Chapter 16
Loki and Peter get to the table first. Loki’s hair is neatly braided around her head and, since she lacks any respectable clothes, she wears the t-shirt and sweatpants that she had when she woke up in the Med Bay. She sits up painfully straight and keeps her head high. She can do this.
Steve comes to the table next. He looks at Loki, who defiantly holds his gaze.
“You look nice,” he says.
Loki blinks a couple times. “Thank you?”
Steve shakes his head. “Don’t thank me for being a decent person. I’m glad you feel comfortable enough to express yourself.”
A haunted look comes over Loki’s face, but it’s gone just as quickly as it arrived. Loki opens her mouth to say something, when Tony and Thor come in.
“Brother!” Thor bellows, face falling when he sees her. “Must you do these tricks?”
Loki sighs heavily. “This is not a trick, Thor.” She shrugs. “Today is a girl day.”
“We’ve been over this,” Thor says. “You cannot keep doing things like this.”
Loki shakes her head, oddly proud that her hair is braided tightly enough that it doesn’t come loose. “No, Thor, we haven’t been over this. You talk at me and expect me to listen.”
Bruce stops in the doorway and looks around. “Am I interrupting something?” he asks.
“Yes,” Thor says. “No,” Loki says at the same time.
Everyone served themselves food in silence, piling shawarma and sides onto their plates.
“Did you two enjoy the pool?” Tony asks.
Peter nods enthusiastically. “It was so fun, Mr. Stark! Did you know that Loki can hold her breath for 5 minutes?”
“His,” Thor says.
“No,” Peter looks directly in Thor’s eyes. “Her.”
“Our parents didn’t raise an ergi!” Thor snarls. Loki twitches at that, and Peter has a sinking feeling that ergi is similar to a slur he’s heard before.
“Maybe,” Loki starts, staring at her food like it holds the secret to the universe. “That’s because Father didn’t bother to raise me at all.”
“Father was great to us!” Thor says. “You’ve just always been jealous of me”
Loki shakes her head. “He was great to you, Thor. If I recall correctly, he never had your lips sewn closed, did he?”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have back-talked a dignitary!” Thor says, ignorant to the way Steve gripped his silverware so hard they started to bend and how Bruce and Tony had gone pale.
“That man was an idiot and we all knew it!” Loki snaps. “You agreed with me, you were just too cowardly to say anything.”
“You should have known better!” Thor says.
“I was 500! I hadn’t even reached puberty yet.”
A chair screeches, and Bruce rushes out of the room looking a little green around the edges.
Thor sighs. “He may have been harsh, brother, but he was trying to teach you.”
Loki shakes her head. “You always make excuses for him.” She looks at him, trying to pretend her eyes aren’t pools of unshed tears. “Why do you never extend that courtesy to me?”
Steve had watched the entire exchange with slowly dawning horror on his face. He remembers being young and weak and realizing that people thought he was wrong for being the way that he was. Not just his disabilities, but who he loved, too. He doesn’t know how to say that to Loki, how to voice something that had been illegal for the first 27 years of his life.
Instead, he does what his mom always did. He pushes more food at Loki and tells her to eat.
Peter excuses himself early, saying his aunt probably wants him at home. Loki knows better, though. She had seen the way Peter’s face fell whenever Thor said something gross to her. She wonders if Thor had been a hero of Peter’s.
After dinner, Thor stalks off, probably to hit something in the gym. And it starts to rain.
Loki sits in the living room but doesn’t reach for a book. Instead, she sits on the floor and faces the windows, watching the lightning leaping across the sky.
“That sucked,” Tony says, lowering himself down next to her. “Didn’t know Point Break could be that intense.”
Loki doesn’t say anything, just continues staring at the downpour outside. She flinches at a lightning strike.
“Scared of lightning?” Tony asks, remembering the helicarrier so long ago.
Loki shrugs weakly. “Not overly fond of what comes next.”
“Thor wouldn’t actually hurt you,” Tony says with a surety he doesn’t quite feel.
“I think you severely overestimate me and underestimate him.” Loki looks pensive, drawn out. Like the color was drained from her over dinner.
“When we were little,” Loki says. “Thor would put on light shows for me. We would stand on the roof and he would make the sky sing.”
“He loves you,” Tony says. Tony knows a few things about dysfunctional relationships. “But that doesn’t mean he always knows what’s best for you.”
Loki doesn’t respond for a minute, tracing the lighting across the sky.
“He held me down,” she finally whispers.
“What?” Tony asks.
“While they sewed my mouth shut,” Loki says. “He held me down.”
Tony is very rarely stunned silent. He figures he can make an exception for this occasion.
“And the entire time,” Loki whispers, a single tear rolling down her cheek. “The entire time, he told me it would be over soon. That if I stopped struggling, it would hurt less.”
“Shit, kid,” Tony says. “I really don’t know how to respond to that.”
Loki curls into herself, still staring out the window. “What did I do to make him hate me so much?” She asks.
“Thor?” Tony asks.
Loki shakes her head. “The Allfather. I don’t know what I did.”
Tony shrugs, trying for his normal flippancy and failing miserably. “Sometimes dads just suck.”
Loki laughs, short and sharp. “Yeah,” she says. “That must be it.”