Nobody Loves You Like I Do
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Golden light fell through Loki's windows. It was diffuse and hazy, scattered like blood through the frost he always made sure covered his windows. Odin Allfather did not want to remind his pet Jotun he was a monster by imprisoning him in a dark dungeon, but Loki didn't intend to forget just because they locked him an airy tower.
As if he could ever forget when Odin had taken his voice.
Thor and Moth- Frigga were the only people who visited him. At first, Sif and the Warriors Three had tried, but the pity in Hogun's eyes and contempt in Sif's drove Loki into a rage like he hadn't felt in years. Even silent, he could devastate, and he had until Thor was forced to restrain him. No one else came to see him now. Not even Odin.
Good.
It left him with endless days and too many thoughts in his head, though. He felt strained and near-breaking from all the words he couldn't use. There was no joy in crafting insults when he couldn't use them, no joy in stories when he couldn't recite them, no joy in Thor's presence when he had to let his brother prattle on and on uninterrupted. Too often, his mind drifted in memories - of his boyhood, of his adventures across the Nine Worlds with Thor and his friends, of Midgard, of muscle sliding under skin as a bow was pulled back...
Loki stiffened against his moth- against Frigga. She'd come to sew on his bed, and he hadn't the heart to make her unwelcome. Not that he'd wanted another false parent here. That's why he'd sprawled against her to make her sewing more difficult.
"Loki?"
He shook his head, then rubbed his cheek against her shoulder, smiling as endearingly as one of Freya's cats. Mother didn't believe him, of course.
"Something troubles you," she said, stabbing her needle into the leather.
Loki swept his arm around to encompass the whole main room of his tower prison.
"Besides that, my little trickster. Do you think I don't know your silence as well as your voice? A thought troubles you."
He shook his head again.
Moth- Frigga smiled softly. "Very well. I will take you at your word."
Loki glanced at her sidelong. Her smile remained in place as she turned her attention back to sewing at a new long coat for him. Liar. He'd never been able to lie to her, and she knew it. She always heard them, no matter how prettily he mixed them with truths and silences.
What would she think of Clint Barton? Or of that redheaded trickster who conned him? Clint had told him she would, showed him she would, and she'd still done it.
Magnificent.
Not as magnificent as Sigyn and her trust and her sweet-steel needle words for when he betrayed that trust. But few things of Midgard could measure up to those of Asgard.
Clint could shoot better than any archer of the Aesir Loki had ever known.
He twisted against his mother, jogging her elbow. She didn't chide him for it, just redid the stitch, so he got up to stalk around the room. Clint was an exquisite archer and even more exquisite trickster. Loki had seen that when he'd taken the other man for his own service. It was part of what made everything work so well between them.
And part of what made everything come apart so easily. Tricksters hated being controlled.
Loki stopped, drawing cold to him until his skin turned blue. Only then, when he showed his true face, did he turn to look at his moth- Frigga. Then he snapped his gaze away; damn her lying eyes! He'd learned some of it from her, hadn't he, how to fake love so perfectly. Well, if his true face couldn't shock her out of it, maybe Clint would.
A Jotun didn't need magic to shape ice, only will, and Loki had will in spades. He coaxed Clint's head and shoulders to form in bas relief, visualizing every line of the archer's face, every strand of hair. He knew this man. He'd held Clint's heart for a time.
"The hawk-eyed archer," his mother said quietly. "Well. You always did prefer skill to might."
Loki whirled, outraged. How- how dare she sound so understanding?
Moth- Frigga studied the ice sculpture, her expression thoughtful. "Your brother has told me a little about all of his companions. The good captain, the man in iron, the man trapped with his rage, the woman who hung from Yggdrasil... I thought it might be her, but the archer also suits you."
Hung from Yggdrasil? That child? Hah!
Mother must have read his thoughts in his expression. "She suffered and gained wisdom beyond all men. What else would you say about her, Loki?"
He turned away and crossed his arms.
"A prince admits defeat gracefully, my son."
He threw a contemptuous glance over his shoulder.
"You may deny your place as a royal of Asgard, but even if you choose not to be a prince here, you are a prince of Jotunheim."
He had been a king of Asgard. A king at her behest.
A king she'd never had reason to doubt. Because he'd kept all of the things he knew she wouldn't like hidden. Thor and Heimdall must have told her, though, even if she'd said nothing about those events to him. Just as they'd told her of his attempted conquest of Midgard. His lips pressed into a thin line. She must know how he had met Clint.
"What is that expression, Loki?"
He shook his head.
Moth- Frigga held his eyes for a long moment, then turned her attention back to her sewing. He watched, following the graceful movement of her hands as she punched her needle through the leather, the flash of the cloth-of-gold thread she used. On the window, his image of Clint melted away.
"You treated him quite badly."
Loki startled at his mother's words, eyes widening and shoulders hunching. He hadn't expected her to say anything more on the subject!
"What you did to him was wrong, Loki. Even more wrong than some of the other things you did on Midgard." Moth- Frigga looked at him long and hard. "If you want him, you have much to make up for."
Loki gave her a disdainful look and shook his head.
She sighed. "And people say Thor is stubborn."
-End-