Of God-parents and Aunt-sasins

A few hours earlier

“What’s the rush, Rushman?” Tony said, holding his bowl of dumplings in one hand and a StarkPad in the other, scrolling with his thumb. He frowned as a strange yet familiar scent invaded his nostrils. Bitter and acrid and something that belonged somewhere that was not his multi-million dollar tower. “Please don’t tell me you set my Tower on fire -”

He stopped dead.

He blinked. Looked away. Looked back.

“That’s a hole. A big hole. In my roof.”

Natasha sighed, “Thor dropped in for a visit. I set him up in one of the meeting rooms. Thought you’d want to assess the damage first.”

“Tasha! Why did you - that wasn’t me!”

Ordinarily Tony would’ve snickered at Clint’s panicked tone, but he was currently too concerned with staring through the hole in the side of his Tower. And the massive, familiar brand on his floor.
It took a lot to make Tony Stark speechless.
But this might just take the cake.
Or the entire bakery.

“We know,” replied Natasha grimly, “Thor decided to drop in.”

Clint blinked, “So what are we gonna do?”

Tony shook himself out of the fugue he’d been slowly sinking into.
“What we always do when there’s a problem.”

“Fix it?”

“Call Pepper. And maybe buy a rug.”

“Already on it.” said the strawberry blonde in question, Pepper striding in from the corridor, dropping a kiss on Tony’s cheek as she went by.

“Hey honey,” grinned the shorter man, catching her waist as she went for a longer kiss, “How’s your day going?”

“Better without the hole in the roof, but I haven’t had a Board Meeting today, so not as bad as it could be.”

“Huh, same over here. Great minds think alike, I guess.”

“Or fools seldom differ.” teased the woman back, a smile creasing the corners of her eyes.

Tony grinned back - he loved when people actually finished a quote. “This is why I married you.”

Pepper raised an eyebrow, “I wasn’t aware you proposed.”

A frown creased his forehead, “Haven’t I? Huh, I’ll get to work on that.”

“Sorry to break up the touching moment, but we do have a rogue God of Thunder in the forty third meeting room downstairs. You can be sappy later.”

Tony pouted, but acquiesced, blowing a kiss goodbye to Pepper, who only chuckled, before leaving the room with the assassin and the archer.

The pair murmured softly as they went, Tony content to walk just behind them, looking out of his window.
It was little moments like these that he really cherished.

The small moments, ones you might miss entirely if you weren’t careful.

Such as, for instance, the complete and utter trust Natasha was showing in him by allowing him to walk behind.
Tony wasn’t exactly known as the most sensitive person in the group - he missed more social cues than he picked up, and had spent most of his life coasting by on a combination of alcohol and the gift of the gab.
Or not knowing when to shut his mouth.

He hadn’t exactly had a normal childhood, so to speak - in fact the exact opposite. He’d been homeschooled until he was fifteen, when he started MIT. Which meant that aside from the various staff his parents employed, the only interaction with people his own age had been the staff’s children, various other new-money kids (old-money wouldn’t touch new-money like Stark Industries with a gold-tipped barge pole) and the few times he’d snuck down to the nearby village which had ended with three black eyes (two of which were his, and one was an own-goal) and several broken ribs.

Needless to say, by the time he was released into the wild, he was brimming with need for contact with another actual human being, and also a massive ball of social anxiety, emotional constipation, daddy issues and utter obliviousness as to how actual normal people spoke.

He fit in just fine at MIT.

But the real world? It would’ve eaten him alive.

Which was where James Rhodes had stepped in.

He’d met James at a campus party.
He’d been sitting on the porch, smoking a joint and getting steadily higher with each drag.
Tony had been throwing his guts up in the bushes.

They’d gotten on like a house on fire - a terrible combination which usually ended in mass destruction and widespread loss of life.

James, hadn’t wanted anything to do with the unstable genius who was set to destroy his liver by the time he was twenty five. For Tony it had been love at first sight.

As he’d mentioned before, he wasn’t always the best at picking up social cues.
And as such, he took James’s attempts to avoid him, let him down gently and outright ‘fuck-off Stark’s’, as the start of a beautiful friendship.

He’d been right, of course, but it had taken James a few months longer than him to accept it.

Rhodey was the one he could thank for the fact he had any social intelligence at all.
The older boy had spent the next few years coaching Tony through social situations - appropriate responses, various social cues, slang words that Tony had no chance of picking up by himself.

By the end of their time there, Tony was practically a functioning member of society.
And James Rhodes had accepted that he would be called ‘honey-bear’ by a man half a foot shorter than him, and ‘platypus’ by just about everyone who’d been there for the incident for the rest of his life.
‘Rhodey’ and ‘Tones’ had been entirely the Colonel’s idea though. Tony wasn’t taking credit for swapping the letters at the ends of their names.

But he digressed. The point was… what was his point?
Oh yeah, the point was even he, the person with arguably the least sensitivity to other people’s tics and triggers, and also the one who’d been least trusted at the start of this (which, fair enough, he’d been acting petty and not particularly responsible), and Natasha felt safe enough to turn her back.

Which considering her past, which she’d dropped enough crumbs over the last year that he could piece most of it together, made a lump appear in Tony’s throat.

Aside from the children, who Natasha very clearly loved, and who she made an effort to show it to, the red head didn’t show much of the typical affection that people might expect.

It had taken Tony a long while to understand the significance of certain acts, the ones that Natasha used to show her love.

Casual touch was a big one - the spy wouldn’t so much as shake hands with someone she didn’t trust, or at least without a widow bite ready to deploy on her wrist, and receiving even a shoulder bump, let alone a hug, was a massive sign that you were on the right path with the generally unreadable woman.
The first time Natasha had joined in with their movie nights properly, leaving her weapons behind and using Steve as a foot rest, Tony had watched her more than the film, feeling an indescribable feeling of pride within him.

Another tell she had was her name - the level of colloquialism you could use with her severely depended on how she regarded you.

To most of SHIELD, she was strictly referred to as Agent Romanoff - Tony had heard stories of people who dared break that taboo. It never ended well for them. For strangers, she would be Ms Rushmann, polite but aloof. People she considered friends, or close acquaintances could call her Natasha. Nat was even closer - as of that point, Steve and Bruce were the only people who’d been granted ‘Nat’ privileges.
Tony could count the number of people allowed to call her Tasha on his fingers.

For his part, he wasn’t particularly bothered about what he called her - if there was one thing Tony Stark was known for (aside from the obvious) it was for his love of nicknames.
And being allowed to call Natasha Romanoff ‘Itsy Bitsy’ and remain with all his limbs intact was all the proof Tony needed of her fondness for him.

And… he’d gone off on a tangent again.
Had he even had a point to begin with?

Whether or not he had, was completely irrelevant, as at that moment, the pair in front of him stopped in front of a glass and metal door, with the numbers 'forty three’ embellished on a plate.

Time to go deal with the Thunder God that had made a hole in his building.

—----------------------------------

It was generally accepted within scientific communities around the Nine Realms, whether or not they referred to themselves as ‘scientists’, which was a term found only on Midgard, that there were four general responses to threats, be they physical or psychological.
1) Fight - aggressively facing the threat.
2) Flight - running away from the threat.
3) Freeze - becoming incapable of moving or making a choice.
And 4) Fawn - trying to resolve a threat by placating the aggressor or moving closer to the threat.

Personally, Loki would like to add one of his own: bash your head into a wall until your irritating brother disappears in the aftermath of your severe concussion.
According to his therapist, that was known as an ‘unhealthy coping strategy’ and possibly a form of ‘intrusive thoughts’.
According to Loki, his therapist could go take a long walk off a short cliff.

Which was how he found himself standing outside a meeting room, leg bouncing without permission, waiting for Natasha to appear.

Outside, aside from the leg that wouldn’t stop moving, he looked calm and collected.
On the inside his brain was an absolute trainwreck.

Thor was inside that room.
Thor.
Thor, his brother, who wasn’t really his brother.
Who had let him fall. Who hadn’t noticed something was wrong with him.
Who’d been more than happy to drag him back to Asgard in chains. Who’d told him that they were still brothers, no matter what colour Loki turned in the cold.
Thor who’d left.

Radio silence. For an entire year.

And who was here now, sitting on one of the uncomfortable office chairs, with his impractical armour and his beaming golden smile.

He felt Natasha coming before he saw her.
The familiar, comforting wave of her seidr washed over him, and his leg finally stopped at the feeling.
Warm-safe-sister.
He relaxed involuntarily, moving forward to meet her.
She tilted her head, conveying… not quite words, but more of a feeling. Soul to soul.
Question-safe-love.
He smiled, dropping his forehead briefly to bump against hers.
Nervous-thinking-love.

She smiled back, even though her brow was still furrowed.

“Ready?” she murmured.

“I rarely am. You should know that by now. I just don’t let it stop me.”

Nat chuckled, “You’re right, I do know. Now come on, let's see what your brother wants.”

Loki took a deep breath. And then a second. And pushed the door open.

The second his head poked around the door, a bellow came from inside. “Loki! Brother!” and then Loki was choking, the air being forced out of his lungs by a pair of massive arms, squeezing him with more force than was probably necessary. And people called him the dramatic one.

“Believe it or not Thor,” he wheezed, “But people generally need to breathe to keep living. Also I can’t feel my ribs.”

Thor dropped him abruptly, a look of panic on his face. Huh, that was different. Usually when Loki complained of the rib-crushing hugs Thor gave, the blonde would laugh it off.
“Loki! I apologise! I did not mean to hurt you.”

Loki patted the older man’s arm awkwardly, “It’s alright,” he said, “No blood, no foul.”

Thor still looked worried, but he stepped back a little as Natasha entered the room, the panic in his eyes morphing into caution learnt from the last time he’d encountered the red head. And the last time Natasha had knocked him out cold for making a statement that women could never be as good fighters as men.

“Lady Natasha,” he greeted with a formal bow, “Lord Stark, Lord Barton.”

“Point Break!” said Stark cheerily, before stopping himself, “Wait no, I’m mad at you. You made a hole in my Tower.”

Thor winced slightly, “Ah yes, my apologies for the intrusion, Stark. The Bifrost has been newly repaired and the accuracy is perhaps not as refined as we had hoped for.”

“Well you’re paying for the repairs,” sniffed Tony, “I accept cash or card.”

Thor frowned, “‘cash or card’? I do not understand.”

“Glad to see nothing’s changed.” said Loki, smirking, before plopping himself down on a chair with much more confidence than he felt.

Natasha took the seat next to him, with Clint on his other side, just as a familiar bulky blonde stepped through the door, a shorter man following him, Bruce looking vaguely annoyed, tapping at his StarkPad.

“Healer Banner!”

Loki watched with a raised eyebrow as his brother perked up, the blonde sitting straighter in the chair he’d chosen, watching the doctor with… puppy eyes?
Huh, that was a… development, certainly.

“Hmm? Oh hi Thor. And it’s, uh, Doctor, not healer.”

Thor frowned, “Do they not mean the same?”

“Not really, no. I have seven Ph.D, none of them medicinal.”

“Ah, I see.” said Thor, in a tone that said he saw nothing whatsoever.

“Thor.” greeted Steve, “It’s been a while.”

The taller blonde patted Steve on the shoulder, and somehow he managed not to buckle under the weight.
“Indeed it has, Captain of the Americas. Four months is a long while to spend without one’s brother.”

There was a slight pause.
“Ah, uh, Point Break?”

“Yes Stark?”

“Did you say four months?”

Thor frowned, clearly confused, “Yes I did. Why are you all looking at me like that.”

“Because it’s been a year for us.”

There was another pause. Then, “Haahahahah! This is one of your ‘practical jokes’, yes? Did Loki put you up to this?”

Looks were exchanged. “No Thor,” said Natasha carefully, “Tony’s being serious. It’s been almost a year for us.”

An unfamiliar look began to press into the corners of Thor’s eyes. One that Loki had seen so seldom on the older man’s face. Fear.

“Surely not. The time difference between Asgard and Midgard is noticeable indeed, but the Bifrost compensates for time lost. At most I should be a few weeks ahead.”

“Who fixed the Bifrost?”

“Why would that matter, brother?”

“You wouldn’t understand. Just tell me who.”

Thor set his lips in a stubborn line, “Brother, you forget I attended the same lessons as you. What is the importance of the mechanic?”

Lokki sighed, “Fine! Have it your way. The mechanic who fixed it matters because depending on whether or not they used seidr or pure physics, there’s a very good chance they didn’t factor in time slippage caused by the weight of Yddrasil’s branches for other realms, which would make the time stream unstable and result in the time difference being extreme for both sides. And that’s the best possible option. The worst includes the time difference itself not only being different, but constantly changing, which if one was travelling through the Bifrost at the time, could result in the genetic sequence of their DNA being rearranged through the sheer force of the slippage.”

“...English please?”

“No, that makes sense,” said Bruce, nodding over Clint’s confusion and Thor’s blank look., “That would make sense, especially considering the danger’s anyway. And it would also answer for the missed landing.”

“See!” said Loki, “Someone understands me.”

“If you were right, brother, how would we fix it?”

Loki shrugged, “Sigyn’s the best when it comes to this stuff, you’d do well to contact her.”

Thor’s brow rumpled in concentration, “Sigyn… ah your paramour!”

Loki groaned, leaning his head back in exasperation, “Thor, we’ve spoken about this. Sigyn and I are friends, not lovers. We went to school together, not slept together.”

“But -”

“Thor, no. Just because you’ve only been able to keep one female friend in your life without sleeping with her doesn’t mean everyone isn’t capable of such a thing. As I was saying, I believe Sigyn is teaching at one of the schools of Vanaheim, in the poorer districts. When you return, take a detour to Vanaheim and ask for her at the castle. Say that I’ve sent you, and someone will get a message to her.”

Thor shifted minutely, but enough to make Loki sit back up. “What is it?” he asked.

Thor shifted again, and Loki narrowed his eyes, “Thor. What are you hiding?”

“Nothing brother! I just wanted to catch up with you a little more before we had to-”

“What does Odin want?” Loki cut off flatly, face stony.

Thor jumped, guilt across his face like a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
“Loki-” he tried.

“I know that look, Thor, and I know the AllFather.
The only reason you were allowed to return here was because your father wants something from me.”

Sorrow flickered across Thor’s face, “He used to be our father.”

“And I used to be a fool. I guess a lot has changed. Brother.”

“Loki-”

“No. Whatever Odin wants, he can come and ask it himself. It’s that fucking important, I’m sure he won’t mind a little jaunt down to one of the ‘lesser’ planets. Hmm?”

The others sat there, watching the brothers stare each other down, Loki cold, and Thor still looking repentant.
Natasha casually rested her hand on a pocket of her jacket, fiddling with the vial of paralytic venom that lay within. If Thor made one wrong move, he’d be down and out in seconds.

“Loki. Please. Father wants to talk. I’ve told him what transpired during both the attack and your time… away and… he wants to reconcile. He wants the truth to be told. And to tell the truth.”

Loki was halfway through an eye-roll, and a witty retort on his tongue when Thor dropped the bombshell.

“And Mother misses you.”

He froze. Odin was not his father anymore. He’d made that crystal clear. And Loki was more than happy to stand in front of the man and tell him so. But Frigga? He didn’t think he had the strength.

Odin had never been a father. Not really. Sure, he’d gone through the motions, had played his part to perfection, but unlike Thor, Loki had always known on some level that while he might be needed, he wasn’t wanted.

Frigga, on the other hand, had always been his mother.
She’d been the one to bandage skinned knees, and kiss him goodnight. She’d taught him that his seidr was natural, and a part of him that despite what others would say, was beautiful.
When he’d been insulted, and pushed down simply because he was different, she’d read him stories about the great Warlocks and Mages of Asgard, standing on the front lines of ancient wars.

At one point in his life, Frigga had been his world.
And now he was frozen, blood filling his ears, rushing past like the river that was dragging him under, the water smothering his mouth, his nose, filling his head.

“-ki? -oki? Loki?”

“What?” he managed, blinking rapidly, startling as he suddenly registered the red-head in front of him Natasha using her body to shield him from his brother, who was half stood up, and looking over at Loki with wide eyes.

“How long was I gone?” he muttered, just loud enough for Natasha to hear.

“Fifteen seconds max,” she whispered back, and his shoulders dropped in relief.

His therapist had described it as a defence mechanism of sorts - when the world was too much, and his brain couldn’t keep up with the pace, it would shut itself off.
The black-outs could last anywhere from a few seconds, when he would find himself somewhere and not quite be able to remember why he was there, or at their worst, days, when he would wake up to find himself in the Medbay, or in his room with Elena, Clint or Natasha hovering over him.

“Loki!” said Thor. Well, yelled would be more accurate, but then again Thor yelled everything, so there really wasn’t much of a difference.

“Lady Natasha! What is wrong with my brother!” the blonde demanded, rising from his seat entirely, before being blocked by Tony and Clint.

In the chaos, Loki could’ve sworn that for a moment Steve had ignored the rising conflict in favour of tapping on his phone, but the next instant the man was standing as well, no phone in sight.

“Let’s all just calm down now,” said the man, using his ‘Captain’ voice, and one by one everyone returned to their seats, Loki’s leg jiggling, Natasha looking one step from tasing Thor, and Thor looking equal parts guilty, worried and nervous.

“Better,” said Steve, still looking and sounding like a teacher scolding his misbehaving class, “Now, this is what’s going to happen. Thor, you’re going to explain exactly what you were sent to do. And then Loki, you’re going to make a decision based on that. And whatever decision is made, will be respected, agreed?”

Thor hesitated a moment, but eventually bowed his head, “I was sent here by Father, as I said, to return Loki to Asgard. Father wishes to mend the rift between us.”

“I’m not interested.” There is little point in trying to make amends with Odin, even if he does want to. He’ll just be ignored, and have to meet Odin far past halfway, because that is how this sort of thing always goes.

“Mother wants to see you,” Thor replies, and the guilt in his eyes says everything. He knows that it will make Loki reconsider, and he’s right; it does.

“No.” he says again, before he gives himself a chance to think otherwise.

“Loki, please, just come home,” Thor leant forward in hischair, placed his head into his hands.

“My home is here. These people are my family, not Odin.”

“Then am I not your brother?” he looks up, but Loki looks away. He can’t-

“I don’t know,” he replies, and it feels like the most honest answer.

Hurt flickers across Thor’s face, but Loki knows better than he once did.
His entire life had been spent making accommodations for others. It had taken him twelve years of living on Midgard, of being taught that he mattered and that he was important, to finally put down that burden.
He wouldn’t let Odin take that from him.
Not again.

Thor drew himself up, “I beg you, Loki, reconsider. It is for your own good.”

And then Loki snaps.

“No it is not,” he hisses, teeth bared, “Don’t you dare claim to be doing this for me. You are doing it because you can’t bear to disobey your precious father’s orders.”

Loki waited. Waited for the snap back, for the crackle of lightning, for the denial.

Instead, he received an apology.

“Loki, I am so, so sorry for what I did. You are entirely correct. For too long I lived by father’s word. I didn’t even dream of thinking for myself. I took his word as law, and for that I apologise. Not that it gives me an excuse, but I never realised how you felt - how I made you feel. I never intended to cast that shadow across you, but I did, and for that, I am sorry.
You need more space than I have given you, and I apologise - to you, as well, friends - for intruding without warning.
I will return now, to Asgard.
Father will be informed of your decision to remain, and I will not let him chase after you again.
I -” Thor hesitated, “I hope in time you might wish for me to rejoin your side, in whatever way you need.
Let- send a message, when you are ready.
I will take my leave now.”

Thor rose, as Loki sat back down in his seat, unable to quite comprehend the words his brother had never told him before.

“Thor-” he started, not sure what he was going to say, but unable to leave the silence as it was.

The good news was that he never had to figure out what the rest of that sentence was going to be.

The bad news was that the two of them, in a flash of light and a boom of thunder, promptly disappeared into the branches of Yggdrasil, Loki’s seidr resisting futilely as he was dragged along.

The last he heard, before they were gone entirely, was a muffled cry of-

“MY ROOF!”