THE GREEN CRAYON BOY
“SATISFIED?” OLIVIA WONDERS FROM BEHIND LOKI. He turns, seeing the woman he knows leaning against the wall next to the doorway and pointedly not looking.
“I didn’t know,” is all he says. She nods solemnly, pushing off the wall.
“Most don’t,” she agrees. He follows her away from the room, hoping to let the sobs fade into the background. She opens one of the doors, revealing a room with papers pinned up on one wall, all drawn with crayon scribbles. Oddly enough, these are the only things in color.
She shuts the door behind them, finally engulfing them in silence, and sits down on what he assumes to be her old bed. The silence seems to run straight through him, and he purses his lips.
Olivia is looking at the crayon drawings pinned up on the opposite wall, surrounding the small vanity she got for her 16th birthday. Her eyes specifically trace the ones that depict stick figures of her, her parents, and Bruce.
They remind her of better times.
“Thor told you I’m adopted,” Loki states, claiming Olivia’s attention. She nods silently, and he sits down next to her on the bed. She scoots a little to the left to give him space.
He takes a deep breath, then lets it out in a deep sigh. He looks… vulnerable; in an honest way this time.
“Last night, you asked me to tell you something I’ve never told anyone before,” he reminds her. Her brows furrow slightly in interest at where this is going. “The truth is, I’m not… just adopted. I’m not even Asgardian at all. I am… a… Frost Giant.” Olivia nods, absorbing this information.
“I don’t actually know what a Frost Giant is,” she admits. He looks at her in bland surprise for a long moment.
“You don’t know what a Frost Giant is,” he repeats numbly. She nods. “I thought Midgard had some… basic knowledge of the other realms, at the least.” She nods again.
“We do,” she agrees. “I just never really… got into that stuff. Honestly, it’s probably all misconceptions anyways; one of the legends I do know says you have three kids.” Loki scoffs.
“I can assure you, I do not have any children,” he claims. He sighs. “The Jötnar are savages, and they were at war with Asgard for centuries. They’re… they’re monsters.” Olivia hesitates, but reaches out gently to lay her hand on his. Oddly, she doesn’t hit any barriers. He looks at her in surprise.
“I guess it’s my turn,” she reflects. She looks over at the wall. “God, um… I’ve never told anyone this before, but I’m… bisexual.” He stares at her for a moment.
“I… don’t really know what that means,” he confesses. She nods, like she was expecting that; to be fair, she was.
“It means I like both men and women,” she informs him, looking down, “which is something that… nobody knows about me. Except you, now, I guess.” He looks at her in amusement.
“That’s your big secret?” he muses. “I just told you I’m a monster, and you tell me you like both genders? I can’t believe you Midgardians have an entire word for it.” She gives him a look.
“Cut me a break,” she sighs, “some people would react really badly to that on Earth.” His brows furrow in confusion.
“What? Why?” he wonders, bewilderment in his tone. She shrugs, making a slightly hopeless expression.
“I… don’t really know,” she admits honestly. “I guess because it’s different, and people don’t like things that are different.” Loki nods slowly.
“If it makes you feel any better,” he tells her, “then I suppose that I am also… bisexual, was it?” She smiles.
“I can see that,” she muses. The smile on her face drops a little. “But, if coming out wasn’t a big enough secret for you combined with just witnessing my father’s death…” he winces slightly.
“Well, when you put it like that,” he starts, his expression a bit grim.
“No, no, I’ve got something I think you’ll like,” she dismisses. “You were asking about me disliking Tony earlier.” He looks at her with keen interest, his attention successfully captured.
“I still don’t dislike Tony; I just… can’t stand being around the Avengers,” she admits. “I think Steve is the worst, but they all just… they think they’re the good guys, and everyone they fight are supposed to be the bad guys.”
“And… you disagree,” Loki infers. Olivia nods, her lips pursed.
“There’s no such thing,” she claims. “This is what happened to the people Bruce was supposed to care about while he was off trying to appeal to the ‘greater good’. What kind of good guy doesn’t even bother to visit his dying father?” She runs a hand through her hair.
Loki takes that in; she’s right. Or, he thinks so, anyways.
“But, whatever. If they want to think they’re hot shit, that’s fine,” Olivia continues, “but apparently you have to make the sacrifice play in order to be a good person.”
“So, say if you had to make a choice between rescuing a plane full of people or your mother,” Loki posits.
“I would pick my mother,” Olivia replies, with no hesitation. Loki blinks in surprise. “I wouldn’t feel good about it, but at the end of the day, she’s my mother. I don’t know the people on the plane. Steve fucking Rogers can look at me with as much disgust as he likes, but I won’t risk her life.”
The room is silent for a moment.
“He is disgusting, isn’t he?” Loki muses. His form shimmers into Steve’s. “Honesty, patriotism, making the hard call,” he says in an overdramatic American accent. Olivia snorts, lightly bumping Loki with her elbow.
“That’s an amazing Steve impression,” she compliments, an amused grin on her face. He turns back into himself, a wide and amused smile on his own face.
“It’s not hard,” he claims. “Here, you try.” Olivia looks down, finding her own body shifted into Steve’s. Her nose crinkles up in disgust, but with Loki’s eyes glued to her, she decides to roll with it.
“I need a perimeter as far back as 39th,” she quotes, doing her best serious face. Her voice comes out as Steve’s. She smiles. “Son of a gun.” Loki laughs, and she shimmers back into herself.
“Tell me he didn’t actually say son of a gun,” he chuckles. Olivia nods, grinning.
“He did,” she tells him, laughing along. They chuckle for a moment before it dies down. Olivia’s eyes fix on the drawings again.
“I tried to draw some imaginary version of my soulmate once; you, I guess,” she hums. A slightly fond smile forms on her face. “I, uh, didn’t even get close. Mom didn’t tell me ‘till after I finished that I’d been drawing with the green crayon.” She points to a drawing of a stick figure that he thinks is supposed to be Olivia standing next to a crayon figure whose face and body have been colored in with green. “I was so embarrassed.”
“I don’t think I ever did anything like that,” he confesses. “I did learn a lot of party tricks to impress you with, though.” Olivia grins.
“Now this I have to see,” she encourages. He shakes his head.
“No, no,” he refuses, “I don’t even remember most of them.” She raises an eyebrow at him.
“Most?” she repeats. “What do you remember, then?” He watches her for a moment, but finally his shoulders slump and a smile forms on his face.
“Fine, fine,” he acquiesces, holding out a hand. It glows with green light briefly, and the drawing of the green soulmate flies off the wall to fold itself into a little origami bird. The origami bird flies around the room, circling Olivia’s head twice, before landing on her vanity and promptly unfolding itself.
“That was great,” she praises. He gives her a doubtful look, but she nods. “No, really; consider me successfully impressed. Wish I could do magic.”
“There are kinds of magic Midgardians can learn,” he informs her, “but I don’t know any of them.” She blinks, nodding.
“Interesting,” she comments. “I didn’t know that.” They fall into silence again, and Olivia suddenly remembers who she’s sitting next to. She pulls her hand back from where it was still resting on top of his, rising to her feet.
The drawing of a green soulmate is still resting on the vanity, as if to try and persuade her of something.
“I uh, I think I’m gonna go for a walk,” she decides, opening the bedroom door and promptly walking out into the yard— apparently, that’s where it decided to lead this time.
Olivia recognizes a little version of her playing with a toy truck, a teenage Bruce studying at the same picnic table. It’s a nondescript memory, and she’s sure she has twenty more just like it.
“What the fuck am I doing?” she wonders, running her hand through her hair as she treks across the grass, going nowhere in particular. “I stopped putting my faith into that soulmate bullshit years ago.”
Loki is glaring at the crayon drawings on the wall; this is so stupid.
“She’s a mortal,” he reminds himself. Why the hell did he show her that stupid party trick? Why did he waste magic on helping her make fun of Captain America?
“This is ridiculous,” they mutter to themselves in perfect unison. Olivia looks back at the younger versions of herself and her brother, and Loki’s eyes fix on the crayon drawing where his skin is colored green.
A deep sigh escapes Olivia; she can worry about this at literally any other time.
For now, reality is pulling her back into its icy grasp. She glances back at the house, seeing Loki watching her from what looks like the back porch’s doorway. She knows it actually leads into her room, but still.
She offers him a wave, and he adjusts his position with a small tilt of the head.
She wakes up in her temporary bed, and immediately rolls over with a long groan, pulling the blankets over her head.
Fuck, she forgot she was gonna have a hangover.