GOLD… EVERYTHING? A LITTLE GAUDY BUT OKAY
AFTER A CHAOTIC NIGHTMARE OF A BREAKFAST WITH THOR, Loki and Olivia have decided to go for a stroll through the palace. She thinks the golden everything is… a little bit gaudy, if she’s being honest.
“You really grew up here?” She asks Loki, just to be sure. He chuckles, nodding.
“Yes, I really grew up here,” he confirms. He watches her carefully as she looks at it again, trying to imagine a smaller version of him running around, making trouble.
“Wow,” is all she can think to say. An amused smile crosses his face.
“You can just say you don’t like it,” he reminds her. “I’m sure it seems a bit gaudy to you; just like your childhood home seems a bit cramped to me.” She shrugs uncomfortably.
“I don’t know, it just feels… lonely, I guess? I mean, all this space; we haven’t seen anybody who wasn’t a guard in the last 10 minutes!” she exclaims, a little incredulous. “I mean, no wonder you got into so much trouble; I’d stab my brother too if I had this much time and space to do it!” Loki laughs, caught off guard.
“I still can’t believe he told you that story,” he muses. Olivia grins.
“I thought it was funny,” she assures him. A flash of movement catches her attention from the corner of her eye, and she turns. To her immense surprise, across the hall is a picture frame, and inside of that is Loki.
This one is the real Loki, and he’s standing in… yeah, that’s definitely a bathroom on Earth. Probably in someone’s home, if the decorative towels are any indication. Her viewpoint is fixed over the counter, just where the mirror should be.
“Loki?” she wonders, bewildered. He waves at her. The Loki next to her looks between her and the real Loki with confusion.
“Er, yes,” he agrees, slowly. “People standing next to you do tend to show up in mirrors.” Olivia shoots him a look.
“I’m seeing something you’re not,” she advises him, walking over to the mirror to see the real Loki. “What are you doing in there?”
***
Breakfast for Loki was, put simply, absolutely delightful. Olivia knew how to make the perfect, crispiest bacon he’s ever had in his life, and the banter was wittier than anything Thor could come up with in ten lifetimes.
Actually, Thor called during breakfast, and he noticed his contact name was MC Hammer. He doesn’t know that much about Midgardian culture, so he asked. Needless to say, he made a note of it.
After breakfast, he investigated her— their?— three bookshelves, and found them to have (surprisingly enough) a lot of his favorite books from Asgard. When he inquired, she just reminded him that she collaborated with his mother to get them for his birthday last year.
He pretended he was just testing her.
Now, after an hour of reading on the couch with the Fake Olivia, he’s excused himself to the bathroom so he can figure out where the real woman is.
Except, the bathroom mirror isn’t a mirror at all. It’s a hole in the fabric of reality, showing him the real Olivia, walking down a hall in the palace he calls home with a fake version of him. She notices him, and her face lights up in confusion.
***
And so, here they both are, trying to communicate through a mirror but not able to hear one another.
“I can’t— I can’t hear you,” Olivia admits, seeing Loki try to speak to her. She sticks her hand out to touch the mirror, but it goes through instead with a weird feeling. She yanks it back immediately.
“What— how did you do that?” the fake Loki pries, bewildered. Olivia’s face sets into a determined line.
“I can’t hear you,” she repeats, seeing the astonished real Loki try to say something. “I’m coming in.” The fake Loki’s face morphs into a protesting one.
“Love, that’s really not a good idea,” he warns her. “I don’t know how you’re putting your hand that mirror, but you shouldn’t risk getting stuck in there—,” he starts, only to be ignored by Olivia who reaches her leg out to put it onto the bathroom counter on the other side. The real Loki sees her intent and backs out of her way. “Olivia!”
She halts, looking at the very worried fake Loki who has grasped her wrist.
“You can’t,” he refuses. “Let’s just go walk through the gardens; we can talk about it, we can look through the library for information, just don’t go.” Olivia is torn for a moment; he looks so sincere that she almost pulls her leg back out and goes with him.
But then the real Loki grabs her hand and pulls her in.
The second she tumbles into him and out of Asgard, the weird hole turns into a mirror. She stares at the mirror with wide eyes, seeing only herself and Loki, who quickly moves to separate from her.
“It looked like he was going to give you trouble,” is all he says as an excuse. Olivia’s hands drop in disappointment; she… really liked Fake Loki, actually. He was nice.
“I guess he was,” she admits, reluctantly. They open the door and walk out, onto a forest path rather than an apartment. Seeing no other way, they just.. start walking. The silence is tense, and Loki shifts awkwardly.
“There was a… fake you, also,” he informs her. She looks at him with some interest as he tells her that. “She called Thor ‘MC Hammer’.” Olivia snorts, a grin forming on her face.
“I’d totally do that,” she agrees. Wait— if Fake Olivia was acting like her, then…
She hesitates.
“Did you really turn into a snake and try to stab your brother?” she asks. He looks at her in surprise.
“How did you know that?” he wonders, surprised. She smiles fondly, and a small chuckle escapes her.
“If you’ll believe it, a fake Thor told me,” she admits, amused. “I’d stab my brother too, if I had that much space and time to do it.” He laughs, startled by her surprisingly funny joke.
So, all that stuff they just saw in each other is totally real and within reason, if they just… got closer? Is that supposed to be the takeaway?
“I… liked Fake Loki,” she admits. Loki looks away, a touch embarrassed. It’s starting to feel like the fakes might have been more real than the real ones are.
“And I… enjoyed Fake Olivia’s company,” Loki agrees, a little reluctantly. Olivia turns to look at him with a smile. “What? What did I say?”
“Nothing, nothing,” she dismisses. “You’ve just never said my name before.” It’s true, he realizes. He’s never said her name out loud to her before.
“I suppose it is,” he admits, guilt creeping up on him. He really hasn’t been very pleasant to her, has he? Actually, didn’t he threaten to peel the flesh from her bones? He cringes now to think of it.
What happened to the charming Loki, the one whose mischievous smile attracted men and women alike?
He remains thoughtfully silent, and the two soulmates take some time to marinate in all the things that are happening within themselves right now.
Suddenly, Olivia comes to a screeching halt, her brows furrowed.
“Did you hear that?” she asks. Loki pauses for a moment, then shakes his head with confusion.
“No, I don’t hear anything,” he denies. A long, still minute passes; and then he does hear it.
A voice, calling from the distance, barely audible. They stay still, waiting for it to come again, and it does. Louder this time, and they can hear the beginnings of a syllable.
“Are they… saying my name?” Olivia wonders hesitantly, bewildered. Loki listens keenly for her name.
“Olivia!” he hears. He nods; still, it unsettles him just a touch. That sounds more like the call of someone trying to get her attention than the call of someone who’s looking for her. Looking around, though, there’s nobody around.
“I don’t like this,” Olivia admits, chewing her lower lip. “Something’s off.” Loki nods, glancing over his shoulder.
“Me neither,” he agrees. “We should go, quickly.” She nods, and they hurry to continue along the path.
“Olivia!” the voice calls again, much closer this time. Her brows knit together anxiously.
“You don’t think this is a nightmare, do you?” she prompts suddenly. “I mean, nothing scary happened today— not on my end, anyways. Yours?” He shakes his head; his day was a whole lot of nothing.
“I think we should try the other direction,” he suggests. “Just in case.” She nods, and they turn around— but then the voice comes again.
“Olivia!” Bruce’s voice exclaims, from very nearby. Now, Loki expected Olivia to relax at the sound of his voice; instead, her expression dropped into one of dread.
“Oh, I was not happy with him today,” she admits. “There’s no way this is going to go well.”
Then Bruce comes out of the trees, and Loki backs away to give the siblings some space. But Bruce doesn’t stop, instead walking straight into Olivia to wrap her up in a hug.
“Olivia,” he greets. “I missed you.” Her face is flat, and she taps his arm.
“You too, Bruce,” she claims, obviously lying. “You can let go now.” But he doesn’t; instead he looks at Loki. Disapproval crosses his face.
“Have you been spending time with him?” he accuses. “Liv, you can’t be hanging out with criminals!” She grinds her teeth. “I forbid you to do it anymore.”
“You can’t forbid me to do anything,” she bites back. “You just got here, you don’t know anything, and you won’t even let me explain—,” she starts, only to be cut off by him clapping his hand over her mouth, still holding her tightly.
“It doesn’t matter what you think. Now, somebody’s got to watch you,” he decides, “or else you might act out again. I know just the place to keep you.” He starts pulling her away, and she struggles; what the fuck is going on right now?
Loki jumps into action, prying Olivia out of Bruce’s grip.
“I do believe she told you to let go,” he states lowly. Olivia glares at the warped version of Bruce that her mind invented. He raises his eyebrows at Loki, and then turns his gaze on Olivia.
“Fine,” he agrees flippantly, in stark contrast to his tight grasp from earlier. “But it’s one or the other, Liv. You can’t be mad at me for leaving when you keep pushing me away.” Then, he disappears into the trees again, and all is silent.
“Is that really what he’s like?” Loki wonders, complete disgust in his tone. And he thought his brother was bad.
“No, no,” Olivia denies quickly. “No, definitely not. That’s just… that’s what it feels like, sometimes. Y’know?” He does know, and he tells her as much.
“All too well,” he agrees grimly. Then, the bushes start to rustle. The ground shakes, and then splits open, a wide chasm just to the pair’s left. Part of the ground starts to crumble.
“Watch out,” Olivia warns him. She’s too late. The ground beneath him gives way, and suddenly he’s falling— a hand grasps his wrist.
Loki looks up, seeing Thor leaning over the edge of the cliff, his grasp on Loki’s wrist tight. He starts to pull him up, but then halts after only half a foot. His expression darkens.
“Perhaps it’s for the best,” he decides, his voice coming out as Odin’s; an incredibly strange phenomenon that Loki truly hopes with all his heart he never has to experience again. Then, Thor lets go.
For a terrifying moment, Loki thinks he’s going to simply… fall to his death.
But then two hands grab his hand and forearm, smaller than Thor’s. He spies the face of Olivia leaning over the chasm. His brother is gone, and she seems to be having some difficulty hauling him up.
“Grab my arms,” she instructs him. “Don’t let me do all the work, you have to help yourself too.” Then, suddenly he realizes the edge of the chasm is in grabbing distance, and he grasps it tightly. Together, he and Olivia get him hoisted up and back onto solid ground. She pulls him a few feet away from the edge for good measure before collapsing down onto the ground next to him.
“You… saved me,” he recognizes tiredly. “Again.” She gives him an exhausted thumbs up. “Why do you keep doing that?” She can’t help but laugh; now there’s a question she’s never been asked before.
“Because I can,” is all she can think up. He stares at her for a moment before he starts to chuckle himself.
“Because you can,” he echoes, in complete and utter disbelief. “What if you couldn’t?” She grins at him.
“Then I’d do it more,” she claims, “out of spite. How dare you tell me what I can and can’t do?” He laughs, and she does too.
“I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone who saves people because they can,” he chuckles. She shakes her head.
“Not people,” she contradicts. “Just you.” This gives him genuine pause. His brows furrow in confusion.
“What does that mean?” he wonders. She flashes him an award-winning mischievous grin, which is doing a terrible job at hiding the tension in her shoulders.
And then he wakes up.