Custody Battle
[Classified Location]
April 2011
It was too much. The deception had been one thing; sending the Destroyer another, but this? Attacking Midgard, making a spectacle of himself, posturing and attempting to rule them?
Too much.
Thor hurled his brother - the word felt curdled and rotten in his mind, a mockery of what they’d once been - onto a rocky promontory. He didn’t know where he was on Midgard and didn’t much care.
“This is enough, Loki,” he growled. “Midgard is under my protection!”
“Stellar job you’re doing there,” Loki drawled, eyes glittering. He climbed to his feet and somehow managed to look menacing even with his hands bound. “The Kree remember what your protection is worth.”
Thor hesitated, struggling to place the statement. “You… are still fretting over that peace treaty? Brother, it’s been centuries. By the Norns.”
“We are not brothers,” Loki hissed, his face suddenly feral, vicious. It smoothed back out a heartbeat later, but the momentary change startled Thor.
“We were raised together,” he snapped. “We played together, fought together - do you remember none of that? Does that not make us brothers, in name if not by blood?”
“I remember a shadow,” Loki spat back. “I remember living in the shadow of your greatness. I remember our father raising me to hate my own kind; I remember my parents lying to me with every breath and every look; I remember dear Odin favoring you more with every passing decade. I remember being told that one day I would be a king, and then watching you build a legacy even more idiotic than Odin’s as you prepared to ascend the throne.”
Thor stared. “No, Loki. Your recollections are twisted, warped-”
“Hypocrite,” Loki mocked. “Look to yourself! Did you not believe me happy? Did you not believe me your most loyal sycophant, willing to follow wherever you lead? I was not either of those things. Not for many, many centuries now. So I ask you, whose memories are more wrong?”
“Bro- Loki,” Thor said, unsure of what would come out of his mouth but knowing he had to try. For her sake. “Loki, I have come...”
“Look at you,” Loki sneered. “You cannot even call me brother to my face. You don’t believe it any more than I!” He laughed. It was a howling, mirthless sound, born of dark triumph. “Why are you here, then? Why share words with me on this barren rock? Asgard’s justice awaits me, does it not?”
“I am here for Mother,” Thor said stiffly.
Loki’s face shut down. “Ahhh,” he breathed, “and now it all makes sense. The mighty Thor, lowering himself to speak with his traitor foundling brother, all for the sake of the one woman who has ever been able to check the Odinson’s rages. Did she mourn, Odinson?”
“We all did,” Thor said roughly. He remembered sitting on the shattered end of the Bifrost, having chased the repair team away for the day. He remembered a single tear falling into the abyss as he mourned not the brother who had fallen but the one he had known in their youth. He remembered Father solemnly dropping Loki’s favorite sword after his tear, a homage to a fallen warrior, and then putting his grief aside as they made preparations for the coronation.
He remembered Mother refusing to speak to Father for months, throwing herself into the repairs of the Bifrost, as befitted one of the most accomplished seidr masters in the Nine Realms, and turning her coldness on him as well, at times. He remembered the moment he had realized that this was Loki’s fault as well.
The traitorous prince had broken more than the Rainbow Bridge on Asgard.
Thor didn’t remember exactly when his grief had petrified into anger and resentment.
“Come home,” he forced himself to say. “Come home, Loki.”
“Asgard is no longer my home,” Loki said simply. “You made sure of that.”
Thor gritted his teeth. Mother, I tried. “Then if you will not come and make amends for your crimes, you will face the justice of the Allfather,” he said grimly.
Loki smirked.
Something slammed into Thor. The next thing he knew, he was flipping end over end along the forest floor, shattering trees and clinging to Mjolnir, at last spinning and landing on his feet.
Battle fury descended. Thor fell into a crouch and glared at the man facing him: a Midgardian, but encased in an ingenious metal suit. The Midgardian flew through the air and landed hard not far from Thor.
So it was to be a fight. Thor twirled Mjolnir.
This would at least let him work off some of his Loki-induced rage.
[Classified Location]
April 2011
Steve didn’t have to search very hard for Stark and the new arrival, despite the fact that they were in an isolated forest in the middle of the night. All he had to do was follow the explosions.
He landed two hundred meters from the fight, disengaged from the chute, and ran toward them, seeking high ground.
From atop a fresh-fallen tree, Steve took in the scene at a glance: toppled trunks, scorch marks on the ground and the new man’s strange armor, fingerprints around Stark’s metal forearm. Surprise pinned him in place for several seconds. Stark was actually an excellent combatant, much better than Steve would’ve expected from reading his file. The newcomer - another Asgardian, probably - was impossibly fast and strong, but Stark fought smarter.
Steve shook off the shock and hurled his shield. It ricocheted off Stark’s head and the newcomer’s hammer and slammed back onto Steve’s arm.
“Enough,” he said angrily into the silence.
Stark and his opponent waited as Steve deliberately took a position halfway between them, creating a triangle, in the hopes of not taking a side and therefore defusing the situation.
“Not going to work,” Stark said directly into Steve’s earpiece. No sound came from the billionaire’s helmet speakers. “My new buddy is not the most rational of men.”
“Who are you?” Steve demanded. He readied himself to fight with Stark; they might not get along, but they were on the same side. He just hoped Stark would do the same.
“I am Thor son of Odin,” the blond Asgardian growled, “and you will leave me to my own affairs.”
Thor. From New Mexico. The one in Foster’s files.
“Nuh-uh,” Stark said before Steve could open his mouth. “I don’t care if Reindeer Games up there stole your girlfriend or put Mentos in your Coke. You’re welcome to his leather-bound ass just as soon as we get back what he stole. Which I believe I already tried to communicate.”
“Loki is of Asgard,” Thor snapped. “He will face trial by our courts.”
“You mean by your king,” Steve said. His tone came out cooler than he had intended, but he couldn’t quite get past that tidbit he'd learned in the briefing on Asgard: a single person being the arbiter of justice? Not a good system.
Thor drew himself upright. “Do not insult Odin Allfather,” he rumbled threateningly.
“He didn’t,” Stark said, taking a step forward. Steve threw out a hand to stop him even as he processed his own surprise that the man had come to his defense.
“He implied that the Allfather’s justice is less than perfect!” Thor snapped.
Steve backtracked. “I was clarifying a legal system so different from most societies on Earth,” he said. “I meant no offense to Asgard or O- the Allfather.” How did my life get this weird?
Thor glowered, but relaxed his grip on the oversize hammer. Really, how did the guy fight with that thing? “We are not enemies,” he said at last. “I have no desire to continue battle with you.”
“Not now that it’s two on one, anyway,” Stark said straight to Steve’s earpiece. “He was plenty eager two minutes ago.”
“Then prove it,” Steve said, meeting Thor’s eyes. “Put the hammer down.”
He knew instantly that he’d made a mistake. The prince’s eyes flared up with rage, and his face contorted. “You want me to put the hammer down?” he roared, and leaped through the air.
The world slowed.
Steve saw Stark ducking and raising a metal arm before his head. He saw Thor flying toward him, the hammer descending. He saw his shield as he raised it in slow motion to protect his face, and even through closed lids, he saw the brilliant flare of light as the hammer met the shield.
The impact shuddered through his body. The only worse thing he’d ever felt was the blow as the Hydra ship crumpled onto the ice shelf.
A single ringing note split the air and left silence in its wake.
Steve, Stark, and Thor rose slowly to their feet. Even Thor looked a little disoriented, staggering slightly as he stood and shaking his head twice as if to clear it. Stark took a step closer to Steve, who found himself glaring at the Asgardian. Their files said he was a prince, but Steve made a point of giving respect to people because they earned it and not because they had a dramatic title after their name. So far this guy had proved himself impulsive and prone to violence, not worthy of much respect at all. At least not as a prince.
“Are we done here?” Steve said tiredly.
Thor looked around the new clearing, trees toppled from the force of the impact, and nodded once.
“We will keep Loki in custody until we can retrieve what he stole and set right what he… interrupted,” Steve said. “After that-”
“He’s all yours,” Stark finished.
Thor glanced once at them, and Steve might have been wrong, but he thought he saw both wariness and respect in the alien’s eyes. “We have a deal.”