Prodigal Son
A lokaneweek fic
Prompts: Books – Doorways – Illusions – Infinity Stones
Twilight in Asgard was a many-colored thing, fierce and bright, as though the sun, sorrowful to bid farewell to the land it nurtured, solaced itself with a display that set the sky afire. High clouds were phoenix feathers of crimson and gold, fanned out over a blue velvet bolt of approaching night. One by one, planets unveiled themselves like precious jewels set out on a stonecutter's workbench, vivid in orange topaz and ice-blue turquoise.
Then, of course, came the stars. Seed pearls spilling riotous across the sky.
Loki stood on a high balcony of the royal palace, Asgard settling into its evening routines below him, but his eyes were only for the heavens. It had been years since he stood thus, with nothing to do but glory in the beauty of his homeland. Schemes and plots were behind him, nightmares forgotten in waking.
He found he liked being home.
He found the liking unsettling.
He turned and stepped inside, eyes slow to adjust to how dim the room had grown in his absence. He had not returned, as Frigga urged him, to stay in his childhood bedroom. That, too, was behind him, so far behind that he no longer wished to dwell on it. Whoever that child might have become was a stranger to who he was. So instead, he and Jane were in one of the guest suites for foreign dignitaries, for such, he supposed, they were.
Speaking of Jane…
He leaned against the doorway and observed her, a statue in her stillness but vibrating with pent-up kinetic energy. She sat cross-legged on the bed, a huge tome set upon her knees and star charts spread out on the blanket before her. She didn't move except to turn a page or scribble something in the notebook by her side. She was silent, but her lips were parted and her eyes wide.
She took no notice of him, but he was used to such things. He liked watching her learn.
"Jane."
She looked up, blinking owlishly. Her smile could melt the coldest heart. He knew that well.
"Oh," she gasped, "I'm sorry. I didn't even hear you come in."
"It's nothing," he held out his hand to her, "Come. Watch the sunset with me."
She slid out from beneath her work and took his hand without another thought. The feel of her in his arms was a sensation Loki knew he would never have enough of. Her body was fragile, soft, warm, strong. Smooth bare skin, silky soft hair, clever fingers, mischievous eyes, passionate soul…she was a masterpiece.
It still made him reel, sometimes, knowing she was his. He had never thought his heart would find such perfect satisfaction anywhere in Yggdrasil.
Satisfaction is not in my nature.
He reeled then, momentarily disoriented.
When had it happened? How had it happened?
He'd held her like this before. On Svartalfheim, to safe her life, he'd cradled her beneath him as the elves tore apart space and time to defend the Aether they had taken from her.
Between then and now, how had this come to be?
"Loki? What's wrong?"
His confusion must have been written on his face. "Nothing," he tried to reassure her, but something in her eyes refused to be placated. What was that look of hers? Suspicion?
Impossible.
She stepped away from him then, out of the circle of his arms. "What is it?"
"I just…I cannot remember."
"Remember what?" her arms crossed and her eyes flashed. Red-black.
Then he understood.
"None of this is real."
The grin on her face was sickening. "Damn."
It all faded away, a scarf unraveling, strand by strand. Jane was unmade last of all, each precious piece of her blowing away as ash on an acrid, stinking breeze.
Loki sobbed, sobbed as he hadn't done even when his false mother and counterfeit father, both illusions of Thanos' making, had welcomed him back to an Asgard that also no longer existed. He remembered now. Every heartbreaking detail. Including the fact that Jane, wherever she might be, likely still despised or feared him.
If she had even survived Thanos' madness.
Thanos rumbled in pleased satisfaction, stroking the Reality Stone back into dormancy on his gauntlet. "Hmm. That's new," he stepped closer and Loki froze in every muscle, knowing that to give ground then would be his death. Thanos touched one meaty fingertip to Loki's cheek. It seared like a brand.
"Who's the girl?"