Redemption Songs 03 - Harry/Loki
PREVIOUS HERE
I was researching Viking punishments for this chapter, and can I just throw this out there? “You had your tongue cut off if you told nasty lies about someone”… Um, yeah, but Loki?! Just saying. Odin is a little biased, even in favour of his least favourite son. So don’t go too hard on him!
Also. Woke up this morning feeling like I’ve been hit by a bus and dragged halfway around the world by whichever part of me got stuck under the bus… And I have work later. FML.
Thanks for all the feedback. Hope you continue to enjoy this.
* * *
Words: 5,895
Chapter 3
April 30th 2012. Asgard.
Loki had returned to Asgard in disgrace.
He had allowed himself to be brought back by Thor, who though angry and hurt by Loki’s actions still professed to love him. Thor had promised to protect him from their - their, Thor had said, their, not my, not mine, but theirs, as if he truly believed that Loki could ever again be a part of that family - father’s wrath somewhat. A little protection from Odin was better than no protection from Thanos or the one-eyed Director in charge of Stark’s rag-tag team, Loki figured, as Thor led him away from Heimdallr and the ruined Bifrost.
Green eyes narrowed, glancing back at it warily, wondering what about it seemed different. “We began attempting to fix it,” Thor whispered, answering his unasked question, “After you fell. I wanted to-” He fell silent, turning his face away from Loki to stare out at the stars. “But it matters not for you are home now, brother.”
Loki snorted, muffled by the metal gag Stark had held out to him earlier. He had glared at the mortal, even as the man attached it to his face, Loki’s arms handcuffed behind his back and Captain America’s grip strong and sure on his shoulders to keep him from struggling. Thor had re-cuffed his hands in front of his stomach, so at least Loki did not feel as vulnerable as he did before, but the muzzle had remained on.
“Come, brother,” Thor bid softly, tugging lightly at Loki’s left arm to encourage him to walk faster. “Our parents are waiting.”
There he went again, Loki thought, glancing at the blond Asgardian from the corner of his eyes. Our parents, ours, not his, not mine, but ours, as if Thor actually believed the foolishly naïve words that fell from his tongue. So childish, so stupid, as to believe that Odin had ever thought of them as equal, had ever seen Loki as his son.
As if Loki would wish for him to. As if Loki could muster the energy to care about them, any of them, those that had watched him fall and celebrated it, they that had never come to find him or defend him or protect him when he needed it most. They had left him to Thanos, and there was nothing Loki could meet out, nothing that would even that score in any way. They had failed him, much as Loki had been a failure to them for his entire life. But no more. He did not care, he would not care, or at least that is what he told himself. His mind whispered at composure, and his heart built up walls around it like ice, growing and freezing and keeping all feeling within and everyone but him without. This conviction lasted only until he caught sight of his mother, and at the blinding smile she sent him, and the way she pressed her hands to her heart, and stood up from her throne until Odin pushed her back into it, made Loki falter. His heart called her mother, as did his mind, but hadn’t he just convinced himself they were not his family?
“My son,” she whispered, sounding relieved to see him. Her hands pressed over her own mouth then, as if she could share in his discomfort and humiliation and take some of it away from him, to bring it upon herself instead, the way mothers were meant to. He would have called her mother then, he realised, if he could have spoken, but as he could not he inclined his head in her direction.
At his side, Thor fell to one knee in supplication before the All Father. Loki remained standing, glaring defiantly at the King who was no longer his King, nor his father. This man was nothing to him, but a body upon a throne that should (never, never, never intended for a Jötun, for a monster such as you) have been Loki’s long ago.
Odin watched him in silence, eyes as eager as his wife’s, though he allowed none of his expressions to give his happiness away. Loki would have only mistaken them for amusement at his suffering, or pleasure at his failure, when in fact Odin was just glad to have his son home. He would punish the boy now, like he had every other time Loki had done wrong, and he would do so in a way that appeared stern and harsh but was in actual fact very, very lenient. Loki might not have realised the extent to which he was let away with things, but Thor knew, and Odin knew, and the Council certainly knew and they were not happy with it.
Odin had decided upon exile. He had banished Thor, and allowed his son back home once he proved himself; he had stripped Thor of his name and lineage, of his rights as an Asgardian, as a person, reduced his son to nothing more than chattel that anyone could claim or kill as they willed with no worry of retribution, but Odin had allowed him to return home once he earned it, allowed Thor to become one of them again and a better man for it. He would grant the same opportunity to Loki, and though his son would hate him at first, as Thor did, he would come to understand with time, and perhaps, he would be grateful when the time came for him to return to Asgard.
Odin had said he would send him to earth, so Loki could make amends among the mortals he had injured. The Tesseract had the power to send Loki back there and then later call him home, but it would be a last resort punishment.
First, before guilt could be decided, criminals were obliged to undergo Ordeals. The last time Thor had been accused of a wrong doing, he had undergone the Ordeal by Cake, where those who choke are guilty and those who finish every last crumb are beyond innocent, so much so, that their accuser is required to grovel for forgiveness for their libel. Thor, who had mastered eating far too much far too fast at a young age, had yet to be found guilty. Loki, who now knew he was a Frost Giant, would undergo the Ordeal by Cold Water, and Odin would tie his hands and his feet and let him fall into a pool of water and if he sank he was guilty. But Loki would not sink. Loki had learned to swim young, and he had not sunk once, not even while Thor flailed in the water beside him, grabbing onto his brother’s arm to stop himself from drowning. Odin had watched his son as a child, first discovering his talents over water, watching it freeze around him and melt again, and again, until, at last, he had managed to walk on its surface without first having to freeze it.
Loki would not be found guilty, and the Midgardians could think what they liked, but what they wouldn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, and Loki would not be allowed back until everyone who might remember him had died of old age.
“Loki Odinson,” Odin began only to be interrupted as Loki gave a snort of protest. “Loki Laufeyson,” Odin whispered, not wanting too many of their audience to hear. Thor and Frigga heard, as did the four Council members who stood to his left, holding the Tesseract between them. Loki turned a glare upon Odin at that name, eyes like slits of poison, full of hate and anger and the older man frowned heavily as he tried again. “My son, Loki, you have been brought before myself and my court to undergo the Ordeal by Cold Wat… what?” Odin trailed off, eyebrows furrowing and his frown deepening as Fargo moved to stand before him.
“Loki Liesmith is guilty of treason, of deceit, of spreading vicious lies, of allowing the Jotnar into Asgard, of ruining Prince Thor’s coronation, of almost killing the All Father, of bringing war to Midgard and almost beginning a war with Jötunheimr as well. His crimes are many, my friends, and they are well witnessed. There can be no doubt that he is guilty. As such, there can be no mercy, no farce of an Ordeal when all present know that he will trick and cheat his way to victory and escape punishment as befitting him for one that resembles a slap on the hand of a toddler for pulling pigtails. I, and my fellow Council members, declare an Ordeal unnecessary, and recommend for all of Asgard’s sake that the All Father exile the traitor to Jötunheimr.” Fargo turned, casting Loki a look that promised untold horrors, with eyes that flashed as blue as Barton’s and Selvig’s and his own once had. “Where he belongs.”
The breath caught in Loki’s throat, and he felt like he was choking or drowning, air caught up inside of him that could neither go up or down. He felt sick all of a sudden; there was a roiling in his stomach and a clenching in his chest and his intestines had twisted themselves in knots from the fear that rushed through him at the colour of Fargo’s eyes. They had used to be brown, and kind, and calm, Loki remembered. He was the one Council member who had actually ever had patience for Loki’s tricks and jokes, saying they reminded him of his own son as a child, before he had succumbed to an illness and died. He had always invited Loki to sit beside him at feasts, and engaged him in conversation at parties where Loki would never have been other than he was Odin’s son and Odin made him. And now, Thanos had taken his mind, when Asgard should have been safe from Thanos, and the man moved to condemn him to a fate worse than death.
“No! They will kill him there!” Thor exclaimed, striding forward with Mjölnir raised as if he planned to swing it at Fargo’s head. “He is still a Prince of Asgard and my brother, and I will not stand idly by as you allow him to be sent helplessly to Jötunheimr where they would torture and kill him for their own amusement! It would be a crime against a member of Odin’s House, an act of war against Asgard; how dare you even suggest as such!”
“Then exile him!” Gragor exclaimed in return. He stood, with the Tesseract in his hands, his eyes glowing blue, beside Odin in his gilded throne. “If he would be no longer one of us, his punishments would no longer concern us. Send him to his own kind and let us forget about him.”
Maybe, Loki thought, Thanos could reach him more easily upon Jötunheimr than he could upon Asgard, or perhaps Earth. Was Jötunheimr closer to which ever part of space housed the Chitauri’s home world, Loki wondered? He should warn the All Father about the Tesseract, Loki realised, if only to protect Loki himself from Thanos’ revenge, but he could not speak, and any whimpered complaint his mouth tried to make came out muffled and pathetic, and they were ignored in favour of the arguments regarding his punishment.
Eventually, it was decided that Odin would exile him, but as they would not send him to Jötunheimr, and the Council felt it cruel to the mortals to send Loki back to Midgard, he would be kept in the dungeons of Asgard.
“NO!” Frigga shouted, rising sharply from her throne to glare at each of the assembled crowd one by one. “No, I will not allow you to exile our son to a lifetime of suffering and cruelty right under our very noses! You know what becomes of those who are exiled; you have seen what has been done to them! You would allow the same to befall our son? Would you? WOULD YOU?” Her chest was heaving, and her face had flushed in anger, and Loki felt something crumble inside of him, part of that wall that he had built around his heart cracked and disappeared because of her words and her defiance. Not even Thor had been that sure in his defence of Loki, that determined and desperate, or so angry at the All Father. But as their mother spoke, Thor strode forward once more, and heatedly voiced his agreement.
“You will not touch my brother, least you go through me to get him.” Thor stood in front of Loki then, Mjölnir raised and one hand held out in front of him as if to catch the throats of anyone who ran at him. But no one moved. Behind Thor, Loki shifted, catching the horrid grin that stretched over Fargo’s face just before the other two Council members’ eyes turned blue as well.
“Very well,” Fargo said after a moment’s silence. “We leave the decision in the hands of the All Father.” The room had long ago been cleared out. All that remained were the Council of four, whose minds had been overrun, and the House of Odin (and Loki, because he did not include himself as one of them though he felt like he could keep his mother and perhaps, maybe, possibly, his brother, but he could not be an Odinson).
“Loki Odinson,” Odin murmured, sitting up straight in his throne, as Frigga slid gracefully back into hers and Thor shifted a little out of the way so that his father could see Loki’s face as he spoke. “I banish you to the dungeons of Asgard for a period of two years. You will live in isolation, barring the guards who bring you food, water and fresh clothing. You will be allowed to bathe in your cell, but not to leave it for any reason, except for a medical emergency. A healer will be sent to you on the second day of your sentence to conclude the possibility of such an emergency arising, so there will be no point in lying about one. You will remain bound, and gagged, and you are not permitted to ask for anything to entertain you or comfort you, and you are not permitted to attempt to contact your guards in any manner or form.”
Odin took a breath, using that moment to glance at his wayward son. Loki had his eyes narrowed again, but not in anger. There was confusion swirling in the green of his eyes, and wariness darkening in the centre, dilating with hope. He seemed so untrusting, so unbelieving, that Odin would allow something so easy to come to pass, that Odin would wish to avoid damaging him.
And for the pleasure of imagining Loki’s mouth dropping open in shock, and his eyes going wide with surprise, Odin continued on, “You have not been exiled. You are still my son. No one is permitted to harm you, injure you or insult you in anyway, as all negative actions towards you will continue to be regarded as an act of treason against the House of Odin. Two years hence, I will come myself to free you from your isolation, and I hope when that time comes you will wish to be welcomed back to my home and my table and into my arms, my son.”
Guards took Loki away, bound and gagged, to a cell that he would remain in for fourteen months. The following day, they were sent back into Loki’s cell with a set of handcuffs that when paired together prevented the use of magic. They were stronger than the ones Stark had managed to develop in such a short amount of time, but Loki spent the rest of that day trying to force them off of his wrists regardless, fighting against the cuffs to try and force the magic inside of him out to no avail.
The healer came on the second day, just before Loki was about to go to sleep, and he brought with him some food and some water and a sad smile for the imprisoned Prince. Apart from a little malnutrition, which wouldn’t be helped by Loki having to wear the muzzle all of the time, and signs of exhaustion, Loki was healthy. Attempts to call for a Healer were ordered to be ignored if they came from Loki or from less than five guards agreeing with one another that a healer was truly needed. Odin didn’t want to risk Loki escaping after feigning an illness, because he had done so before.
He did, however, order the blacksmith to make a second muzzle, one that was easier to remove, and all of Loki’s guards were ordered to remove the muzzle for twenty minutes of every meal time, three times a day, and twice more for five minutes at a time so Loki could drink some water. The new mask was fitted to Loki’s face without complaint by the healer, who imparted the instructions from Odin before he left. Loki hoped for a moment that it would not be too bad, that this would not be too awful, because the All Father really did seem to be trying to prevent harm from coming to him.
But this hope only lasted for two weeks, until the eyes of his guards’ began to flash as blue as the Tesseract. For two weeks, the muzzle was taken off so Loki could be fed, but afterwards it was only removed when one of the guards wanted to hear Loki scream. And that was only until they decided it would be easier to simply sew his lips together.
XXX
August 18th 2012.
“How does my son fare, Heimdallr?” Odin asked out of the blue one day.
For four months, Odin had been coming to Heimdallr’s side, watching as the dark skinned Asgardian watched Loki in his cell. He had never asked about Loki though, never enquired one way or another, because he honestly hadn’t wanted to know. He was content to imagine Loki sitting around, bored and angry, but safe, and home, and loved even if the boy didn’t feel that way at the moment. The thought of knowing that Loki was trapped in a cell, angry and lonely and bored (which had always been the worst thing for Loki to be) was a torture in itself for Odin. He wanted to take the child out of the dungeons, to pull Loki into his arms and hold him tightly until the world ended, but he couldn’t. Because he had set the punishment to appease his Council, and soon he would enter the Odinsleep and he couldn’t afford to have his Council angry and disorganized in his absence.
Odin had forbid Frigga from questioning Heimdallr, and had order Heimdallr not to speak of Loki to anyone, because the knowledge would hurt his wife and anger Thor and could be used against Loki in the future by everyone else.
Frigga sobbed in Loki’s childhood bedroom most days, sad and heartbroken, and no matter how often she begged to be allowed to visit him in the dungeons the Council would insist that the isolation be total. It was what Odin had ordered, and to go against an order of the All Father was treason, even by his wife.
Thor had gone back to Midgard, unable to cope with the thought that he was walking the floor above where Loki was locked away. This was a different punishment to the ones that had come before; all other punishments had been to appease a foreigner, to prevent them from waging war upon Asgard or from attempting to kill Loki in place of the punishment. But this? This was because the Council had took it upon themselves to wrench control from Odin’s fingers, his words from Odin’s mouth, and twisted them until they were so knotted no one could accept any word but the final ones to make sense. Punishment, only punishment; the harsher the better. The idea of forgiveness was laughable once the Council had been done speaking. Thor knew it would be over soon, a year and eight months to go and he would have his brother back. Not the same brother perhaps, just as Thor was not the same since falling to earth years ago, but Loki would be safe and loved and welcomed back after facing his punishment like a true Asgardian for once, and not tricking his way free. The others would respect him for that, they would throw a feast in his honour, and all would celebrate the return of Asgard’s missing Prince.
In the meantime, Thor fought crime with the Avengers, and talked with them of Asgard and the brother that had slipped through his fingers so long ago, but that was, maybe, possibly coming back to him slowly. One day at a time. It would be a slow and torturous journey, one that Loki would undoubtedly resent, but he would be happier for it at the end, Thor told his friends, and Odin told his wife, and Heimdallr said nothing at all because he knew more than any of them how badly they were all lying to themselves.
“He suffers,” Heimdallr told Odin that day.
Odin had needed to know, one way or the other, to put the fears and monsters in his thoughts to rest. Frigga had wept enough, and needed to be consoled, and what could Heimdallr tell him that Odin did not already know. Loki was bored, angry and lonely, but it would be for the best.
“Of course he does,” Odin agreed. “But it is for his own good, my friend. He will see in time.” Odin looked to Heimdallr for confirmation, asking his friend to see forward in Loki’s time if that were possible and to console them all with the knowledge that everything would work out well and Loki would be home with them soon.
Heimdallr had not been speaking of boredom or anger or silence. Loneliness was a shadow that had always followed in Loki’s wake, one he had not quite grown used to but one he had accepted nonetheless, and its presence in his cell nowadays would have been greatly welcomed in place of his guards. Instead, Heimdallr had spoken of whip lashes tearing strips from Loki’s back, and guard after guard ripping him open with their cocks, and come dripping down Loki’s chin even as they sewed lips shut over and over again. There was pain in his visions, terror beyond all imagining flaring within his mind whenever he focused on Loki alone, thoughts so dark and dangerous that Heimdallr wondered if Loki would ever come home to them again or if he would sink beneath the madness that called to him, the insanity that waited to rescue him from his daily horrors. Or would he, perhaps, rise up above them all and burn the world around him in vengeance, for Heimdallr knew Loki thought Odin allowed this, that Thor allowed this, and maybe Heimdallr was allowing this to continue, but they were not his secrets to tell and not his life to interfere in and Odin should have been more specific in his questions if he truly wanted answers.
So Heimdallr nodded, and Odin turned away from him with a relieved sigh.
XXX
June 21st 2013.
Months later, Heimdallr watched Sigyn sneak down into the dungeons and into Loki’s cell, and then sneak back out with the door left open. He watched Frigga, who had taken to hiding outside of the threshold that led to Loki’s cell in the dungeon, waiting and hoping that if she asked often enough, eventually one of the guards would bring her inside against the All Father’s orders. And Frigga watched Sigyn too, her hands pale and shaking, wringing the skirts of her nightdress between them, with tears streaking her face as she left the dungeons.
Frigga followed her back to her rooms, listening to the woman barricade herself inside with the heaviest pieces of furniture that she could manage to move, before making her way back to the dungeons. The guards were not there when Frigga returned, but she had been the one to teach Loki to cast invisibility around himself like a cloak, and she called that magic to her at that moment, using it to shield herself in case the guards returned, though she was aware that Heimdallr could probably see her still. In fact, Heimdallr did watch her, unconcerned, as she made her way silently to Loki’s open cell door and peered inside. She caught sight of her son around the edge of the door, bleeding and broken and shaking from pain and fear and adrenaline. The sight of it caused her to gasp behind her hand, heart beating in her chest like a bird attempted to escape its cage. Frigga took a hurried step backwards, as if to shield herself from the spectacle of Loki brought so low right under their noses, and accidentally nudged the door with her elbow.
It creaked.
Loki glanced up, eyes wide, like a faun that had just spotted a hunter, and he did as all animals do in such a situation. He ran. He was on his feet in an instant, knife in one hand and handcuffs dangling from the other, and in a flash of green (before Frigga could call to him, before she could stop him) Loki was gone.
Frigga ran soon after, grown sick of the sight of blood and the stench of sex and the crippling fear that flooded the room like a fog, choking her if she breathed in too deeply. She went to Sigyn, desperate to ask her what she saw, if she had seen who had done this and to thank her for freeing her son from his slavery. Half way there, the alarm sounded, and Frigga, worried about Sigyn’s part in all of this, and her own for she too had disobeyed the All Father’s commands, and Heimdallr who had stayed silent through it all would bring punishment down upon himself if he remained as such, suddenly changed her mind. When Sigyn opened her door, hesitantly, with shaking hands, Frigga did not glance behind her at Fargo who had appeared at the end of the hallway with Odin.
“Loki Laufeyson has escaped,” Frigga told her trying to sound angry. She succeeded, only because she could feel Fargo’s smug smile burning into the back of her skull, pleased with her at the use of the derogatory surname the Council members had come up with during the last Odinsleep when there had been no one around to dispute them.
Sigyn stared at her Queen, her ex-mother in law, and she read the words the woman’s lips spoke to her. But in Frigga’s eyes, Sigyn read something else. There was happiness in that gaze, though her lips drew tight in anger as Fargo approached them.
Sigyn pressed her hands against Frigga’s, just for a second before Odin drew his wife away, following after Fargo and the other Council members who were beginning to appear. Sigyn watched them make their way to the grand hall, and she contemplated whether to go with them, like many of the other Asgardians would do, but in the end she shut herself back in her room, thinking of Loki and all he had suffered and of Frigga and all of the things she had read in her eyes.
“Thank you,” Frigga’s eyes had told her, “thank you for saving my son.”
“You’re welcome,” Sigyn’s hands had replied in lieu of her mouth, pressing lightly against a set of equally trembling hands before drawing back to clutch at the doorframe. “Please don’t tell,” her fingers whispered as they squeezed into the wooden frame, until the tips of her hands had turned white from the pressure.
Frigga told no one she had seen Sigyn in the dungeons, though she was quick to accuse the guards of torturing and violating her son, quick to rage in Odin’s face that his commands had resulted in their son suffering for all this time, without them one of them could have checked up on him. She was glad Loki had escaped, she said, alluded to the fact that it was she who had rescued him, when blue eyes that were once brown hissed venom into the All Father’s ears, insisting Loki could not have escaped alone. Thanos wanted to see someone punished, but Odin would not punish his wife any more than he would physically punish himself. He was glad Loki had escaped, though he did not say as much. Instead, he pretended to be angry and bid Heimdallr call Thor back to Asgard so that they could search for the escaped prisoner.
The Council were silent, but pleased, blue eyes all of them narrowed with victory and hands clenched tightly behind their backs, standing the same, speaking the same. The guards around them with blue eyes and similar poses, all controlled by the one mind, the one will, yet no one noticed but Loki.
Frigga took the blame for Sigyn’s actions, and Odin punished her as one would a woman of her status. The more important the woman, the easier the punishment, and though he appeared angry when he backhanded her in front of most of the citizens of Asgard, that was not what Frigga felt from his touch. The hand that struck her face was soft and light and she had to hide a smile as she forced her head to snap back further than it was meant to go with an exaggerated cry. “Thank you,” the skin had whispered to her own skin, thoughts and words and feelings slipping from one to the other through the skin of a palm upon her face. “Thank you for saving my son.”
And though she trembled meekly at his feet afterwards to appease the Council and the guards that called for her treasonous head upon a pike, the blue eyes that glanced up at her husband through a fringe of blond hair said silently, “It is now your turn to save our son.”
Odin went to Heimdallr. The court followed him, as did Frigga, and they stood and they waited on the edge of the ruined Bifrost as Heimdallr took the Tesseract from Odin’s hands and called Thor to him.
Thor fell to his knees in horror at his mother’s accusations. Though the Council and the guards (and Thanos) denied it and demanded Loki be brought back to face the rest of his sentence, Thor demanded, “No. Let him be. He has suffered enough.”
Heimdallr was inclined to agree with the Prince, but he answered to the All Father alone, though when Odin questioned him it was with that faraway look in his eyes that meant he didn’t really want to know the answer. Heimdallr thought, then, that it would be a kindness to lie to him, though it was not really lying because Odin should have been more specific in the first place. So when Odin questioned him, Heimdallr shook his head repeatedly, to each question and each accusation from the crowd and each plea from Frigga (because if he told her the truth it would be used to hunt Loki down and hurt him, and he was plenty hurt as it was).
So he said nothing to no one, not about Sigyn or Frigga or Loki, because these were not his secrets to tell either, though he smiled widely as the Council raged about Loki’s escape. He was curious and confused though a day after his interrogation of sorts, when each of the guards collapsed in a flash of blue light, followed by each of the Council members. He could not explain what had happened, nor could anyone else for that matter, and in an attempt to find out he sent his sight through the Ygdrassil, searching all of the worlds for answers. He did not stop until he found Loki, hurt and shaking on Midgard, in the arms of a sorcerer. It was not what he had first been searching for, but it was answer enough; no matter what had happened to the Prince, all would be well. Eventually.
And this was not his secret to tell either. The human’s business was not his to interfere in, and he would be good for the trickster, so Heimdallr held his tongue once more, only watching occasionally as the rest of this year passed and then the next and then the next until Thanos had once more set his sights on Asgard and Loki and it was then and only then did Heimdallr finally spill the secrets that were not his to share. But it was in Asgard’s best interest, in Asgard’s defence, and Heimdallr had always put the safety of his world above others’ privacy.
And it was also in Loki’s best interests and for his protection, and the protection of his lover and the children and for the Wizard in London who waited for Loki’s sorcerer to return home. So Heimdallr felt no guilt for calling Odin and Thor to his side and telling them exactly where Loki hid. He did not tell them everything, because some things needed to be seen to be believed, and it would be amusing to watch as they tried to figure it out for himself.
XXX
July 7th 2015. Anchorage, Alaska.
When Thor landed on Midgard, he did not do so subtly. Nor did it help that by his side, Odin stood tall and proud with Gungnir held tightly in his hand, one end digging into the dirt and the other pointing to the sky, as Mjölnir made thunder rumble overhead.
The snow around them shifted, trembling from the force of their landing, and if they had been on a mountain it probably would have caused an avalanche. People, dressed in skins and furs and leathers that covered everything but their faces, watched in curiosity and confusion. The majority of them didn’t watch the news, because only a few places in the small town had television reception. Some recognized Thor as an Avenger, but most didn’t, and none knew who Odin was, except for one dark haired woman who froze as if Medusa had caught her gaze. She watched them, eyes wide and terrified, from the other side of the road, and it was only Thor’s booming, “which of you have captured my Brother?” that had her jumping into action. With one hand pressed over her stomach, and the other pulling her hood down over her face, she turned and made her way hurriedly back up the driveway and into the house she had just exited.
“What’s the matter?” A dark haired man with green eyes asked her as she closed the door softly.
Once more, when the fight or flight instincts come into play and the body is given a choice, Loki chose to run.
“We need to leave, Harry.” She took the dark haired boy from him, before carrying him up the stairs and away from the door. Outside, in the street, Thor continued to call for Loki and Odin sent his ravens searching for a man with black hair and green eyes, while a woman who looked exactly the same apparated away with her lover and his son.
XXX
* * *
Thanks again everyone. I know it’s short. But I felt it needed to be included. Let me know what you thought, and Harry and Loki will be back again next chapter. Yes, we will be skipping back to 2013 and the alley in New York (I wouldn’t be cruel enough to take the story up in 2015 and leave you all wondering at their life). And wow. Are these chapters getting longer and longer? This was supposed to be about a thousand words, if that. Wow. Also. CRAMPS! Yay!
Words: 8,837
Chapter 4
NEXT CHAPTER HERE
I was researching Viking punishments for this chapter, and can I just throw this out there? “You had your tongue cut off if you told nasty lies about someone”… Um, yeah, but Loki?! Just saying. Odin is a little biased, even in favour of his least favourite son. So don’t go too hard on him!
Also. Woke up this morning feeling like I’ve been hit by a bus and dragged halfway around the world by whichever part of me got stuck under the bus… And I have work later. FML.
Thanks for all the feedback. Hope you continue to enjoy this.
* * *
Words: 5,895
Chapter 3
April 30th 2012. Asgard.
Loki had returned to Asgard in disgrace.
He had allowed himself to be brought back by Thor, who though angry and hurt by Loki’s actions still professed to love him. Thor had promised to protect him from their - their, Thor had said, their, not my, not mine, but theirs, as if he truly believed that Loki could ever again be a part of that family - father’s wrath somewhat. A little protection from Odin was better than no protection from Thanos or the one-eyed Director in charge of Stark’s rag-tag team, Loki figured, as Thor led him away from Heimdallr and the ruined Bifrost.
Green eyes narrowed, glancing back at it warily, wondering what about it seemed different. “We began attempting to fix it,” Thor whispered, answering his unasked question, “After you fell. I wanted to-” He fell silent, turning his face away from Loki to stare out at the stars. “But it matters not for you are home now, brother.”
Loki snorted, muffled by the metal gag Stark had held out to him earlier. He had glared at the mortal, even as the man attached it to his face, Loki’s arms handcuffed behind his back and Captain America’s grip strong and sure on his shoulders to keep him from struggling. Thor had re-cuffed his hands in front of his stomach, so at least Loki did not feel as vulnerable as he did before, but the muzzle had remained on.
“Come, brother,” Thor bid softly, tugging lightly at Loki’s left arm to encourage him to walk faster. “Our parents are waiting.”
There he went again, Loki thought, glancing at the blond Asgardian from the corner of his eyes. Our parents, ours, not his, not mine, but ours, as if Thor actually believed the foolishly naïve words that fell from his tongue. So childish, so stupid, as to believe that Odin had ever thought of them as equal, had ever seen Loki as his son.
As if Loki would wish for him to. As if Loki could muster the energy to care about them, any of them, those that had watched him fall and celebrated it, they that had never come to find him or defend him or protect him when he needed it most. They had left him to Thanos, and there was nothing Loki could meet out, nothing that would even that score in any way. They had failed him, much as Loki had been a failure to them for his entire life. But no more. He did not care, he would not care, or at least that is what he told himself. His mind whispered at composure, and his heart built up walls around it like ice, growing and freezing and keeping all feeling within and everyone but him without. This conviction lasted only until he caught sight of his mother, and at the blinding smile she sent him, and the way she pressed her hands to her heart, and stood up from her throne until Odin pushed her back into it, made Loki falter. His heart called her mother, as did his mind, but hadn’t he just convinced himself they were not his family?
“My son,” she whispered, sounding relieved to see him. Her hands pressed over her own mouth then, as if she could share in his discomfort and humiliation and take some of it away from him, to bring it upon herself instead, the way mothers were meant to. He would have called her mother then, he realised, if he could have spoken, but as he could not he inclined his head in her direction.
At his side, Thor fell to one knee in supplication before the All Father. Loki remained standing, glaring defiantly at the King who was no longer his King, nor his father. This man was nothing to him, but a body upon a throne that should (never, never, never intended for a Jötun, for a monster such as you) have been Loki’s long ago.
Odin watched him in silence, eyes as eager as his wife’s, though he allowed none of his expressions to give his happiness away. Loki would have only mistaken them for amusement at his suffering, or pleasure at his failure, when in fact Odin was just glad to have his son home. He would punish the boy now, like he had every other time Loki had done wrong, and he would do so in a way that appeared stern and harsh but was in actual fact very, very lenient. Loki might not have realised the extent to which he was let away with things, but Thor knew, and Odin knew, and the Council certainly knew and they were not happy with it.
Odin had decided upon exile. He had banished Thor, and allowed his son back home once he proved himself; he had stripped Thor of his name and lineage, of his rights as an Asgardian, as a person, reduced his son to nothing more than chattel that anyone could claim or kill as they willed with no worry of retribution, but Odin had allowed him to return home once he earned it, allowed Thor to become one of them again and a better man for it. He would grant the same opportunity to Loki, and though his son would hate him at first, as Thor did, he would come to understand with time, and perhaps, he would be grateful when the time came for him to return to Asgard.
Odin had said he would send him to earth, so Loki could make amends among the mortals he had injured. The Tesseract had the power to send Loki back there and then later call him home, but it would be a last resort punishment.
First, before guilt could be decided, criminals were obliged to undergo Ordeals. The last time Thor had been accused of a wrong doing, he had undergone the Ordeal by Cake, where those who choke are guilty and those who finish every last crumb are beyond innocent, so much so, that their accuser is required to grovel for forgiveness for their libel. Thor, who had mastered eating far too much far too fast at a young age, had yet to be found guilty. Loki, who now knew he was a Frost Giant, would undergo the Ordeal by Cold Water, and Odin would tie his hands and his feet and let him fall into a pool of water and if he sank he was guilty. But Loki would not sink. Loki had learned to swim young, and he had not sunk once, not even while Thor flailed in the water beside him, grabbing onto his brother’s arm to stop himself from drowning. Odin had watched his son as a child, first discovering his talents over water, watching it freeze around him and melt again, and again, until, at last, he had managed to walk on its surface without first having to freeze it.
Loki would not be found guilty, and the Midgardians could think what they liked, but what they wouldn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, and Loki would not be allowed back until everyone who might remember him had died of old age.
“Loki Odinson,” Odin began only to be interrupted as Loki gave a snort of protest. “Loki Laufeyson,” Odin whispered, not wanting too many of their audience to hear. Thor and Frigga heard, as did the four Council members who stood to his left, holding the Tesseract between them. Loki turned a glare upon Odin at that name, eyes like slits of poison, full of hate and anger and the older man frowned heavily as he tried again. “My son, Loki, you have been brought before myself and my court to undergo the Ordeal by Cold Wat… what?” Odin trailed off, eyebrows furrowing and his frown deepening as Fargo moved to stand before him.
“Loki Liesmith is guilty of treason, of deceit, of spreading vicious lies, of allowing the Jotnar into Asgard, of ruining Prince Thor’s coronation, of almost killing the All Father, of bringing war to Midgard and almost beginning a war with Jötunheimr as well. His crimes are many, my friends, and they are well witnessed. There can be no doubt that he is guilty. As such, there can be no mercy, no farce of an Ordeal when all present know that he will trick and cheat his way to victory and escape punishment as befitting him for one that resembles a slap on the hand of a toddler for pulling pigtails. I, and my fellow Council members, declare an Ordeal unnecessary, and recommend for all of Asgard’s sake that the All Father exile the traitor to Jötunheimr.” Fargo turned, casting Loki a look that promised untold horrors, with eyes that flashed as blue as Barton’s and Selvig’s and his own once had. “Where he belongs.”
The breath caught in Loki’s throat, and he felt like he was choking or drowning, air caught up inside of him that could neither go up or down. He felt sick all of a sudden; there was a roiling in his stomach and a clenching in his chest and his intestines had twisted themselves in knots from the fear that rushed through him at the colour of Fargo’s eyes. They had used to be brown, and kind, and calm, Loki remembered. He was the one Council member who had actually ever had patience for Loki’s tricks and jokes, saying they reminded him of his own son as a child, before he had succumbed to an illness and died. He had always invited Loki to sit beside him at feasts, and engaged him in conversation at parties where Loki would never have been other than he was Odin’s son and Odin made him. And now, Thanos had taken his mind, when Asgard should have been safe from Thanos, and the man moved to condemn him to a fate worse than death.
“No! They will kill him there!” Thor exclaimed, striding forward with Mjölnir raised as if he planned to swing it at Fargo’s head. “He is still a Prince of Asgard and my brother, and I will not stand idly by as you allow him to be sent helplessly to Jötunheimr where they would torture and kill him for their own amusement! It would be a crime against a member of Odin’s House, an act of war against Asgard; how dare you even suggest as such!”
“Then exile him!” Gragor exclaimed in return. He stood, with the Tesseract in his hands, his eyes glowing blue, beside Odin in his gilded throne. “If he would be no longer one of us, his punishments would no longer concern us. Send him to his own kind and let us forget about him.”
Maybe, Loki thought, Thanos could reach him more easily upon Jötunheimr than he could upon Asgard, or perhaps Earth. Was Jötunheimr closer to which ever part of space housed the Chitauri’s home world, Loki wondered? He should warn the All Father about the Tesseract, Loki realised, if only to protect Loki himself from Thanos’ revenge, but he could not speak, and any whimpered complaint his mouth tried to make came out muffled and pathetic, and they were ignored in favour of the arguments regarding his punishment.
Eventually, it was decided that Odin would exile him, but as they would not send him to Jötunheimr, and the Council felt it cruel to the mortals to send Loki back to Midgard, he would be kept in the dungeons of Asgard.
“NO!” Frigga shouted, rising sharply from her throne to glare at each of the assembled crowd one by one. “No, I will not allow you to exile our son to a lifetime of suffering and cruelty right under our very noses! You know what becomes of those who are exiled; you have seen what has been done to them! You would allow the same to befall our son? Would you? WOULD YOU?” Her chest was heaving, and her face had flushed in anger, and Loki felt something crumble inside of him, part of that wall that he had built around his heart cracked and disappeared because of her words and her defiance. Not even Thor had been that sure in his defence of Loki, that determined and desperate, or so angry at the All Father. But as their mother spoke, Thor strode forward once more, and heatedly voiced his agreement.
“You will not touch my brother, least you go through me to get him.” Thor stood in front of Loki then, Mjölnir raised and one hand held out in front of him as if to catch the throats of anyone who ran at him. But no one moved. Behind Thor, Loki shifted, catching the horrid grin that stretched over Fargo’s face just before the other two Council members’ eyes turned blue as well.
“Very well,” Fargo said after a moment’s silence. “We leave the decision in the hands of the All Father.” The room had long ago been cleared out. All that remained were the Council of four, whose minds had been overrun, and the House of Odin (and Loki, because he did not include himself as one of them though he felt like he could keep his mother and perhaps, maybe, possibly, his brother, but he could not be an Odinson).
“Loki Odinson,” Odin murmured, sitting up straight in his throne, as Frigga slid gracefully back into hers and Thor shifted a little out of the way so that his father could see Loki’s face as he spoke. “I banish you to the dungeons of Asgard for a period of two years. You will live in isolation, barring the guards who bring you food, water and fresh clothing. You will be allowed to bathe in your cell, but not to leave it for any reason, except for a medical emergency. A healer will be sent to you on the second day of your sentence to conclude the possibility of such an emergency arising, so there will be no point in lying about one. You will remain bound, and gagged, and you are not permitted to ask for anything to entertain you or comfort you, and you are not permitted to attempt to contact your guards in any manner or form.”
Odin took a breath, using that moment to glance at his wayward son. Loki had his eyes narrowed again, but not in anger. There was confusion swirling in the green of his eyes, and wariness darkening in the centre, dilating with hope. He seemed so untrusting, so unbelieving, that Odin would allow something so easy to come to pass, that Odin would wish to avoid damaging him.
And for the pleasure of imagining Loki’s mouth dropping open in shock, and his eyes going wide with surprise, Odin continued on, “You have not been exiled. You are still my son. No one is permitted to harm you, injure you or insult you in anyway, as all negative actions towards you will continue to be regarded as an act of treason against the House of Odin. Two years hence, I will come myself to free you from your isolation, and I hope when that time comes you will wish to be welcomed back to my home and my table and into my arms, my son.”
Guards took Loki away, bound and gagged, to a cell that he would remain in for fourteen months. The following day, they were sent back into Loki’s cell with a set of handcuffs that when paired together prevented the use of magic. They were stronger than the ones Stark had managed to develop in such a short amount of time, but Loki spent the rest of that day trying to force them off of his wrists regardless, fighting against the cuffs to try and force the magic inside of him out to no avail.
The healer came on the second day, just before Loki was about to go to sleep, and he brought with him some food and some water and a sad smile for the imprisoned Prince. Apart from a little malnutrition, which wouldn’t be helped by Loki having to wear the muzzle all of the time, and signs of exhaustion, Loki was healthy. Attempts to call for a Healer were ordered to be ignored if they came from Loki or from less than five guards agreeing with one another that a healer was truly needed. Odin didn’t want to risk Loki escaping after feigning an illness, because he had done so before.
He did, however, order the blacksmith to make a second muzzle, one that was easier to remove, and all of Loki’s guards were ordered to remove the muzzle for twenty minutes of every meal time, three times a day, and twice more for five minutes at a time so Loki could drink some water. The new mask was fitted to Loki’s face without complaint by the healer, who imparted the instructions from Odin before he left. Loki hoped for a moment that it would not be too bad, that this would not be too awful, because the All Father really did seem to be trying to prevent harm from coming to him.
But this hope only lasted for two weeks, until the eyes of his guards’ began to flash as blue as the Tesseract. For two weeks, the muzzle was taken off so Loki could be fed, but afterwards it was only removed when one of the guards wanted to hear Loki scream. And that was only until they decided it would be easier to simply sew his lips together.
XXX
August 18th 2012.
“How does my son fare, Heimdallr?” Odin asked out of the blue one day.
For four months, Odin had been coming to Heimdallr’s side, watching as the dark skinned Asgardian watched Loki in his cell. He had never asked about Loki though, never enquired one way or another, because he honestly hadn’t wanted to know. He was content to imagine Loki sitting around, bored and angry, but safe, and home, and loved even if the boy didn’t feel that way at the moment. The thought of knowing that Loki was trapped in a cell, angry and lonely and bored (which had always been the worst thing for Loki to be) was a torture in itself for Odin. He wanted to take the child out of the dungeons, to pull Loki into his arms and hold him tightly until the world ended, but he couldn’t. Because he had set the punishment to appease his Council, and soon he would enter the Odinsleep and he couldn’t afford to have his Council angry and disorganized in his absence.
Odin had forbid Frigga from questioning Heimdallr, and had order Heimdallr not to speak of Loki to anyone, because the knowledge would hurt his wife and anger Thor and could be used against Loki in the future by everyone else.
Frigga sobbed in Loki’s childhood bedroom most days, sad and heartbroken, and no matter how often she begged to be allowed to visit him in the dungeons the Council would insist that the isolation be total. It was what Odin had ordered, and to go against an order of the All Father was treason, even by his wife.
Thor had gone back to Midgard, unable to cope with the thought that he was walking the floor above where Loki was locked away. This was a different punishment to the ones that had come before; all other punishments had been to appease a foreigner, to prevent them from waging war upon Asgard or from attempting to kill Loki in place of the punishment. But this? This was because the Council had took it upon themselves to wrench control from Odin’s fingers, his words from Odin’s mouth, and twisted them until they were so knotted no one could accept any word but the final ones to make sense. Punishment, only punishment; the harsher the better. The idea of forgiveness was laughable once the Council had been done speaking. Thor knew it would be over soon, a year and eight months to go and he would have his brother back. Not the same brother perhaps, just as Thor was not the same since falling to earth years ago, but Loki would be safe and loved and welcomed back after facing his punishment like a true Asgardian for once, and not tricking his way free. The others would respect him for that, they would throw a feast in his honour, and all would celebrate the return of Asgard’s missing Prince.
In the meantime, Thor fought crime with the Avengers, and talked with them of Asgard and the brother that had slipped through his fingers so long ago, but that was, maybe, possibly coming back to him slowly. One day at a time. It would be a slow and torturous journey, one that Loki would undoubtedly resent, but he would be happier for it at the end, Thor told his friends, and Odin told his wife, and Heimdallr said nothing at all because he knew more than any of them how badly they were all lying to themselves.
“He suffers,” Heimdallr told Odin that day.
Odin had needed to know, one way or the other, to put the fears and monsters in his thoughts to rest. Frigga had wept enough, and needed to be consoled, and what could Heimdallr tell him that Odin did not already know. Loki was bored, angry and lonely, but it would be for the best.
“Of course he does,” Odin agreed. “But it is for his own good, my friend. He will see in time.” Odin looked to Heimdallr for confirmation, asking his friend to see forward in Loki’s time if that were possible and to console them all with the knowledge that everything would work out well and Loki would be home with them soon.
Heimdallr had not been speaking of boredom or anger or silence. Loneliness was a shadow that had always followed in Loki’s wake, one he had not quite grown used to but one he had accepted nonetheless, and its presence in his cell nowadays would have been greatly welcomed in place of his guards. Instead, Heimdallr had spoken of whip lashes tearing strips from Loki’s back, and guard after guard ripping him open with their cocks, and come dripping down Loki’s chin even as they sewed lips shut over and over again. There was pain in his visions, terror beyond all imagining flaring within his mind whenever he focused on Loki alone, thoughts so dark and dangerous that Heimdallr wondered if Loki would ever come home to them again or if he would sink beneath the madness that called to him, the insanity that waited to rescue him from his daily horrors. Or would he, perhaps, rise up above them all and burn the world around him in vengeance, for Heimdallr knew Loki thought Odin allowed this, that Thor allowed this, and maybe Heimdallr was allowing this to continue, but they were not his secrets to tell and not his life to interfere in and Odin should have been more specific in his questions if he truly wanted answers.
So Heimdallr nodded, and Odin turned away from him with a relieved sigh.
XXX
June 21st 2013.
Months later, Heimdallr watched Sigyn sneak down into the dungeons and into Loki’s cell, and then sneak back out with the door left open. He watched Frigga, who had taken to hiding outside of the threshold that led to Loki’s cell in the dungeon, waiting and hoping that if she asked often enough, eventually one of the guards would bring her inside against the All Father’s orders. And Frigga watched Sigyn too, her hands pale and shaking, wringing the skirts of her nightdress between them, with tears streaking her face as she left the dungeons.
Frigga followed her back to her rooms, listening to the woman barricade herself inside with the heaviest pieces of furniture that she could manage to move, before making her way back to the dungeons. The guards were not there when Frigga returned, but she had been the one to teach Loki to cast invisibility around himself like a cloak, and she called that magic to her at that moment, using it to shield herself in case the guards returned, though she was aware that Heimdallr could probably see her still. In fact, Heimdallr did watch her, unconcerned, as she made her way silently to Loki’s open cell door and peered inside. She caught sight of her son around the edge of the door, bleeding and broken and shaking from pain and fear and adrenaline. The sight of it caused her to gasp behind her hand, heart beating in her chest like a bird attempted to escape its cage. Frigga took a hurried step backwards, as if to shield herself from the spectacle of Loki brought so low right under their noses, and accidentally nudged the door with her elbow.
It creaked.
Loki glanced up, eyes wide, like a faun that had just spotted a hunter, and he did as all animals do in such a situation. He ran. He was on his feet in an instant, knife in one hand and handcuffs dangling from the other, and in a flash of green (before Frigga could call to him, before she could stop him) Loki was gone.
Frigga ran soon after, grown sick of the sight of blood and the stench of sex and the crippling fear that flooded the room like a fog, choking her if she breathed in too deeply. She went to Sigyn, desperate to ask her what she saw, if she had seen who had done this and to thank her for freeing her son from his slavery. Half way there, the alarm sounded, and Frigga, worried about Sigyn’s part in all of this, and her own for she too had disobeyed the All Father’s commands, and Heimdallr who had stayed silent through it all would bring punishment down upon himself if he remained as such, suddenly changed her mind. When Sigyn opened her door, hesitantly, with shaking hands, Frigga did not glance behind her at Fargo who had appeared at the end of the hallway with Odin.
“Loki Laufeyson has escaped,” Frigga told her trying to sound angry. She succeeded, only because she could feel Fargo’s smug smile burning into the back of her skull, pleased with her at the use of the derogatory surname the Council members had come up with during the last Odinsleep when there had been no one around to dispute them.
Sigyn stared at her Queen, her ex-mother in law, and she read the words the woman’s lips spoke to her. But in Frigga’s eyes, Sigyn read something else. There was happiness in that gaze, though her lips drew tight in anger as Fargo approached them.
Sigyn pressed her hands against Frigga’s, just for a second before Odin drew his wife away, following after Fargo and the other Council members who were beginning to appear. Sigyn watched them make their way to the grand hall, and she contemplated whether to go with them, like many of the other Asgardians would do, but in the end she shut herself back in her room, thinking of Loki and all he had suffered and of Frigga and all of the things she had read in her eyes.
“Thank you,” Frigga’s eyes had told her, “thank you for saving my son.”
“You’re welcome,” Sigyn’s hands had replied in lieu of her mouth, pressing lightly against a set of equally trembling hands before drawing back to clutch at the doorframe. “Please don’t tell,” her fingers whispered as they squeezed into the wooden frame, until the tips of her hands had turned white from the pressure.
Frigga told no one she had seen Sigyn in the dungeons, though she was quick to accuse the guards of torturing and violating her son, quick to rage in Odin’s face that his commands had resulted in their son suffering for all this time, without them one of them could have checked up on him. She was glad Loki had escaped, she said, alluded to the fact that it was she who had rescued him, when blue eyes that were once brown hissed venom into the All Father’s ears, insisting Loki could not have escaped alone. Thanos wanted to see someone punished, but Odin would not punish his wife any more than he would physically punish himself. He was glad Loki had escaped, though he did not say as much. Instead, he pretended to be angry and bid Heimdallr call Thor back to Asgard so that they could search for the escaped prisoner.
The Council were silent, but pleased, blue eyes all of them narrowed with victory and hands clenched tightly behind their backs, standing the same, speaking the same. The guards around them with blue eyes and similar poses, all controlled by the one mind, the one will, yet no one noticed but Loki.
Frigga took the blame for Sigyn’s actions, and Odin punished her as one would a woman of her status. The more important the woman, the easier the punishment, and though he appeared angry when he backhanded her in front of most of the citizens of Asgard, that was not what Frigga felt from his touch. The hand that struck her face was soft and light and she had to hide a smile as she forced her head to snap back further than it was meant to go with an exaggerated cry. “Thank you,” the skin had whispered to her own skin, thoughts and words and feelings slipping from one to the other through the skin of a palm upon her face. “Thank you for saving my son.”
And though she trembled meekly at his feet afterwards to appease the Council and the guards that called for her treasonous head upon a pike, the blue eyes that glanced up at her husband through a fringe of blond hair said silently, “It is now your turn to save our son.”
Odin went to Heimdallr. The court followed him, as did Frigga, and they stood and they waited on the edge of the ruined Bifrost as Heimdallr took the Tesseract from Odin’s hands and called Thor to him.
Thor fell to his knees in horror at his mother’s accusations. Though the Council and the guards (and Thanos) denied it and demanded Loki be brought back to face the rest of his sentence, Thor demanded, “No. Let him be. He has suffered enough.”
Heimdallr was inclined to agree with the Prince, but he answered to the All Father alone, though when Odin questioned him it was with that faraway look in his eyes that meant he didn’t really want to know the answer. Heimdallr thought, then, that it would be a kindness to lie to him, though it was not really lying because Odin should have been more specific in the first place. So when Odin questioned him, Heimdallr shook his head repeatedly, to each question and each accusation from the crowd and each plea from Frigga (because if he told her the truth it would be used to hunt Loki down and hurt him, and he was plenty hurt as it was).
So he said nothing to no one, not about Sigyn or Frigga or Loki, because these were not his secrets to tell either, though he smiled widely as the Council raged about Loki’s escape. He was curious and confused though a day after his interrogation of sorts, when each of the guards collapsed in a flash of blue light, followed by each of the Council members. He could not explain what had happened, nor could anyone else for that matter, and in an attempt to find out he sent his sight through the Ygdrassil, searching all of the worlds for answers. He did not stop until he found Loki, hurt and shaking on Midgard, in the arms of a sorcerer. It was not what he had first been searching for, but it was answer enough; no matter what had happened to the Prince, all would be well. Eventually.
And this was not his secret to tell either. The human’s business was not his to interfere in, and he would be good for the trickster, so Heimdallr held his tongue once more, only watching occasionally as the rest of this year passed and then the next and then the next until Thanos had once more set his sights on Asgard and Loki and it was then and only then did Heimdallr finally spill the secrets that were not his to share. But it was in Asgard’s best interest, in Asgard’s defence, and Heimdallr had always put the safety of his world above others’ privacy.
And it was also in Loki’s best interests and for his protection, and the protection of his lover and the children and for the Wizard in London who waited for Loki’s sorcerer to return home. So Heimdallr felt no guilt for calling Odin and Thor to his side and telling them exactly where Loki hid. He did not tell them everything, because some things needed to be seen to be believed, and it would be amusing to watch as they tried to figure it out for himself.
XXX
July 7th 2015. Anchorage, Alaska.
When Thor landed on Midgard, he did not do so subtly. Nor did it help that by his side, Odin stood tall and proud with Gungnir held tightly in his hand, one end digging into the dirt and the other pointing to the sky, as Mjölnir made thunder rumble overhead.
The snow around them shifted, trembling from the force of their landing, and if they had been on a mountain it probably would have caused an avalanche. People, dressed in skins and furs and leathers that covered everything but their faces, watched in curiosity and confusion. The majority of them didn’t watch the news, because only a few places in the small town had television reception. Some recognized Thor as an Avenger, but most didn’t, and none knew who Odin was, except for one dark haired woman who froze as if Medusa had caught her gaze. She watched them, eyes wide and terrified, from the other side of the road, and it was only Thor’s booming, “which of you have captured my Brother?” that had her jumping into action. With one hand pressed over her stomach, and the other pulling her hood down over her face, she turned and made her way hurriedly back up the driveway and into the house she had just exited.
“What’s the matter?” A dark haired man with green eyes asked her as she closed the door softly.
Once more, when the fight or flight instincts come into play and the body is given a choice, Loki chose to run.
“We need to leave, Harry.” She took the dark haired boy from him, before carrying him up the stairs and away from the door. Outside, in the street, Thor continued to call for Loki and Odin sent his ravens searching for a man with black hair and green eyes, while a woman who looked exactly the same apparated away with her lover and his son.
XXX
* * *
Thanks again everyone. I know it’s short. But I felt it needed to be included. Let me know what you thought, and Harry and Loki will be back again next chapter. Yes, we will be skipping back to 2013 and the alley in New York (I wouldn’t be cruel enough to take the story up in 2015 and leave you all wondering at their life). And wow. Are these chapters getting longer and longer? This was supposed to be about a thousand words, if that. Wow. Also. CRAMPS! Yay!
Words: 8,837
Chapter 4
NEXT CHAPTER HERE