The cradle
The night seemed shorter than it was, certainly not long enough for Loki’s liking, and with the rise of the sun comes the groaning and grumbling of a bunch of grown adults who, after Jormungandr fell asleep on Loki, lacking a ready room of his own, and Loki refused to move, and Tony had announced in a loud voice “LIVING ROOM SLEEPOVER!” and then was promptly shushed by everyone else in the room, had slept on the floor and the couches instead of their comfortable beds.
There was a rising of sleep deprived Avengers and a great untangling of limbs and blankets from various body parts. Over breakfast, the plan for the day was discussed.
“So, where does Jor come into all of this? And what does it have to do with what you're doing right now?”
Loki looked up from sewing strange runes and symbols into the lining of the fur coat he was holding to answer the question. He looked over at his son, who he had left sleeping on the bean bag. He could barely keep his eyes open last night, exhausted from the sudden transformation, so Loki had thought it best to just let him sleep.
“Jormungandr has lived most of his life under the water. All bodies of water somehow connect back to the world tree, and the world tree connects to all the worlds. We do not know which world the island is on let alone where the hel it’s physically located. But since he’s spent so much time spanned across the world, he will hopefully be able to pick up on the seemingly blank space where there should be ocean. Odin’s field of unknowing was meant to hinder any who would try to find the island, but instead, it could be the key thing to leading us there.”
It wasn’t fully fleshed out, but it was a plan, and that was better than nothing. But now as they stand on the banks of the Hudson river, Tony is starting to have some doubts. Loki had instructed Jormungandr to wade about knee deep into the freezing water, going first and showing him what stance to take. He had then proceeded to explain something in that language he uses sometimes when casting spells, and Jormungandr had closed his eyes and made sure the tips of his fingers were touching the water. That had been about ten minutes ago, and Tony, Loki, Natasha and Bruce are now standing outside in the cold, watching practically nothing happen. Steve had been designated with Clint watch by Fury, and if he had refused it would have looked suspicious, so to prevent Fury from prying into any further into their affairs he had gone along albeit reluctantly.
They only have to wait a few more minutes for a reaction though, and as they watch Jormungandr’s eyes start to glow. Little tendrils of light, pale blue under the water spread from his hands and shoot rapidly down the length of the river, until they can’t see the ends of them anymore. Tony’s almost sure they're composed of seídr, as he can use his own energy to block them out just like Loki taught him to do. He gets lost in thought. Mostly about the science of their whole escapade, but he’s soon pulled out of it by Loki rushing back into the water to catch Jormungandr right before he drops.
He’s not unconscious, just tired, the drain of searching so far through his connection taking hold. But with Loki’s help he holds himself up, and his face is a little too grimm for Tony’s liking.
“What did you find?” Tony can hear the worry in Loki’s voice, and can see the anxious lines that crease his face. Jormungandr sighs deeply, as if resigning himself to something.
“I found the island, fadir. But… you're not going to like where it is.”
“Where.”
“It’s… Jotunheim. The island resides in Jotunheim.”
Tony almost can’t believe the cacophony of colorful swears that fall from Loki’s lips.
“Do I dare ask where? I know that the scowl on your face is deeper than just Jotunheim.”
Jormungander sighs again.
“The basin, fadir.”
“The- you mean the basin?
“Yes, fadir.”
“The very same basin that's notoriously hard to get into.”
“Yes.”
“Hard to get into because you have to go through Laufey or Odin to get there?”
“The very same, fadir.”
Tony barely has time to brace himself before Loki raises a foot and then drops it quickly, sending a shock wave through the immediate vicinity and cracking the concrete under his foot with an outraged yell.
“That sack of Swina bqllr!”
Jormungandr flinches, relaying to Bruce that Loki only ever used to use that one when he was truly mad. Natasha, taking the language cues and drawing from her mastery of foreign lexicons, comes to the conclusion that Odin has just been called a “sack of pig penises”.
While Natasha and Bruce think about that rather creative cuss, Tony inches over to Jormungandr, giving Loki a wide berth to rage.
“Heyyyyy Jor, why um…. Why’s your dad so mad? You’d think he’d be happy since we found what we were looking for…”
“I am mad, Stark, because that place will take a lot of finagling to get to. Not only that, but since it’s in Jotunheim I will have to go back to my home realm and talk to none other than the leader of the frost giants himself. I have betrayed him once already. He will not trust me. He is… he is also my father, although he doesn’t know that. I will need to somehow contact him without being taken prisoner, and assuming he’ll see me I have to then convince him that not only do I need help that only he can give me and I will not double cross him this time, but also that I am not working with Asgard on that matter. And that's all without regards to what will possibly happen AFTER I talk to him, or how we shall get to and from wherever the island is.”
Tony resists the urge to respond with, “Whoof, family drama.” Loki carries on.
“So I am MAD, because Odin knows how much this will affect me. He knew when he placed Fenrir there. He knew when he made sure he and Laufey were the only ones who could get in. And he certainly knew exactly what he was doing when he placed all of these specifically tailored booby traps there for me, just to make sure that I stumble every step of the damn way!”
“Ah.”
Is all Tony says.
A couple of people are starting to gather nearby, no doubt drawn there because of the ground’s rattling under Loki’s foot, so the gang decide it would be prudent to go back to Stark Towers and plan their next move there. They find themselves all crowding around the connecting living space’s kitchen counter, a recurring motif for their various decision making meetings. All attention is on Loki as he holds up one of the coats they saw him stitching runes into before. He has made one for everyone but Steve and Natasha.
“I thank you for understanding, Steve, Natasha. We do need someone to hold down the fort after all. And as the assigned watcher of the archer, it would seem strange if you disappeared out of nowhere. And Natasha, you are the best at lying on the go, plus the man of Fury trusts you.”
Steve nods, as does Natasha who says, “I’ll do what I can to keep Fury’s suspicions down, but he’s not that dumb. Promise me you won’t linger?” This question is more directed at Tony than anyone else, and Tony reluctantly sighs out an agreement. Attention turns to their plan to get to the island of Lyngvi.
“It’s inevitable that I will have to have a little talk with my father. I would rather you talk to him Stark, really I would, and I thank you for offering. But you would be killed in an instant. Intruders are not tolerated there, especially since…”
From where they sit they can all see a twinkle of mischief settle into Loki’s eyes. He starts to mutter something under his breath, a smile creeping its way across his face as pieces start to fall into order in his mind. Tony can’t help but feel that whatever Loki is cooking up will get them into a very large and possibly irreversible amount of trouble and he is LIVING for it as the infectious smirk spreads to his own lips.
“Care to share with the millionaire?” He says, and then with less volume and a small fist pump, “yesssss rhymes for days.” Loki, under regular circumstances, would have resigned himself to an overly dramatic eye roll lasting no less than four seconds and which properly conveyed the amount of apathy he feels for Tony’s rather out of left field antics, but he’s too excited for that.
“Intruders are not tolerated, especially since the cradle was taken away from them by Odin who feared they were using it to plot against him. It’s the source of their land's powers, without it what already scarce life their land had has been stripped away. Coincidentally, we happen to have the exact location of the cradle and the information on the layout of its whereabouts that we need to steal it. So, we steal the tesseract, bring it t-”
“Wait wait wait, I thought you said we needed the cradle?”
Natasha, Tony, and Bruce look at Steve as if he’s stupid, which in the moment he kind of feels like it, until he makes the correlation.
“You want us to steal the tesseract! Do you even know how heavily guarded that thing is? You need at least 1,000 levels of clearance to even talk about it!”
“You know how much I hate to say it, but spangles has a point. Even with Jarvis in their systems, it would still take a while to gain the control necessary to get in and out without getting caught. Do you have a way to get it?”
The smirk grows wider.
“I get the tesseract, then I leave. Simple as that. I’ve been saving up power, and I believe I should be able to move myself into where it’s kept as long as I can visualise the room it’s in, and once I touch it power won’t be a problem in getting back where I started. Before, we would have had to find a point where one of the branches of the world tree touches the fabric of this world. That alone could take weeks, time we shouldn’t waste if we don’t have to. But with the cradle, we have a direct connection to Jotunheim, and opening up the correct portal from right where we stand shouldn’t be a problem. And it should even be possible to, while holding the tesseract, create a copy that gives off the same readings. They won’t be able to tell the difference. In fact, Jarvis?”
“Yes?”
“Are you still in the S.H.E.I.L.D helicarrier’s systems?”
“Yes, despite their best efforts to get rid of me I am still hiding within the innermost reaches of their servers.”
“And are you able to tell me where in relation to where I was kept the cradle is?”
“It appears to be held in a room about 40 feet to the right and 20 feet up from the cell you were being held in. I can give you exact calculations if you would like.”
“Could you show me?”
“Displaying helicarrier layout now.”
A blue hologram starts to build itself up from the bottom, the helicarrier brought into a less physical being. It’s cut in half, and the image is enhanced as the rooms come into a clearer view, showing the distance from his prior prison and the tesseract, and as Loki traces a path with his finger a slightly darker blue line follows it. Then he’s scrunching his eyes closed, and before anyone can step in he’s gone. Tony smacks his forehead, dragging his hand down his face and off of his chin.
“Did he just do what I think he did? Without any prior preparations? Just like that?” Natasha replies,
“Yep, it looks like it.”
And almost as soon as he went, he’s back, the ghost of a crazy look on his face.
“So um…. Where is it?”
He makes a little “ooh” noise and a bag appears in front of him on the kitchen table. He sticks his hand in and rummages around, and various clicks and clunks are heard before he pulls out something. A small, ornate knife. He tosses it behind him, and a larger broadsword that should not be able to fit in the bag follows. To the ground clatters an axe blade without a handle, a strange looking gun, a large tube of some kind of gel, and an entire gold plated spear four times the length of the bag before Loki sticks both arms shoulder deep into the bag along with his head and his shoulder blades and a muffled,
“AHA!” Is heard. Loki whips his head out of the bag, out of breath and very frazzled looking, but with that crazy glint still in his eyes all the while. His hair flips back and slaps against his neck. Tony thinks he knows where all that gel from the bottle is going now. Loki raises the tesseract in one hand and promptly drops it, fumbling to catch it again. He tries to make it look like he meant to do that. He obviously didn’t mean to.
Once the tesseract is placed on the kitchen table, Loki materializes the coats he was working on from inside the pocket space and hands them to everyone but Steve, who feels like he’s going to miss out on something special. And of course neither he nor Jormungandr need He turns to address Bruce and Tony.
“Bruce, I made yours so that it grows with you when your friend decides to make an appearance. The cold of Jotunheim is unforgiving, even to giant… green… hulks. And yours, Tony, will become thin when you put on your suit so as to not hamper your movement and prevent full ranges of movement. I also made it so the suit will be encased in the same little bubble of warmth as you, so the joints do not flash freeze and any liquids in the suit stay liquid.”
Bruce and Tony take their coats and slip them on, immediately turning to each other in excitement when they feel the comfortable warmth spread over their bodies like a well fitting heated blanket. While they mutter and speculate, Loki walks over to wake his son.
“Jor.”
“…”
“Jormungandr my dear, wake up.”
“Don wanna…”
Loki smiles fondly, sitting on the end of the couch next to where he’s lying curled up on the bean bag. He cards his fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp in achingly familiar motions. This, he remembers with a small tug at his heart strings, was how he used to wake the triplets up on particularly calm days. Although he doubts this day will be anything but calm. He wishes he could leave him there to sleep, and truly feels guilty that his son has had a peaceful rest at last and he needs to disturb it. But the moment can’t stay perfect forever, and Loki ruffles his hair and pats his shoulder gently, trying to get him up.
He can feel Natasha staring at him as Jormungandr grumbles and rolls closer to him, face up against his knee. It doesn’t feel judgemental, just curious.
“We need to get your brother ᚲᚺᛁᛚᛞ. I would not want to leave without you.”
“Lemme be.”
“Ach, as stubborn when it comes to sleep as ever.”
“S’not morning yet. Can’t be. Too tired.”
He can hear the gang trying to stifle their snickers upon seeing the formerly world ending catastrophe of a god curled up like a child and clinging to his fathers leg. Loki sends them a contemptuous glare. Through the finger pinching the bride of his nose.
“Fine.” He says, putting his hands up near his head in mock surrender. With a shrug, he continues.
“I guess I won’t be teaching you how to open the portal after all.”
And Jormungandr’s up like a spring, tugging at his fathers sleeve and begging him to show him how to access the world tree. Tony chuckles at the almost domestic display, earning him yet another reproachful stare.
Loki leads Jor to the middle of the room, handing him one end of the tesseract and taking the other in his own hands. They stand facing each other, eyes closed and hands glowing as they draw just enough energy for the cradle to bring an opening to the world tree to them instead of having to find one.
Loki explains it as they go as blowing just a little on the branches. They’re becoming the wind is all, and when the branch rustles their way they’ll only have a limited amount of time to hop on before the branch sways back to where it was before. He explains the push and pull, what to feel for and what to ignore, and even with his eyes closed it’s obvious Jormungandr is sucking up every word. Slowly, a rift appears above the tesseract. It fizzles and crackles and tears itself into the fabric of the universe right before their eyes, a crack where there shouldn't be.
And as it lengthens Loki and Jormungandr step out of the way, Loki taking over in full. Suddenly, he pulls his hands apart, and the rift stretches to about twice his size and just about his width. He beckons to Bruce and Tony who come over cautiously. Loki takes the first step through, finding steady footing on the other side. He steps through, and quickly fades away into a haze of fog. Although Tony can hear his voice from the other side calling.
“Do not delay! The connection won’t last long!”
Jormungandr is next, practically dragging Bruce with him, until Tony is the only one left. He turns to Natasha and Steve for reassurance, although they don’t need to know that's what it is, and he receives a thumbs up and a smile. Then, stepping backwards, he fades into the gap.