as his enemy. Asgard would be his enemy too. Thor was meant to stay banished, unknowing of Loki’s part in these schemes, his parents would be unaware of Loki’s plotting, and when Jötunheimr was gone, and the war was averted and Thor had learnt patience and pragmatism and humility and was welcomed home again it would be Loki for once playing the part of the hero. No one could then deny his one request, his favour to exchange for his heroics, for his saving of Odin from Laufey. And he would marry Harry before all of the Æsir. It took great feats of courage or compassion on Asgard to earn the right to bring a mortal among them, and while Loki would not be the first to do so, he would never be the bravest or the most compassionate. But he was the most cunning of them all. Nothing, unfortunately, neither intelligence nor luck could change Thor’s continuous ability to become the proverbial spanner in Loki’s works.
Every. Single. Time.
And now Loki ran the risk of Sif and the Warrior’s Three telling Thor of his lies and his schemes and of Thor then telling Odin once he woke from the Odinsleep. There was Thor’s quick to anger nature to take into account, and Odin’s profanity for spitefulness and wrath, and the Jötuns retribution upon learning that they were tricked and betrayed and defeated. Loki would risk everything, anything, usually to achieve his desired results. But he would not risk Harry. Never.
It was for the best, he told himself unconvincingly, as he waited in silence for Harry to arrive home from his job at St Mungos. It would not be for long, Loki promised silently, not for long, just long enough for Odin to forget this grievance and for Loki to talk Thor into forgiveness and for the Jötuns to once more fade into obscurity. Harry would wait for him, because Harry had promised to always love him, always need him and want him, the day Loki had formally asked for his hand in marriage. It would be difficult for them both, but it would be for the best. Unfortunately, it did not quite go the way Loki had hoped it would go.
Harry walked into the room, a wide smile stretching across his mouth as he caught sight of Loki who was lately more often than not away from their home. At the sight of the frown on Loki’s face, Harry’s mouth turned down too and he took three hurried steps backwards. His hands were raised, as if to ward off an attack that would never come, because Loki would never harm him. The god stepped towards him, mouth pressing into a thin line, but Harry cried out for him to stop. Harry turned his face away, blinking back the tears that threatened to spill over his cheeks.
“What did I do?” He asked softly, face still turned away and eyes blinking rapidly.
“Pardon?” Loki asked, sounding confused.
“The look on your face? I know that look, Loki. My father wears that look every morning after the night before when someone comes home with him. Hermione wore that look when she called off her engagement to Ron, Cho wore that look when I asked her to the Yule Ball and she said no. Was it something I did?” Harry sounded so broken, and his hands shook as he reached up to brush those few stubborn tears that insisted on falling away.
“No!” Loki hissed. He strode forward, reaching out quick as a snake to grab hold of Harry’s shoulders before the young man could shift out of the way. “I love you. I love you, like nothing I have ever felt before, so much so that it frightens me at times. You have done nothing wrong. Nothing you have done has led me to this decision, Harry, nothing has changed the way I feel about you, but this is for the best. Just for a short time,” Loki whispered, reaching one hand up to cup Harry’s right cheek, thumb brushing over the wetness he found there. “Just for a short time.”
“Is this one of those ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speeches? Or is this actually, me, and not you, Loki?” Harry kept his eyes on Loki’s face, waiting and watching for some sign, anything that would give away Loki’s reasons for doing this. “Why are you leaving me?”
“I will never leave you!” The god hissed at him. His teeth were bared and poison green eyes were narrowed in grief and anger, and his mouth was upon Harry’s then, furious and passionate, teeth and tongue and bruises upon lips. When they pulled apart, Harry couldn’t stand up without Loki’s arms around his waist and there was blood running down his chin from where the god had bitten him, and Loki was panting harshly against his neck, his erection pressing to Harry’s hip as they rutted lightly against one another.
“Then why are you leaving me?” Harry extracted himself from Loki’s arms, moving to the couch and flopping down like a marionette whose strings had been cut. He gazed tiredly at his fiancé, and Loki moved to kneel between his legs.
“I will never leave you, Harry. Never. But there are matters arising in Asgard, problems with Jötunheimr and I am… I fear that my actions will lead to a horrible reprisal this time. I will not have you be the price I pay for these actions, Snow.”
Harry smiled softly at the nickname, his lips tilting barely up at the corners, even as he thought hard on Loki’s words. His father called him Snow sometimes, shortened from Snow White, because the newspapers had taken up the habit of addressing him as ‘Snow White Stark’ after someone joked that his lips were red as rose. Loki had agreed that Harry was the male equivalent to the fairy-tale beauty, but Loki was not one to carelessly toss around words of affection, so whenever he used a nickname himself it was usually to reassure and dismiss Harry’s insecurities.
“Just for a short time?”
“Just for a short time,” Loki promised honestly, moving forward to press his lips to Harry’s clothed stomach and then his chest, his throat, until he was hovering over Harry and they were kissing again.
Their clothes fell away as Harry’s fears did, and though Loki’s fears remained he pushed them to the back of him mind and lost himself in the feel of Harry’s bare skin against his own. He had the human pinned down on the sofa; arms held high above his head by one of Loki’s hands, as the other slipped down between their bodies to wiggle their way between Harry’s cheeks and inside of him. They wriggled and spread, probing, searching, and all the while Harry moaned beneath him, head thrown back and legs spread in invitation as Loki prepared him. They kissed. Every time fear for Harry’s safety welled up inside of him, Loki pulled Harry’s mouth into a kiss and lost himself in the taste of Harry. Every time Harry feared that perhaps Loki was only placating him, that Loki was really leaving him, he pulled the god into a kiss, hungry and desperate, until he could think of nothing but the other man’s saliva on his mouth and Loki’s fingers in his hole.
Loki’s cock pressed easily inside of Harry’s body, both so familiar with one another after two and a half years of doing this that there was no nervousness, no tension, and no attempt to pull away. Harry relished in the feeling of being full, complete, and Loki loved that Harry only wanted him, desired him, in his true form and no other person’s. He considered, briefly, as he moved on top of his fiancée thrusting in and out rhythmically with one hand squeezing Harry’s hip hard enough to bruise, if Harry would ever lay with him while Loki wore his blue skin, but then Harry leant up and bit down hard on the skin of Loki’s shoulder to muffle his first orgasm and Loki once more learned to lose himself in Harry.
After they were done, Loki lay with Harry on top of him, head pillowed on Loki’s chest as the human slept. He gave himself one hour, and only one hour to enjoy this, before he moved Harry into his own bed and took himself back to Asgard.
Loki confronted Heimdallr. He released the Destroyer upon earth, and he watched in anger as Thor strolled back into Asgard as if he had never been banished. Loki threatened Thor’s new mortal lover, all the while praying that Thor never discovered his own.
He was defeated.
He failed to destroy Jötunheimr, even though he had made a spectacular attempt at it, and when the bifrost was destroyed and Odin awakened and still ever so disappointed in him, Loki fell. He figured that he could transport himself to Harry’s side, cross through the shadows and use his magic to travel through worlds as he had always done.
It would be simple, it would be easy; easier than having to face Odin’s anger and Frigga’s disappointment and Thor’s righteousness on behalf of the Frost Giants he had once attempted to destroy himself. Loki would be with Harry again, soon, as he had promised. Unfortunately, the power of the bifrost was more than Loki had anticipated, and as it swirled around him, though he fought and valiantly attempted to grasp hold of a thread, any thread, of magic that would lead to a world he recognized, all evaded him. Eventually, exhausted, he fell through darkness for longer than he imagined one could ever fall for. He saw things, felt things, feared things, forgot things, and when he landed he landed hard.
Loki groaned as he rolled over. His ribs hurt and at least two were broken, his back ached and he could feel a horrid bruise forming across the width of his chest. Something like bile though was actually blood rose from his stomach, and Loki spat it out upon the ground beside him as he struggled groggily to sit up.
“Who are you?” Something asked him, hovering just out of sight behind a strange purple-grey colour rocked, with the hood of a robe pulled down low over his face to hide everything but the creature’s purple chin.
“I am Loki, of Asgard,” Loki told the creature, narrowing his eyes at it suspiciously. “And I am…” He furrowed his brow, stopping mid-sentence as he thought.
There was a blond man in his memories, calling him brother and throwing a hammer down upon his chest. An older man with one eye missing shook his head disappointedly at him; ‘no son’, he said over and over and over as Loki tried in every memory to make him proud. There was a city within his mind, all golden and glass and home but not quite so because Loki had never belonged, but there he was seated upon the throne, a king, with his crown, until four warriors stood before him and helped Thor usurp the throne out from under him.
Another city spread out in his memories, buildings that reached the sky made of glass and concrete, metal monstrosities that people drove through the tarmacked streets, humans, humans everywhere, and one in particular who shared a small flat with Loki in the centre of the metropolis.
But that boy was lying on his back in a forest too, surrounded by green, grass like his eyes, like Loki’s eyes, and a smile upon rose red lips. Dark hair, like the wing of one of Odin’s ravens, spread around his head like a halo, and pale skinned hands reached up to tug Loki down on top of him. Eighteen years old, and giving up his virginity in their clearing in their forest, crying out for more beneath the god of lies and mischief, who cried out on top of the boy for love. There was a strange scar upon the boy’s forehead, and Loki’s ring upon his wedding finger, long enough that a tan line had developed around it, visible whenever the boy played with the ring.
Loki shook himself from his memories, blurry and disjointed though they were, and glanced down at the ring of onyx and gold that rested upon his own finger. The band that symbolised a joining, a union that he could not remember, with the boy with the scar, who he also could not recall, but knew he needed to.1
As he fell, his memories fell with him, becoming tangled with all of the fantasies that existed within Loki’s mind, all of the things he had desired to do but never done, out of fear or logic or just because he hadn’t yet had the time. But now he couldn’t remember what was real and what wasn’t, and when the Other (the creature with the hood and the purple chin) spoke to him of Thanos (who frightened Loki more than he cared to admit) Loki learned that he had fallen for over eight months, through darkness and loneliness. In that time, he had broken a promise that he couldn’t quite remember, but he could still imagine the hurt on the boy with the scar’s beautiful face nonetheless.
“Where did you come from?” The Other asked him.
“Asgard,” Loki answered sometimes, and at other times he answered, “Midgard,” because that was what he had been thinking about.
“I was a king once,” he told Thanos once, remembering sitting upon his throne, but the memory was wrong because Harry was seated by his side until Thor tore him away, tore them apart.
“My brother ruined everything,” Loki confessed, as Thanos searched secretly through the god’s mind, separating what was real from what wasn’t. Thanos knew the truth, though he refrained from correcting Loki’s beliefs or from repairing the god’s scattered thoughts. Instead, he offered Loki a sceptre, fashioned after the one that Loki used in his memories to fight Thor on the bifrost, but this one glowed blue at the tip. Thanos promised him the boy with the scar, and his throne back upon earth, and his revenge on Asgard and Thor who had tried to claim the earth for himself in Loki’s absence.
“What is it you desire, Asgardian?” The Other hissed at him in that strange whispering voice of his. All of his words sounded so dangerous, angry and cruel, no matter what it was he said or how he said it. Loki considered it a good talent to have, a good way to cower ones enemies, though he didn’t appreciate the Other using that voice upon him.
“Other than your boy with the scar,” Thanos added softly, skin dark and red and cracking around his lips and nostrils and eyes like dried clay finally coming apart.
“Vengeance.” Loki answered. When they asked against who, Loki told them, “Thor and Odin and Asgard and Midgard”. When they asked him why, it was because they all conspired together to take his throne and to take his boy from him.
Loki glanced down at the ring upon his finger just before he accepted the sceptre, the key to having his revenge, and he wondered sadly if the boy remembered him though Loki could not quite remember himself. He hoped, prayed to all gods but his own kin, that though it had been much longer than Loki had promised it would be that his boy would still be waiting for him.
XXX
July 19th 2011. Twenty.
Harry had waited a full three months before finally admitting to himself that he was an idiot. Loki wasn’t coming back; Loki was never coming back, and he was a fool to ever think otherwise. Loki had told him goodbye, and Harry had been too blind or too naive or too desperate not to see it. Loki had told him goodbye without words, with his body and kisses and frantic brushes of hands over flushed skin as he fucked up into Harry.
Perhaps, Harry consoled himself as he slipped Loki’s ring off of his finger and into the pocket of his trousers, Loki had intended to come back at first. Harry figured it would make sense if the problems with Jötunheimr had spilled into Loki’s home life and the god’s family found out about him. They would disapprove, Harry knew, because he was mortal, and mortals didn’t marry gods or go to Asgard, and Harry should have seen this coming a long time ago despite Loki’s proposal. It was like running up a hill that would never level off. It didn’t matter how hard Harry ran or how much Harry and Loki loved, the hill would never end and Harry would always be mortal.
But it would have been nice to have been told, officially, that it was over. Loki could have had the decency to break things off formally, or send someone else if Loki did not want to see him or was not allowed to. Or Loki could have told him the truth from the offset. Loki could have told him there were problems in Asgard and in his home and there was a likelihood of his family finding out about them and insisting Loki break things off. Or, perhaps, Loki had gotten cold feet. Forever was a long time for a god, though he was only immortal as long as he ate one of those infamous golden apples a decade, and Harry would not live that long. If Loki was afraid of living all of that time without Harry, after Harry, and he wished to spare himself the pain of being widowed for such an awfully long time, Harry would have understood. It would have hurt like hell, but he would have understood, and the pain would have been less than the pain of this. The waiting and the hoping and the wishing was killing him, and it hurt so, so much more than the pain of simply being left.
Harry packed up a handful of things, shrinking them and shoving them into the pocket of his trousers alongside Loki’s ring. He didn’t look around his flat, because it was his and Loki’s and three months of barely leaving it in case Loki came back and Harry wasn’t there had turned the flat into a prison instead of a home, and Harry couldn’t bear to see any reminders of a time when he had been happy.
Instead, he closed his eyes tightly, and apparated.
His father welcomed him inside with open arms, ignoring the tears and the rain and the way Harry seemed to be falling apart at the edges. Tony Stark held his son tightly, rocking him lightly as Harry cried with his face pressed to the arc reactor and the light of it casting strange shadows across tear stained cheeks. The light made Harry’s tears shine like diamonds, and for once the light didn’t glint off of the unusual ring that usually sat upon Harry’s wedding finger. Tony noticed the tan line, and the lack of a ring, but he said nothing, because there was nothing to say. Loki had left; there was no fiancé, there would be no wedding or happily ever after.
Despite how much Tony wanted to march into his workshop, suit up and hunt that sonofabitch down and kill him, he clung as tightly to Harry as Harry did to him and he kept all of his opinions to himself because Harry didn’t need that shit. Not from him, not now. A week later, Harry still couldn’t say Loki’s name without flinching, so Tony took him out and got him drunk off of alcohol that Tony kept buying for ‘himself’ because Harry was still a week too young to drink legally, and everyone knew that Harry was drinking anyway but said nothing because it was Tony fucking Stark paying the tab, thank you very much. They drank, and they spoke of Afghanistan, and Obie, and Iron Man, and Tony told Harry everything that he had been too afraid and ashamed to talk about back then. Harry told his father how it felt like he was dying inside, and Tony didn’t know how to respond to that, how to make that better, except to buy a bottle of tequila from behind the bar and pour shot after shot until Happy had to come inside and carry them out one by one to the car unconscious.
Five months later, Loki landed upon an unknown planet in an unknown part of space. Two weeks after that, he accepted the sceptre, unaware of the way his green eyes glowed and swirled and changed to a haunting blue colour that looked so unnatural upon his pale and gaunt face. He still thought of vengeance, of retribution and reclamation. He would take back his throne, take his revenge, and then he would take his boy as his husband as he should have done eight months ago. Though his thoughts were wrong, and his memories skewered, and his anger unwarranted, none of the Chitauri corrected him, for his vengeance would secure the Tesseract for them, for Thanos, and with the Tesseract, Asgard would be theirs for the taking. Loki could keep Midgard, and his little scarred human boy; Thanos would have the universe when he was done.
A year after Loki had first left Harry, he appeared once more, shaking and sweating in one of SHIELD’s underground facilities. He told those who addressed him, “I am Loki, of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose.”2
Those who attempted to stand up to him were defeated, killed or enslaved to Loki’s will, easily. Nick Fury pushed himself slowly up off of the floor, relieved that he had chosen to wear his bullet proof vest to work as always, because he worked with some motherfucking crazy shit, but this took the cake. But the vest, and his paranoia, had saved his life, though it didn’t stop Loki from escaping with the Tesseract, two of their scientists, and Hawkeye.
XXX
April 6th 2012. Twenty-One.
SHIELD made a habit of monitoring each and all threats against themselves. In July of last year, Captain America was found buried in ice, and when he woke up, he was added to the list of threats to national security that Nick Fury was in charge of compiling. Before that, Thor of Asgard had made the list, along with the Destroyer that had been sent by Loki and which had levelled a small town in less than an hour. In 2008, Tony Stark had come to SHIELD’s attention, along with his Iron Man design. It was, by complete coincidence, as Fury attempted to find out every speck of information that existed about Stark, anything by which to blackmail or force compliance from him with, that SHIELD had stumbled across the existence of one Harry Potter. Or rather, Harry Stark, though the boy had never legally changed his surname.
Harry was a strange creature altogether. He moved to America at age six, gained citizenship by way of a paternity test and Stark’s own Californian birth certificate, and then practically disappeared off the map at eleven-years-old. He turned up now and again in the papers or on the news, each calling him Snow White Stark since the boy turned fifteen years old. No one at SHIELD had ever really connected the boy to Stark until Obadiah Stane was dead and James Rhodes was attempting to run media interference and SHIELD were left to clear up the mess, and an eighteen year old ran into the middle of the circus and threw himself into Tony Stark’s arms, exclaiming “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to save you!”
It had left Fury wondering how exactly it was that a boy, a child, so slight and fragile looking, so completely normal looking, could have the ability to save someone from terrorists in a cave in a fucking desert and from terrorists that masqueraded as a friend faster and easier than Iron Man could have. And so, after he had finished speaking to Steve Rogers and Coulson’s text came through, Fury had instructed a pilot to take him to England, to London, where Harry was supposed to be working as a doctor. “Healer,” was the word Virginia Potts had used in the phone conversation that SHIELD had listened in on. “A Healer for magical maladies,” she had tried to explain to Stark on the phone, tried to convince him to let Harry attempt to remove the bits of shrapnel in his chest.
Magical, they had said, repeatedly. On the other side of the phone line, four years ago, Director Fury had snorted at the thought and told the tech team to disconnect.
Magical, though.
Like Loki of Asgard? Or like Iron Man would be considered magical and impossible and unbelievable? Fury was determined to find out which one it was, but that wasn’t the only reason he was searching for Stark’s son. Phil Coulson had made friends with Tony and Pepper, though Tony still denied that vehemently. Loki had not wanted to meet Harry’s family until Loki could return the favour, and so not Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Hermione or Ron, or anyone really, had ever met the man, but occasionally a photographer managed to take the odd sneaky picture. Harry hadn’t been able to resist sending one to Pepper. It had been cut from a newspaper, and Harry had bought three papers, so he could cut out three pictures; one for himself, which he had framed in the living room of his flat, and one for Loki to fold and take with him everywhere in his pocket, and one for his parents who were supposed to keep it hidden, but Phil had discovered while searching for Pepper’s phone that had been ringing.
“Answer that please, Phil,” she had called to him from the kitchen, “I think Tony hid it in one of those drawers,” she carried on talking, searching for drinks. Phil had seen the photo, had taken a picture of it with his own phone and sent it straight to Fury, before answering Pepper’s phone and closing the drawer like he had done nothing suspicious at all.
No one would have been able to tell who it was, not without having taken a really good look at the photo or without having seen it numerous times. Stark would probably recognize the man from the photo, and Fury damn well recognized him after staring him down from the wrong end of a magical sceptre as the maniac order him shot and stole from him. But his one remaining eye was good enough to know a face when he saw it or the side of a face as it was in this case, and the photo was clear enough to be of use to him. The photo was old though, because the boy in it was younger than he was in the most recent media shots of him, two years at least, but there were rings on both wedding fingers of the two in the photo, and engagements weren’t called off for no reason, or for less than their fiancé killing almost eighty people in a day at least, or so Fury hoped. If they were still together, and Tony Stark’s kid or not, Harry would bring Loki of Asgard to them, regardless of whether he wished to help.
XXX
TBC
“The Sum Of All Your Fears”
Disclaimer: Harry Potter is property of JK Rowling, Bloomsbury, Warner Bros, et all. Avengers, Thor, Loki, etc belong to Marvel, Stan Lee, et co. I make no money from this and own nothing, don’t sue.
Summary: [Loki/HP] The Chitauri found him after he fell. They promised him revenge and the boy from his dreams, the boy with the lightning bolt scar that Loki should know but couldn’t remember. The Tesseract invaded his mind, polluting it, emptying it, until all that remained was fear and anger and he didn’t know who he was anymore. But Harry would save him. Because that’s what heroes did.
Warnings: Slash. Loki/HP. Pre-Movies; through Iron Man; post-Avengers. Violence. Language. AU. Implied Torture. Typos. Character death. Creepiness. Eventual happy ending. Mind Control. Induced Insanity.
Rating: NC-17.
A/N: Hmm. I seem to have a new obsession. Fellow Lokeans, arise!! ALSO! I HAVE CHANGED THE HP DATES. Harry was born in 1990, not 1980. Add ten years to everything (it was that, or make this another master of death story). Harry born: 1990. Hogwarts: 2001. Iron Man: 2008. Iron Man 2: 2010. Thor: April 2011. Captain America: July 2011. Avengers: April 2012.
XXX
“We have finally learned, at far too great a cost, that if the most powerful weapons ever created are ever unleashed, they will be fired not in anger... but fear.” - President Fowler: The Sum of All Fears (2002).
Words: 21,253
Chapter 2
December 8th 2004. Fourteen.
Ever since his name had been drawn from the Goblet of Fire Harry had found himself sneaking into the Forbidden Forest whenever he could manage it. There were nights where he couldn’t sleep and he’d pull his invisibility cloak on over his pyjamas and wander through the forest bare foot, or days where Ron had been particularly unbearable in class and Harry would skip lunch to sit by the edge of the forest with a book on Runes or Defence or Arithmancy because those were his favourite subjects and he’d just read until Hermione came to get him. Sometimes he’d even skip the last class of the day to sit in the forest, his back against a particular tree in a particular clearing he had grown rather fond of, and he’d sit there and write letters to his father about the tournament and Voldemort and the war that he would never send.
Today was one of those days. Harry found himself trudging gloomily into what he had dubbed his clearing.
Except there was somebody already sitting in his clearing.
“Oh!” Harry gasped, glancing around warily. The man wasn’t a teacher, and he didn’t appear to be a student, but Harry supposed this man’s idea of ‘casual clothes’ could be leather and velvet and gold, but he looked a little too old to be at Hogwarts. “Sorry, I- it’s just, well, no one is ever here. I wasn’t expecting- right, I’m going! Sorry!”
He turned to leave, but there was a hand on his arm keeping him from moving away.
“You are welcome to stay if you desire.” The man’s voice was soft and warm, with an accent like nothing Harry had ever heard before, and he was curious despite his reservations. He should leave, he knew. He shouldn’t stay here in this clearing with a stranger while Voldemort’s forces were rising up in his name again, this stranger could be one of them, he could even be the Dark Lord for all Harry knew, because Quirrell had been and no one had noticed!
“Right,” Harry murmured, turning around and blushing because the man was staring straight at him, green eyes fixed on Harry’s face. The eyes flicked up to his lightning bolt scar and back down to red lips, and Harry licked at them nervously. But then the man smiled at him, and in the last month no one but Hermione had smiled at him. So Harry found himself leading the man back into the clearing and sitting beside him in the grass and listening avidly as the man explained about the origins of runes after catching a peek of Harry’s Ancient Runes textbook as it fell out of Harry’s bag, discarded on the floor.
Loki, as he had introduced himself as after he finished speaking of runes, reached out for Harry’s bag. He pulled out a book on Charms and a book on Potions, and he glanced up at Harry curiously. “This school?” He pointed back in the direction Harry had come from, at the school he had caught a glimpse of just after he had transported himself to Midgard. “It is a school for magic? Your parents allow you to go there or do you sneak out here to study from your sister’s texts?”
“I go to Hogwarts!” Harry told him rather indignantly. “And I don’t have a sister.” He scowled then, before it melted into a confused pout as he caught sight of the awe on Loki’s face. “My dad is proud to have a Wizard in the family, though he didn’t know about magic until I got my invitation to Hogwarts. My mum was a witch, but she died before telling dad anything about magic. Aren’t you a Wizard?” Harry tried to think of what else Loki could be, because he wasn’t a troll or a centaur or a goblin, that’s for sure. Were there vampires in the Forbidden Forest, Harry wondered, or elves, or fairies, or nymphs; for Loki was certainly beautiful enough to pass for one?
“I am a sorcerer,” Loki told him half a truth instead of a whole lie, which was unusual in itself, and in recompense for his truthfulness, Loki demanded Harry tell him of Hogwarts. He listened in awe, something swelling in his chest which could have been pride in himself or bitterness at his father or anticipation because surely if he told his father plenty of males learnt magic on Midgard, Odin wouldn’t be so ashamed! But on Asgard, only women learnt the art of magic, and the men learnt to fight, but Loki had never been good at that. Magic was his strength, magic was his art and his blood and his breath, but that had never been enough for Odin. Though the man claimed to love him, he was always disappointed in Loki, for Loki could not be better, not be enough, but if Loki was of Midgard his magic would not be a cause for shame. He half envied the human for that and the other half of him was desperately curious and interested, and because it had been a while since something had so struck his interest, Loki kept Harry within the forest talking for the rest of the night.
When the sun rose, Loki only allowed Harry to leave if he promised to come back the next night. Harry came back that night, and Loki met him at the entrance to the clearing, their clearing, and that night they spoke of parents and disappointment, and Harry confided in him of the Dursleys who had despised him and of his father who had saved him from all that. And again, Loki was envious and bitter.
“But it’s not always about parents,” Harry had told him, when Loki had scoffed at the idea of his father ever being pleased with him. “I have some great friends. Hermione, in particular, she’s a saint! She’s always there for me, no matter what stupid stuff I do, or what I say wrong, or what I want to learn about because sometimes I read books on the Dark Arts and she doesn’t like that, but she doesn’t hate me for it, you know? And dad has Pepper, she’s his secretary, but really she’s his friend too though he pretends otherwise cause dad is sort of afraid of emotions cause his father was crap too. I think they’ll get married one day, because dad just can’t function without her and she loves him and she takes care of him, and he loves that about her.”
Loki watched him in silence, green eyes fixed on a pale face and on the unusual scar that marked his forehead. Harry smiled softly up at him, lying down on the grass, and twirling the fingers of one hand through his hair. Loki had the sudden urge to lie down over him, to hide all of Harry from the eyes of others, but he restrained himself, because though Loki had been almost three hundred years old when he had looked as Harry did, Harry actually was only fourteen, and regardless, he doubted the boy would welcome his attentions. No one else ever did, after all. But Loki was a shapeshifter, and that was why people took Loki to their beds; it was never for him alone.
“One day, it might be a long time from now, but the wait is usually worth it,” Harry sat up and leaned forward then, pulling Loki into an unexpected hug as he spoke softly, “you’ll find someone that will love everything about you. They’ll leave you nothing to be ashamed of.”
Harry left after that, and Loki waited in the clearing all day, dozing or eating or thinking about Harry’s words. When Harry came back that night without having been asked or demanded to, and every night until the Christmas holidays started, Loki suspected that despite Harry’s age he had found that someone.
XXX
September 1st 2008. Eighteen.
Harry recalled the conversation he had started with his father that summer, the week before his birthday, while a blond woman lay sprawled out on the bed.
Harry made his way through the forbidden forest, his invisibility cloak around his shoulders and over his uniform, and he chewed thoughtfully on the apple he had snuck out of the great hall. He was on his way to their clearing, the place deep within the forest that he and Loki would meet at each night for almost four years. Loki had kissed him, the last time they had seen each other; the day after Dumbledore’s funeral, Harry had stumbled into the clearing in tears and Loki had pulled him into his arms and kissed him until the tears stopped falling. The elder man had whispered something into his ear, and though Harry hadn’t understood the language, he thought he had recognized the tone. His mother spoke to him softly like that in his dreams, and Pepper sounded like that when she joked about loving Tony (even though both she and Harry knew she wasn’t joking), and Harry sounded like that when he whispered, “I love you, dad”, or “I love you, Pepper”, so did that mean he loved Loki too?
He had pushed the thought out of his mind last year, because the Horcruxes were more important than his own feelings and worries, and he had hunted each of them down while Loki watched over him from Asgard, or Jötunheimr, or Midgard, keeping him safe but keeping himself out of the affairs of mortals. Harry understood his reasoning. Loki was a god, Loki had explained it all to him after their first kiss, and though Harry didn’t feel like he was running away from what Loki was, the year he spent away from Loki and their clearing and Hogwarts still felt like a year spent running away. But he had talked to his dad the summer passed, and he had talked to Pepper too, and to his reflection in the mirror, because his summers with his father were the only time that Loki did not look in upon him as was their agreement, and it was safe to say what he thought and admit what he wanted without worrying about scaring the god away.
But now, now he knew that his father wouldn’t hate him for it, and that Pepper was happy for him, and that Loki did love him too (because Harry had had Hermione translate that sentence Loki had whispered in Norse to English), Harry was feeling sure enough, brave enough to admit it now.
Turns out he didn’t actually have to. Loki met him at the entrance of the clearing with a small smile and narrowed green eyes. He was twisting the resurrection stone between the fingers of his right hand, and the ring was in his left, and as Harry watched Loki fitted the pieces of the Gaunt ring back together again and held them out silently. Harry took the ring from him, smiling softly.
“Thanks.” He glanced down at him, considered what he could do with it; because he didn’t actually want it for all that he had mastered it. He had put the Elder Wand back in Dumbledore’s grave, and the ring had been lost or so he thought. Harry had only kept the cloak because it had belonged to his step-father and because he had inherited it. “You keep it.” Harry held it out to Loki. “Consider it a gift.”
“Gifts are met with like gifts on Asgard, Harry.” Loki kept his gaze as he slid the Gaunt ring onto his wedding finger. On his right hand, Loki wore a ring proclaiming him as Odin’s son, made of gold and onyx and emblazoned with his father’s crest. Loki pulled it from his finger and held it out to Harry. Harry reached up for it, a small smile on his red lips, and Loki’s eyes drifted to his mouth, to the mouth that he had tasted once before and never forgotten the taste of. Loki’s right hand closed around Harry’s left wrist just before the boy could take the ring from him. Loki’s ring was pushed forward slowly, giving Harry enough time to jerk his hand back but he didn’t move, until it was sitting snugly on his left hand’s ring finger.
“You know, on earth, wearing a ring on that finger means-” Harry began to say.
Loki raised a hand to cut him off, softly saying, “I know what it means, Harry. Do you?”
They stared at each other for a moment, Loki’s heart beating loudly from nervousness in the sudden silence. A blush spread across Harry’s cheeks, because yes he did know what it meant, and yes he knew what he wanted, and yes to everything that Loki was offering because he loved him, had loved him for years, but was too afraid to admit it, too insecure to put himself out there because this man was a god and what was Harry compared to that? So, instead of trying to explain his feelings or his thoughts, Harry just smiled widely. “Yes,” he said, “but I think we should, you know, confirm this some way?” He waved his ringed hand in the air teasingly.
“Confirm it?” Loki asked, a smirk drawing up pale pink lips. “And how would we confirm it?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Harry drawled, raising his eyebrow the way he did when he thought someone was being particularly stupid, “you could start by kissing me?”
“Kissing you?” Loki smirked again, leaning in to playful nip at Harry’s bottom lip, but he pulled back quickly as Harry arched towards him. “Why would I want to do that?” His hand ran lightly down the length of Harry’s pale cheek, caressing the flush of red with interest and amusement, before he dragged his thumb across a pouting mouth.
“I’ll make it worth your while?” Harry offered before moving to suck the tip of Loki’s thumb into his mouth and biting down on it lightly. “But, you know, only if you want to.”
Loki hummed lightly, “Oh yes, most certainly,” he agreed at last, before leaning down and catching Harry’s mouth with his own. As they kissed all of Harry’s fears fell away, all of his insecurities melted into nothing, and Loki left him with nothing to be ashamed of.
XXX
April 3rd 2011. Twenty.
Loki had had a plan. If you asked him, it was a rather good plan, only as with all plans that involved Thor, it wasn’t working out quite the way Loki had planned for it to.
It was a rather convoluted plan, but to Loki it was simple enough. Thor would make for a terrible king, and so Thor must not be king. Loki’s planning had resulted in Thor’s banishment, which had gone exactly to plan; for all that he denied expecting such a reaction from Odin when Thor’s friends asked about it. The problems arose, unfortunately, when Odin was left with no choice but to finally reveal the lie that was Loki’s entire life. It was the proverbial punch line to the joke that was his existence: a Frost Giant, upon Asgard; the monster parents warned their children of, living in the palace above them all. He could have dealt with that though, in time, because he had Harry and their little flat in London that Harry’s father had bought for them (showing immeasurable trust in a man, monster, that refused to ever meet the mortal). Harry would not be ashamed of him, Loki knew. This, none of this, would ever change Harry’s opinion of him, nor Harry’s love for him, and so Loki could not be ashamed of himself. It just wouldn’t be possible without questioning Harry’s love, but Harry’s love for him was beyond questionable, beyond reasonable, and Loki rejoiced in that. Just as his love for Harry was unwavering, and his pride in showing off the Gaunt ring that rested upon his wedding finger, a symbol of his betrothal, a promise to all Asgardians of their new king’s future husband.
His being a Jötun was a problem, but it was not the problem.
The problem was that Thor’s friends had disobeyed their new king’s orders and Heimdallr had advocated it, undermined Loki, and their actions put his plans in danger. If this plan did not succeed, Loki would have Jötunheimr as his enemy. Asgard would be his enemy too. Thor was meant to stay banished, unknowing of Loki’s part in these schemes, his parents would be unaware of Loki’s plotting, and when Jötunheimr was gone, and the war was averted and Thor had learnt patience and pragmatism and humility and was welcomed home again it would be Loki for once playing the part of the hero. No one could then deny his one request, his favour to exchange for his heroics, for his saving of Odin from Laufey. And he would marry Harry before all of the Æsir. It took great feats of courage or compassion on Asgard to earn the right to bring a mortal among them, and while Loki would not be the first to do so, he would never be the bravest or the most compassionate. But he was the most cunning of them all. Nothing, unfortunately, neither intelligence nor luck could change Thor’s continuous ability to become the proverbial spanner in Loki’s works.
Every. Single. Time.
And now Loki ran the risk of Sif and the Warrior’s Three telling Thor of his lies and his schemes and of Thor then telling Odin once he woke from the Odinsleep. There was Thor’s quick to anger nature to take into account, and Odin’s profanity for spitefulness and wrath, and the Jötuns retribution upon learning that they were tricked and betrayed and defeated. Loki would risk everything, anything, usually to achieve his desired results. But he would not risk Harry. Never.
It was for the best, he told himself unconvincingly, as he waited in silence for Harry to arrive home from his job at St Mungos. It would not be for long, Loki promised silently, not for long, just long enough for Odin to forget this grievance and for Loki to talk Thor into forgiveness and for the Jötuns to once more fade into obscurity. Harry would wait for him, because Harry had promised to always love him, always need him and want him, the day Loki had formally asked for his hand in marriage. It would be difficult for them both, but it would be for the best. Unfortunately, it did not quite go the way Loki had hoped it would go.
Harry walked into the room, a wide smile stretching across his mouth as he caught sight of Loki who was lately more often than not away from their home. At the sight of the frown on Loki’s face, Harry’s mouth turned down too and he took three hurried steps backwards. His hands were raised, as if to ward off an attack that would never come, because Loki would never harm him. The god stepped towards him, mouth pressing into a thin line, but Harry cried out for him to stop. Harry turned his face away, blinking back the tears that threatened to spill over his cheeks.
“What did I do?” He asked softly, face still turned away and eyes blinking rapidly.
“Pardon?” Loki asked, sounding confused.
“The look on your face? I know that look, Loki. My father wears that look every morning after the night before when someone comes home with him. Hermione wore that look when she called off her engagement to Ron, Cho wore that look when I asked her to the Yule Ball and she said no. Was it something I did?” Harry sounded so broken, and his hands shook as he reached up to brush those few stubborn tears that insisted on falling away.
“No!” Loki hissed. He strode forward, reaching out quick as a snake to grab hold of Harry’s shoulders before the young man could shift out of the way. “I love you. I love you, like nothing I have ever felt before, so much so that it frightens me at times. You have done nothing wrong. Nothing you have done has led me to this decision, Harry, nothing has changed the way I feel about you, but this is for the best. Just for a short time,” Loki whispered, reaching one hand up to cup Harry’s right cheek, thumb brushing over the wetness he found there. “Just for a short time.”
“Is this one of those ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speeches? Or is this actually, me, and not you, Loki?” Harry kept his eyes on Loki’s face, waiting and watching for some sign, anything that would give away Loki’s reasons for doing this. “Why are you leaving me?”
“I will never leave you!” The god hissed at him. His teeth were bared and poison green eyes were narrowed in grief and anger, and his mouth was upon Harry’s then, furious and passionate, teeth and tongue and bruises upon lips. When they pulled apart, Harry couldn’t stand up without Loki’s arms around his waist and there was blood running down his chin from where the god had bitten him, and Loki was panting harshly against his neck, his erection pressing to Harry’s hip as they rutted lightly against one another.
“Then why are you leaving me?” Harry extracted himself from Loki’s arms, moving to the couch and flopping down like a marionette whose strings had been cut. He gazed tiredly at his fiancé, and Loki moved to kneel between his legs.
“I will never leave you, Harry. Never. But there are matters arising in Asgard, problems with Jötunheimr and I am… I fear that my actions will lead to a horrible reprisal this time. I will not have you be the price I pay for these actions, Snow.”
Harry smiled softly at the nickname, his lips tilting barely up at the corners, even as he thought hard on Loki’s words. His father called him Snow sometimes, shortened from Snow White, because the newspapers had taken up the habit of addressing him as ‘Snow White Stark’ after someone joked that his lips were red as rose. Loki had agreed that Harry was the male equivalent to the fairy-tale beauty, but Loki was not one to carelessly toss around words of affection, so whenever he used a nickname himself it was usually to reassure and dismiss Harry’s insecurities.
“Just for a short time?”
“Just for a short time,” Loki promised honestly, moving forward to press his lips to Harry’s clothed stomach and then his chest, his throat, until he was hovering over Harry and they were kissing again.
Their clothes fell away as Harry’s fears did, and though Loki’s fears remained he pushed them to the back of him mind and lost himself in the feel of Harry’s bare skin against his own. He had the human pinned down on the sofa; arms held high above his head by one of Loki’s hands, as the other slipped down between their bodies to wiggle their way between Harry’s cheeks and inside of him. They wriggled and spread, probing, searching, and all the while Harry moaned beneath him, head thrown back and legs spread in invitation as Loki prepared him. They kissed. Every time fear for Harry’s safety welled up inside of him, Loki pulled Harry’s mouth into a kiss and lost himself in the taste of Harry. Every time Harry feared that perhaps Loki was only placating him, that Loki was really leaving him, he pulled the god into a kiss, hungry and desperate, until he could think of nothing but the other man’s saliva on his mouth and Loki’s fingers in his hole.
Loki’s cock pressed easily inside of Harry’s body, both so familiar with one another after two and a half years of doing this that there was no nervousness, no tension, and no attempt to pull away. Harry relished in the feeling of being full, complete, and Loki loved that Harry only wanted him, desired him, in his true form and no other person’s. He considered, briefly, as he moved on top of his fiancée thrusting in and out rhythmically with one hand squeezing Harry’s hip hard enough to bruise, if Harry would ever lay with him while Loki wore his blue skin, but then Harry leant up and bit down hard on the skin of Loki’s shoulder to muffle his first orgasm and Loki once more learned to lose himself in Harry.
After they were done, Loki lay with Harry on top of him, head pillowed on Loki’s chest as the human slept. He gave himself one hour, and only one hour to enjoy this, before he moved Harry into his own bed and took himself back to Asgard.
Loki confronted Heimdallr. He released the Destroyer upon earth, and he watched in anger as Thor strolled back into Asgard as if he had never been banished. Loki threatened Thor’s new mortal lover, all the while praying that Thor never discovered his own.
He was defeated.
He failed to destroy Jötunheimr, even though he had made a spectacular attempt at it, and when the bifrost was destroyed and Odin awakened and still ever so disappointed in him, Loki fell. He figured that he could transport himself to Harry’s side, cross through the shadows and use his magic to travel through worlds as he had always done.
It would be simple, it would be easy; easier than having to face Odin’s anger and Frigga’s disappointment and Thor’s righteousness on behalf of the Frost Giants he had once attempted to destroy himself. Loki would be with Harry again, soon, as he had promised. Unfortunately, the power of the bifrost was more than Loki had anticipated, and as it swirled around him, though he fought and valiantly attempted to grasp hold of a thread, any thread, of magic that would lead to a world he recognized, all evaded him. Eventually, exhausted, he fell through darkness for longer than he imagined one could ever fall for. He saw things, felt things, feared things, forgot things, and when he landed he landed hard.
Loki groaned as he rolled over. His ribs hurt and at least two were broken, his back ached and he could feel a horrid bruise forming across the width of his chest. Something like bile though was actually blood rose from his stomach, and Loki spat it out upon the ground beside him as he struggled groggily to sit up.
“Who are you?” Something asked him, hovering just out of sight behind a strange purple-grey colour rocked, with the hood of a robe pulled down low over his face to hide everything but the creature’s purple chin.
“I am Loki, of Asgard,” Loki told the creature, narrowing his eyes at it suspiciously. “And I am…” He furrowed his brow, stopping mid-sentence as he thought.
There was a blond man in his memories, calling him brother and throwing a hammer down upon his chest. An older man with one eye missing shook his head disappointedly at him; ‘no son’, he said over and over and over as Loki tried in every memory to make him proud. There was a city within his mind, all golden and glass and home but not quite so because Loki had never belonged, but there he was seated upon the throne, a king, with his crown, until four warriors stood before him and helped Thor usurp the throne out from under him.
Another city spread out in his memories, buildings that reached the sky made of glass and concrete, metal monstrosities that people drove through the tarmacked streets, humans, humans everywhere, and one in particular who shared a small flat with Loki in the centre of the metropolis.
But that boy was lying on his back in a forest too, surrounded by green, grass like his eyes, like Loki’s eyes, and a smile upon rose red lips. Dark hair, like the wing of one of Odin’s ravens, spread around his head like a halo, and pale skinned hands reached up to tug Loki down on top of him. Eighteen years old, and giving up his virginity in their clearing in their forest, crying out for more beneath the god of lies and mischief, who cried out on top of the boy for love. There was a strange scar upon the boy’s forehead, and Loki’s ring upon his wedding finger, long enough that a tan line had developed around it, visible whenever the boy played with the ring.
Loki shook himself from his memories, blurry and disjointed though they were, and glanced down at the ring of onyx and gold that rested upon his own finger. The band that symbolised a joining, a union that he could not remember, with the boy with the scar, who he also could not recall, but knew he needed to.1
As he fell, his memories fell with him, becoming tangled with all of the fantasies that existed within Loki’s mind, all of the things he had desired to do but never done, out of fear or logic or just because he hadn’t yet had the time. But now he couldn’t remember what was real and what wasn’t, and when the Other (the creature with the hood and the purple chin) spoke to him of Thanos (who frightened Loki more than he cared to admit) Loki learned that he had fallen for over eight months, through darkness and loneliness. In that time, he had broken a promise that he couldn’t quite remember, but he could still imagine the hurt on the boy with the scar’s beautiful face nonetheless.
“Where did you come from?” The Other asked him.
“Asgard,” Loki answered sometimes, and at other times he answered, “Midgard,” because that was what he had been thinking about.
“I was a king once,” he told Thanos once, remembering sitting upon his throne, but the memory was wrong because Harry was seated by his side until Thor tore him away, tore them apart.
“My brother ruined everything,” Loki confessed, as Thanos searched secretly through the god’s mind, separating what was real from what wasn’t. Thanos knew the truth, though he refrained from correcting Loki’s beliefs or from repairing the god’s scattered thoughts. Instead, he offered Loki a sceptre, fashioned after the one that Loki used in his memories to fight Thor on the bifrost, but this one glowed blue at the tip. Thanos promised him the boy with the scar, and his throne back upon earth, and his revenge on Asgard and Thor who had tried to claim the earth for himself in Loki’s absence.
“What is it you desire, Asgardian?” The Other hissed at him in that strange whispering voice of his. All of his words sounded so dangerous, angry and cruel, no matter what it was he said or how he said it. Loki considered it a good talent to have, a good way to cower ones enemies, though he didn’t appreciate the Other using that voice upon him.
“Other than your boy with the scar,” Thanos added softly, skin dark and red and cracking around his lips and nostrils and eyes like dried clay finally coming apart.
“Vengeance.” Loki answered. When they asked against who, Loki told them, “Thor and Odin and Asgard and Midgard”. When they asked him why, it was because they all conspired together to take his throne and to take his boy from him.
Loki glanced down at the ring upon his finger just before he accepted the sceptre, the key to having his revenge, and he wondered sadly if the boy remembered him though Loki could not quite remember himself. He hoped, prayed to all gods but his own kin, that though it had been much longer than Loki had promised it would be that his boy would still be waiting for him.
XXX
July 19th 2011. Twenty.
Harry had waited a full three months before finally admitting to himself that he was an idiot. Loki wasn’t coming back; Loki was never coming back, and he was a fool to ever think otherwise. Loki had told him goodbye, and Harry had been too blind or too naive or too desperate not to see it. Loki had told him goodbye without words, with his body and kisses and frantic brushes of hands over flushed skin as he fucked up into Harry.
Perhaps, Harry consoled himself as he slipped Loki’s ring off of his finger and into the pocket of his trousers, Loki had intended to come back at first. Harry figured it would make sense if the problems with Jötunheimr had spilled into Loki’s home life and the god’s family found out about him. They would disapprove, Harry knew, because he was mortal, and mortals didn’t marry gods or go to Asgard, and Harry should have seen this coming a long time ago despite Loki’s proposal. It was like running up a hill that would never level off. It didn’t matter how hard Harry ran or how much Harry and Loki loved, the hill would never end and Harry would always be mortal.
But it would have been nice to have been told, officially, that it was over. Loki could have had the decency to break things off formally, or send someone else if Loki did not want to see him or was not allowed to. Or Loki could have told him the truth from the offset. Loki could have told him there were problems in Asgard and in his home and there was a likelihood of his family finding out about them and insisting Loki break things off. Or, perhaps, Loki had gotten cold feet. Forever was a long time for a god, though he was only immortal as long as he ate one of those infamous golden apples a decade, and Harry would not live that long. If Loki was afraid of living all of that time without Harry, after Harry, and he wished to spare himself the pain of being widowed for such an awfully long time, Harry would have understood. It would have hurt like hell, but he would have understood, and the pain would have been less than the pain of this. The waiting and the hoping and the wishing was killing him, and it hurt so, so much more than the pain of simply being left.
Harry packed up a handful of things, shrinking them and shoving them into the pocket of his trousers alongside Loki’s ring. He didn’t look around his flat, because it was his and Loki’s and three months of barely leaving it in case Loki came back and Harry wasn’t there had turned the flat into a prison instead of a home, and Harry couldn’t bear to see any reminders of a time when he had been happy.
Instead, he closed his eyes tightly, and apparated.
His father welcomed him inside with open arms, ignoring the tears and the rain and the way Harry seemed to be falling apart at the edges. Tony Stark held his son tightly, rocking him lightly as Harry cried with his face pressed to the arc reactor and the light of it casting strange shadows across tear stained cheeks. The light made Harry’s tears shine like diamonds, and for once the light didn’t glint off of the unusual ring that usually sat upon Harry’s wedding finger. Tony noticed the tan line, and the lack of a ring, but he said nothing, because there was nothing to say. Loki had left; there was no fiancé, there would be no wedding or happily ever after.
Despite how much Tony wanted to march into his workshop, suit up and hunt that sonofabitch down and kill him, he clung as tightly to Harry as Harry did to him and he kept all of his opinions to himself because Harry didn’t need that shit. Not from him, not now. A week later, Harry still couldn’t say Loki’s name without flinching, so Tony took him out and got him drunk off of alcohol that Tony kept buying for ‘himself’ because Harry was still a week too young to drink legally, and everyone knew that Harry was drinking anyway but said nothing because it was Tony fucking Stark paying the tab, thank you very much. They drank, and they spoke of Afghanistan, and Obie, and Iron Man, and Tony told Harry everything that he had been too afraid and ashamed to talk about back then. Harry told his father how it felt like he was dying inside, and Tony didn’t know how to respond to that, how to make that better, except to buy a bottle of tequila from behind the bar and pour shot after shot until Happy had to come inside and carry them out one by one to the car unconscious.
Five months later, Loki landed upon an unknown planet in an unknown part of space. Two weeks after that, he accepted the sceptre, unaware of the way his green eyes glowed and swirled and changed to a haunting blue colour that looked so unnatural upon his pale and gaunt face. He still thought of vengeance, of retribution and reclamation. He would take back his throne, take his revenge, and then he would take his boy as his husband as he should have done eight months ago. Though his thoughts were wrong, and his memories skewered, and his anger unwarranted, none of the Chitauri corrected him, for his vengeance would secure the Tesseract for them, for Thanos, and with the Tesseract, Asgard would be theirs for the taking. Loki could keep Midgard, and his little scarred human boy; Thanos would have the universe when he was done.
A year after Loki had first left Harry, he appeared once more, shaking and sweating in one of SHIELD’s underground facilities. He told those who addressed him, “I am Loki, of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose.”2
Those who attempted to stand up to him were defeated, killed or enslaved to Loki’s will, easily. Nick Fury pushed himself slowly up off of the floor, relieved that he had chosen to wear his bullet proof vest to work as always, because he worked with some motherfucking crazy shit, but this took the cake. But the vest, and his paranoia, had saved his life, though it didn’t stop Loki from escaping with the Tesseract, two of their scientists, and Hawkeye.
XXX
April 6th 2012. Twenty-One.
SHIELD made a habit of monitoring each and all threats against themselves. In July of last year, Captain America was found buried in ice, and when he woke up, he was added to the list of threats to national security that Nick Fury was in charge of compiling. Before that, Thor of Asgard had made the list, along with the Destroyer that had been sent by Loki and which had levelled a small town in less than an hour. In 2008, Tony Stark had come to SHIELD’s attention, along with his Iron Man design. It was, by complete coincidence, as Fury attempted to find out every speck of information that existed about Stark, anything by which to blackmail or force compliance from him with, that SHIELD had stumbled across the existence of one Harry Potter. Or rather, Harry Stark, though the boy had never legally changed his surname.
Harry was a strange creature altogether. He moved to America at age six, gained citizenship by way of a paternity test and Stark’s own Californian birth certificate, and then practically disappeared off the map at eleven-years-old. He turned up now and again in the papers or on the news, each calling him Snow White Stark since the boy turned fifteen years old. No one at SHIELD had ever really connected the boy to Stark until Obadiah Stane was dead and James Rhodes was attempting to run media interference and SHIELD were left to clear up the mess, and an eighteen year old ran into the middle of the circus and threw himself into Tony Stark’s arms, exclaiming “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to save you!”
It had left Fury wondering how exactly it was that a boy, a child, so slight and fragile looking, so completely normal looking, could have the ability to save someone from terrorists in a cave in a fucking desert and from terrorists that masqueraded as a friend faster and easier than Iron Man could have. And so, after he had finished speaking to Steve Rogers and Coulson’s text came through, Fury had instructed a pilot to take him to England, to London, where Harry was supposed to be working as a doctor. “Healer,” was the word Virginia Potts had used in the phone conversation that SHIELD had listened in on. “A Healer for magical maladies,” she had tried to explain to Stark on the phone, tried to convince him to let Harry attempt to remove the bits of shrapnel in his chest.
Magical, they had said, repeatedly. On the other side of the phone line, four years ago, Director Fury had snorted at the thought and told the tech team to disconnect.
Magical, though.
Like Loki of Asgard? Or like Iron Man would be considered magical and impossible and unbelievable? Fury was determined to find out which one it was, but that wasn’t the only reason he was searching for Stark’s son. Phil Coulson had made friends with Tony and Pepper, though Tony still denied that vehemently. Loki had not wanted to meet Harry’s family until Loki could return the favour, and so not Tony Stark, Pepper Potts, Hermione or Ron, or anyone really, had ever met the man, but occasionally a photographer managed to take the odd sneaky picture. Harry hadn’t been able to resist sending one to Pepper. It had been cut from a newspaper, and Harry had bought three papers, so he could cut out three pictures; one for himself, which he had framed in the living room of his flat, and one for Loki to fold and take with him everywhere in his pocket, and one for his parents who were supposed to keep it hidden, but Phil had discovered while searching for Pepper’s phone that had been ringing.
“Answer that please, Phil,” she had called to him from the kitchen, “I think Tony hid it in one of those drawers,” she carried on talking, searching for drinks. Phil had seen the photo, had taken a picture of it with his own phone and sent it straight to Fury, before answering Pepper’s phone and closing the drawer like he had done nothing suspicious at all.
No one would have been able to tell who it was, not without having taken a really good look at the photo or without having seen it numerous times. Stark would probably recognize the man from the photo, and Fury damn well recognized him after staring him down from the wrong end of a magical sceptre as the maniac order him shot and stole from him. But his one remaining eye was good enough to know a face when he saw it or the side of a face as it was in this case, and the photo was clear enough to be of use to him. The photo was old though, because the boy in it was younger than he was in the most recent media shots of him, two years at least, but there were rings on both wedding fingers of the two in the photo, and engagements weren’t called off for no reason, or for less than their fiancé killing almost eighty people in a day at least, or so Fury hoped. If they were still together, and Tony Stark’s kid or not, Harry would bring Loki of Asgard to them, regardless of whether he wished to help.
XXX
TBC