Note: Fixed stupid PoV problem. One of my reviewer, Liliath, mentioned that the shifting of PoV suddenly was confusing and quite frankly, annoying. When I uploaded the file onto FF, it somehow overrode all my OpenOffice changes (yes, even though it was the recommended program to use, and I have no choice but to manually edit every file). Yup, hopefully it works now! :)
As always, reviews are love :)
- Chapter 1 -
The Man Who Got Displaced
Tony Stark was a man who loved minimally. He had gotten into a few scrapes over the years, mostly about opinions, but never about women. He didn't think it was worth it. Sleeping around his fair share of girlfriends, and more than his fair share of whores, women had become dispensable, irrelevant even, in his highly methodical and technological life. Women were too emotional, so high strung, and anti-thesis to reason and logic. Not like he was short of them anyway. Slowly, he was beginning to think of them biologically. They were there to fulfill his needs, not just sexually, but also as overseers of his diet, exercise and general wellbeing. More and more, they had taken a maternal role in his life. He didn't feel the desire to physically connect anymore, it was as if there was a small hole in his heart which had gradually expanded over the years such that it had become a crater. And the crater had to be filled and women were the obvious remedy.
Recently though, he was not beneath seeking out pleasure with guys. Rough sex tended to be good for health and always made him think more clearly afterwards. Men smelled different too. Women smelled nice, like powder and perfume, but men, they always smelled like shampoo, lemony, sharp and clean. Like new bedspreads and fresh laundry. It also reminded him of his boarding school days, where the cohort had been all-male, and he had earned quite a bit of reputation himself...
Loki Laufeyson, on the other hand, was not a man at all.
He wasn't mortal because he was a god. More alien than god, to be precise. His magic were to do with manipulation, science of a higher level than any on Earth. The elements subdued to his control, and he wrestled with wind, swam with the seas and could burn with the intensity of cold fire.
The humans have gotten everything wrong in their Norse folklore. Typical of them to screw things up where they didn't understand them. Inventing names for phenomena that they didn't comprehend. One particularly glaring mistake about Loki was that of his connection with Slephnir, Odin's 8 legged freak of a horse. Legend had it that Loki had shape-shifted into a mare and sexually seduced Slephnir's father, Svaldifari, a superhorse. When Svaldifari gave chase, Loki had mistakenly believed that he could outrun him, but was impregnated instead, giving birth to Sleph, as Loki called him. In reality though, Loki's brother, the much revered and esteemed Thor Odinson, was the one who couldn't control his sexual drive. One particularly fine October evening (As the powers always say, bad things happen on fine evenings), Thor, mentally weakened, was driven to Svaldifari.
Under the guise of night, Thor had sneaked into the stables to jerk off, unwilling and embarrassed to attract unwanted attention should he had done it in his rooms. His mother had a way of sneaking up on one when one least expects it. Caught up in the throes of passion and adolescent, plus the fact that Svaldifari had sneaked up too near to him, one thing led to another. Thor had claimed Svaldifari for his own amidst the hay bales and the strong pungent smell of wood smoke.
Although why anyone would ever fuck a horse out of desperation was bewildering to Loki, especially since Thor could have any number of fair maidens he wished. He could only guess that Thor was far too honorable to use a cathouse, which was something Loki had no qualms about. Svaldifari, who was actually female, thus gave birth to Thor's son, Sleph. Odin wasn't about to let his most distinguished son be defiled by this incident, although Thor was more than willing to take responsibility, as he said it.
"And how indeed would you attempt to do that, Thor Odinson?" Odin asked, voice rising to a resonant thunderclap under the roofs of the grand council hall. It was a beautiful room, gilded with reds and golds, each carving of angels and beasts as intricate as the runic markings on Odin's throne. There were griffins of red, ravens of slivers, dragons of golds and serpents of bronze. The vast mirrors placed on both sides of the hall glimmered and sparkled with each refraction of the light. Legend has it that you could see your future in one, and your past in the other.
"I would marry Brynhildr. She would be my legal wife." Thor had proclaimed with a straight face.
"Till death do you part then!" Odin banged both his fists bitterly on the table. It was times like this that he wished Loki was his true son.
Loki sighed. He always knew Thor was stupid, but seriously? The guy was literally too dumb for his own sake. And then he sighed again, because he knew what was coming.
"Loki?"
"Yes, father."
"Do you suppose you could, er, stand in for your brother on this account?"
"Odin, I forbade you to!" His mother, Frigga, protested. "Loki has protected his brother for long enough! It is time Thor faces up to his mistakes."
"Father, I do not agree!" It was Thor this time, his fist slamming on the ornate gilt table. "Brother should not be made to pay for my folly."
"I have no qualms, my father."
Every head in the hall swung around with surprise.
"Loki, what are you doing?" Sif hissed from beside him. She was a childhood friend, and the closest person to Loki, after his mother. Right now, she was glaring at him with a mixture of bewilderment, rage and, was that hurt? Her black onyx eyes bore holes into the side of Loki's face.
"I do not mind father."
"It is settled then."
Outside the grand council chamber Thor grabbed Loki's arm.
"You didn't have to do that for me brother, but I shall be eternally grateful."
"For what, Thor, son of Odin? For all the times I saved your ass? The bandits last Saturday, the broken diadem, all those times where I took the fall for you? No, it is my duty and pleasure, dear brother." Loki's bitterness exploded with the force of a small grape, venomously threatening the air around them. He could feel his face smarting, could feel the hot blood rushing through his veins and all those manifested as dark magic swirled inside him, looking for an escape. How dare he, how dare Thor...
"You are father's son too." Thor's glance was sheepish as Loki stormed past him down the hallway.
"No need to bother your pretty head about feeling guilty. I just didn't like having decisions taken out of my hand. I decided on saving you, and nothing father said or could have said influenced me."
As Loki's hand gripped upon the emerald handle of the door to his rooms, he was spun around by a strong grip on his shoulders. The blast of energy, finally unbridled and unleashed by Loki on his assailant was strong enough to knock the guy backwards into the grasp of his friends.
"Oh, what fun. The three musketeers." Loki said through gritted teeth.
The Warriors Three, or Thor's clique, was made up of Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg, none of which had any more intelligence than Thor had, making them the perfect friends.
Fandral was the smartest of them all, and Loki had long conceded that conversation with Fandral was passable, finding him rather entertaining to crack jokes with, or the occasional drink. He was bearable, but only when he was not around the other three. Fandral was also considered quite attractive by the female sex, with a sweeping blonde head and piercing blue eyes. He just was like Thor, except immoral, and chased skirts with a vivacity previously unknown to man.
"We see through you, Loki. You wish to inflict guilt upon Thor, making him indebted to you as compensation of your inferiority towards him." Fandral snarled.
"Ooh...big words, Fandral. Didn't know you were capable of such a complex vocabulary after last night in my room huh? Why, all you were able to manage were grunts and a quite delightful moan as I squeezed your -" Loki licked his lips, which were beginning to show signs of a smirk, creeping up the edges of his mouth. He had only uttered a laugh, clear and ringing as church bells before Fandral gripped his throat and thrusted him backwards against his own door.
"One more sound from you, Loki!" he released Loki from his grip and stepped backwards.
"Hahaha! How strange, I do seem to recall that we were in the same position yesterday as we are now! Except then your grip was less savage and more...lusty. Hahahahaha!"
The whole hallway had filled with Loki's ringing laughter.
Fandral's face was blotchy and red under his straw blonde hair. "Sh-shut up!" He looked worriedly around the faces of his friends, who might well become his enemies now.
Volstagg and Hogun looked puzzled.
"What's he talking about, Fandral?" Volstagg asked, at the same time as Loki, who cut in smoothly.
"Luckily, your friends are all dimwits without the slightest clue of what's happening. Should I explain, or would you do the honors, Fandral?"
Hogun glared, his small eyes narrowed into even smaller slits in his oriental face. He had always been the quietest of the three, and he made it clear that he despised and distrusted Loki, staring at him with as much affection as he would to a rat. Except that his gaze would have been kinder to a rat. Volstagg's face was as red as his hair, which was a mess of red braids actually. His green eyes were sharp shards of bottle-glass though. He was a dwarf in the body of a giant. Fandral looked ready to start a war, right here in the hallway.
Loki whispered softly.
"Imagine if I were to tell my brother..."
"He wouldn't believe you!" Fandral sputtered.
"He wouldn't now, would he? Despite the fact that I just saved his piece of ass? Again?" Loki snickered. "Now, get out of here."
With one spell contained within that sentence, he had managed to apparate them away. Loki sighed. He could have done that the moment Fandral opened his mouth, but Loki decided that they needed a scare. Loki yawned and stretched his limbs. He could kill for a sleep now. Still yawning, he walked straight through the locked door and collapsed into a deep sleep on his bed.
When he woke up, Loki could sense things were wrong. It was awfully, painfully quiet outside his rooms. Usually it was filled with the sounds of Thor and his motley crew, but today, it was deathly quiet.
Goddamnit, what now?
He scrambled out of bed, magically called fresh clothes from the wardrobe, got dressed and went out.
Thor was waiting for him outside his room.
"What you did was despicable, but you are still my brother and I forgive you." he said quietly.
Instantly, Loki was on high alert. Thor was hardly ever quiet and when he was, something was terribly wrong.
"What's going on?"
Suddenly, a mob had appeared around the corner. Led by Volstagg. Oh fuck. Viciously, Volstagg thrust his quarterstaff in the air and shouted,
"Bring him down!"
And then Loki was teleporting out of the way, but not before he caught a glimpse of Fandral's smirking face full of glee. His eyes were red around the edges though, and Loki supposed that the crying must have bought him some sympathy. A rape case was not hard to forge, especially with regards to the identity of the assailant and the victim. Loki's name was as good as tarnished now. Prince of Asgard?
Loki laughed. How could he have harbored such thoughts in the past without being fully aware of his limitations? Now the lines were drawn, hard and clear and at last, Loki knew where he stood. Thank god for small favors though. He could have woken up later and fallen directly into the grasp of the lynch mob. Speaking of which, he could hear their blood-thirsty cries in the distance. Asgard hadn't had a lynching in ages, and Loki was like a wounded doe, primed and ready for the hunt.
Asgard was no longer his home. Loki headed for the Bifrost. He would escape to Midgard, even though the people were primitive and stupid and lazy there. Perhaps he would rule as king there. After all, weakened prey were easy to subdue. As he reached the gates of the Bifrost however, a woman was there waiting for him.
Sif, with her long dark hair and equally dark eyes, looked like a raven. Her skin though, was as fair as snow, yet her voice betrayed her passion for Loki. It was warm and pleading as she turned at the sound of his footfalls.
"Do not go Loki, I beg you."
"You have Thor here, and the Warriors Three," Loki said bitterly. She had always preferred their company to his, so why should now be any different?
"If you insist on leaving, I would leave with you."
"You would not stop me, Sif. I have made up my mind."
Her face had turned into one of inexplicable anguish, as she realized too late that Loki had cast a body binding spell on her. Her face contorted into a grimace as she struggled to free herself from her invisible bonds.
"Let me follow you," she cried, but Loki was already gone, disappeared into the blinding blue flashes of the Bifrost.
When Thor arrives a few moments later, he looks at the deactivated Bifrost and the crying Sif and resolves that he would do what it takes to bring his brother back.