Chapter 30
When Loki finally comes out of the containment unit, still shaking and stubborn, he refuses to tell anyone what happened between him and the Hulk. He thinks Banner knows - he has to, right? - but the man refuses to tell secrets that aren’t his own. Loki appreciates that. In the back of his mind, he wonders if other-Loki and Banner could have been friends, back when they were escaping a planet together.
Every time Thor tries to talk to Loki, every time he walks into a room, Loki turns and leaves. Communication has never been a priority in Loki’s family, and even if it had been, Loki doesn’t have the words to explain that every time he sees Thor, his world tilts back off its axis. Every time he sees Thor, he feels cornered and raw and wrong.
When they were little, if Loki slinked away to be alone, Thor would follow. It was sweet, then. Now it’s aggravating.
Loki has found a hiding place in Tony’s lab. No, that’s not quite true - he was presented with a hiding place in Tony’s lab. Once, when Thor was doggedly trying to talk to Loki, Tony and Peter passed by on the way to the lab. Tony made eye contact with Loki and nodded for him to follow.
Now, Loki often follows Peter to the lab. He doesn’t mess around with the tech, though it would be interesting to combine sedir and midgardian technology. Instead, he sits and watches. It’s calming, to watch other people and not have to interact. Thor and his friends never understood that. They always thought he was going to play a trick on them, when he sat like this. They’d pressure him to join them or, more often, chase him away in the kind of cruelty masquerading as “boy’s games.”
Peter takes a break and sits next to Loki, their backs against the cool metal of the wall.
“You okay?” Peter asks softly. He’s been covering for Loki lately. Tony had a forged doctor’s note and got Loki as many excused absences as necessary. Peter has been deflecting questions and bringing back homework. Peter’s friendship is nice - quiet and calm, though Peter is anything but that.
“I don’t know,” Loki says, and he’s telling the truth. He’s not quite sure where he fits in the world anymore. He used to know his place. At Thor’s side, as the second prince of Asgard, as someone who always bends rules until they break. He’s not so sure anymore.
“I know your relationship with Thor is weird,” Peter says, which is a huge understatement. “But blood doesn’t necessarily make a family. I’m not biologically related to Aunt May.”
“That’s different,” Loki sighs. “I’m a monster.”
Peter shakes his head, mouth pressed in a determined line. “You don’t really believe that.”
Loki shrugs. Sometimes, he can’t separate his own beliefs from what he’s been told. He was always considered strange on Asgard, tolerated because of Thor and his mother. Maybe, when you’re told that you’re wrong and bad and broken enough times, you start to believe it.
When you’re told that a group of people are wrong and bad and broken, you start to believe that too. Loki knows enough of history, human and otherwise, to know that.
Loki forces a smile. “I don’t know what I believe anymore.”