Ania-Present
Three hours of Thor and Tony yelling over each other, Loki trying to calm me down, and Cap just watching, we finally get back to the Helicarrier.
The ramp lowers and I walk out, Loki close behind me with Thor escorting him. “Mom!” Sphine came running to me. I opened my arms as she jumped into them. “I watched the whole thing, you took him down in an instant!” She squealed. Behind me, Loki stopped to look at his daughter. Sphine looked over and met his eyes. I can tell she instantly regrets it as her head immediately snapped away.
“Sphine,” Loki tried to walk towards her, but SHIELD pulled him away.
I looked to my daughter, frowning at the tears in her eyes. “His eyes. He told me that if his eyes were ever blue,” her sob cut her off.
“Come on, let’s get inside.” My arm draped around her as I guided her in. I knew this would be hard on her but didn’t expect it to be this hard. “Fury,” I catch him after putting Sphine in our dorm. “Can get an audience with him? No audio?” I could tell he was about to deny, but I pulled out my backup card. “You didn’t tell me that Stark was gonna be here. I think you owe me.”
“Fine, video will be recorded, however.” I nodded and he went on to Loki’s cell. I bit my lip and leaned against the door. Shaking my head, I stood up straight and started to follow Fury, detouring to Banner’s lab. I walked in halfway through Fury’s spiel with Loki “-and you kill `cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did.”
“Ooh. It burns you to come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share, and then to be reminded what real power is.” Loki, you self-centered idiot.
Fury smiles at my ex-husband. “Well you let me know if Real Power wants a magazine or something.” And out of frame he walks. A few moments later, he’s in the lab, speaking into a radio he says, “Deactivate microphones in the cell area.” He then nods to me to go to Loki.
I quickly walk out of the lab to go to the holding cell. “Loki,” I say, alerting him to my presence.
“Ania!” He moves towards me, getting as close as possible without touching the glass. “Ania I haven’t seen you for years. How are you?” He sighed. “How’s Josephoeni?”
I project a recent picture that a stranger took of Sphine, Anubis, and I when we went to Coney Island. “She’s grown, Loki.” He sighed again, not giving a shit about Fury’s rules and leaning his head on the glass. “Anubis, has taken a liking to her, and her him.” I saw him start to glare at the mention of Anubis. “We’re both working for the Siblings, so we spend all our time together.” My vision begins to water. “She’s advancing quite well in her magic. Looking through your old books all the time to learn more.” I try to choke a sob down, but it’s relentless and comes out anyways. I wipe away some tears. “Why did you let him get you, Loki? Why did you not fight it?”
“I fight it everyday, Ania.” He looks up and my eyes meet the blue. “I don’t want to be like this, but he has me under control. The chitauri will advance no matter what and I will lead them.” Loki looks away. “Stark, is he really Sphine’s father?”
“Yes.”
“Does he know?”
“I don’t think so. I’m going to let Sphine decide if she wants to tell him.”
“You actually slept with him?” I laughed at his tone. “17 years ago, couldn’t have been much there.”
I almost couldn’t stop laughing. “Why does it matter?” I smiled at him, the same smile I had when we were in love. “You’re the one that raised her for 7 some years. You’re more of dad than he is.” He nodded, biting his bottom lip. “I know you’re planning something, dear, and I know it’s going to happen soon, so just tell me.”
I can tell that he’s debating whether or not to tell me his plan. “Get Josephoeni onto a plane. Get her off the Helicarrier. Either that or come with me.” He looks back to me. “I’ll protect you both. You know I will.” Loki and were together for years. I know he can read me like a book, and I know that he can tell that Sphine and I will go with him. “The Hawk will be arriving shortly. Stay away from the beast and near me.” I place my hand on the glass, he does the same. “I love you, Ania.”
“I love you too, Loki.” And with that, I leave.
I was fool to think that my walk back to the dorm would be uninterrupted. “So Ania, haven’t seen you for 17 some years.”
“Stark” I greet, fiddling with my wedding band. “It has been awhile. Do you need something?”
“Yeah, you seem pretty close with Reindeer Games there, what’s the story?” Of course he would be asking about that. “Josephoeni his?”
How do I not lie about this? “Loki is her dad. He is my ex-husband. Do you want to know about my mother too or can I walk back in peace?” Stark put his hands up.
“You never called after that night. Are you sure she’s his kid?” He did some silent math. “She’s what, 16? Did you get a test done?” Does he ever shut up? “You said ex-husband?” I nodded, not trusting my self control at the moment. “Man, that’s gotta suck. You and Josephoeni should come to New York. Pepper and I will take you out to dinner.”
“Maybe one day, Stark. Maybe one day.” His signature smirk popped up as he threw a ‘See you later’ and broke off. I begin to fast walk to the dorm. “Sphine,” I close the door behind me, seeing her on the phone, I silently apologize.
“Yeah, I’ll talk to you later. See ya, hon.” She hung up, setting her phone down. “What’s happening?”
I tell her everything Loki said. “If you don’t want to go with him, get to a plane and go find Hel or Hades. I will understand if you go and I will love you no less, but I won’t go with you.” I started grabbing weapons and things, plus my small bag. “I lost him once, Sphine, I can’t for a second time.” I wiped out my tears and looked to my daughter. “I’m sorry, but you have to choose now.”
Sphine looked outside at the sky and smiled. “Hateful is the dark-blue sky, Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea.” She nodded and grabbed one of her guns. “Let’s go get dad.”
I grabbed her arm right before she walked out. “Oh, one more thing.” I take in a breath. “Tony Stark is your father, and he doesn’t know, but your dad does.” I grimace, bracing myself for her reaction.
A smile. A fucking smile. “Mom, I knew for a while.” She shouldered her backpack. “You’re not the best at keeping secrets when it comes to past missions, just so you know.”
π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π
It went, well there’s no way to sugar coat it. It was a disaster. We did manage to get off the Helicarrier in one piece, so that’s a plus.
We sat on the plane, all catching our breath for a split second. Silence filled the cargo hold as we looked at each other. Finally, Sphine smiled and launched herself at Loki. “I missed you, dad.” She started to cry into his shoulder. “And I’m really sorry.”
“What?” Summoning her magic, she gave him a swift knock against the head, hitting him out cold.
“I cannot believe I just knocked out my own dad.” Sphine exclaimed, falling back to the other side, where I was.
My necklace vibrated. “Good job, kiddo. Looks like Hel is wanting to talk to us.” I ran my hand over the front of it, causing the hologram of Hel to illuminate the otherwise dim cargo hold. “Madam Hel, how can we be of service.”
“Why in the ever-living hell is Nick Fury calling me? What did you two do?”
“Helped my dad destroy part of the Helicarrier so that he can escape. Then I knocked him out to stop the brainwashing.” As if this happened every day, Sphine informed Hel while brushing out the knots in her hair.
Hel, on the other hand, hesitated. “Damn, okay. I’ll inform him that Loki is no longer a threat. Oh, before I go, Sphine, Hades is wondering when you can make the trip down. He’s getting stressed and his daughter isn’t helping at all.”
I smiled sideways at my daughter. “Tell Hades that Sphine will be spending some time with her dad, but can help out in a couple weeks, maybe sooner.” Movement made me move my gaze off of the hologram. “Hel, we gotta go. Loki is waking up and he might need another knock. See ya.”
“Bye darling”
Swiping my hand, the call ended, and the two of us stood up, our magic at arms, ready to defend ourselves. Though, I could tell that we had no reason to worry once I saw green eyes flutter open.
I smiled and put a hand on Sphine’s arm, letting her know that she can relax. “He’s fine.” I whispered to her.
Loki looked up at the two of us and then the surroundings. A smirk appeared before he spoke. “I’m going to assume that you two wonderful ladies broke me out.”
We laughed. “Close enough,” Sphine said, kneeling down and hugging him. “Welcome back dad.” She leaned in and whispered in his ear. “Just fyi, you’re going to get yelled at later for leaving us.”