Chapter 8
Loki retreated into the bedroom with the excuse of organizing the different, mostly unknown, and all uncalled for items Thor had brought along and labeled as personal hygiene products, using the opportunity to look for something that could fulfill his purpose.
He ran a quick look over the bedroom, in the semi darkness of near noon. It´s just as it was when he first got it, a large bed, two lamps, one on each of the bedside tables, and a bookshelf, collecting dust on its uninteresting literary options. Loki thought this apartment was used by Stark when he had to house someone he didn´t really like enough to let them into the tower, but couldn´t risk to offend by sending them to find accommodations on their own.
Just when his eyes roamed over the dusty book titles, he caught sight of it.
It was a transparent (slightly opaque due to the dust layer that he promptly blows off) crystal sphere, carved in the inside in resemblance to an atom. Or a galaxy. Maybe. Honestly, the work was so poor Loki had problems discerning it.
But then again, it wasn´t the carving he was interested in.
A quick scanning of the decorative object revealed the purity of the material, and the God figured it would have to do, since he wasn´t exactly hoping on finding uncut gemstones lying around the apartment.
He tugged the sphere safely into his clothes, and surprised Thor by sitting at the kitchen counter, just a couple of steps away from where he was busying himself with the pancakes.
Loki rummaged through the remaining plastic bags, wondering briefly about how humans managed to hold entire, cooked meals into such tiny containers, opening every bottle he could find and giving it a tentative sniff, until he found the expected syrup. So nice of Stark.
-
After a few minutes, his nose was blessed with a sweet, heavenly scent, and the first two pancakes landed on a plate with a soft thud. He watched in expectance as the pile grew in height, and was finally placed over the counter, right between him and Thor, who had taken a seat across him.
"Thanks. You may leave now." Loki reached for the bottle syrup he´d left apart when checking the bags´ contents.
He didn´t really expect Thor to leave. It had been said because he had to, and the blond knew that, as seen when he ignored it completely.
"We need to talk, brother."
Loki squeezed the syrup bottle ceremoniously over the pancakes, still avoiding Thor´s look, uninterested. When he spoke, he did so as someone would when approaching a particularly stubborn child.
"How many times do we have to go through this Thor? I´m not your brother. I told you before: I never was."
Thor shook his head. "Why do you care, Loki? Of what lies beneath your skin?" He started. It was painfully obvious that the words had been thought over and over, polished a bit more each time to make them worth his time. If just out of respect to those efforts (And the fact that the pancakes were every bit as delicious as the ones he´d had with Stark, and he was enjoying them fully) Loki listened. "I don´t care. Father and Mother, they don´t care… We love you all the same, you´re what you´ve always been. You´re Loki. My brother."
When Thor finished, Loki nodded thoughtfully, chewing slowly through his fourth pancake (Thor was a slow speaker when he was emotional, it seemed)
"The same, you say?" He smirked, when Thor nodded hopefully. "Look at me, Thor." He felt the bulk of the sphere in his clothes, slowly filling up with energy. He sighed internally, and leaned a bit closer to the blond, using his magic to dissolve the glamour that was his Aesir appearance.
He watched in amusement, as Thor´s eyes widened in amazement and horror.
"This is what I really am." He smirked. "Do you remember, Thor? That time at the treasure vault…" His voce lowered to a whisper." You swore to kill them all, so that I had nothing to fear." He rose form his seat, and walked around the counter, nearing Thor on the other side. "You failed. The monsters are not out there for you to beat." His voice changed into a venomous whisper. "The monster has always been inside."
Thor swallowed hard, and shook his head.
"You are no monster, Loki." After taking a deep breath, Thor reached out to place his hand on Loki´s shoulder, but the blue-skinned one flinched back. The big, tanned hand fell back limply at his side. "You might be different, deep inside. But even down deeper, you are an Aesir. Your heart is."
"But is it?" Loki smirked again. "I have never been like you. I am no warrior. No glorious fighter conquering realms in the name of Asgard. I lurk in shadows, misleading others, threading my lies and my traps around everyone. Always envious of the one that was what I couldn´t. The golden son I could never be because I wasn´t even a son in the first place."
The air in the apartment cooled gradually, and he sullenly noticed that the cold seeped from his true form. Thor´s eyes kept themselves glued to him, before his lips parted again, and he spoke again.
"You see what you wish to see, Loki. And because things are not as you think, you resort to act like the monster you believe yourself to be. You are so desperate to make us see the evil in you, that you haven't even noticed you yourself don´t believe it." He let his gaze fall to the ground, hesitant. "Have you ever believed less in one of your lies, Loki?"
Loki´s fist clenched, and he returned his appearance to his Aesir one, not wishing to be stuck in this beastly look when Thor left.
He could feel the sphere was nowhere near the limits of its storing capacities, but they had approached to subjects he had no interest in discussing, let alone with Thor of all people.
"What do you even know of what I am? What I think?" He let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Get out." He spat, venomously. "GET OUT." He added, in a yell, when Thor made no move to leave.
The blond man let out a sigh, before looking directly at him. And that was his mistake, because Loki didn´t need to realize how much his features mirrored Odin´s. He didn´t need to notice he was familiar with the way his lips tightened and his eyelids went down in a slow, sad blink.
He did not need to see his Father´s disappointment in the face of his brother.
-
The moment lasted barely more than a few seconds, before he turned his back on Loki and walked out the door. Loki remained motionless, but, as the door closed behind him, Thor heard the loud bump of a heavy object crashing against the room, and he guessed one of the coffee tables had just become a victim of the Trickster´s magic.
He didn´t go far, leaning against the wall just next to the door, his hand finding its way to his forehead, thick fingers wrapping tightly in his blond strands.
Just this once, he had seen right through Loki´s lie. He wasn´t even the slightest glad about it.
His brother had never looked so lost.
-
Inside, Loki felt his knees grow tired, and he found himself slipping down to the floor, letting his weight rest sideways against the counter. The packed food lay forgotten on the plank over his head, and not even the feeling of the warm, charged crystal sphere brought him any comfort.
He had thought this would be another empty meeting where he blamed everything and nothing, and Thor asked for forgiveness and reflection. He had thought this was something he´d shake off as soon as he lost sight of the blond.
He´d been wrong.
A vibrating sound pulled him out of his increasingly darkening thoughts, and he looked up to find out it was caused by the cell phone Stark had given him, abandoned on the worktop next to the door ever since the first day he´d spent in the place.
He went to his feet, and dragged himself over to investigate the cause of the machine´s distress.
The screen blinked over and over, until he hastily tapped a finger over it, and followed the instructions to "Unlocking" it. The gadget soon let him know he had a new message, and asked if he wanted to read it now.
"Hey Loks.
How were the pancakes? Not so eager to kill me now?
… Can you even text me back?
Tony"
Loki stared blankly at the screen for what felt like an eternity, before rolling his eyes.
-
Tony grinned when his own phone´s screen lit up. Really, he was beginning to think he was some kind of wizard to get two gods and a 70 year old guy used to modern technology. (Not caring that he´d done nothing more than to give the gadgets away and hope for them to figure them out)
The message was obviously from Loki, who he´d added with "God of Douchebaggery" as his contact name. He wasn´t one for subtlety.
"Of course I can, idiot."