The first peice
As far as Loki is concerned, he has all the strength in the world. He’s the happiest person on Earth, and could run a thousand miles without breaking a sweat.
As far as Tony is concerned, he’s bleeding from his eyes, nose, and ears.
Tony, doing the best he can with the waves crashing harshley on the boat making it sway and rock endlessly, wipes the blood as it comes. Loki assures him that this is fine, that he has just used too much power too soon, and that it will pass, but Tony doesn’t want to hear it. Loki had refused to move or take his arms off of the curled up mass of snake now sleeping in his lap and draped across his chest, scaled down to fit, for even one second. So Tony, knowing he would lose this particular battle and figuring this was not the hill he wanted to die on, had settled for wiping the blood away himself.
Not that he wants to ruin the cuddle pile happening when it’s the first time Loki’s seeing his son in literally thousands of years. That's the last thing he wants. But one would think that the bad sign of blood coming out from almost every part of your face may prompt you to act a bit more urgently.
Tony finishes and tosses yet another bloody napkin into the trash receptacle built into the jet. The bleeding has stopped, and Loki gives him a “told you so” kind of look, to which Tony gives him the finger and promptly walks away to the sound of Loki’s muted chuckling. Eyeing up the second seat in the front of the jet, Tony scoots around a few things and sits himself down. He turns to Natasha.
“I haven’t seen Loki that relaxed ever. Not even asleep.”
“You watch him while he sleeps?”
“No! Security checks Nat! Jeez!”
“Creep…”
She laughs lightly at the cry of outrage that comes from Tony, the two settling into a comfortable silence for a few seconds.
“Really though. The dude can’t even sleep without looking like he’s gonna have a nervous breakdown at any second. I can tell he tries to hide it, and to anyone else it probably works. But… just look at him.”
Natasha pushes a button, setting the plane to autopilot, before turning around. Her eyes land on Loki, legs criss crossed on the floor as he leans hunched over his son. Jormungandr’s tail is wrapped loosely once around his neck, and it disappears somewhere in his curled up body that rests in Loki’s lap almost perfectly. Loki is stroking his son’s head as he sleeps, and Natasha can vaguely hear him singing softly in a tongue she can’t understand, although it sounds like a lullaby.
He looks at peace, and most importantly he looks like he believes he’s safe. When he’s all curled up like that, eyes soft and unfocused, Natasha finds it hard to believe the fragile, broken man she has come to know is actually on the inside of the calm shell.
And Loki, well he has more important things to worry about. He can vaguely register how uncomfortable he is on the cold floor of the plane. It doesn’t matter though. While the small pets he makes down Jormungandr’s back are for soothing the boy and for keeping him asleep, there's another reason he can’t stop. He needs to feel it, needs to know it's there. It’s selfish, and a bit obsessive, he knows. But the steady beat of his son’s heart proves to him that he’s there, he’s alive.
He’s alive.
And the every slight shift of scales against Loki’s skin proves to him that he’s still breathing. In that moment, Loki finds that's all he needs. He shifts his weight to one side, jostling Jor’s head a bit on his knee, and watches in silence as his son curls in closer towards him before slowly opening his eyes and groggily yawning, snake form shifting and changing until the same boy from before is revealed.
Without the sea spray and the violent winds, Tony can get a better look at Jormungandr. His face is angular, sharp and thin, but not gaunt looking.
At a passing glance, you wouldn’t think Loki had anything to do with him genetically, but when Tony looks closer into the details of his face it becomes clear to him what traits he got from his father.
He sees Loki in the way mischief hleams in Jormungandr’s eyes, and in the way the edges of his lips curl when he speaks. The resemblance is less in the face, and more in the expressions the face makes. His mannerisms and almost effortless existence are reminiscent of the trickster god in ways too deep to be coincidence.
His hair, which falls about shoulder length and sparkles a pure white color, seems to shimmer in the light as does his skin. It too is pale, but it has a sort of blue tint to it, leaving him with an ever present sky blue skin tone. It’s not as deep as the blue on Loki’s skin when he’s in his Jotun form, but it sparkles just as bright. Every movement he makes is fluid. Whether it’s moving his limbs or simply blinking, he does it with grace.
He lays at a weird angle, his legs off to the side and facing up, while his torso and upper half face towards Loki. He looks almost as if someone snapped his spine and rotated him around to be the way he is, or like a contortionist in a circus, but Loki doesn’t seem to be unnerved by that in the slightest. He just cups a hand on Jor’s cheek and pulling him in he touches their foreheads together. Tony and Natasha, now privy to the knowledge of personal energies, seídr, and how to see them, can notice the shimmer that passes around the two of them like a cocoon. To Tony, it looks almost like a sort of code or transmission, as neither talks but both seem to understand what's happening between them.
When Jor does speak, his voice is more normal than Tony expected. He sounds just like how any teen would sound, just not one from America as his accent is from somewhere neither Tony nor Natasha can pinpoint.
“Your…”
Jormungandr breaks down into a coughing fit. His voice is barely audible, scratchy and painful to hear. Not only does it sound painful, but it looks painful as well, and Loki has to rub steady circles on his back for a couple of seconds before he comes back up, still coughing every once in a while.There’s no doubt that his thousands of years under the water, presumably unable or unwilling to speak, have rendered his voice next to useless. But then again, when do gods stick to reality?
“Take your time, Jormungandr. We have all the time in the world, I'll make sure of that.”
Jor takes a deep breath, in, then out again.
“Your…*cough* you're a lot shorter than I remember.”
Loki looks stunned for a moment, but all of the confusion fades in seconds and on both father and son’s faces spreads the same snake-like grin as laughter fills the jet. Loki’s shoulders shake so hard that Tony fears he too will start coughing all over the place, but after a bit he realizes why they’re shaking so hard. Not only is Loki laughing, a full laugh not a chuckle or a snicker, but tears have once again started to make their way down his face.
As soon as Jormungandr realizes his father is crying he stops laughing, but Loki doesn’t stop. Jor reaches over to wipe a tear from his face but Loki just takes his hands in his own before they can touch him.
“I- why do you cry?!? Please don’t be sad!”
“I-i’m so sorry… I let you down… I could not save you and I could not protect you from the consequences of my own mistakes I… I was not strong enough. And even then I saw how you suffered and did nothing, knew how alone you were, yet I still have the audacity to hope you don’t hate me… oh gods please don’t hate me…”
Loki hangs his head, shame and fear and pain in the way he sits, with Jor’s hands still clenched tight between his own.
“It is by no fault of your own that you remember me in a way I am not. I will forever regret my shortcomings when it comes to you and… and your siblings I have yet to recover. Do you even remember them?”
“I- i cannot say that my memories are complete... But! I don’t blame you for that fadir and, and i barely e-even remember half of it anyway, I was asleep and barely conscious and I-I promise I don’t blame you for it I could never blame you for doing your best-“
Loki shushes him with another hug, and after some time of them just sitting there, rocking back and forth in a strange twisted knot of limbs Loki speaks again.
“I wasn’t able to protect you then. But I will now. You and all of your siblings. My friends have allowed me to live in their house on Midgard, and have promised that you can live there too. I swear to you now that you will not have to go back to Asgard. Not if you don’t want to.”
“I- thank you, fadir. Thank you.”
Nothing else is said as the four of them press on in the jet. Tony thinks of what he’ll tell Fury, or whether he’ll even tell Fury at all. But he decides that all of that can wait until the boy is comfortable and adjusted, and that for now he is comfortable just laying back and returning to Stark towers. Natasha shares the sentiment, even if they haven’t talked about it. Loki is just happy to have at least one of his children with him again, happy to feel one peice of the weight he carries lifted off of his shoulders. He can hardly wait to drop the rest of them.