The plan
The jet ride back to Stark towers had been calm and quiet, silence foregoing small talk to allow the two gods in the back their time to just be. Now, as Tony steps off of the ramp created by the bottom of the jet opening with a pair of snakes dangling off of his arms, he has to wonder how and when exactly he had become a jungle gym. He pretends not to see Natasha snickering at him out of the corner of his eye, but he revels in the look of terror on Bruce’s face when he and Steve rush into the plane hanger.
“Where have you been? We were lo- AH WHAT THE SNAKES?”
Loki drips off of Tony, and when he hits the floor he’s back to his regular self.
“I thought you said you left a note, Stark?”
“Hehehehe. I did.”
Que an exasperated Steve holding up a sparkly post it note that says, “Gone fishing, -Tony” Tony promptly relapses into hysterics, laughing hard enough that by the time Loki rescues Jormungandr from around his neck, he’s gasping from laughing at his own stupid joke. Loki has to admit, after all they went through to get his son back, they did basically go fishing, and the joke may need context to understand, but it’s still just a bit funny. Just a bit. Bruce doesn’t seem to think so though.
“Will someone please tell me why you left with no snake and brought one back? Next thing you know that snake will transform into a toaster!”
Jormungandr, with all the comedic timing he inherited from his father, promptly reverts back to his more humanoid looking form, and tugs on his father’s sleeve.
“Fadir, am I a toaster?”
Loki smiles sweetly at his child and shakes his head, and then smiles less sweetly and more mischievously at Bruce who’s eyes might as well be balloon by now with the way they keep blowing up.
“Wait… fadir? Like father????? HOLY SHIT IS THAT-“
Jormungandr flinches a little and retreats farther behind Loki at the expletive, and seeing this Bruce calms down.
“I-i’m sorry… I’ve been so on edge for the past couple of days- I didn’t mean to yell. I… Loki, is that your son?”
Loki nods his head slowly, gently leading Jor in front of him. Jormungandr is obviously uncomfortable, his face scrunched up and his posture ridgid, but with Loki’s reassuring hands on his shoulders he seems to calm down. Things quickly become awkward, as all Bruce does is stare in shock, and Jormungander doesn’t seem any more eager to say anything than Bruce is. Finally, Loki breaks the tension.
“Bruce, this is my son, Jormungandr. Jor, this is Bruce.” Loki leans forward and bends down slightly, so that his son can see his face. “He is not a threat. Nor is Steve, or Natasha, or Tony. Of the people in this room, the only one that could even attempt to successfully harm you is me, and you know I would never do that. Never.”
Jormungander leans back into Loki.
“I know fadir… I just… I haven’t seen people since…”
Tony pretends like he doesn’t see the cloudy haze of anger and sadness that settles itself into Loki’s face. He’s been doing a lot of pretending today.
“Look.” Loki makes to leave Jormungander’s side, but he still hasn’t let go of Loki’s sleeve, so he is dragged with. Loki walks up to Bruce, turns to him and says,
“Do you mind?”
“Do I- oh no Loki I-I don’t wanna scare the poor kid…”
“Bruce, if you do not bring him out here I shall bring him out myself.”
“I still don’t think that- wait you can do that?”
Bruce is promptly punched in the face.
“RAAAAAAGH!” says Hulk, charging.
“AAAAH!” Says Jormungandr, less scared than surprised.
“EEP!” says Tony, stepping out of the way.
“OOF!” says the Hulk, who is also punched in the face.
Hulk flies through the air, but Bruce lands on the floor, hand massaging his jaw. Loki shakes out his hand nonchalantly with a proud look on his face. He can practically hear the jaws hitting the floor. He looks over to Jormungandr, pats him on the shoulder again, and takes in his shocked face. Bruce starts to apologize fiercely to Jormungandr mistaking his look of awe for fear. Jormungandr still stares, eyes getting wider and wider by the second, until he turns to Loki and says,
“Fadir he’s like us!” That stops Bruce’s kowtowing.
“What?”
“You're like us! You are ᚠᛚᚢᛁᛞ! Fluid! But you did not use seiðr to do it? How did you do that!” For the first time since waking up, Jormungandr lets go of Loki. He rushes over to Bruce’s side and offers a hand to help pull him up, and Bruce takes it, looking slightly confused that Jor is not afraid of him. Conversation flourishes between the two as Jormungandr’s curiosity turns over his fear. Meanwhile, Steve, Natasha, and Tony gather with Loki only a few feet away. Steve speaks first.
“Fury’s not gonna be happy about this.” Tony sighs in frustration, rolling his eyes.
“We just took the world's largest serpent, spanning the length of the literal Earth out of the ocean, and you worry about Fury?” Steve cocks an eyebrow.
“No, no you do have a point that man is terrifying. By the way,” Tony turns to Loki. “We took the world’s largest serpent out of the ocean. How um… how does that work? How exactly have we not already been accosted by many men in tight spandex asking why the water level has dropped exponentially? Cause I’ve been thinking about that actually and that's not really, ya know, physically possible.” It’s Loki’s turn to look smug.
“Think of being accosted by many men in tight spandex often do you?”
“Yes but that's not how I meant it.”
Steve splutters, his 40’s sensibilities and values fighting against every word out of Tony’s mouth. Ultimately, he loses the battle, a look that seems to say, “Why am I surprised?” resting on his face. Loki, while he would love to make this a whole big thing, reads the rest of the room and decides against it. He makes a mental note to talk about it more later though.
“That, Stark, can be a very hard question to answer. But I shall simplify it for you somewhat. I, as I'm known on Asgard and in your subsequent myths and legends, am a trickster god. A god of chaos. I will not deny that that is my nature, but that is not the only thing I am a god of. Even lesser known, even by my own people, is that I am a god of stories. The events that could be and the events that will be. Not the future itself but the unfurling of the scroll. I can control what things are, or the direction in which they will go. Not always though, as there's a way these things have to happen, but when it comes to something or someone directly related to me I have much more control over the unfurling of events.” Loki looks back over to his son, who is now attempting to color match his skin to the Hulk’s almost forest green.
“Right now, Jormungandr is still there, under the ocean, physically but not mentally. He is also here. I have made a split. Two futures out of millionsI have chosen to pursue, and Jormungandr has my blood in his veins, so manipulating this was quite easy. He, like me, can already be whatever he so chooses. And not just that he looks like it, he becomes it. His mass changes, his genetic code adds and subtracts the necessary parts to become it, he takes up more or less space in the universe in an instant. He is what he believes he is. The fabric of reality is weak to me and my own, you could say. So since he is already an ever changing mold, it was not as hard as it might be to shift his future into two. Like a pot, or a vase with two openings. You can put different things in the vase, in many different ways, but in the end the things will still meet in the middle, and the vase will still be the same vase as it was before.”
Loki mimes one thing branching off into two with his hands, movements as fluid as ever, and when he opens his eyes to look around, he isn’t sure which of his confused companions look more baffled. And then he looks at Steve. Yup, it’s definitely Steve. He’s twisted his hand into his hair, and is slowly scratching back and forth at his scalp as if his mind can’t quite process all of this, but he has to look like he’s not bothered by it.
Loki can see the cogs turning in Tony’s head though, as he actively tries to break apart and numerically put what Loki has said back together to fit into the machine that is his brain. From the scrunched up nose to the gnawing he’s doing on his lower lip, Loki guesses he’s stumbled across a few nuts and bolts that, even though the machine has already been put together and works fine, still need to be put in.
Natasha is as unreadable as ever, until a playful look of admiration passes over her face. She doesn't even make an attempt to hide it, so Loki guesses she meant for him to see it. He smiles equally as warmly back. She says,
“I’m glad we’ve got that all cleared up, but could we move somewhere more comfortable? Because if we're about to have a whole redefining-the-laws-of-the-universe conversation I'd like to do it somewhere that's not freezing, yeah?”
She starts to saunter off, and Loki pats Tony on the shoulder before going after her. He walks up to Jormungandr and ruffles his hair, putting a steady hand on the small of his back to lead him off into the breadth of the towers itself, and Bruce waves to Jor as he follows his father away before walking back to Tony and Steve.
“This is so weird. Like, uncanny valley weird. Loki smiling is… I guess I'm just not used to him looking… calm? Happy?”
“You and me both pal. You and me both.” As Steve finishes his sentence, the three are called over by an impatient Natasha. The rest of the evening is spent showing Jormungandr the Tower, and by the time dinner rolls around his eyes are already drooping sleepily. He’s grabbed onto Loki’s hand again, and the two have situated themselves on a bean bag chair near the table where the rest of the Avengers are eating. Thor and Barton not included. The archer, on Fury’s orders Natasha says, is still getting checked over for any residual weirdness. Loki is not looking forward to having him come back, although he’s certainly glad he’s alright. He just doesn’t want to talk about what he did to him, or have to endure that sort of awkwardness. It’s the last thing he wants to deal with. He’s about to spiral into an anxious scenario creating tizzy when he’s snapped out of his funk by Bruce, who’s over at the long table eating chinese takeout with Steve and Natasha.
“So how are we going to proceed with this?” It takes a moment and many faces looking towards him in expectation for Loki to realize that they're talking to him.
“Proceed with what?”
“Finding um… finding the rest of them.” Loki sits up a little straighter in his chair.
“I have a plan. I wouldn’t have chanced coming to Earth with such a typically weak army without a plan for how to proceed afterwards. First, we will need your help, Jor, to find your brother, Fenrir. I believe that you may be one of the only people who can find where he is hidden. He’s being kept on the island of ᛚᛁᛜᚹᛁ, or Lyngvi as Midgardians would say. I would rely on my ability to sense him as I did for you, but that island has long been barred from my senses, and going around the ocean that spans more than half of this world checking each place one at a time is a very time consuming plan. Only a select few know the whereabouts of the island, and I do not trust them. They have all been sworn under Odin, and if they had the power to go against him they would, so not only are they allied with him but they are traitorous fools as well. On a mission as important to me as this, I will not be using pathetic worms who will betray me the first chance they get to reach my end goal. Instead,” He looks down at his son, who looks back up at him questioningly. “Would you mind helping me find your brother?”
“Fadir, you know I would help you with anything, but how am I to find Fenrir if even you cannot?” Loki smiles down at Jor knowingly. It looks like his tendency to underestimate himself was also passed down the proverbial gene line.
“That particular explanation can wait till tomorrow. But know this, my son, that whole believe and you can be it thing? That logic goes, to a certain extent, towards what you can do with the powers you gain. Do not go farther than 2 times your limit, but if you do so will it your limit can be as high as the sky. We are not of Asgard, but we are gods yet. Let no one tell you any different.”