The fight
Morning finds the three harrowed souls in the kitchen. Tony leaning over the kitchen counter sipping from what may or may not be a coffee mug full of wine, Bruce on a bean bag not far from Tony swiping through his findings on a Stark-pad, and Loki lounging on a couch behind Bruce looking over his shoulder at their own results. It’s rather interesting the way midgardians calculate the body after all, and as far as Loki is aware, their numbers are off just about every chart they’ve been compared to.
That's how Natasha and Thor find them all, in a little bubble of trust that makes them seem like old friends. They all turn their heads to look at their entrance, Natasha practically dragging Thor into the room. Thor looks stiff and uncomfortable, about to do something he’d really rather not do, and Natasha deposits him off in front of Loki and Bruce with the full intention to make him apologize, saying,
“Looks like you boys have been busy. Did you stay up all night?”
“Yes.” Is what Bruce and Tony say with silent smirks on their faces.
“Loki showed us something cool and then we had a science threesome, just like, without the sex. And with way more excited proclamations of OOH LOOK WHAT I FOUND!” Tony says, and Loki raises their hand.
“Not a boy. Not right now.”
“She?”
“Nope.”
“They?
“Yep.”
Natasha nods with a smile, and asks what Loki had shown them that was worth staying up all night. Tony responds with,
“They showed us their Jotun form!”
It quickly becomes obvious that that was not the right thing to say, as Loki’s face sours and their eyes flick up to Thor’s own fastly narrowing ones. The look of disdain on his face only grows when Loki doesn’t break eye contact, and Thor, not willing to back down, only stares harder. Natasha stares back and forth between the two, waiting to see who will break first, but neither does. The room is slowly filling with almost tangible electricity, and Natasha decides when a jolt runs up her spine to interrupt the flow.
“What does that mean? Thor,” She says, turning to him. “What's wrong with that?” Thor’s grimace deepens, and a slight growl leaves his lips before he talks, as if he can't hold it in.
“It means that Loki has done something he never should have done! What were you thinking!”
Thor turns back to Loki, and a look that Natasha has come to realize as a mask slips over their face. Their eyebrows relax in a nonchalant manner, face going slack except for a small eye twitch that gives away their annoyance. Either anger and spite or sass and cold disregard are the shapes of the faces Loki puts on when they don’t want to show the emotion beyond it. The switch is always sudden and calculated, a lifetime of having to do it perfecting the change as if the look had been on their face the whole time. It was subtle, is subtle. Unless you were trained from an equally young age to see that kind of thing in any and every conversation, around every corner and on any screen. The look only grows more forced as Thor continues.
“Reckless! Uncalled for! Absolutely crazy! You know he has Heimdall’s eyes on you! What part of showing humans your galling Jotun magics seemed like a good idea! They saw you! Which means Heimdall saw you, which means the All-father saw you! He will not take kindly to that. Do not expect him to go easy on you this time.”
The last part is almost hissed out from under Thor's rage, and when it is Natasha can see Loki’s shell crack. They stand up from the couch, and walk about six feet away from Thor to glower at him better.
“This time???? Go easy on me? When has he ever done that! I know what he thinks of me, I know what you think of me and what I am, but if he had not wanted the trouble then he should not have stolen me in the first place! Over a thousand years of listening to the stories parents tell their children about the monsters Jotuns must be, the plays and books and history lessons that painted them in such a horrid light only to find out I am one? They use my name as a slur and grind my existence into a paste they can put in a jar and easily label as rotten. One they don’t care about, so they can throw it away like overdue milk. They beat their blood and spite into my bones regardless of my crimes, of which were for the most part not true. Lies told by my so-called betters that tore me to the ground. Well I built myself back up, no thanks to you or that slag heap of a person you call father, all on my own! I hardened myself to better my life, and I lost myself in the grindstone. The one thing that pulled me out, the one thing that saved my soul from the ashes and the rubble of my own mind and flesh was ripped away from me, by you and the one you swear sired me as well just for being what you always hoped I would cover up. I am done playing the fool, Thor. I am done covering for you and your fathers blatant racism, and I am done hiding from what I've always been. You may have been holding on but you as close as threw me off that bridge, and the All father did nothing but watch. In fact he forbade you from doing a single thing to save me! “Let him go,” he said, smirking as I fell! That day he told me I was nothing but a political pawn, had been all along. That day he stopped having any say over what I do. You say he’s bound to know? Good! Maybe then he’ll realize that he and you truly lost any and all authority you had over me way before what happened on the Bi-frost!”
“We all mourned once you fell! None more than father! He has done nothing but feed you and clothe you and raise you under the guise of being one of his own! You are a prince of Asgard for norns sakes! You have no reason, nor have you ever had any reason to hate him! Hate me! But you make it continually hard for us to let you have your rightful place, and we have still afforded you every opportunity to do so. What could possibly make you loathe us so?”
Loki is in Thor’s face now, and Tony has gone straight as a board at the kitchen counter, anticipating a fight.
“Was it giving me the opportunity when I wasn’t allowed to make any decisions about where I was allowed to go or what I was allowed to do or say?”
Natasha sees the tick in Loki’s eye go off again, sees every muscle in their body clench and unclench with fury.
“Was it giving me the opportunity when he told me I should hide who I am for the sake of others?”
A green aura shimmers violently on and off around them, and it almost has a glitching effect on Loki’s body. Through the glitches Natasha can see their skin, blue, than tan, than wrinkled than gone, leaving only the bone. Different patches of Loki, on and off, here and there recede and expand through the green lens, though Natasha doubts the Loki on the other side of it has changed at all. As disturbing as that sight is, the really unnerving thing is that with every passing second the angrier Loki grows the more a tremor starts to build throughout the tower. A cup starts to shake on the kitchen table, Bruce slides a little farther off his bean bag, and Natashas nerve starts to shake loose, not sure whatever's going on is safe any longer. The feeling only deepens when an audible groan comes from the building, the green aura taking the shape of a fire around Loki’s body as they march their way furiously towards Thor, grabbing him by the shirt collar and lifting him a few inches off the floor. Their voice is deadly quiet now, only barely hearable to the gang above the creaking coming from the walls.
“Was it even giving me the slightest sliver of an opportunity, oh dear brother,” The words are spat out mockingly, venom boiling over in Loki’s blood. “When you took them away from me?”
It seems as if time almost stops at that sentence. So much grief seeps out of Loki’s voice, that Tony can’t help but feel a pang of pain over the metal stuck in his skin, and directly over his heart is where it nestles itself, comfortable to make itself at home there. Bruce can only stare, blinking as though he’s seeing a mirage, and Natasha can’t do much more than that. The heaviness of the mood in the room is such that it holds everyone not currently yelling at each other in place, subject to the racing of their own heart and the beating of the blood in their veins.
But the only thing Thor seems chained to is the confused look on his face. He stares down, deep into the hateful eyes leering back at him, daring him to speak and croaks out a,
“What are you talking about?”
All at once the heat is sucked out of the air and the building stops shaking, the green surrounding Loki shoots back into them as fast as it erupted out. Loki drops Thor, and he crumples on his knees to the floor, rubbing at his neck with a large hand. For an agonizing couple of seconds, Loki does little more than peer into Thor’s soul, rooting about as if to dig up hidden answers or buried memories. He makes a little swipe of his finger, for even amidst all the chaos Natasha can tell he is he once more, and Thor’s eyes go white for a second before returning to their normal green, and he shakes his head a bit to clear it up of any residual fuzz he feels.
Loki starts laughing, the kind of laugh that ticks off a box one should tick off when expecting to get shived. A tense quiet falls over the rest of the room while Loki laughs, until he pulls his palms away from his eyes and Natasha realizes that he’s crying. Tears run down his cheeks even though he still won’t stop laughing, and then he does, the humor fading away into soft little sniffles.
“That's really not fair…” He says, putting his weight on one knee and bending the other leg in front of Thor.
“You really, truly don’t remember what you did… Odin scrubbed it straight out of your mind… Go figure, I finally get a chance to tear you a new one over it and you don’t FUCKING REMEMBER!”
Thor just watches Loki rage like he’d never seen him so angry before. And he hasn’t. Not once in his life has he seen Loki as angry as he is now. All because he doesn’t remember something. Suddenly, images flash through his mind. They’re blurry, uneven images that flit by quickly and leave him with nothing but a feeling of dread, but he can tell they're horrendous. And all of a sudden he realizes he needs to know. He isn’t remembering. No, can’t remember. Something stops him every time he tries, a mental block he’s not powerful enough to leap over or break through. So he turns to the only source of information he has, and asks.
“Loki.”
“No.”
“Loki.”
“No!”
Loki snaps around, lower lip wobbling, dangerously close to breaking down, and full of rage and fear. Still, Thor presses on.
“Loki, I need to know.”
“I…”
“Loki, please, what did I do? What did he make me do to you!”
“I- it’s not…”
“You said I took them away from you. Who did I take?”
“Please… I can’t-”
“Who Loki!”
“I-”
“Who.”
“I-!”
“Who Loki!?!? Who!”
“MY CHILDREN! MY CHILDREN, THOR! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?”
Thor is not happy. Not happy in the slightest. A wave of anguish ripples out from Loki and takes hold of everyone in the room, and suddenly Natasha, Thor, Bruce, and Tony can feel Loki’s pain. It’s debilitating, the pang in Tony’s heart that's turned to a sharp stabbing sensation making him crouch on the floor suddenly. Bruce can’t help the tears forming at his water lines, and Natasha feels as if she’d rather be anywhere but there. Thor just stares through Loki, past him and past the skyline, as if something awaits him on the other side of the universe. And when he does respond, his voice is cracked and marred with pain.
“What happened? Tell me.”
“Are you sure you want to kno-”
“Yes. Yes I'm sure! I have to know!”
“Fine.” Loki takes a deep breath, and in with it he seems to inhale the force of the world.
“The one time I had something. The one time I was happy, Odin ordered it away. He ordered you to help, and at the time you were the only one who could. You were the one who…” His voice cracks, gravely and heavy under the weight of his words.
“You held me down when they took them away.”
Thor lets out a strangled noise, terrorized by the thought.
“What happened to them.”
Loki looks down on him with a pity that makes Thor want to hit something, pacing around him slowly .
“Odin threw Jormungandr in the ocean. He was the first to be “disposed of”. They decided he wasn’t even worth fully taking care of and tossed him to midgard, where a thousand bigger things could deal with him instead.”
Thors face pales.
“They took Fenrir, and they shackled him where no one would ever find him. Bound him in chains he’d never break and stuck a sword right through his mouth so he couldn’t cry for help. Of course this wasn’t before they gained his trust and made him think they were on his side. Only then in true Asgradian fashion did they stab him in the back.”
A strange, hateful feeling wells up in Thors heart, memories returning one by one. God how he wishes they were fuzzy and distant once again.
“They took Hela, my sweet girl, and gave her reign over the land of the dead. A child, a small, defenceless, clueless child sits upon the throne of Niflheim. She’s surrounded by no one but the dead, condemned to live out her days alone and unreachable. She, at least, is a Queen. She has lee-way, and at this point her power might even rival Odins. That was his only mistake. The rest were not so lucky.”
Thor’s heart is pounding now with fury, and his throat burns with words he wishes he could say.
“My son, Slipneir. He’s now being raised in the stables as Odin's damnable war horse. The only way I could protect him from a greater evil was to endear him to Odin. Make him seem useful. In doing so I had unwittingly condemned him to an existence not unlikened to a slave. And the twins, Vali and Narfi.”
An evil look sets itself onto Loki’s face, twisted and horrible.
“Odin took them, and in front of my eyes he turned one into a rabid wolf. He laughed, praising his own genius as one killed the other, and instead of leaving him alone, as the beast he had turned Narfi into obviously wasn’t enough punishment, he slew him and kept his guts as a prize. Or so I thought. That would have been so much better than the truth.”
Natasha cups her hands over her mouth, almost wanting to throw up. Loki’s telling of what had happened drawing up images in her mind no one should ever have to see, let alone experience. Bruce and Tony aren’t doing any better either. Bruce’s face is squished up so tightly it looks as if he’ll pop, and green is starting to creep it’s way up his neck. Tony is barely there, clutching his heart through his shirt and shaking his head rapidly as if that will stop the pain. And still, Loki isn’t done.
“And where did I end up? Well. He chose a cave. A cave far down into the ground, so no one could find me, but so cavernouse that he could still hear my screams if he wanted to. He set me down there with a giant poisonous snake right over my head, and every day for years it dripped venom into my eyes. For years. The only company I had was my wife, who was given a small bowl to keep the poison out of my face. But the bowl was always too small, too full, to something, and it was never enough. My wife was innocent, and yet she was made to suffer because I was happy for once. And Odin couldn’t leave it there. He had to add one final bit to his masterpiece! I could not escape, not for lack of trying. I was bound in that cave. Bound to a rock for years, with the hardened guts of my own son whom he’d saved for the very occasion. Eventually he let me out. I had learned my lesson, which just meant that I was now ready to listen to whatever he said without debate. And I did, until the rage and the hate got to be too much, and I found little ways to rebel. All this, all this pain and suffering because I was their parent. And you helped in that pain. Well, now I know Odin was controlling you. Obviously a ploy to show me I truly had no one left that would help me. But you asked what you did, and what you did is as I have said.”
This time someone does throw up, but it isn’t Natasha. It’s Thor. Horror and disgust mix on his face, the fact that he had a hand in the torture Loki was put through registering in his mind. Loki looks satisfied almost, but tears still stream down his face, and the pain Natasha feels doesn’t go away. Loki stops his pacing, and wiping a sleeve on his cheek he looks down, then announces,
“Excuse me. It would seem my mask broke.”
Natasha can almost swear he looks straight at her when he says that, but at this point she doesn’t care, she just wants it to be over. And she sort of gets her wish when Loki leaves the room, headed for his own. He could really use that sleep he missed last night, and he intends to get it no matter what world ending event he has to sleep through to do it.
Thor however, as soon as he leaves the room, picks himself off the floor and stomps over to the balcony connected to the living space. He doesn’t look back at the group, only says,
“I am leaving. I need to have words with my father.”
Before a lightning bolt flashes and a clap of thunder is heard in the distance, and then he’s gone. Natashsa rights herself, going to check on Tony who is still on the floor clutching his chest. He stares off into space, undoubtedly as mentally drained as she is. She offers him a hand, and he takes it, seeing Bruce approach from the right. Bruce asks,
“What do we… what do we do with that information?”
Tony just shakes his head in disbelief. Natasha turns to Bruce, and puts her hand on his shoulder.
“We listen. We listen, and we help.”