It begins, oddly enough, with Oedipus.
It doesn't linger there very long, of course. Oedipus has nothing to do with it, or, if he does, Thor (Loki) is more lost than he likes to think about. But that discussion (of Freud, of his legitimacy, of cigars and the messages of dreams) is where he first hears the word psychology. He already knows what the suffix –ology means, and he is eager to learn more about this realm, his adopted realm where his lady love dwells, so he needs little initial guidance to seek for more knowledge in libraries both paper and digital.
Long and deep conversation with the Allfather has brought them to an agreement: Thor, though he has grown immensely during his short time on Midgard, is indeed not ready for kingship, and feels his time would be best spent on Midgard, learning their ways and strengthening ties as a sort of unofficial ambassador, with the secondary purpose of allowing him time to grow into his future kingship. Odin smiles as Thor explains this, and tells his son that he has gained wisdom indeed, to know his own weaknesses as well as he might know another's and plan for ways to strengthen them.
He thinks on this conversation, later, as he reads of first Freud, and then Jung, and then their myriad disciples. His brow furrows deeper and deeper as he reads, curiosity giving way to a slow burn of need; here, in dusty tomes that have already been forgotten by the mayfly-like Midgardians, is the damnation of his entire culture.
Which, as he reflects over his sixteenth beer, Selvig at his side, is a bit of a melodramatic thing to think, but he cannot help but be angry, helplessly so, for there had been no way for anyone to have known, no culpability, for such ideas were entirely unknown on Asgard. A man began life as a boy, and grew, and gained wisdom, and if he gained more than most, well, and if he did not, that was no great loss. Cleverness was valued but distrusted, and magic even more so, and illusion most of all, and Loki had possessed all three in mountainfuls, and such strangeness might have been easily forgiven even so, for there was place for cleverness and magic and illusion on Asgard, but not in the royal family. Not in a prince.
Even a prince who was no prince at all.
Odin still would not disclose to Thor his reasoning in taking in a Frost Giant child and raising it as royalty, and it was his right to do so, but Thor thought that understanding his father's motives in adopting a child of their enemies might go a long way towards being able to help said child accept his place in the palace of Asgard.
Might have. Past tense. That child is not in the palace, now.
He puts Selvig to bed and then sits on the roof and contemplates the branches of Yggdrasil that are visible from Midgard, and finds that he is now more sad than angry. Even with all of this psychology and therapy and counseling, plenty of Midgardians grow up unable to love or feel love, grow up strange and disconnected and alone. There is no guarantee that simple understanding would have saved Loki. But he remembers a little black-haired boy hanging back from the crowd, watching from the sidelines, being dragged into Thor's group of friends and never making any friends of his own, and he cannot help but wonder if he, or his father, or his mother, could have said or done something, anything, differently. He cannot help but wonder when it was that Loki grew so determined not to believe his brother cared for him. That no one cared for him. When was that moment, when things became unfixable? Has such a moment come to pass, or is there yet hope?
Jane comes up, and leans on his arm, and he pulls her in close, nuzzling her dark hair, grateful for the push out of the dark spiral his thoughts are accustomed to these days, a cycle even psychology cannot seem to break.
Cautiously, unsure yet in his own mind exactly what he is asking, Thor comes to Odin as a son, not a subject, and carefully unfolds his mind to him.
It is a bizarre concept for an Asgardian. Madness was not unheard of, but it was rare, and largely ignored, dealt with in secret, considered shameful. The idea that a man might be pulled out of his madness and brought back to society through words alone is breathtakingly foreign, and Thor struggles to express concepts as yet unwieldy even to him, who has spent hours pouring over texts and talking to Jane and Selvig.
Odin frowns deeply as Thor speaks, and he knows, in the pit of his stomach, even before Odin answers, that his father has not been moved. Loki is a criminal, he says, regardless of whatever misunderstandings might have occurred in the past, and his actions are all the proof the Allfather needs that his second son is gone from him. He mourns him, yes, Thor, we all do, but he has made his choice, and he must now face the consequences of that choice.
Thor aches to express the belief, as yet barely unfurled from its seed, that a choice made with such a false understanding of the world is not a choice to be taken so seriously. He believes, deep down in his boots, that all Loki needs is to understand, to be listened to and to be given the help that would be offered freely and without judgment on Midgard, and his twisted mind might yet be set straight.
He is wise enough to see the strands of his own blind hope among the undeveloped tendrils of a foreign philosophy he is not well acquainted with, and he withdraws his request and his presence, even more troubled than before.
Loki's eyes are wary, and Thor supposes they have every right to be. He has given up trying to make his brother understand, not out of despair, but out of the heavy knowledge that he has not the skill nor the understanding to succeed. He is here, now, because the muzzle on his brother's mouth makes his skin crawl, and knowing that he put it there, had advocated its use, is nearly unbearable. Gag the Liesmith, and his lies will cease: it had seemed so simple. The blank despair he'd seen in his brother's face had made his heart flop over painfully, but his brother's betrayal was the sharper pain then, and he'd fitted the muzzle over Loki's mouth himself.
He reaches up, now, and takes Loki's flinch at the motion and tucks it away in his heart. He also takes the muzzle, and tucks it away in his large hand, crushing it slightly so that it will be of no more use to anyone. Loki's eyes are wide, and, for a moment, soft with something other than disdain, but then the sneer is back and the first thing he says to Thor is,
"You're a fool, brother."
The term is ironic, but Thor only smiles sadly, glancing down at the useless object in his hand.
"That I am," he says, and then, "If you speak, Loki, I will listen."
The sneer falters, but returns a moment later.
"And if all I have to say are lies?"
"Then I will listen to lies, and try to discern the truth in them." Thor runs his thumb over an unevenness in the metal of the ruined muzzle. "You told me once that the best lies are composed mostly of truth. I would hear the truth in your lies, brother."
"Get out!" Loki spits, pulling on the chains that bind his arms, rattling them and snarling. He looks more like a beast than a man, than his brother, and Thor's heart aches.
"I will do as you request," he says, turning. "But I will return tomorrow, and I will listen to whatever you have to say."
Loki's wordless cries follow him out of the dungeon, and Thor cannot bear to look at his mother, who watches him with knowing and with sympathy.
Loki does not speak at all the next day, nor the next one or the next. Haltingly, terrified he might have done Loki worse harm than he thought, Thor begins to fill the silence, always leaving plenty of room for Loki to answer if he wishes, plenty of silence to spare. He tells Loki of Midgard, of Jane, of Selvig, of the Avengers, careful even still not to give too much, not to divulge secrets that are not his to share. But he can feel Loki listening to him as he explains the joke Darcy told him about Darth Vader and Ella Fitzgerald, and then Thor has run out of things to say about his comrades that isn't sensitive or classified, and Loki is actually looking at him, waiting for him to speak, so he starts to tell him the story of Darth Vader, of young Anakin Skywalker and his great destiny that did not turn out the way anyone expected it to.
He has never been a great storyteller, his efforts going mainly into finding ways to exaggerate his own prowess in battle. He is painfully aware that Loki could tell this story better than him, but he forges on, sometimes forgetting details, sometimes making things up or leaving things out (the creature Jar Jar was amusing, but most of his antics lose something in a verbal retelling). By the end of that day he has recounted the story as far as the great Battle of Naboo and his voice is hoarse, and he promises Loki to return the next day and begin the tale where he left off.
As he stands Loki opens his mouth, and Thor halts, knees bent at an uncomfortable angle from only being halfway up. He freezes like that for nearly a whole minute as Loki hesitates, and then tries not to broadcast his disappointment when his brother closes his mouth without saying anything.
That night he takes his evening meal in his rooms, furiously trying to remember how the second movie went, made difficult by the fact that Jane had been playing with his hair and generally distracting him all the way through it.
His thoughts are interrupted when his mother enters his chambers and sits fluidly down on the edge of his bed. Her eyes are warm and wise, and Thor suddenly feels like a little boy again, though he refrains from curling up with his head in Frigga's lap.
"My son," she says, and he attends, for Frigga always did love Loki as much as she did him; some of Thor's crueler childhood antics towards Loki were motivated by jealousy, and he regrets them very much now. "Odin has told me of what you are trying to do."
Thor bows his head, for he does not know if she has come to encourage him or ask him to desist. He already knows that he cannot obey her if she asks the latter of him.
"You have gained new knowledge on Midgard, he tells me, a philosophy unknown to us. Will you tell me of it?"
He does.
Frigga comes with him the next day, to hear the tale of the Skywalker family, and how Anakin's arrogance led him to destroy that which he valued most precious, how his son stood up to take his place and restore balance. She sits on a bench out of the way, within Loki's sight but not within the small circle made of Thor's crossed legs and gesturing arms, Loki's hands flat on the ground beside him, legs arranged seemingly carelessly, head turned away but eyes looking sidelong at Thor's wild gesticulation.
Frigga watches her two sons, one reaching, the other withdrawing, and her mind puts another there with them, though she can't decide where he would fit in that circle of arms and legs. Baldr, her first child, born to be a king but dead before he drew a second breath. She thinks of what Thor had told her last night, and of the way Odin had handed her a baby, a black-haired boy like an unlooked-for blessing, a son she might allow to grow up unburdened by the ghost of an infant she never told either of them about. She remembers holding her second born for the first time, as golden as Baldr and just as beautiful, and she remembers a moment, seared in her heart but nearly forgotten, when she had called her sons to her for supper, sang out Loki's name effortlessly, and then her eyes had slid over to her older son and her tongue had slipped, nearly called him a name not his own, and she remembers like a clothespin on her heart the way his eyes had lingered on her, filled with something she knew she should call betrayal. She remembers Thor's teasing of Loki changing note irrevocably after that day, and the way she hadn't spoken to either of them about it even though she knew she should say something.
Thor tells Loki of psychology, and it is a mistake.
"You seek to undo what has been done, but I am not some broken toy you would have repaired to stop your childish whimpering, brother. I am as hale as I have ever been, no, even better!"
The spit flying from his lips would suggest otherwise. His hair is disheveled and his eyes have smudges under them like bruises, and Thor feels the tightness in his chest that speaks of a fear he cannot strike down with any weapon he wields.
"You are not well, Loki. You are not happy. I would have you be happy."
"Leave me," Loki hisses, posture straight and almost painfully proud. "Do not return."
The pages of The Meaning of Dreams caught in Thor's fist suffer the pain he does not allow to show on his face as he leaves. He will buy Jane a new copy when he returns to Midgard.
Loki has grown increasingly unstable, Odin says. He must be restrained, he says. A muzzle will not be enough this time, he says.
More stringent measures must be taken, he says.
Thor lands in the middle of the desert in New Mexico, and Jane is there to meet him. She has studied the Bifrost almost to exhaustion, can predict it and is making great strides toward being able to replicate it. She is smiling and vibrant and it does Thor good to see her.
Her face falls, however, when she sees who is standing behind him.
"Um, Thor?" she begins, tucking her hair behind her right ear.
"Surprised to see me, sister?" Loki calls mockingly. Jane just looks at Thor, and he can see the question in her eyes.
"They were going to sew his lips shut," he tells her softly, and Loki's face contorts into a mask of rage even as Jane's fills with horror.
Darcy takes Loki's sudden appearance in stride, and Thor is grateful. He is too busy trying to reason with Jane to attend to his brother properly.
"Are you certain no one knows he's here?" she asks, frantically pawing through her papers as though she is looking for something, though Thor knows she is merely trying not to panic. "Thor, what if he decides to, you know, go crazy and kill us in our sleep? Why would they sew his lips shut? That's barbaric! Is he hungry, do you think? Darcy, where are you?"
Jane, Thor decides, does not know how she feels about his brother being here. He can't blame her. But when he follows her into the back bedroom where Darcy is, they find her and Loki peacefully playing poker.
"I've got him right where I want him," Darcy tells them with an impish grin, and lays down a royal flush. The surprise on Loki's face as he throws down a pair of threes is genuine, and Thor cannot help but laugh.
"I wish to see the Widow," Loki tells him. He looks strange in an overlarge t-shirt and sweatpants, one knee bent as he sits next to the wide windows of the converted diner where Jane makes her home. He does not look at Thor as he speaks, but one thin fist is clenched tight enough to turn his knuckles white. Thor, also in Midgardian attire, sits, head bowed, in a chair nearby. Loki has not been allowed out of the house, and though Darcy's attempts to entertain him are obviously not unwelcome, Thor wonders if Loki thinks this prison is any better than the last one.
His request is a difficult one.
He has told no one of his brother's presence. Jane has been fending off Fury and his agents remarkably well, but they noticed the Bifrost signature just as surely as she did, and they are eager to see him for their own opaque purposes. He knows that lip sewing would almost be kind compared to what they would do with his brother if they knew he was here, and so he hides, feeling uncommonly like a coward as he attempts to figure out what to do.
"The Widow?" he repeats, as much a stalling tactic as because he's not sure what Loki intends with his request. He barely knows the red-haired warrior maiden who stood staunchly beside him in battle, and he has no idea why Loki might want to see her.
"The people of Midgard are varied," Loki says, "far more so than we. There is a land called Africa where a trickster god named Anansi lives. He is said to be a spider, though he can take many shapes." His eyes slide over to Thor's, unreadable, as always. "Do you know why Natasha Romanoff goes by the codename 'Black Widow'?"
Doubtless Loki does.
"I do not," Thor admits readily, because ignorance has never been his enemy.
"The Black Widow spider is said to devour her mates after they impregnate her. At first, Natasha was merely supposed to use seduction to assassinate her targets, much like a spider. Love them and eat them," he says, and laughs as though the idea delights him. Thor tries not to shiver. Loki calms after a moment, and fixes Thor with his eyes. "But now she can draw information out of her marks so well that seduction is no longer required. He told me that, Clint Barton did. He told me she was so good she could turn any situation to her advantage, use her emotions like a weapon, turn them on and off to suit her. I knew all of this, and yet when she came to me I saw only through the first, the second, perhaps the third layer of her deception. Humans are wayward creatures, I knew that, barely able to govern themselves. But not all. I know that now. Not all."
Loki looks back out the window, and his hand unclenches and his wide palm presses flat on the floor as he stands, straight and regal despite his clothing. He looks Thor in the eye with princely arrogance, and says,
"I understand now that as much as humans need looking after, some are better suited to governing than being governed. A few, a small few. I would see her again, and see if she is indeed one of those few."
And Thor, alarmingly, thinks that it might be a good idea for Loki to see Natasha. Not so that he can use her in whatever new scheme he has obviously been brewing, but because it might be good for him to meet with the one person in all this time who seems to have truly impressed him.
"I will… speak to her," he says, and Loki nods, and sits down, and goes back to staring out the window at the desert, hand still flat on the floor.
"No," she says, and Thor bows his head, willing himself not to shout and crush the phone in his hands. She is a warrior, but not the same kind of warrior as him, as his Warriors Three, as the Lady Sif. She does not respect lung power and arm strength.
"I am not asking you to… to make friends with him," he says, in a tightly controlled voice. He is not angry with Natasha, not at all. If anything he is angry at himself for having the gall to ask this of her, she who is closest to Clint. Thor still does not understand exactly what his brother did to the Hawk, but he knows it was a far stronger motivator for the two of them in the battle than Coulson's death had been for the others. "I simply believe that talking to him might—might do some good—"
"Thor, I don't think you understand what it is that I do," Natasha says, pinning him down with her tone in a far more forceful fashion than he has ever been pinned by Volstagg in a wrestling match. "I am not a psychologist. I might be able to tell you what he's planning next, and I might even be able to tell you what's really eating at him, but that's it. I slice people open and pull out their secrets without them noticing, but I don't stitch them back up afterwards. That's always been someone else's job, if we even bother to do it at all."
"Then—!" Then do so! Thor swallows his tongue. The only one who is willing to stitch Loki back up is himself, and his hands are the hands of a butcher, not a surgeon. He has never regretted that more than he does now. Natasha's next words are softer.
"I'm sorry I can't help you, Thor."
"I understand," he says. "Thank you for listening."
He lowers the phone from his ear and tilts his head back to look at the sky, wide and flat and obscenely blue. It feels less like a sky and more like a roof, and already it feels more like home than the black void or warm gold over Asgard.
He knows he should go down and inform Loki that the Widow will not be coming, but instead he leans back and stays on the roof for a little longer… just a little longer…
He wakes as the sky bleeds red to find Loki sitting next to him, looking out at the distant mountains. Darcy has apparently returned from her shopping trip, for he now wears jeans and a dark green polo that fit him as well as Midgardian clothing fits anyone, and when Thor sits up they are sitting nearly shoulder to shoulder.
"You did not come down after you spoke to the Widow," Loki says in a soft voice that betrays no emotion. Thor wonders absurdly if there is any emotion to betray; but of course Loki always felt things so much more keenly than any of them. "You did speak to her," and the way he says it is a question.
"I did," Thor says, stalling. Loki says nothing, still staring, sphinx-like, at the distance. Thor goes on awkwardly, "She… will not be coming."
There—a tendon in Loki's neck jumps, and Thor knows he would not have seen such a small detail before psychology, before Midgard, before Jane. Loki sits a moment longer, and then stands wordlessly and climbs back down. Thor rubs his face in his hands and moves to follow his brother when the cell phone lying next to him rings. Loki's face is still visible over the edge of the roof, and he pauses as Thor frowns at the number, listed only as 'unknown.' He answers cautiously.
"Yes?"
"Thor, it's Natasha."
His eyebrows go up and he glances at Loki, whom he can feel watching him intently.
"Yes?" he says again, and he hears her sigh.
"Look, I'm not going to pretend that this doesn't have anything to do with Clint. But, if you're okay with it… I'd be willing to take a crack at Loki. There's always a chance that getting to the underlying problem might help things with you and him. I just want you to understand that I'm not doing this to help him, and it will probably end up hurting him and I won't be sorry if it does. But I'm offering."
Thor is looking at Loki, who is not bothering to disguise his interest, and wonders if asking Natasha to come here is the right choice. Then he wonders if he has a choice. He can take her up on her offer, and risk doing greater damage to his brother than has been done already, or he can hide out in the middle of New Mexico and… do what? He can't simply drag Loki down to a psychologist and hold him there until someone talks him better. He knows the word catharsis, and he thinks maybe that is what Natasha is offering him, underneath her protestations.
"Please," he said. "If you think it might help."
Loki quirks an amused eyebrow at him, and he smiles back, and things feel right for the first time in months.
"Alright. I'm actually already in New Mexico, so I'll be over in just a minute."
Thor goes cold. He hadn't actually told Natasha where he was. As though she can read his mind she continues with a verbal eye roll in her tone,
"And before you get antsy, I'd like to remind you that we've been here ever since that Einstein-Rosen bridge touched down. We've been respecting your privacy because we didn't know you'd brought a guest with you."
"Have you told anyone else about Loki?" Stupid, stupid, he was so stupid to have forgotten where Natasha's loyalty lies. She is SHIELD's assassin and spy, not an Avenger, first and foremost. Her voice is kind, though, as she assures him,
"No, no one knows. I thought about telling Fury, but he'd just send in a strike team and then I'd never get a crack at him."
Thor chuckles uneasily.
"Meet you there in about ten minutes?"
"Yes," Thor says softly, eyes already scanning the small town, wondering where Natasha has been hiding this whole time. "I will see you then."
He hangs up and looks at Loki, unsure if he should voice his suspicions. But Loki just smirks at him and continues down the ladder, so he stands, and stretches, and follows him down.
In less than three minutes the building is surrounded. Black cars and black figures carrying black guns swarm to the converted diner like ants, and Jane starts swearing and gathering up her research notes feverishly. But Thor knows they are not here for her. He calls Mjolnir to him grimly, and tells Loki to stay inside. Of course Loki doesn't, but at least he stays near Thor's elbow. Natasha stalks to the fore, looking dangerous and a little sad.
"I'm sorry, Thor," she calls over the no-man's land between the foremost car and the diner. "I really am."
"I will not let you take him," Thor says. "SHIELD formally transferred him into my custody, and he is there still. He has not hurt anyone since that time, nor broken any Midgardian laws."
"He was also not supposed to come back," Natasha reminds him. "All bets are off now. Not to mention, your loyalties to our organization are naturally being called into question. How can we trust you when you bring a known war criminal back to Earth without telling anyone?"
Thor hides his wince. They are speaking formally, as two representatives for the larger political bodies they belong to, but his actions had no basis in politics, and the sheer irresponsibility of it hits him in that moment.
"Don't any of you have any sympathy for a man protecting his baby brother?" Loki's honeyed voice draws a cacophony of cocked guns, and he smiles and he walks forward slowly, hands raised loosely in front of him. "They were going to do horrible things to me back there, so he brought me to the only place he could be sure I was safe. I believe the word is… asylum?"
"There's no way, Loki," the Widow bites back immediately, "and if you don't want to get shot I suggest you keep your mouth shut and stop moving."
Loki quirks his head to the side, and smiles, and mimes zipping up his lips and throwing away the key. Then he turns pointedly to Thor, his message clear: good luck trying to talk your way out of this without me.
When the Bifrost opens, however, and Odin himself lands just outside the circle of agents, causing loud confusion and a wave of disturbance, Thor wraps his arm around his brother's bicep and just flies, as far and as fast as he can, towards the mountains Loki had been staring at so intently earlier this afternoon. He flies into the sunset, and if any bullets whiz past them, if Odin shouts anything at his retreating back, he does not hear it.
He does not think about his father, or Natasha, or responsibility or psychology. He only thinks about his little brother, and how he will never, ever let him come to harm.
So he is not prepared for Loki to punch him as soon as they land.
"What is wrong with you?" he spits, wringing out his hand, voice hoarse and screeching. "What are you trying to accomplish?"
"I am trying to protect you!" Thor booms, not noticing the trickle of blood coming from the corner of his mouth. A storm picks up around them, sky darkening, thunder echoing along the mountains they have landed in. "Why can you not see that?"
"I never asked for your protection! I do not need it!"
"That doesn't matter! I am your brother. Your older brother. Protecting you is my job."
"Why do you insist on clinging to a past that wasn't real? None of it was real!"
"It was real!" Thor screams. "Those memories we share, they are not illusions, Loki! I do not care what your true parentage is, because we grew up as brothers, as comrades, as family. Does that truly mean nothing to you?"
"It does not!" Loki screams back, but he says it so quickly Thor cannot help but think of it as a mere knee-jerk reaction, not rooted in truth, but in anger.
"Well it means something to me!" Thor breathes heavily for a moment, and then continues in a voice that is quieter, but no less intense, "You will always be my brother. No matter what you do. No matter what happens."
Loki is staring at him, face contorted into some grimace of anger and disbelief and other things Thor cannot read. He, too, is breathing hard. Finally he spits out,
"Then tell our 'father' that he has not seen the last of me," and then Loki is gone. Just like that. Thor blinks, roars, reaches out, too late, to grab empty space. He whirls around, hoping to catch sight of the real Loki, mocking him for once again falling for that old trick, but there is nothing. Only scrubby pine trees and rocks.
Thor falls to his knees and the storm echoes his cries.
Many hours later Odin comes to rest beside him, and places a heavy, reassuring hand on his shoulder. Thor looks up, exhausted and tear-stained, too empty to do anything but breathe. Odin's face is kind, and his voice gentle as he says,
"Come home, Thor."
It will not be home without Loki, Thor knows that. But the idea is appealing nonetheless.
"I need to make amends here," he croaks, and Odin nods.
"I will help you," he says, and Thor knows he should not say what he is about to say, should not ask what he is about to ask. But he does anyway.
"Do you love him? Loki. As a son. Do you care for him?"
Odin's good eye slides closed as though in pain, and the hand on Thor's shoulder tightens just a little.
"I do," he says thickly, and the obvious emotion in his voice is what enables Thor to stand, to wipe his face, to set his shoulders, and look his father squarely in the eye.
"I am ready," he says, and Odin nods solemnly.
"Yes, you are," he agrees, and they make their way back together, as father and son.