Chapter Text
Thor
“Little Boy Blue?” Bruce asked.
“Too on the nose,” Brunnhilde said.
“Blues Brothers?”
“That makes his highness sound like he could turn blue too, and if he ever did, I think we’d be concerned with whether or not he could breathe.”
“Baby Blues?”
“Aren’t you a fountain of nicknames? Where were you when his highness came up with the name ‘Revengers’?”
“He was standing next to me,” Thor chimed in.
Brunnhilde hummed in agreement.
“Back in Blue, like Back In Black, it’ll make Tony so jealous when we get back to Earth, please let’s use that one!”
“I knew all of those words, but half made no sense!”
Thor smiled as he tilted his hand mirror and shuffled Loki higher on his lap. They’d sat together hours now, with Loki suckling his pacifier and tracing his face. He’d been in his Jotunn form the entire time, yet never burned any of them once.
He hadn’t felt anything but wonder from Loki either. No bad memories, nor any vicious urges.
It made Thor curious to read more about healing, and learn new ways to help with grief! He couldn’t imagine what sort of spell might be required to help with that, but then, he also couldn’t imagine Loki staring his own abandonment in the eye and tackling it head on in an almost Thor-like way.
Loki had always surprised Thor though.
“Oh!” Thor whispered, when Loki’s eyes closed for a long moment. “They’re on your eyelids too!”
Loki jerked and tried, sweetly, to see the long line sweeping just above his lashes, but kept forgetting he’d need to close his eyes a bit to see them.
Thor huffed a silent laugh.
“We’ll find a way to take a photo, or maybe I can draw an example for you.”
Loki’s eyelids wobbled a bit lower as he doggedly tried to find the bright lines above his lashes.
“Oh! I know,” Bruce continued, “what about Red Eye? On Earth, that’s what we call an overnight flight, but Loki’s fast!” he said, pacing through their room.
“A flight at night sounds just as long as one at day,” Brunnhilde argued with a smile.
“Ok, ok, what about Blue Throat then? Like Deep Throat? Loki always knows more about a situation than anyone else!”
“Is the name a dirty joke?”
“No, it’s political! Deep Throat was the codename of a famous informant in the seventies!”
“The Seventies Star System?”
“The era!”
“You’re making less and less sense, Bruce.”
“I worried,” Thor said softly, “when I first saw you in Brunnhilde’s arms. I worried I wouldn’t be able to help you, or give you any comfort or stability, but I know now that this was about more than what I could do.”
Loki’s hand followed his bright heritage lines upwards, lazily circling the whorls between his horns.
“It was about you.”
It made sense, upon reflection. Loki first learned to cope with abandonment by preemptively pushing love and care away, and anticipating, pleading even, for death, so he wouldn’t have to feel his hopes crushed, whether by a friend, or by a mama who would never arrive. The spell didn’t save him from his initial abandonment, instead, it showed him how to find comfort when he felt lost, and allowed him to reclaim a heritage which connected him to the mother he’d never have thought to look for.
“Imagine how proud she was to see these lines.” Thor stroked the marks curling over Loki’s nose.
Even though Loki’s identity had been stolen from him, by Odin and Laufey alike, he now had something which could never be taken, and he could begin to reckon with his tumultuous infancy in a way he’d never been capable of before. If that didn’t offer Loki a new way to cope, then Thor didn’t know what would.
He still wondered why Laufey abandoned Loki, what happened to his mother, and if Loki would transform back to his correct age quickly, now that they’d learned about his heritage lines. He hadn’t yet, which left Thor curious if Loki just didn’t feel ready, or possibly, that he did feel ready and knew what he needed to do, but still needed to practice applying his newfound coping skills.
Privately, he still preferred Loki staying small for a bit, at least until he’d rested for a good long while.
Their room grew quieter when Bruce mentioned needing a snack and disappearing out the door, still giggling over Midgardian culture.
“I bet she liked the twisting snakes as much as you do,” Thor added, thinking of the coiled, snake-like lines over the back of Loki’s neck. “Maybe she named hers? We could call yours Jormungandr!”
Loki once joked about tattooing that snake on his neck, just to make a point. Mother thought it was hilarious, even if she would never have allowed it.
Now, he would never need to though.
“I’ll be back in the control room, chipping away at the ice,” Brunnhilde whispered from the doorway, glancing pointedly at Loki’s enraptured gaze, “and taking the night shift. Let me know if you need anything.”
Thor smiled.
——
Loki
“Braiding is all about practice, now, isn’t it?” Korg said, enthusiastically twisting wiry blue cords around one another. “I learned this one from Dagny.” A stony finger rose upwards, pointing to a child with wispy blonde hair. “She knows how to do six types of braids, eh? Six! Imagine knowing how to do your hair six different ways?”
“I can’t. I’ve always been bad at all this,” the Beast said as his clumsy fingers wove a knot into coily dark hair.
“You just need a bit of practice,” Korg said cheerfully.
“No, It’s true! I wanted to be Harrison Ford from Indiana Jones when I was young, I had my hair cut just like his, and even bought a similar hat. I think I wore it for a year straight.”
“Well that’s a shame to hear he cut his hair short! If that were my name, I bet I’d be the best at braiding!”
Loki twisted atop his blanket, peering around the crowd that’d grown to surround him in the last hour, as he tried to spy Thor.
Korg whistled. “Oh man, I’m imagining his father now though! What sort of braids did Hairy know how to do?”
“No, no—”
“I bet you’d be combing your hair for days if you were Hairyson’s kid, that’s for sure.”
He found him quickly, and watched as Thor ran a hand through his beard and spoke with Heimdall, before pointing to a few crooked looking trajectories. They each crossed paths with asteroid fields and meteorites the ark could never outpace.
“What is—hair-hairyson? Is that not what I said?”
Loki brought a hand up to his pacifier and glanced over his pink skin, where invisible lines trailed up his wrist, offering a silent, comforting presence. A mirror lay near his knee, alongside a stuffed doll with shakily hand-drawn heritage lines decorating her skin, though Loki couldn’t bring himself to touch it, not with the current crowd.
Despite the days following their first look in the ice mirror and his subsequent time in his Jotunn form, he still couldn’t bear to wear his first mama’s lines around crowds. He liked best when he and Thor sat together and looked over them, or when the Valkyrie left him in their bathroom with the large mirror. He didn’t mind when she pointed out lines Loki hadn’t yet seen himself.
“Hair, hair. Hairy?”
She would call him Prince, and speak about certain whorls and patterns. She’d been the one to tell them the thin lines on his eyes were most often found among tundra travelers!
She also described how they used their bright lines to find one another at night, and as a makeshift map to track distant stars. He wanted to look at them again now, but too many people lingered close by, and far too many curious stares weighed on him when a prickling began burning along his eyes.
“Tor!” Loki cried around the pacifier, reaching upwards when the ache in his heart grew too strong.
If Thor had to stay with Heimdall, Loki should at least crawl back to their bedroom. He struggled to tolerate the indignity of it, but walking took too much energy and he hadn’t given his seidr more than a cursory test in the last few days, and didn’t want to chance teleporting.
He couldn’t shapeshift now anyway, not when he was still small. Everyone would learn his identity!
Large hands came around his middle, pulling him up and out of the crowd of chattering voices as a coaxing rumble broke over his tense muscles. Heavy hands quickly followed, stroking over the back of his plush blue sweater.
Loki wasted no time in curling into the crook of Thor’s neck. He chased the endless warmth and tried to stem his tears with the bright red fabric beneath his cheek.
“There’s too many people, aren’t there?” Thor whispered in his ear, “it’s not very relaxing.”
No, it wasn’t.
“Hey!” Thor brightened. “I heard that in my head, clear as if you’d said it aloud!”
Did Thor hear him even when he had the pacifier?
Loki disliked that thought. However, even if Thor could hear him, he hadn’t reacted to much, so maybe Loki only just began building the strength to use telepathy unconsciously again?
He sniffled and tried to see if he felt any burning or nausea, but mostly, he just felt tired. How could he still be so tired, after so much time spent sleeping yet simultaneously trying to stay aware of Asgard’s needs?
Why did everything have to exhaust him?
“You must be doing well today, that’s two in a row.” A large hand swept over his back again, ever encouraging. “Good job!”
“Here you are, little one,” Korg said, appearing out of the corner of Loki’s eye. “One, very fine, braided cord. I made it in blue, just to match that blue pacifier of yours!”
Thor’s delight sparkled too happily for Loki’s taste.
“Thank you so much, Korg!” He shuffled Loki into his other arm and set about clipping the cord to Loki’s sweater. “We lose this so much,” he said, reaching up with a silent request to see the pacifier.
Loki kept a firm grip on it though, feeling as if he’d rather eat glass than pass it over.
“Korg, can you actually bring me that bottle on the blanket over there—yes, that one,” Thor said, holding a waiting hand out to a bottle now held between Korg’s stony fingers. “I’ll make you a trade,” he added, holding it up for Loki to see as Korg disappeared back within the crowd. “No glass necessary.”
The plump pink nipple stared at Loki.
It wasn’t as if it were the first time he’d been handed it, but he didn’t love the idea of Thor foisting Loki’s preferred choice of comfort off on a bottle.
“You didn’t eat much at dinner, I’d be willing to bet you’re feeling a bit hungry right now.”
It seemed he’d be handing it over no matter how he felt. Loki sighed and let out a sound he wouldn’t admit to, as he spat the pacifier out and handed it over.
Thor hummed a consoling note, and settled Loki into the crook of his arm as he pushed the nipple between Loki’s lips. “Just for a little while.”
A very little while, Loki agreed bitterly.
“Hardly any time at all.”
It still felt too large for his mouth. Pink didn’t seem like a smart color for a bottle top either, not when it reminded him too much of raw beef.
The rumbling Loki so enjoyed rolled over him, soothing enough to push the last of his anxiety about the crowd away.
He had a sneaking suspicion Thor began cooing, as his face always softened and kind smile lines appeared when he did so, and though Loki didn’t know what he said, he did know it sounded proud.
Maybe he felt proud of Loki for asking for comfort when he felt he needed it, or maybe it had more to do with his giving the pacifier up so easily? Maybe he just felt proud Loki hadn’t torn the metal from the walls and scratched the glass out of the windows over the last few days?
Loki didn’t feel much like tearing things apart though, so it might be more the first two, than the last.
“There are two star systems we might be able to travel between, Highness, if we’re quick enough. We’d need to jolt the ark onto this course.” Heimdall’s voice washed over Loki, sounding remarkably unbothered by the chattering braid-train or Loki’s bottle. “It would be best to do so, before these two planets cross the opening on their natural orbit.”
Thor made a low sound, and angled the bottle just high enough that Loki couldn’t be bothered to keep hold of it himself.
“No, there was no sign of life on either planet, though one looked to have once hosted a civilization.”
Once Loki finished eating, he’d like nothing more than to look in his mirror. He had the oddest feeling that there were heritage lines on the soles of his feet, which he’d somehow forgotten to look at during his investigation.
What if the lines corresponded to something there?
Did the Jotnar tell stories about secret whorls along their feet, which hid the path to an ancestral home? Maybe Loki had a path decorating his own feet, which would lead them to safety?
“We can look once Heimdall and I are finished,” Thor whispered. “I bet we can add a few more lines to your doll too.”
They probably could!
He wished they could give the doll little horns which matched his own. He’d do it himself, but he hadn’t had the energy to do much more than exist lately. Either he’d been burnt out before casting that spell, or it’d burned through him.
Sometimes he entertained himself by debating which culprit stole his breath; the raw power required to cast that spell, or the complexities within it.
It was a beastly thing, doubly so for how its physical aspect only took effect when the targeted coping method reared its ugly head. When Loki cast it, he had no way of knowing when he’d transform, and hoped like mad that it wouldn’t be in front of Thor, or any of his Revengers.
He knew he struggled with the thought of being left behind, but he hadn’t realized just how much until the Valkyrie left him behind in the market.
“You’ve been doing pretty well on that sleep schedule Bruce developed, especially now that we fixed the heating. Do you want to see about sleeping in your bed tonight?”
Loki felt less sure about that.
“We don’t have to, I just don’t want you to feel as if you’re boxed in. I know how you like your space.”
He did like his space, though lately, he’d found his space widened to include Thor, so long as he continued to be calm, and conscientious.
Thor tilted the bottle higher, letting Loki finish off the last of it, before bringing him upwards to lay against his shoulder as they began rocking back and forth in a pleasant sway.
“Tap twice,” Thor murmured, patting Loki’s back, “and give me a sign, or even just a thought, if you ever need some space.”
Loki doubted he would need it anytime soon.
——
Thor
Thor stared at Loki.
“My late queen mother enjoyed a very particular phrase about business magnates, didn’t she, Halfdan?” Loki asked, his vivid red eyes sweeping over the pale pink hallway. “A magnate is like a bridge. He can be strong, if well-kept, or he can crumble beneath his own weight. Who do you think maintains the upkeep of the bridge?”
Halfdan couldn’t seem to take his eyes from Loki. He stood beside an overstuffed box of hand-me-downs, his wide eyes flush with shock and his mouth agape.
“Halfdan?”
“Citizens, sir,” Halfdan said, fumbling as he caught hold of himself.
“Take care then, that they don’t neglect you,” Loki said with a toothy, fanged smile. “It would be best if we all left the ark together, but a society which has lost everything, will save people first, not magnates.”
“Sir, I would never presume—”
“Halfdan, I can read minds,” Loki said. Thor knew that to be a bold lie, but it appeared Halfdan didn’t. Loki’s vivid eyes narrowing beneath glittering, bright heritage lines. “I know your presumptions intimately.”
He wondered if he could hear Halfdan’s heart pounding from here, as the proud line of his shoulders fell.
“Yes, majesty.”
“Your king has a good heart. He loves his people.” Loki stepped around several stacked boxes, and plucked at the hastily snatched family paintings, and tapestries. “How lucky for you.”
“Absolutely, majesty.”
Loki nodded and spun on his heel, before catching Thor’s eye and faltering for one tiny moment. He seemed to weigh his options, struggling to decide if he could escape before Thor reached him, or if he should make an excuse.
“Speak with me, brother?” Thor asked before Loki had a second more to decide, his own heart pounding as Halfdan’s no doubt had moments ago.
As they stepped around the corner and out of sight, Thor swore he heard a relieved sigh echoing from the hallway.
“I panicked when I woke up without you this morning,” Thor said when they moved far enough away from curious ears. “I thought you’d turned invisible, or Bruce or Brunnhilde had taken you with them, only they hadn’t told me out of some misguided attempt to let me sleep—”
“That’s highly unlikely.”
Thor rolled his shoulders. “You could’ve left a note!”
“Alright, next time I’ll leave a note.”
“No!” Thor half-shouted. “That’s—”
“No note it is then.”
“Loki!”
“Brother?”
Thor scrubbed his fingers down his face; his heart easing at Loki having referred to him so fondly, at his wearing his Jotunn form so proudly, and at him for finding Halfdan after Heimdall brought up the persistently simmering issue of the access hallway.
“I meant—I meant that I’d have loved to have been there when you transformed again! How long have you been your current age?!”
Loki shrugged. “About an hour in total.”
“In total?”
“The spell rebounds at times, but it’s largely stable,” Loki said, sniffling for a moment and dabbing his nose.
“You still need to rest.” Thor knew too well what a bloody nose on Loki both meant and looked like. “The portable heater is still in our room, you could go and lie down for an hour or two.” The words ‘largely stable’ wormed in his belly, worrying him more than he wanted to admit. “My blankets are there, your gray blanket is too!”
His pacifier was there as well, but Thor doubted that would have the same draw for Loki now as it did when he’d been small. His doll and mirror were on his nightstand though, maybe they could still help?
“Have there been any side effects?” Thor asked.
“I can remember our childhood, you, Mother, Odin, everyone. Sometimes I get a little turned around about the order of events, or who said what, but that’s not new.”
Thor cupped Loki’s cheek, his ring finger dancing over the twisting snakes on the back of his neck. “Please try to get some rest.” He didn’t like the thought of Loki, sitting alone and picking apart his memories, unable to tell truths from lies.
Loki waved his hand. “I only wanted to know more about what happened with Halfdan, I’ve been helping Gyda for weeks after all. I’ll take a break after I eat.” He glanced at passersby, his skin growing pinker for a heart breaking moment before thawing back to blue when Thor stroked his heritage lines.
He couldn’t imagine how difficult it would be for Loki to shake centuries of shame around his face. Centuries of shame which Thor only contributed to. It wasn’t just Loki’s face anymore though, it was his mother’s love and perseverance.
Thor knew how proudly Loki wore their mother’s colors in remembrance, and it seemed he’d taken to a similar habit with his mama’s heritage lines.
“Please let us know, either through Heimdall, or another method, if the spell rebounds and you need help.”
“I’m sure you’ll find out if it does, you always do.” Loki said wryly.
“I’m the king, no one tells you anything when you’re the king.”
“Then you should know that Gyda has been leaving thumb tacks in Halfdan’s laundry.” Loki smiled, his pearly fangs glittering beneath the sputtering, white lights. “Who knows where she came up with that idea, but it’s ingenious.”
Thor tucked Loki close. “Don’t give her any more ideas.”
“Fine.”
“And please go lie down. I’ll send breakfast by the room once I’m in the kitchen, that way you can eat in peace and quiet.”
Loki nodded.
“Thank you.”
“Thank you, actually,” Loki said, impossibly softly, “for,” he waved again, the whorls on his cheeks brightening as he flushed a dark indigo.
“I will always be here for you,” Thor promised.
He would always keep trying, just as he knew Loki would as well, even if it meant rewriting his own story.