Chapter Text
Loki
Loki stared up at Thor from the floor.
Medicinal, cultural, and historical books lie in a stack beside him, along with a small portable heater, bottle, and the bread roll he’d begun eating this morning, all atop his plush gray blanket.
“I’ll be right here,” Thor said, crouching before Loki as he pointed at the table in the control room. He reached over and fixed the collar of Loki’s gold fleece top. “If anyone visits and realizes it’s you sitting here, we’ll say you’ve shapeshifted to research what affects children experience while onboard.”
Loki brought a hand to the pacifier, holding it tight, though he grew nervous when Thor’s eye pinched at the motion.
“Brunnhilde found those books in your bag, but if you don’t like them, I’ll grab others. Heimdall and I are going to work on our trajectory,” Thor said. “If you have any thoughts, just wave. Heimdall will see and we’ll listen.”
Would they?
Thor fussed with the loose threads on Loki’s blanket and changed the dials on the heater, seeming intent on lingering until he cupped the back of Loki’s head and stroked his thumb over his cheek.
“Right there,” Thor said, pointing again to the table before stepping away.
Cozy, and with Thor in such close range, Loki struggled to tell how he felt. A part of him bristled at Thor’s obvious attempt to cater to his feelings, when he hadn’t given them half as much thought in the last few years. Why now? Why hadn’t Thor listened to him years, or even centuries ago?
Another, smaller part of his heart fluttered, grateful he could see Thor anytime he looked up.
It all felt strangely normal with Heimdall present, even if Loki thought it should feel mad. Shouldn’t he be manning the watch? Where were Thor’s snarling friends, or his squealing masses?
Dead.
They were dead.
Death could change a tremendous number of things, which Loki ought to know. Thor changed after Mother and Odin’s deaths, and doubly so after Asgard’s fall.
He caught Thor’s eye and quickly realized his bread roll needed all of his attention when he noticed Thor’s lips tightening.
Crumbs scattered down his front as he struggled to break a piece off. He failed to realize he’d need to spit the pacifier out if he wanted to eat it, which wouldn’t be happening anytime soon. If he took the pacifier away, the bottle would have to replace it. If his mouth went empty for too long, his thoughts would rush out, spilling from his tongue and staining everything in reach.
Thor’s gaze turned away at the sound of clacking footsteps.
“Your Grace,” Halfdan’s bitter voice echoed.
From so low to the ground, Halfdan stood massive. Loki remembered glowering over his wispy bald spot at his correct age, but now he wondered if he’d been kidding himself thinking he was the larger of the two.
Halfdan’s shoulders alone spanned wider than Thor’s, and his deep red robes billowed outward.
“How can I be expected to complete this task without a full, proper laboring team, Sir!” Halfdan asked, sweeping around the large table to stand before Thor. “At least a third of the items in these hallways are family heirlooms, which require said family to collect and house, yet few can spare a member to come tidy and collect their belongings!”
Thor’s face darkened, though Loki didn’t think Halfdan cared.
“This project requires more than one person! It’s an exercise in futility to organize anything when no one will do as they’re told and take these so-called cherished keepsakes off the floor!”
“Have you required them to remain and assist you, Halfdan?”
“You will find that I have, yet my work is continuously forced to a standstill by the Watchman or Valkyrie, who argue that my methods cannot extend beyond my own reach!”
“You can’t demand servitude without pay, Halfdan.”
“However, these are not my keepsakes, Sir, and that service I am rendering is to them! They should defer to me for guidance, and If I am unable to expect them to assist with the organization, then this job has reached the end of its natural life, Sir.” Halfdan’s face flushed pink as his wiry eyebrows furrowed. “If I’m to live in your new world, I expect to be granted the same respect of my past one, lest I find myself a new home.”
Loki blurrily remembered something about this conversation from this morning, though he mostly recalled the ache in his legs from how far he’d walked.
“I have been a gracious citizen of yours, King Thor.”
Loki sat straighter.
“I’ve tolerated the disaster caused by King Odin’s choice in family, this droll exodus, and existence on this ship, but at what point do we admit that you have little experience leading, and less experience ruling?”
“Halfdan, if you’d rather, you can be let off at the nearest port.”
Halfdan flushed a deeper pink. “You threaten banishment for a complaint?!”
“Not at all.”
“How could that be anything but banishment?!”
The bread in Loki’s fist flaked beneath his shaky, tight grip.
Thor stood tall as he stepped closer to Halfdan. “You claim to be unhappy with my leadership, and cast doubt upon me in unprecedented times. You may describe your argument as a complaint, but what I heard sounded more like sedition.”
Heimdall’s hand fell over the sheath of his sword, his armor shimmering beneath the whorl of stars glittering from the windows.
Loki suddenly wished Thor left him in their bedroom.
“Heimdall, remind me of the punishment for sedition.” Thor said, nearly nose to nose with Halfdan.
“Sir!” Halfdan shouted. “You would truly view one complaint from a harried, starved refugee as seditious?! You would have more in common with a marauding, raiding warlord if you so much as thought to abandon a single Asgardian for such pettiness!”
Thor fell frighteningly still.
His remaining eye grew flat and distant, and though it lacked the breathtaking cunning behind Odin’s gaze, it more than made up for it through sheer ferocity. It reminded Loki of how Odin looked before banishing Thor, or condemning Loki to a life of solitude in prison. Worse yet, it reminded him of how Odin looked when he’d finally told Loki the truth about his birthright.
Loki smothered a cry behind the pacifier and crawled to his knees, desperate to escape before Thor’s hair grew gray and he began wielding a great spear.
Before he could crawl much more than a step though, gentle hands curled around Loki’s ribs and tucked him up against a wonderful warmth.
He looked up in time to watch as Thor’s remaining eyelid fluttered and a gaunt, waxiness drained his cheeks, chasing away the bitter fury brought by frightening power.
“Sir, who’s babe—”
The rumbling which so comforted Loki rushed over him, soothing and pleasant, yet terribly infantile. Loki tried to smother another cry at it, only it came out louder than the first.
He wanted to hear the conversation, and felt as if he’d been kept in the dark, no matter how unintentional.
This was important! Loki hadn’t considered who Thor might turn into if he truly became Asgard’s King. What if he grew corrupted, and bent on his own right to rule, just as Loki had? The difference between Thor and who he could become spanned a monumental distance in Loki’s mind, but all the same, each tiny decision inched closer and closer to that person, until someone entirely separate from Thor lived in his body.
A heavy hand ran up Loki’s back as the rumbling he found so much comfort in rippled down his back. It grew faint and fainter still until Thor’s whispers replaced it altogether.
Whiskery kisses brushed Loki’s forehead. “I’m not—it-it's a lot of shouting, I know. I’m thankful you’re here to remind us to keep civil.”
Loki supposed that was true.
However, he couldn’t help but be reminded of how his heart pounded after failing to shake sense into Thor when he’d landed in Jotunheim following his disastrous coronation.
“That was wrong of me to—to characterize Halfdan’s argument that way,” Thor said, sweeping dampness from Loki’s cheeks. “His doubt made me unkind, and in payment, I nearly altered the course of his life.”
The clattering sound of beads knocking against one another echoed in Loki’s ears.
“Look,” Thor added softly. “He’s thankful for your reminder as well.”
Loki blinked through a veil of tears to find a polished string of pearls bouncing through the air before him.
“There, there now, this argument is no cause for fright,” Halfdan said, shaking the pearls near Loki’s nose. “I’m sure your escape from Asgard was worse than all of our shouting.”
Thor hummed, rumbling with the lovely soft sound Loki so enjoyed.
He pressed his cheek to Thor’s chest and let his thoughts fall away as a strong heartbeat thumped in his ear.
“Yes, that’s quite right little one, tuck in,” Halfdan continued awkwardly, as if he’d never dangled anything before a small child.
Loki cringed at his own description, but felt pleased to have a distraction all the same. He wanted the pearls, truthfully. They looked like a set Mother had.
“Such a small thing.” Halfdan clicked his tongue as the pearls fell to dangle beside his hip.
The rumble rushed over Loki, stealing any sense of anxiety or rigidity from his back and shoulders. He belatedly, and blurrily realized the rumbling must come from Thor, seeing as it only happened when Thor held him, and deafened Loki to his brother’s voice, save for when he whispered. The lovely feeling must come from how Thor’s voice resonated in his chest.
Why hadn’t Loki figured that out earlier on? Has he truly been so distracted?
“I had a nephew who started out small like this one. He liked to be bounced on my knee. Perhaps that will help these tears?” Halfdan said idly. “It usually distracted him from whatever shiny choking hazard we’d taken from him.”
Loki didn’t know if he liked that idea.
The rumbling eased his back though, growing louder as Thor swept around the table.
Clacking footsteps echoed through the room as Halfdan stepped out the doorway, his mustache and beard twitching with displeasure.
What did Thor say to make Halfdan leave so quickly, and in such a huff?!
“Sigurdson’s sedition may spread, Highness,” Heimdall said as he placed himself in the open doorway. “It is wise to know his heart, but I’m less inclined to think of that same heart as good-natured.”
Loki felt less and less sure of things when Thor’s large hands wrapped around his ribs and settled him atop Thor’s knee.
He wound his hands around Thor’s fingers, nervous of any sudden movement.
Thumbs stroked over his back, soothing his tense muscles as if Thor knew he needed coaxing. They sat that way for a long moment, certainly long enough for Loki to question Thor leaping to do exactly as Halfdan recommended.
Thor had been learning several new techniques lately though, so Loki supposed it made sense for him to try them out.
However, he wondered if it had something to do with showing Loki how little Thor had in common with Odin, or warlord types in general. Odin rarely followed the advice of others, and if he did, it’d never been in good faith. Loki couldn’t help but feel Thor truly did believe Halfdan’s suggestion would help, because Thor—in their childhood at least—only ever wanted to help, even if his attempts were sometimes misguided.
“Halfdan is a busybody,” Thor said, “who’s accustomed to having his way. He’s arrogant, but not vindictive. He inherited his wealth from his mother, who was far more cutthroat.”
Loki let out a panicked shriek as Thor’s knee gave the slightest, gentle bounce, sending a swooping sensation in his belly.
“It’s ok, Loki!” Thor rubbed Loki’s back again. “Tap twice and I’ll stop.”
“The spoiled can be just as dangerous as the cutthroat, Highness,” Heimdall said softly.
Thor’s thumbs continued stroking unconsciously, spanning the length of Loki’s spine and upper back. “He tried to comfort Loki. He may be spoiled, but he’s still grieving. It’s as Brunnhilde said this morning; he’s trying to control his environment.”
“Do you consider his attempt to comfort Prince Loki an act of pure kindness?”
Thor’s comforting thumbs fell still, though they leapt back to work when Loki made a muffled sound behind the pacifier.
“I ask you what you think he would do, had Prince Loki remained upset?”
“I imagine he would’ve felt frustrated,” Thor said as his hands grew firm and he bounced his knee again.
Though he felt more prepared for it, Loki still didn’t know if he liked this jarring, weightless feeling. It made him feel smaller than he already was, and left him frustratingly distracted.
“Halfdan hasn’t hurt anyone or anything though,” Thor said, his knee falling into a slow, controlled pace. “He’s been annoying, and given a new project three times now, and while complaints about and from him have risen, he hasn’t grown violent. Besides, if denial and loss made him violent, he’d have attacked after Ragnarok.”
Heimdall inclined his head.
Did all babe’s like this careful bouncing act? Loki supposed he liked the swooping sensation in his belly. It reminded Loki of when Thor used to take him flying with Mjolnir. A bit mad, and a good time, if Loki felt more interested in playing it.
Thor’s knee picked up speed as Loki pinched his lips together. How could Thor be so quick? Shouldn’t Loki weigh more, or at least weigh his leg down? He supposed, however, that Thor’s hands met around Loki’s middle. It shouldn’t be so odd for him to feel shocked at his own small size, afterall, runts ran small.
“What do you think of this, Loki?” Thor asked, patting his knee and shuffling Loki closer to look in his eyes. “You look a bit lost,” he added with a frown. “Heimdall?”
Heimdall’s unpleasant, watchful gaze washed over Loki.
“It’s my understanding that small children haven’t yet developed an understanding of their bodies in motion, which makes this game unique for them,” Heimdall said neutrally. “I believe Prince Loki is just trying to find where his own body ends and the artificial gravity begins.”
Thor hummed. “Do you dislike it?”
Loki took the pacifier out and tapped Thor twice. He focused on the way this game could be fun, but shared his preference to be returned to the ground.
Without another thought, he found himself sitting atop his gray blanket once more, though this time Thor stayed kneeling beside him, going on about how proud he felt of Loki for having tried something new.
“Which of these looks good?” Thor asked after a minute, flipping through the books he’d stacked together earlier. “Let’s see where you were with this one,” he mumbled to himself, paging through bookmarks until he stopped short. “Here we…” he trailed off, squinting at the crammed writing scrawled within the medicinal book for a long moment.
Loki knew what his own notes looked like, but more than that, he knew which notes he’d left in the margins.
“This is—Loki, did you try to cast this?”
He clutched the pacifier close and lay down before the heater.
Thor whispered to himself as he turned the page, and his eyes flew over Loki’s handwriting.
The blanket felt far more interesting to explore than Thor’s whispers, as did the heater. Who knew they had something so nice, and portable!
“Loki.” Thor stroked Loki’s cheek. “Did you cast this?” he asked, tapping a leathery page.
When Loki grew back to his regular size, he’d keep this heater. It might be less efficient with him so much larger, but even a little warmth on his hands or cheeks usually kept his terror at bay.
Thor’s hand wandered up through Loki's hair. “Alright. I’ll be right here, remember?” He pointed toward the table once more and when he stood, he took the book with him.
——
Thor
Thor flipped through two more pages of the spell's description.
‘—allows the recipient to redevelop a coping method through a comprehensive reset of the body’s learned response, including—’
Loki had scribbled above the paragraph here in slanted, neat letters, ‘Method?’
If Thor had to guess, he’d say the method involved returning the recipient to the age they learned a coping method, which for Loki, occurred when he’d been abandoned on a massive black stone.
Thor swallowed what felt like a mouthful of glass. He glanced toward where Loki lay, peacefully suckling his pacifier and warming his fingers before the portable heater.
Why?
Why? Why would Laufey abandon him when he usually wanted nothing more than to cuddle?! Even now he just wanted to sit with Thor in sight!
What had been going on in Laufey’s head?!
He rolled his shoulders and tried to settle his pounding heart.
Loki’s sudden aging hadn’t been an accident then, though Thor couldn’t muster the frustration to feel irritated by that, regardless of its ill-timed nature. He couldn’t feel upset with Loki for trying to heal from Laufey’s actions, though Thor did wonder why Loki cast it in a market.
‘—spell’s comprehensive nature, effects vary by recipient and need—’
How comprehensive was ‘comprehensive’? Did Loki know the full extent of the healing spell? When Thor tried to ask, he’d been distracted by the heater, though he somehow felt as if Loki would grow distracted by a number of things if Thor tried asking him about the spell again.
Would Loki stay this way until he learned new coping methods, or would he grow when he felt ready?
Thor almost preferred that he grow when he felt ready, in part because he seemed to have become more comfortable sharing his worries at this size, and allowed himself to be soothed.
What would they do if trouble brewed though? What would happen if Loki remained small and that chilling, blue-tinged warlord stumbled over them? Heimdall found the Chitauri nest as Thor asked, but beyond the carnage left by Tony’s bomb, he saw no sign of a war, or warlord.
He refused to allow any hope of Tony having killed the warlord.
‘—success is reliant on the development of insight—’
It was no wonder Loki hadn’t grown yet! He couldn’t be expected to forget a lifetime of terror stemming from one highly influential moment in his life all because Thor kept him fed and warm a few times.
Thor’s initial decision to keep trying to help Loki fluttered to life.
This could be good! All of Bruce’s concerns about Loki’s insecurities, and trusting Thor and their friends to listen to him began to make more and more sense.
He still shivered at the idea of how much power the spell took. The warnings called for Loki to spread the casting power over several seidrmadr, and even then, only if every other avenue failed.
They needed to find Bruce! They needed to learn more about babes; their habits and routines, and what they needed to flourish! He needed to show Loki how much Thor loved him, he needed to show Loki how he always deserved to be saved, he needed to show Loki how Thor would always be there!
Loki couldn’t begin to change his mind and coping methods if he only saw how Thor failed!
He rounded the table, intending on snatching Loki up before stumbling to a stop. Would that be too much movement in the last hour? He’d only just calmed enough to sit before the heater after that miserable, shameful moment when he’d thought of Thor as identical to Odin.
“Heimdall, summon Bruce and Brunnhilde, please, and be a noticeable presence for Halfdan afterwards,” Thor said, falling into a crouch beside Loki.
Heimdall’s shimmery gold eyes flickered before he left the room.
The book made it sound as if Loki’s condition should be identical to the first time he’d been this small, which would mean he shouldn’t have retained his mental age, unless insight came from keeping his mental age? Did Loki alter the spell though? Had he been worried about Thor failing, and added a failsafe so he could relearn coping methods on his own?
That certainly sounded like him.
However, Loki liked his pacifier, which left Thor feeling as if he might be more of a babe than he let on.
Should they have found some toys for him? They’d shared a tremendous number of toys when they’d been small, but Thor couldn’t remember what they’d played with at Loki’s current age. They’d need more things regardless, as Loki wore repurposed cloaks restitched for smaller bodies.
Should he even be awake right now?
Should he be in front of a heater? When Thor found it earlier, it seemed like a genius solution, but now he felt less sure. It had several warnings plastered over the side with outlines of babes and small animals crossed out.
He brushed the rusted metal grating, and searched over the heater with a more discerning eye than before.
“I’m just looking,” he said when Loki glanced at him suspiciously. “I want to make sure it doesn’t hurt you.”
Loki took his pacifier out and tapped Thor’s thumb before clutching it in his tiny fist. His frustration barreled into Thor’s chest, quickly followed by the sensation of chilled fingers and arms.
“I know. You prefer to be warm.” Thor tucked Loki’s blanket around his shoulders. “I’m worried about this burning you though.”
More frustration flickered into Thor as he stroked Loki’s wrists and fingers.
“Tor!”
“I’m listening.”
A reminder of the breathless chill Thor felt in Bruce’s office numbed his fingers and crept up palms and wrists, though it ebbed as Loki warmed himself before the heater.
Thor huffed and felt, perhaps stupidly, surprised when his breath didn’t steam out around him. “Let’s ask Bruce if this can burn you.” It was no wonder Loki wanted the heater, Thor couldn’t be sure if he had any feeling in his fingers despite the chill coming from a memory! “I don’t think a few minutes will hurt, but I’m not sure about you sitting so close.”
Loki wobbled as he dropped Thor’s hand and climbed to his knees before crawling away from the heater. He gave Thor another look as he put his pacifier back between his lips and dropped onto his belly, reaching his little arms as far above his head as they could stretch until they just barely touched the heater.
Thor smothered a laugh. “Come now, brother, if your heater isn’t an option you can sit with me.”
“I think I see why I was called,” Bruce said, appearing over Thor’s shoulder.
“That makes one of us,” Brunnhilde called from nearby.
Bruce investigated the heater beneath Loki’s watchful gaze. “Do you know if you’re more susceptible to burns than the average…Sakaaran, Loki? Actually, a better question might be: do we know who made this heater?”
“I’d say it’s more than likely that a variety of people built it,” Brunnhilde said. “The Grandmaster would’ve been the intended user though, and I know he comfortably tolerated the desert climate on Sakaar.”
“I would recommend limiting time spent with it then.”
Thor tried to smile at Loki, but managed a grimace instead.
Loki’s spat pacifier from his lips. “No.”
“I know you’re not going to grab onto the metal, or put your face on it, but—”
“No!”
“Loki—”
Loki let out a pitched whine and squinted his eyes shut as his nose began to bleed.
Bruce groaned.
“Loki,” Thor sighed. “Let me—” He reached out, intending on dabbing the blood only to stop short as Loki flinched away.
Right, Loki didn’t think they’d listen, and would sooner hurt himself, than let others hurt him.
“I won’t take it away, Loki,” Thor said softly. “Look.” He scooted the heater back a few extra inches, making sure to keep it on the floor. “Is that too far?”
“What is this?” Brunnhilde asked as the sound of pages turning echoed in Thor’s ears.
“Will you give us a chance?” Thor asked. He dropped onto his belly, vaguely remembering how their mother often crouched to meet them at eye level, and how it made Thor feel less like a scolded child and more like a young person who’d just made a bad choice. “Let’s start small. Trust me to make one smart decision, based on research from someone with many, many degrees.”
“You know how seriously I take my research,” Bruce said with a nervous smile. “We’ve worked together on too many projects for you to think I’d make uneducated suggestions.”
“Highness,” Brunnhilde called with clear concern in her tone.
“One eye open, little Loki, try peeking.”
A sliver of green appeared behind a pinched eyelid, more bitter and less trusting than Thor thought possible for someone so small.
“Do you see?” Thor asked. “It hasn’t left.” He pointed toward the heater.
Loki’s eyebrows creased as he blinked both of his eyes open.
“Highness!”
“What?!” Thor hissed, turning in time to spy her glaring at something.
“Did you read the amount of warnings here?” Brunnhilde asked. She jabbed a finger at one paragraph in particular and read aloud. “Treatment may irrevocably affect the recipient, should those present at the initial development of the targeted coping method fail to alter their prior behavior,” she finished. “I’m going to take a wild guess and say ‘those initially present’ aren’t all here,” she added with wry, raised eyebrows.
“May,” Thor repeated in a weak voice, “treatment may irrevocably affect coping methods, which means it’s possible to redevelop a coping method without all of the people who first messed them up.”
The color faded from Bruce’s cheeks as he swept around Thor and Loki, to stand beside Brunnhilde, where his eyes raked over the page much like hers moments ago. “Oh my god, Loki are you insa—there’s a warning in here about you potentially forgetting massive chunks of your childhood memories doing this! This is exactly what I was worried about earlier!”
Thor’s head fell forward until his forehead kissed the gray blanket.
“That’s one of the more common side effects it says,” Brunnhilde said, “and goes doubly if your coping method was developed particularly young.”
“Do we know when this, uhm, this coping method was made?” Bruce asked slowly,
A soft sound drew Thor’s head upward.
Loki pressed his fingers to his lips, smearing blood as he stared at Bruce.
Where had his pacifier gone? It’d been here moments ago! Thor crawled to his knees and searched the blanket, spying crumbs and whorls in the fabric, where little fists had clutched the blanket close, but no blue pacifier.
“I can’t help wondering if this is before or after he—you were adopted, Loki?”
“I’d say before, if I were to guess,” Thor said in a quiet voice. ‘Right before,’ he added silently. If it’d been after, Loki’s coping method would’ve been maintaining his Asgardian form and searching for Mother, as that form saw him safely rescued in loving hands.
“So…so we’d need your birth parents?”
Thor’s hands floated around Loki’s ears as he watched and waited for any flinching. When he didn’t spy any shying away, his hands fell around Loki’s ears, which a tinier hand quickly latched onto.
“Loki killed his biological father years ago,” Thor said. “I never learned his mother’s name.” He carded his fingers through Loki’s curls, trying to play off his attempt to keep Loki from hearing about his own crime.
He probably shouldn’t do that. Loki knew what he did, and further, he never spoke about regretting it.
Bruce stared in horror.
“You killed your own father?!”
Loki let out a terrible shriek around his fingers as an immense, bitter fury thundered from him and into Thor’s belly, with abandonment roiling against a scrambling, desperate plea for proof of some sort of fatherhood, before it fell away with a sudden, worrying emptiness.
“No, Loki,” their father’s voice rang in Thor’s ears, followed by the chilling, blue-tinged and twisted, “unwanted.”
Thor shook his head as he dabbed at Loki’s nose. “Loki, Odin loved you,” he tried to say despite how Loki sobbed. “Do you remember, he said so, just before—”
Bringing up Hela’s arrival wouldn’t help convince Loki of Odin’s familial love.
“Queen Frigga loved you,” Brunnhilde said, stalling Loki’s tears. “Even on Sakaar, we heard of her; your witch-queen and her beloved children. I remember one of the most common crimes people devised when they needed a lot of money was your and Thor’s kidnapping.”
Loki heaved a deep breath as fat tears welled in his eyes and he let out a desolate, grief stricken wail, “Mama!”
“Shit!” Brunnhilde hid her face with her hands. “I didn’t mean to make it worse, I’m sorry!”
“This is before though—Thor thinks this is before…” Bruce tapped the page. “Before the adoption, so-so, we need to find your biological mother? She had to have been around for a while at least, because you learned how to say ‘mama’ from someone, and it wasn’t uhm, Queen-Queen—”
“Frigga,” Thor breathed.
“Mama!”
“Frigga, right!” Bruce repeated.
Thor’s stomach dropped out from under him. If Bruce guessed correctly, then Loki hadn’t been abandoned at birth, as Odin led Thor to believe. The fact that he could pronounce ‘mama’ should’ve been obvious.
Did Loki’s mother die, leaving Laufey with a babe he had no love for?
Did Laufey kill Loki’s mother, and abandon Loki in a fit of rage?
“We don't know her name, but…” Bruce said, twisting his fingers together. “Maybe we could contact the-the Jotnar, who might have kept a record of births, or adoptions?”
Thor swallowed heavily. “It was less of an adoption,” he said, holding Loki close when he began to shudder from the strength of his cries, “and more of a discovery.”
“You’re saying then.” Bruce licked his lips. “You’re saying there was nothing legal, or there was no formal thing, someone just, what, left him outside?”
“Mama!” Loki sobbed.
The black stone slab cast a heavy shadow over the Loki, eating everything in its sight in a desperate attempt to ease the unbearable starvation gnawing deep into Thor’s belly.
No matter what Loki did, he couldn’t seem to escape it.
No kindness could sate it. Thor could feel how Loki tried to feed it anything he found—every elated, novel, dull, and desperate feeling, every clever and miserable thought; his memories and relationships. It ate it all yet never felt full.
Had he been calling for his biological mother, but hadn’t realized? His grief echoed with a touch of their mother’s golden, kind smile, but something more lingered within it, though it weighed so fiercely on Thor, he couldn’t breathe deeply enough to speak its name.
It sank into his bones, pinning him to the floor with a poisonous emptiness.
Thor had never truly felt it before. He thought he had, when Odin cast him out, and he’d lost Mjolnir, but even then there’d been a lingering knowledge in his heart, crying out that neither Mother nor Loki would truly leave him to die alone.
Loki hadn’t been blessed with the same unshakeable belief.
It was no wonder he tried to prove himself as Odin’s son by killing Laufey. He hadn’t been looking for power as Thor thought.
He wanted to be wanted, and hadn’t believed he was.
“That’s how Odin found him, on the black stone,” Thor said as tears began crystallizing on Loki’s cheeks. His skin remained pink, but that unnerving, stillness from Bruce’s office lay quiet in the air, waiting to snap its grisly jaws.
Bruce nodded and wrung his hands together, mouthing the words ‘black stone’ to himself.
“I knew that wasn’t anger in your office, Bruce.”
The bitter chill from Loki’s memories grew as needle sharp icicles pulled moisture from the air and struck outward from mustard-yellow walls, circling closer to where he and Loki sat.
Bruce nodded again. “I’m seeing that now. It—that’s terrible Loki, and horrifying to hear, I think crying is very healthy—”
Loki continued to sob, though Thor wondered if he felt mildly pleased with Bruce, as Thor could feel a barely-there relief cut through some of the rot in his belly.
“We have some amazing technology too! We just need to find your biological mother! Thor doesn’t know her name, but—”
“Heritage lines are matrilineal!” Brunnhilde shouted, dodging around steadily sharpening icicles as she made for the doorway, before slipping over a sheet of ice.
Bruce stared at the empty space she’d vacated. “Heritage…” he mumbled, “lines? Is that some sort of a family tree?”
The icy deep blue tone of Loki’s true skin color darkened Thor’s arms and wrists, curling over his fingertips, or so it appeared, before Thor realized what he saw was a memory, and the arms within it belonged to Loki. What surprised Thor more than anything, possibly because Loki felt more surprised than anything, was the sudden lack of horror at the sight of the color.
An aching feeling wormed from Loki’s heart into Thor’s, so fragile, Thor thought it might break just by being seen.
He’d felt it whenever he and Loki shared a blanket in the sun, or when he’d helped him use a straw in his baby bottle. It’d been there when he first saw Loki in Midgard after his fall, and again when he’d seen him wearing Odin’s regalia in that theater.
It didn’t sate the gnawing hunger, but it did more to keep it at bay than anything else.
Without his silver tongue to twist his words, Thor could piece together a smothered question hiding in Loki’s thoughts.
Where was his first mama?
“Can you see her lines?” Thor asked in a soft voice. He twisted Loki’s wrists so his palms faced upwards and traced Loki’s hazy memory of bright white lines winding around one another.
“Come look.”
Brunnhilde’s outstretched hand appeared in front of the two of them, though Loki only stared at it.
“Those lines of yours are bright, Prince,” she said kindly. “You can see her again, and maybe we can do something right for this spell.” For less than a second, an uncommon worry pulled at her lips, though she hid it with an encouraging smile.
Thor stroked Loki’s sides, knowing how it’d encouraged Loki to try out bouncing earlier. “Should we look, little Loki?” Loki would have to shift out of his Asgardian shape, which worried Thor more than he wanted to admit.
Would he willingly shift into his Jotunn shape?
Loki pressed his fingers back to his mouth as the gentle brush of Mother’s kind eyes shot into Thor’s thoughts and warmed his heart.
“This is about trying, right?” Thor asked, before a chill ran up his back as a second gaze joined Mother’s, unseen from within the dark.
Even if Thor couldn’t see it, he knew their vivid color.
“What if we find you—ah,” Brunnhilde said, searching through Loki’s space. “Pacifier!” she gave a triumphant cry after flipping through a few folds in the blanket, rinsed the blue pacifier with a bottle of water and held it before Loki. “The ice over there is a near-perfect mirror, and I think you might really like to see your biological mama’s face again.”
Loki perked up at the sight of the little blue pacifier and pushed it between his lips.
Thor climbed to his feet with Loki tucked carefully in his arms. Could he shapeshift into his Jotunn form without burning Thor? Would he want Thor to hold him?
It felt like the kindest option.
It would probably help if he had someone point out the good in his appearance, which Thor knew he’d failed to do when they’d been younger. He’d never spoken negatively about Loki’s dark hair, or fair skin, but he’d never approved of it aloud either.
He’d been far more enraptured with his own appearance, and courting every adoring eye which glanced his way.
“Look here, Prince Loki,” Brunnhilde said, pointing to the ice beneath their feet. “See your nose?” she asked, pointing to Loki’s reflection, “and your eyes?”
Bruce tossed curious glances between their reflections.
“It’ll probably ease those nosebleeds if you shift into your birth form, and if you do, I bet we’ll see a face you haven’t seen in a very long time.”
Loki suckled his pacifier, his eyebrows pinching as he watched his reflection.
The black stone flickered from Loki and into Thor’s mind’s eye, alongside the still air and breathless, deathly chill. Its shadow lay heavy across Thor’s back, despite how he shuffled and shifted, trying to shake it free.
A tiny hand reached out in their reflection, its skin tone switching between his fair pink and Jotunn deep blue.
——
Loki
Thin, bright lines circled the fine bones in his fingers, and curled up around his wrist.
Heritage lines are matrilineal.
If Loki shifted into that frightening form, he wouldn’t wear Laufey’s face. He’d look like his first mama.
He’d see a face which might’ve loved him.
Might have.
The color bled back to pink around his wrist.
A face which might have loved him.
Loki had no way of knowing if she had loved him, despite the Beast’s belief he’d learned to say ‘mama’ from someone. For all he knew, he could say ‘papa’ just as easily, though he knew Laufey had no love for him.
“Ah,” Loki said around the pacifier.
“Loki?” Thor asked, tucking Loki higher in his arms and pulling the pacifier free. “Say again?”
“Ba.”
“Bottle?”
No, he tapped Thor twice and thought of how he struggled to make a ‘p’ sound.
Did that mean his first mama spent enough time with him to teach him to say ‘mama’, but Laufey hadn’t, leaving Loki silent when it came to ‘papa’?
“Ba!”
“Papa,” Thor said with a breath, slowly puffing his lips out to form the sound.“Pa.”
“Ba!”
“Oh! That’s uh, actually pretty odd for you, Loki, to be able to say so many words, but not ‘papa’. Babies tend to learn ‘mama and papa’ in close proximity to one another,” the Beast said. “Usually, if they can say one, but not the other, it’s because they’re only interacting with one.”
So maybe…
Vivid red eyes stared at him from glimmering ice.
“Oh my god!”
He slammed his eyes shut and buried his face in Thor’s neck, nauseous at the thought of his horrifying face frightening anyone.
“No! No, I didn’t mean—no, oh my god! I’m so sorry!” the Beast cried, barely speaking loudly enough to be heard over the whine echoing in Loki’s ears. “I thought I’d seen blue in my office, but I—I’d been so cold, I hadn’t realized, I’m so sorry!”
Thor’s resonating, rumbling voice surrounded Loki, coaxing him with sweeping strokes through his hair. He shouldn’t be so small in Thor’s hands and he shouldn’t be so easily soothed by his voice! He shouldn’t be a babe, he shouldn’t have cast that healing spell, he shouldn’t have stayed on the ark, thinking he might have a chance to heal!
He shouldn’t have thought he could see a face his first mama might’ve loved, knowing how it frightened others.
“It’s alright, Loki,” Thor whispered in Loki’s ear. “Bruce was just surprised to see you perform magic! Imagine how he must feel to know you can change colors, like he does!”
Tears dampened the fabric beneath Loki’s cheeks, unstopped by Thor’s soft voice.
“Imagine how he must feel, to see someone else change to another color,” Thor continued, carding another hand through Loki’s sweat damp curls.
“It’s all so new for me, Loki,” the Beast tried to say, “I hadn’t intended to hurt your feelings!”
It didn’t matter if it hadn’t been his intent, his reaction was proof enough of Loki’s horrid heritage.
“Remember who gave you, your heritage lines, Prince,” the Valkyrie said. “Maybe Bruce was surprised at the color of your skin, but I bet your first mama thought it was perfect.”
Thor’s voice rumbled, coaxing once more.
Maybe she had. Maybe she’d counted his fingers and toes, like Frigga always swore she’d done. Maybe she’d looked over his hair and lips, his eyes and horns—
They’d looked so small in their ice mirror.
Did he truly come out of the womb with them? That seemed perilous.
“Look Loki,” Thor whispered, encouraging Loki out of his hiding space and pointing toward the bright whorls across his forehead. “There she is!”
His lines circled the center of his forehead and curled out around his eyebrows, as if in the shape of a crown. Loki quite liked the thought of having been born wearing a crown, particularly one passed down by family.
Maybe she’d thought of him as her own prince?
Thor’s finger followed a bright trail from the outer corners of Loki’s eyes and up around his teary cheeks. “I always knew you inherited those cheekbones from someone!”
The longer he searched his own face, the more he found signs of someone else. He knew his nose to be thin and long, but had his mama’s been so regal? Did she pass down his large eyes as well? He wondered if the Jotnar had differing shades of red eyes, and if so, if she’d passed this very color to him?
Did she trace his lines, like he now did? Did she show him all the ways he’d been hers?
“Here,” Thor said, lowering them both to the ground and drawing over his reflection. “There’s her lines going down your chin.”
Loki eagerly followed along with his own trembling finger atop his chin.
They fell to his neck in one of the few straight lines on his face, leaving the illusion of symmetry, though Loki spied one line curling up the left side of his chin, and around his ear.
“That line goes all the way back around your neck!” Thor said, his large hand warm over Loki’s back. “Here, trace it with me.”
Thor led Loki’s hand down around the underside of his ear and toward the center of his neck, where it looped over itself, almost like the beloved form of the twisting snake from Loki’s favorite story.
“It looks like it goes farther down your back, but let’s keep you warm and cozy for now.”
“That’s probably smart,” the Valkyrie said.
She’d been so quiet up until then, Loki had forgotten about her presence! She didn’t look frightened by his face, nor his eyes. She didn’t look frightened at all, in fact. Her dark eyes focused on his, before drawing his attention back to the mirror.
“Even if sometimes it feels like you’re alone,” the Valkyrie said softly, tracing his lines in the air over the mirror. “She’s still with you. She hasn’t left.”
Mama hadn’t.
She hadn’t left Loki. She’d been with him, in a way, from the very beginning, through every euphoric, questionable, nightmarish step.
Had she been hopeful for someone to have found Loki then; hopeful Loki would be helped even when she couldn’t help him?
He wondered if she would’ve liked Frigga as much as Loki.
If he carried his mama’s heritage lines, he probably carried something of Laufey’s along with him as well, but no matter how that thought boiled in his blood over the years, he couldn’t help feeling unbothered right now.
His first mama had loved him. She’d taught him to say ‘mama’, and left a crown on his forehead, just between his horns.
“Let’s go find you a proper mirror,” Thor said in his ear. “I think you deserve some time to really look.”
Loki nodded and reached for Thor.