Chapter 1
Loki let the look of cold rage fall from his face as the elevator doors closed in front of them.
“What is a mata hari?” he turned to ask Steve.
Romanoff and Barton were still beside them, curious about the scene they had just witnessed. Loki thought they looked quite adorable in their matching black and purple sparring garb.
“Oh, she was a spy – or now they’re thinking maybe she was just framed as a spy – in World War One. A dancer, sort of an exotic dancer. She was executed by firing squad,” Steve answered, “Hey, this movie night is my choice, I’ll have ATHENA find us the movie. Greta Garbo, Ramon Navarro. It was very popular, but I never actually saw it.”
A seductress and a spy? Loki had certainly expected to be compared to something worse.
“What the hell’s going on anyway?” Barton asked Loki, “You tryin’ to snag Tony’s man?”
Romanoff snickered.
Loki’s eyes widened in affront, “You accuse me of taking back a gift once given? Be careful, Barton, or we will have a second balancing-by-blood on our hands.”
“Doesn’t bother me,” Barton smirked, “I thought you looked pretty cute as a bloody pulp.”
“The impudence!” Loki hissed to Steve, as Steve forcibly dragged him away by an elbow.
Once they were in a second elevator by themselves, Steve smiled at him.
“Trading insults, huh? You know, I wouldn’t have thought it possible in a million years, but it looks like Clint’s starting to warm up to you.”
Loki unbent his brows, “This is hardly the first time I have had cause to befriend a deadly enemy. Agent Barton’s generous nature is only making it rather easier than usual. The next step will be to get disgustingly drunk with him.” He looked across the elevator at Steve. The man looked delectable in his “civvies” as he called them; a tartan shirt and the “khakis” that Stark never ceased mocking.
Steve was smiling, ruddy-cheeked, his eyes twinkling. Norns, Loki could hardly keep his hands off the confounding Midgardian.
“Was there some reason you were looking for me?” Loki asked, giving his voice just the right hint of sultriness. Yes, there it was; the beautiful blush that was never more than a few words away from sweeping over Captain Rogers.
Steve had to clear his throat. “Yeah, I wanted to ask if you’d have lunch with me,” he glanced at his wrist-chronometer, “But it looks like we don’t have time now.”
Loki groaned internally. Why had he ever agreed to this?
“Never mind my appointment,” he said, still sultry, to Steve, “I would much rather have an intimate meal with you.”
Steve’s smile vanished instantly, to be replaced with a no-nonsense Captain America expression. “Loki…” he said warningly.
“But, Rogers, I hate it,” Loki whined.
Steve crossed his arms, “You hate it because it’s working. Because she makes you face your feelings and address them. Believe me, I wasn’t too keen on going to my appointments either, when I first got here, but now I think it’s the thing that has done me the most good. Well - ” he glanced down shyly.
“Well?” Loki needled him, moving in closer.
Steve stuttered charmingly, “Th-that – and you.”
Loki stepped in until they were practically groin to groin, and made his voice velvety “Oh, you think what I am doing is good?”
Steve’s hands came to rest on his forearms, neither clinging nor pushing away. “I only know that I’ve been happier since-”
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open to reveal the towering bulk of Thor, nearly filling the doorway. He swept an evaluating - almost warning – look over Steve, and then said boomingly to Loki, “Come, brother, the crone awaits!”
This was why Loki had been particularly dreading today’s therapy session; the Levitt had ordained that he and Thor would receive “family counseling” together.
It was one thing for Loki to carefully hint at some of his secrets to the Levitt, a total stranger, a wizened elder, and a professional hearer and keeper of secrets. But to spill any amount of his truth before his brother, the perfect shining hero, Thor – the very idea horrified Loki.
Numbly, he allowed Thor to throw an arm around his shoulders and lead him away from Steve, and towards the panic-inducing door to the crone’s consulting chamber.
There was so much that Thor mustn’t know, that Thor must never hear, nor even suspect. And yet, mere minutes into their “family counseling” Loki found himself being brutally cornered into just such a topic.
“So, Loki,” the wise-woman was saying, “There’s a question that Thor has asked again and again in our therapy sessions, and I’ve always told him that only you could answer it. He wants to ask you now, if that would be okay with you.”
Loki knew perfectly well what the question would be. He had in fact heard Thor asking it of the Levitt many times over the past year and a half. He still had no idea how to answer it.
Evidently taking Loki’s prolonged silence for acquiescence, the Levitt urged Thor on. “Go ahead, Thor. He’s listening.”
Thor was frowning down at his own hands, which were clenching and unclenching on his thighs. “Brother…” he said slowly, before grinding to a halt. He seemed almost as paralyzed as Loki.
Loki’s lips thinned as he glared at the hateful, calm, complacent little crone. He could throttle her, for upsetting the delicate balance that he had been surviving in. Perhaps he would throttle her. “He wants to know why I tried to kill him with the Destroyer,” he growled at her.
Thor shifted uncomfortably beside Loki. “I am sure that you had your reasons, brother. I only wish to know what they were. It will help me to be a better brother to you.”
Loki turned to stare at him. They were seated an arm’s-length apart on the wine-colored couch. Thor was still looking at his own hands, which had closed into tight fists. His jaw was clenched but, horribly, his chin was wobbling very slightly.
Something vicious awoke in Loki. “You wish to be a better brother to me, Thunderer?” he sneered.
Thor nodded miserably, but still wouldn’t meet Loki’s eyes.
“Why?!” Loki yelled at him. “Why be any kind of brother at all to your own deadliest enemy, you unutterable fool?! I am a madman, a monster, your own would-be-murderer!” He felt furiously angry, all of a sudden. It was very trying, to have such an idiot for an only brother.
Thor swallowed, and said in a subdued voice, “You are hard, Loki, and devious, and sometimes cruel. But you are not unjust. I must have done something to deserve your wrath. I only beg you to tell me what it was, so that I may make amends.”
Loki laughed contemptuously. “What could golden, perfect Thor do to deserve punishment from wicked, twisted Loki? You are talking nonsense.”
“Please tell me, Loki,” Thor whispered, “I am begging you.” He was looking at the side of Loki’s face now, and it was Loki who couldn’t bear to meet his eyes.
“You had done nothing, you moron, don’t you understand? You had to die to prevent-” He choked himself off, leveling his most murderous look at the little crone. Yes, decidedly, a good throttling, and then he would flay her and hang her by her own intestines from the highest part of the Tower, a warning to all passers-by of the costs of meddling–
“Prevent what?” she asked gently. She paused to let him answer if he would. He said nothing, waiting in dread for her to say it.
Finally, she did. “To prevent him from learning something?”
There was another pause, and then a sharp intake of breath from Thor.
“You tried to kill me before I could learn that you are Jotun?”
He sounded so stupidly astonished. Loki began to shake with rage.
“But why?” Thor asked tearfully, “Did you think that I would care?”
“Scant days before, I had stood not five paces from you while you swore that you would never rest until every last Jotun was dead.” Loki was still looking at the Levitt. He had no idea what expression his own face wore; he had not yet recovered his mastery of masks.
Thor gave a muffled sob. “Did you believe that I would kill you, when I learned the truth?”
Loki was shaking even harder now, and he was no longer entirely sure that it was due to rage. He didn’t know what to say. Actually, Thor killing him had been the least of his worries, at that time. He had been ready to welcome death.
Like the pestilential creature that she was, the Levitt had to prod, “Is that it, Loki? You were afraid that Thor would kill you?”
Almost against his will, Loki shook his head.
“No?” she said, “You had another reason?”
Slowly, speaking to her rather than Thor, Loki heard himself explaining. “Thor was the last person alive who loved me. I needed him to die before he stopped.” It was so obvious, he couldn’t believe he was explaining it, but then, Thor had always been remarkable for his slowness.
“You needed him to die…to keep his love alive?”
“It was the only way,” Loki snarled, hunkering down defensively. “I would rather see him in his grave, than – than see – than have to see-” It was becoming difficult to breathe, so he stopped speaking to focus on that instead. His only reasonably secure alliance now lying in shattered fragments at his feet, Loki began to frantically reformulate all of his plans: he could never hope to defeat Odin alone - Thanos would come, inevitably - he would have to run - run and hide - no, would it not be safer simply to die? - yes, perhaps if he world-walked right into a sun, surely that could accomplish what nothing else so far had been able to achieve–
A huge, warm hand closed over the back of Loki’s neck. Before he had gathered the wherewithal to move, he was being inexorably drawn into a tight hug. He blinked against Thor’s massive shoulder, feeling Thor’s shuddering sobs travel through his own flesh. His furiously plotting mind wandered to a halt, like a person in a labyrinth who has just realized that they were going in circles.
“Unkillable is my love for thee, little Loki,” Thor was murmuring wetly, “Thou art my brother, first, foremost, and always. Never doubt it again.”
Surely there was something Loki was supposed to be doing right now, some fight he should be fighting, some plan that needed planning, some struggle that should be sucking him down into the quagmire once more. But, for the life of him, Loki couldn’t think what it was. He seemed to be temporarily infected with Thor’s own beef-headed idiocy. He lay still and docile, feeling strangely un-Loki-like, just breathing in the scent of Thor’s golden hair.
After a good many long, unthinking minutes, Loki felt himself being released.
Thor accepted a soft paper from the crone, and dabbed at his eyes and nose with it.
“Loki,” asked the wise-woman, “Is there anything you would like to say to Thor?”
“If Odin and our mother had placed a poisonous serpent into your arms and told you it was your brother, would you have loved it?” He had intended to sound waspish, but he lacked the proper energy.
“Aye,” said Thor, into his snot-rag.
“Then you are an imbecile.”
Thor chuckled. “Aye.”
Loki looked at him with narrow eyes, and Thor gave him a damp, shy smile.
“At any rate, I am glad my efforts failed on that occasion,” Loki said, narrowing his eyes even further, to make sure that his own face didn’t look anywhere near as soppy as Thor’s. “It turns out I still have use for you.”
Thor’s smile grew into something sure and sunny, as if Loki’s words were the kindest he had ever heard. “Then I am indeed fortunate.”
The Levitt suddenly clapped her hands together, “Well! This has been very productive, but let’s not over-do it. Thor, you’re dismissed. Loki, you stay.”
Loki’s jaw actually dropped a bit. Did the little mortal understand that they were princes, not to mention gods? He knew that Midgardians, especially the North American variety, had almost no notion of royalty, and very strange notions of god-hood, but he had never heard anyone except Odin actually “dismiss” Thor. If any of them survived the month, he would ask his mother to send an etiquette master to tutor the benighted inhabitants of this Tower.
Thor, however, took the outrage with his usual bovine good-humor. “Until Thursday’s session, then, Doctor Levitt, and thank you.” He grinned as he closed the door behind himself, “Good luck to thee, brother.”