Chapter 13
The landing jolts you quite a bit, and you clutch at your stomach instinctively, using your free hand to clutch Loki's elbow for balance. At the sudden contact, he looks over, his eyes widening when he sees you.
"What is this?"
This voice doesn’t belong to Loki, and sounds too old to be Thor’s. It is sharp and slightly raspy, cutting through the air of the—is this a throne room? Giving your surroundings a quick scan, you notice guards standing at intervals, and, besides the throne, a tall, regal looking woman in a blue robe. The speaker, you see, is a man of average height, strong and stocky looking beneath his armor, with a golden eyepatch.
His query, you realize, is directed at you.
You break away from Loki, straighten your spine, and bow as gracefully as one can in skinny jeans. "I am (Y/N), sir—"
"You will address me as Your Majesty, mortal," he snaps.
This is Loki’s father?
"Of course. Forgive me.” You take a small step back and bow again—more deeply this time. “I am (Y/N), Your Majesty, of The United States of America, on Earth—I mean, Midgard—and I am the fiancée of your son."
The eyebrow above his good eye quirks up. "Is that so?" You try not to squirm as he analyzes your appearance. "You've trained her well in speech, though her manner of dress is somewhat lacking."
"Your Majesty, this is not what I would normally—"
"Silence!"
You clam up immediately, willing yourself to stand your ground.
“The Allfather and I...never did see eye to eye.”
Everything Loki told you, it’s beginning to make sense. How he felt as though he was cheated of a throne. How he felt abandoned by his father. And you see now the most important thing he never mentioned: how similar he is to his adopted father.
The need for power.
The expectation of respect.
You’d never point it out to either of them, of course, but it would seem that Loki’s feelings for Odin err more on the side of desperation to please than they do hatred.
“You allowed her to come why , exactly?”
Thor shakes his head. “I did not, Father.”
You can’t keep your mouth shut. “I came here of my own accord.”
“You are brave, mortal.” He circles you, looking you up and down. “Recklessly so. You are a liability.” He sweeps around, climbing the stairs back to the throne, and waves his hands at one of the guards. “Take her away.” The guards start towards you, spears at the ready, and you hear a muffled cry from Loki behind you as two guards take him down the hall.
“No.”
Odin’s head snaps back. Your voice rings through the room, echoing lightly against the high arch of the ceiling. The guards halt a few feet away from you, looking uncertain.
You raise your chin, unblinking. “I will not be treated as a criminal.”
“You have entered Asgard without permission.”
“I mean you no harm, Your Majesty. I only ask that, when you send me back—” Because of course you have to go back. Rhea, S.H.I.E.L.D., they don’t have to know. You will change your name, your life, anything, but you will not let Loki rot in a cell for crimes that weren’t his to begin with “—I ask that I take my fiancé with me.”
“There is no way back.”
You’re pretty sure you misheard him. You must have misheard him, because there’s no way he just told you… “But the Tesseract—”
“Will be locked away immediately,” he interrupts. “Since you are so fond of him , you may remain with him until he is sentenced.” He nods again to the guards. They pause a moment, waiting for you to protest, before following his instructions.
“All right, all right!” You pull your elbow out of one guard’s grasp. “I'll go willingly, Your Majesty, so long as your guards stop trying to manhandle me.”
He shrugs. “I make no promises.”
With that, the throne room doors shut behind you.
The palace is even larger than the one back home, the ceilings higher, pillars thicker. It’s a marvel of architecture. Intimidating. Gorgeous. If only you had the time to truly appreciate it. Even the dungeons have a strange sort of magic to them—there are no bars, just a golden web covering each cell, like stained glass.
You reach the end of the row, and the guards shove Loki into a cell. You’re about to object, but before you can, one of them picks you up and quite literally throws you in after him. The gold force field appears, and you’re left rubbing your head and wincing as the guards walk away.
“Darling." You feel him wrap his arms around you, helping you to sit up before pulling you to him. He leans back, then, looking at you in disbelief. “You came here?”
“Of course.”
“I had...I had assumed…” He trails off.
Whatever gaps in communication may exist between you two, you understand immediately what he’s trying to say.
“Me too,” you say quietly.
“You thought I'd...” You nod, avoiding making eye contact. "Well. I suppose we both leapt to assumptions, didn't we?"
Though there is an attempt at humor in his tone, he sounds hurt. Hurt and ashamed, just as you do. You hardly can be angry at him for thinking you were working with S.H.I.E.L.D. to capture him, when you'd assumed so easily that he had left you for good. But the realization that you both were so quick to fear the worst still cuts deep.
Wasn't this why you'd taken a year before the wedding? To grow? To learn each other better than before?
How could that all have been wiped away so quickly?
“I didn’t see your note until they sent me back to the palace. I didn’t see it the day of the wedding, and then you were just gone. I didn’t…” You look up into those green, green eyes. You see in them a remorse that mirrors your own. “I thought you’d just left.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I didn’t know,” you confirm. “But you came back.”
"And you...you threw yourself into the Tesseract.” He squeezes your hands, and a hint of frustration enters his voice. “What in the nine realms were you thinking?"
"I couldn't just let you go!"
"You risked your life. You didn't think—you never—" He cuts himself off when he catches a glimpse of your shocked expression.
"What" There is a physical gap between you, now, your hands not touching anymore. "I never what?"
"Perhaps now isn't the time—"
"When else do we have?" He doesn't respond, and the anger bubbles up in your chest. "Tell me. Tell me, Loki, what is it I did that's so—"
"You're reckless." He spits it quietly, but with an intensity that nearly knocks the wind from your chest. "You don't think, (Y/N)."
You stutter for a few seconds. "If I'd stopped to consider my options back at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, you would be in this cell alone right now. You do realize that?"
"As I should be!"
"What?"
"This is my responsibility. Solely mine" Somehow, without realizing, you've both ended up on your feet. You can’t remember the last time you saw him tense in quite this way. Seeing his family, his homeland, seems to have made him cagier, more on edge. "The number of people I hurt on Midgard alone—"
"You—"
"Just because it was unintentional doesn't mean it didn't happen."
"So you were just going to let yourself be taken, then?" You let out a short, bitter laugh. "If I hadn't come, you wouldn't have put up a fight at all?" He steps towards you, and you put up a hand to stop him. "No. You don't get to yell at me about being reckless when you're really just upset at yourself. That's not fair."
"My birthright may have been a broken family, but that's no excuse for having torn so many others apart." One hand clenches into a fist at his side. "You had a family that loved you, (Y/N). Loves you. I was the monster who stole their daughter, the beast that kept the princess captive and forced her to love him. And now I am to be the reason you may never see them again."
"I chose you!" you cry. You want to take a step towards him, but it feels wrong, all of this is wrong. You're not sure if the ache in your chest is from fury or sorrow; maybe both. "I chose to love you. I chose to leave my family, because—"
"You chose to leave them because of me. I know, (Y/N). I know, and it kills me anew every time I am reminded of it." When your eyes meet, you don't recognize the chill that's entered his gaze. "Again and again, you chose so easily to abandon what many would kill for, all for a man who was never worthy of your love to begin with. That is what was reckless."
You stare at each other for a few deadly moments, unblinking. And, in spite of his accusations of recklessness—or perhaps because of them—you think very, very carefully about your next words before you speak again.
"I chose you," you repeat quietly. "I chose you over a family that chose themselves over me."
He says nothing. But already the icy ire in his expression has begun to thaw. A small thing, but it gives you hope, it gives you courage, and here is where your recklessness might just serve you well, because you're going to tell him:
"And I—" C'mon. It's now or never. "I—" Pregnant. Just say it, just say the word. "I'm—"
"Bleeding."
"What?"
"You're bleeding." He runs a few fingers across your hairline, and shows you the red stain. He touches the wound again, and this time you feel the stinging fade. "There."
"I—" You sigh. "Thank you."
I'm sorry.
You don't apologize out loud, but you think he knows. You feel it from him, too.
Just like that, you lose your nerve again. Instead of blurting out what's been on your mind for the past three weeks, you lean forward and kiss him, gently as you can. One kiss becomes two, and then more, bruised and angry and exhausted as you both are, and you feel a bit of his usual restraint melt away at the feel of your waist beneath his hands, pulling you more closely against him than you recall him doing ever before. It feels like an act of survival, this. Clinging to each other as though somehow the feeling of his skin against yours will erase every harsh word and disloyal thought either of you have spoken or felt over the past week, the past year, the past lifetime.
You wonder if he can taste the same desperation on your lips as you do on his.
For a while, all you can do is hold him, and let him hold you. Eventually, you drift off, his arms shielding you from the chill of the cell. I’ll tell him, you promise yourself. I’ll tell him when we wake up.
Just not right now.
You’re not certain how long you’ve slept for, only that the rest has done you some good. Yes, your neck and hips are stiff from too long lying on the bare floor, but even that is worth it, if only for your renewed sense of optimism. They can’t keep you in this cell forever, right? You’ve been through worse. You will overcome this, somehow. You will get him out.
You must.
But before that, you have to tell him the truth.
You glance over to where he stands opposite you, casing one corner of the cell for any potentially exploitable weaknesses. You both have been mostly silent the entire time in the cell. You were already reluctant to share the news of the pregnancy, and now… there’s a disconnect, between the two of you. Not just the mental link, either. The aura has changed, after being separated so forcefully, after all of the wondering where he was, wondering if he’d abandoned you altogether, if you’d abandoned him.
It hurts just to think about.
He hasn’t been any more inclined to strike up a conversation than you are.
But he still smiles when he catches you looking his way, and he still crosses the cell to meet you in the middle for another embrace.
“No luck on my end,” you murmur.
“Likewise.” You feel the light repetition of his hand stroking your hair, and you can’t help but relax into him a bit further. “It will be alright.”
You’re not entirely certain he believes it. But you nod your agreement into his shoulder all the same.
It’s interesting, how, even in the face of actual, literal death, your stomach still tenses up with nervous butterflies at the thought of telling your fiancé that you’re pregnant. The human mind is funny like that.
Enough delaying.
You take a deep breath, still resting your cheek on his shoulder, cowardly avoiding his gaze. Before you can so much as open your mouth, though, you’re cut off by another voice. Not Loki. A voice from outside the cell.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a mortal on Asgard.”
You don’t recognize the speaker. But you notice the way Loki’s muscles stiffen, and the way he breaks away to stand slightly in front of you, and you feel your heart run cold.
Out of the shadows steps a woman with a dancer’s bearing and a rich bronze complexion that seems almost luminescent, as though she were somehow lit from within. Her hair, braided back from her face with raspberry-pink blossoms woven in, is gathered into a high ponytail that falls nearly to her waist. Even at this distance, you can see her eyes match the color of the flowers, which are also wound in small garlands around her wrists. The pale ivory silk of her dress shimmers around her ankles, making her seem to almost float, rather than walk, through the transparent front wall of the cell.
She stops a step or two too close to him. You resist the urge to make a possessive comment as she hooks one finger under the chain that has suddenly reappeared between his wrists.
She barely spares a glance in your direction.
When she fixes her gaze once more on him, her full lips quirk upwards, and you see a new edge appear in her amaranth eyes.
“Young prince Loki, tied down at last.” Her voice is so soft and sweet, her tone so lighthearted, it’s difficult to read her meaning. “I never thought I’d live to see the day.”
He purses his lips. “Hello, Sigyn.”