Chapter 16
Loki teleported to the living room.
“Where were you?” Steve asked.
“My room,” Loki answered absently, “Where is—“
“Loki!” Thor’s broken voice echoed down the hallway as he left the elevator.
“Thor!” Loki gasped, a tight knot of fear settling in his belly as Thor burst into tears, wrapping him in a tight hug, “What--?”
“It’s Mother!” Thor cried, “She’s, She . . . “
He couldn’t bring himself to finish, but it didn’t matter. Loki knew what he’d been trying to say.
“Wh-What happened?”
“Father . . . Father says you killed her!” Thor answered, shaking his head. He drew another shaky breath, “But I know you would never do that.”
“Why?” Loki asked, pushing down all of the emotions that threatened to spill over, “Why would he think that?”
“Thor, this is important,” Loki said seriously, looking him in the eye, “How did she die?”
“They brought in the Einherjar,” Thor answered, hesitant, “They said whoever had done it used astral-projection.”
Loki, along with Frigga, had been the only known sorcerers in the nine realms that had been able to cast illusions that could actively affect the environment around them.
Until now.
Tyr.
“Norns, it’s all my fault,” staggering backwards, away from Thor, Loki nearly tripped, “I—I once tried to teach Tyr how to astral-project, but that was years ago. I thought, I thought he couldn’t . . . he never—”
Thor clenched his jaw, his grip tightening on Mjolnir, his sorrowful gaze turning to one of indifference.
He stormed off, the roar of the Bifrost confirmation that he had gone off-world.
And Loki didn’t blame him if he never came back.
He sank down on the couch, head in his hands.
Loki locked himself in his room after that, using magic to ward off anyone’s attempts to enter.
As the days went by, he ignored the frantic knocking on his door, the chirping of his phone.
Maybe he’d just starve to death, he thought as he lay on his bed, staring at the wall.
He deserved it.
By the time he heard Thor’s voice on the other side of his door, he’d lost count of the days. His head pounded and his stomach begged for food. He couldn’t understand the words Thor was saying, his brain refused to decipher them.
“Loki!” Thor pounded his fist against the door, and he could finally understand the words again, “I’m begging you, open this door!”
Loki pushed himself to his feet and opened the door.
“Mother wanted you to have these.” Thor said quietly, and held out a stack of books, dusty and torn at the edges.
Loki shook his head, “I don’t—“
“Please?”
“No.”
Thor shrugged, drawing the books closer to his chest, “Odin didn’t want you to read them, but I figured I’d ask if you wanted them.”
Loki shook his head again. It was clearly Thor’s poor attempt at getting him to accept the books. Just what kind of fool did the oaf take him for? Well, two could play at that game.
“Oh for the love of—Give them to me.” He didn’t need to feign an expression of annoyance, just the acceptance of the books. It wasn’t like he had to read them, anyway. He set them on the desk beside him, and sat down to continue filling out a form he had received earlier. Nothing more than something to make it seem like he was busy.
He had expected Thor to turn and leave, but instead he lingered at the doorway. Loki decided to pretend he wasn’t there anymore. He’d leave eventually.
“. . . Loki?”
“What?” Loki didn’t even bother turning back to face him, still continuing to stare at the form on his desk. The form was complete, so he busied himself with doodling in the margins.
“I just want you to know. I don’t blame you. For anything. Steve told me about New York. I should have been a better brother. I should’ve known that wasn’t you. If I had, you wouldn’t have . . . You wouldn’t have ended up with Tyr.”
For a moment, Loki had nothing to say. He let the words sink in, slowly uncurling some of what seemed like years of bitterness, falling away in tiny little pieces. He couldn’t quite bring himself to revel in what it left; there was no relief, no satisfaction. Just . . . empty.
Thor blamed himself.
Loki turned to look at him, unsurprised to see tears in his brother’s normally bright eyes.
“I am responsible for my own actions, Thor,” Loki finally spoke. Knowing Thor would likely argue, he picked his words carefully, “The Other just . . . persuaded me to lead his army.”
“I watched the surveillance tapes,” Thor shook his head, “They tortured you.”
“The Avengers worry about you,” he continued, “And I, too. They tell me you haven’t eaten for over two weeks.”
“I’m Asgardian, I—.”
“You are Jotun.”
And boy was that a slap to the face.
Loki stopped. His shock and hurt must’ve been painfully obvious, but Thor pressed on, resting a hand on his shoulder.
“You need to eat, Brother.”
Loki glared at Thor for a few long moments, but the ache in his stomach ultimately won out.
“Fine.”
He followed Thor down the hall to the kitchen, ignoring the stares he received from the rest of the team.
No one dared speak to him, as if they were too afraid they would scare him off, like he was some wild animal.
When Loki returned, alone, back to the form on his desk, he’d been about to finish the doodle of a cat he had started earlier. He stopped when he realized something on the desk was making noise.
The stack of books Thor had given him was humming. Confused and a little frightened, Loki opened the book it seemed to be coming from. Immediately, the pages began to fly off of the spine, swirling around the room as if blown by a nonexistent whirlwind.
They settled on the desk in front of him, a tower of letters instead of pages from a book.
Loki picked up the first letter.
Then another. And another.
Each and every letter was addressed to him.
Most were from Frigga, as Loki would’ve expected, but the rest were from someone called Farbauti.
And on top of the stack, the humming came from a letter, from both of them.
To Loki,
From Farbauti and Frigga
With his hands trembling, he opened the letter. The humming became a beautiful blend of two voices, singing slow and soft to the tune of an ancient lullaby.
Loki immediately recognized Frigga’s voice joining with another, quieter, slightly lower voice. He had never heard anything like it. They were singing a song Loki knew well from his childhood, one that Frigga had sung to him countless times on the nights he couldn’t sleep. The nights he still ran to her when he was afraid.
It told the story of two kingdoms at war, and the forbidden love between two soldiers on either side. The two soldiers had sung it to assure the other that they would never let harm befall the other.
Frigga had always told him that those two soldiers would always watch over him, even from Valhalla. She told him that they held a special place in their hearts for those with a kind heart.
It had been a comfort to know that as long as he was good and kind, nothing bad would happen to him, and he had believed it with all of his heart for much of his early life.
The page was empty, save the sound of the lullaby and a short note written in Frigga’s handwriting.
For anytime you need to be reminded how much we love you.
Next to it, a tiny doodle of a dragon crest was inked in the shape of a heart. As much as he loved her, Loki knew that Frigga wasn’t that good at drawing, so it must have been from this “Farbauti.”
“How much we love you”? That didn’t make any sense. Who was this Farbauti? If she loved him so much, where was she? How come he’d never heard of her? Was she perhaps one of Frigga’s deceased relatives?
The song had finished, so Loki set the letter aside and picked up another, one from Frigga.
If you ever read this, I want you to know that I’m sorry for all of the pain that I’ve caused you, and I wish things could’ve happened differently. Your mother loved you more than anything; we both love you. I’ve left as many memory spells here for you as I could, most of your mother, but you don’t have to watch them until you feel you are ready.
Love,
Frigga.
Below her signature, Frigga had left a string of willow leaves. Loki didn’t even have to touch the leaves to know that they would be sticky with essence. To activate it, he merely needed to trace his palms with it.
He set the letter down, tears tracing down his face.
No.
He wasn’t ready.
Never.
Every day after that, Thor dragged Loki out to the kitchen, and wouldn’t let him go back to his room until he ate something.
Really, at that point, Loki just wanted to be left alone to die.
Thor couldn’t stay forever, though. Odin summoned him back to Asgard, and Loki thought he might finally be left alone.
Except, to his frustration, the Avengers wouldn’t leave him alone.
It kind of annoyed him, to be honest.
They took turns bringing him plates of food at each meal, even though he never answered the door. They left it for him, and Loki did his best to eat something before they returned again for the next meal. More than often, though, he just moved the food around to look like he did.
Wanda figured out how to open the door with magic after a few days of this, and that was when the Avengers got really frustrating.
Wanda wouldn’t actually ever say anything, but Natasha would storm in the room after Wanda every afternoon, yelling at him to “Get his butt up and do something!”
Bruce would sit on the edge of his bed, shaking his head with that sickening expression of sympathy, “I know I’m not the right type of doctor, but maybe you should talk about it with someone.”
Tony, funnily enough, was the only one that didn’t constantly bother him, only ever stopping by to offer a drink. Loki actually accepted a couple of times.
Steve rarely ever left his side, hovering over him like a mother hen.
And of course, Bucky hadn’t stopped texting him, either.
Loki was forced to text back when Bucky threatened to show up at the tower to come and check on them himself.
“I’m fine, Buck. Stop worrying about me.” He knew it didn’t explain anything, but he didn’t really want to talk about it, let alone text about it.
“Texting someone?” Steve asked, looking like he could barely resist reading over his shoulder.
“No,” Loki lied, keeping his voice crisp with irritation, “Just bored.”
“Why don’t you make something?” Steve suggested, “Don’t you love baking? Thor said you used to love baking.”
He did.
But right now, He just didn’t feel like doing anything.
“Come on,” Steve said finally, grabbing him by the arm.
Daring, considering last time Natasha had tried to get him to leave the room, she had ended up magically stuck to the hallway wall across from his room.
“What do you want to make?” Steve asked as they entered the kitchen.
When he received no response, he took out a cookbook and turned some pages, “Cake, then? Cool.”
He started getting out a bunch of ingredients, while Loki sat on one of the bar stools at the counter. He made no move to help.
“Well, at least you’re out here instead of in your room,” Steve sighed.
He continued with the recipe, up until the point where he had to get the flour.
Someone had placed the flour on the top shelf, and Steve reached for the container, picking it up by the lid.
Whoever had last used the flour, though, must’ve forgotten that the lid needed to click before the container was properly sealed.
The container fell to the floor, sending flour flying everywhere.
Steve gasped, turning to look at Loki with the most shocked expression he’d ever seen, covered head-to-toe in flour.
For the first time in weeks, Loki felt a smile break across his face.
“Here, let me help you,” Loki waved a hand, and the flour disappeared, returned back to its container, “You clearly can’t be trusted baking on your own.”
“That’s the spirit!” Steve chuckled.
They worked in relative silence for a while, before Loki finally spoke.
“You know, no one ever taught me how to bake,” Loki said, to no one in particular, “I learned myself. In Asgard, it's seen as a woman’s skill.”
“Odin hated it,” Loki turned to speak directly to Steve, “but Frigga always encouraged my skills, whatever they might’ve been.”
He looked away, feigning interest in the consistency of the batter, “I miss her.”
He opened his mouth to add, “I should’ve—“
“No,” Steve stopped him, “Don’t do that to yourself. She wouldn’t want you to beat yourself up like this. “Tyr killed her, not you. You couldn’t have known.”
Loki stared at him for a moment, tears in his eyes, and nodded, “Thank you.”