The first thing that Thor had to accept about Loki was that he was utterly unforgiving. Loki was unforgiving, unapologetic, and angry with the world at large for no reason in particular. Thor came to accept this. He didn't want to believe it, but he knew that if he wanted to understand, then he would have to accept it.
The second thing that Thor had to accept was that Loki was the very picture of nonchalance. Loki could probably drop a kitten from the roof of a building if he was really curious about the sound it would make upon hitting the pavement. Loki looked no more disturbed reading in his cell than he had looked disturbed reading in the library. He just didn't care.
There was a third thing that Thor should probably get around to accepting, but he really didn't want to. The third thing was that if Loki ever was his brother, he was not anymore.
"Why?" Loki asked.
"We fought," Thor replied softly. "We fought, we drank, we ate, we shared a room, we played... What else could I see but my brother?"
Loki was silent for too long- not that Thor was hopeful. He said that he would come back tomorrow at the same time.
Forever nonchalant, Loki shrugged. It was like he was saying 'On your head be it, if you want to waste your time'. And Thor nodded, as if to say 'I will'.
They stand on the top of Stark Tower, once again. Where words would not stop Loki last time, Thor knows; knows that this time, there is a way to stop him. A way Loki gave him.
If Thor dares.
Frigga had told Thor long ago that she worried for Loki. She worried because all that everyone sees in Thor is goodness, and all that everyone sees in Loki is darkness. No one is purely one or the other, she had told Thor. If people can not see a person for who he is, then he will eventually just become what he is seen as.
Thor hadn't understood back then. He couldn't.
He came to understand so much more clearly, and it was for this reason that he had asked Loki, "What else could I see but my brother?" Because Thor understood that he had to see Loki for what he was.
So, Thor accepted that Loki was unforgiving, unapologetic, angry, and nonchalant. But he refused to believe that his brother was no longer there.
"My room felt empty, once we were too old to share," Thor said. He didn't really have anything else to say, so he had more-or-less been rambling the past few days.
"I'm sure the problem was solved after you took Sif to your bed," Loki said, as he turned a page of the book he was reading.
Thor's first thought was mortification, but that was clearly the reaction Loki was hoping for. But Thor was determined to find a way to talk to Loki, so he didn't rise to the bait.
"I haven't offered my bed to Sif, nor has she offered hers to me."
Loki raised an eyebrow, clearly disbelieving, and maybe only slightly curious. He went back to his book.
"What are you reading?"
Loki held the book up, so Thor could see the title, but Loki's gaze held no malice.
"I can't read runes."
Loki smirked and continued as if he hadn't heard Thor's reply.
"What is it about?" Thor pressed.
Thor watched as Loki glanced at the page corner to memorise the number, then shut it tenderly and put it aside. He walked from the back of his cell to the front, and leaned down with his forehead pressed to the invisible barrier.
"You," he stated simply, "Are extraordinarily annoying."
"It is good then?" Thor asked, the side of his mouth tugging into a smile. He shifted his legs and sat in front of Loki cross-legged.
"Very," Loki said with an exaggerated sigh.
"Perhaps if you tell me, I can find some more," Thor suggested.
Loki knelt down, clearly settling down for a proper conversation, after weeks of attempting to ignore him.
"Why are you doing this?" What are you hoping to gain?" Loki paused to gesture around his cell. "There is no reason for this. I am here, I am useless, I am trapped and without my freedom. What is there that you want?"
Loki became steadily more angry as he spoke, and Thor just looked up sadly. "I'm here for my own satisfaction, and I was hoping for yours as well."
Loki looked no more appeased, so Thor added, "Forgive me."
Something that could've been genuine surprise flashed across Loki's face, then it was a white rage. He turned on his heel and went back to the corner of his cell.
Thor filed his reaction away in the back of his mind. Standing up, he said, "I'll be back tomorrow."
Loki had no response to give.
Thor must indeed dare.
Thor was thinking about what their mother had said. No one is purely one or the other. Loki was not pure darkness, as Thor had already known; but that meant that himself was not pure goodness.
It had been an interesting thought, and Thor had felt it was an incredibly important one, but he hadn't known what to do with the information.
"You aren't purely..." evil "Sinister."
Loki looked up from his book and cocked a eyebrow. He glanced at the corner; closed the book.
"Don't hurt yourself with such large words," Loki said as he sauntered over. "Is the meaning of a word like 'sinister' easier to understand than that of 'tomorrow'?"
"Sorry," Thor said with mild sheepishness. "There was a hunt and I was asked on short notice... You're still reading that?"
Loki glanced back to look at his book. "Yes," he said. "More like translating as I go. Runes do not come to me easily."
If Thor thought a simpler read would make him happier, he would've offered it, but as it was, he smiled and said, "That's wonderful."
"Four days is a long time for a hunt, what were you after?" Loki asked.
"Boar," Thor replied.
They were silent for a time before Thor said, "I just arrived back, and there will be a feast... I may be called away."
"Does Odin know you come down here?" Loki asked proddingly.
"No," Thor admitted with a chuckle. "But mother does. She's glad for it."
Loki made no comment on calling their father Odin and accepting Frigga as their mother. Thor made no comment either. Instead, Thor said, "She is the one who told me that no one could be purely good or bad... I think she wanted me to realise that about the both of us..."
"Would that mean you aren't purely good?" Loki asked with exaggerated shock. "That just can't be."
If it was anyone else, Thor would have been tempted to summon Mjolnir.
"You're right," Thor stated. "I am not goodness, as you are not darkness."
Loki scoffed. "You are the golden prince of Asgard. I am Loki of Jotunheim."
Thor's cape suddenly felt heavy around his shoulders, and he unclasped it slowly to give himself time to think.
"You're Loki," he said haltingly.
"Yes, thank you," Loki replied dryly. He stepped forward and stood up a little straighter so he and Thor were closer to eye-level.
"You are just Loki to me. You're my brother, even if I am not yours."
Loki put a palm against the barrier and leaned forward as much as the barrier would let him. "And what right have you to say that I am your brother?"
Thor blinked, taken aback. Though he knew that it wouldn't be the response Loki wanted or expected, he put his arm to the barrier where Loki's hand was and rested his forehead against it. If the barrier was Midgardian glass, it would've fogged as he said, "Then I am your brother, even if you are not mine."
In the same way that it did five days ago, surprise flitted across Loki's face.
"Thor!" a voice called.
"Coming!" Thor called back.
Loki had withdrawn his hand, and backed a step away from the barrier. He looked vaguely dishevelled.
"I'm not here to unsettle you," Thor said, unmoving. "I'm not here to gloat, I just desire to understand."
Having said that, he inclined his head to Loki and touched his hand to his heart. A farewell for respected equals.
"I'll be back tomorrow."
Thor kissed his fingers and touched it to the barrier. A farewell for the ones held most dear.
He picked his cape up and walked away.
Thor takes a step forward.
"What makes a relationship work," Frigga once advised Thor at some sort of celebration feast, "Isn't the fact that you complete each other. You shouldn't be the other's better half, complement, or opposite."
"Then what is it?" Thor had asked, taking his gaze from the dance floor.
"Understanding them in a way that no one else can. To know the secret things they hide away inside, and to accept them for it all the same."
It had not been wasted on Thor that his mother hadn't specified a gender for the relationship advice.
Loki was sitting in his usual corner when Thor walked up to the barrier. Glanced at the page corner, put the book aside. "You're early," he stated.
"Just hoping for more time to talk," Thor replied, sitting down with his back to the invisible wall. He heard Loki get up to sit with his back to the wall touching the barrier.
"What is it you wish to understand?" Loki asked.
"I didn't think it would be so easy to convince you to tell me," Thor said lightly.
"On top of being extraordinarily annoying, you are also exceedingly stubborn."
"I wish to understand you," Thor replied with a slight chuckle, "But that would be a fruitless endeavour."
"What, then?" Loki asked, and Thor could hear the faint amusement in his tone as well.
"I know why you committed your crimes on Midgard, but I am no closer to understanding why you did it. Could you tell me in terms I can understand?"
He heard Loki shift, so he turned to look. Loki was sitting cross-legged, as Thor was.
"Why do you even want to understand? I've committed treason, tried to subjugate a race, and nearly succeeded in dethroning you. Is that not enough?"
"I'm your brother," Thor answered simply. "I don't know how I wouldn't want to understand."
Loki rolled his eyes. "And why would you consider us brothers? I've done nothing but-"
"As I said," Thor interjected, "My room felt empty once we could no longer share."
They looked at each other for a long moment. Both were aware that Thor circuitously admitted something very personal. Insecurity without Loki.
"I looked up to you," Loki said slowly. "Everyone did." An insecurity about Thor.
"As I looked up to you."
Thor wasn't sure what just transpired between them, but that was the closest to a confession that he had ever heard from Loki. He was sure that Loki was thinking the same, but talking any more would topple this rickety thing that they had just constructed; though leaving would do the same.
Instead, they both settled with the barrier between them and sat in a deep, but strangely companionable silence.
"Loki!" Thor bellows, but it's caught in the wind and carried away.
If no one can be purely good or evil- and to understand someone, you must come to know the secrets they keep- then it would stand to reason that evil people hide good things and good people hide evil things.
It would make sense, considering both were a matter of reputation.
"We've misunderstood each other somewhere along the way," Thor said business-like, once Loki mentally marked his page and sat across from him.
"How so?" Loki asked, amused, but willing to play along.
"Something happened, something changed between us," Thor explained. "I want to figure out what happened. We looked up to each other, and we admired each other. We were pleased at the thought of continuing to live together... I want to know what happened. Maybe then, I can understand you."
Loki laughed. It was full of amusement; neither warm nor malicious.
"So, I have a proposition for you," Thor continued, when Loki was finished.
"Oh?" Loki asked, his undertone still chuckling.
"A trade. I'll tell you something, and you tell me something."
"We're not kids, Thor," Loki replied. Thor could hear the eye roll.
"Then don't share childish things," Thor teased.
"Midgardians are under the impression that you've willingly worn bridal-wear," Loki dead-panned.
"What?" Thor demanded incredulously.
"The book," Loki said, gesturing to the object in question. "The Midgardians' record of us in their realm."
"Why did they have me in women's clothes?" Thor asked warily.
"To get Mjolnir back. To be fair, they thought you were saving Asgard from attack by retrieving it in such a manner."
"Midgardians," Thor said around the rolling thunder of his laughter.
"Strange things," Loki agreed with a smile.
Thor would ask why he was reading up on Midgardian's opinion of him, but he had the sneaking suspicion that he knew.
"Loki, do not worry for their opinion of you. Clearly, they don't know what they say," Thor said, with laughter still laced into his undertone.
"But aren't you curious?" Loki asked. "Not even a little, to see what they've thought of you for all their history?"
"It's not their opinion that matters to me," Thor said.
"Then another confession for today," Loki began. "If there is a way to ave your view of me, then I don't care for their opinion either."
Because Thor didn't know how to respond to that, he made his opinion of Loki clear.
He stood up, inclined his head, touched his heart, kissed his fingers, and touched the barrier.
Still sitting, Loki inclined his head with a small smile.
Thor runs toward him.
When Thor had brought Loki back from Midgard, Frigga had said that if Thor vouched on his life, that he may have Loki's.
Loki was reading in the front of his cell. He half-leaned his back on a wall and half-leaned on his side of the invisible wall.
"A nuisance, isn't this?" Thor asked as he sat down and leaned his side to the barrier as well.
"Mmm," Loki hummed non-committally. He memorised his page and put the book aside.
"What have I been doing?" Thor asked, nodding to it.
Loki smirked as he said, "Nothing on your part, but I have apparently given birth to Odin's favourite steed."
Thor laughed his thundrous laugh. "I'm not sure whether to ask or not," he roared.
"Not even I know, brother."
Thor did his best to not look to excited. It would do no good to make a show of it. However, he was smiling widely as he said, "I have another proposition for you."
Interest obviously piqued, Loki replied, "Yes?"
"Mother said if I vouch for you with my life, that you may be freed under my name. For short times, at least."
Loki bristled clearly at that, so Thor continued quickly, "I did not wish to consent without your permission. That is the way Asgard would see it, you would be under my watch. But instead of going where you need follow, I would follow where you would go."
Loki simply looked back at him. He knew what Thor was offering, and he understood the implication. Instead of the guise of freedom begrudgingly offered in Thor's name, Thor was offering true freedom if Loki would let him use his name to disguise it.
"If you would take the burden, I would be grateful."
"It is no burden, and you needn't be grateful," Thor replied. "You owe me nothing for this. I wish to see you free; happy."
Loki slotted his fingers together and put his palms over his knees. "If you would ask for something, what would you ask?"
"Anything?" Thor asked as he thought deeply. What could he possibly ask? More trust? More acceptance? To turn back time? To forget?
Thor sighed. Trust and acceptance were Loki's to give, and nothing that came to mind would be a fair trade anyway.
"If I could have anything, I would just like you to be mine as much as I am yours. For you to have faith in me."
Loki remained sitting as Thor stood up, but he gave his usual goodbye normally, though his fingers may have lingered on the glass.
Loki hears him as he approaches. He turns to face Thor expectantly, making no move to fight or flee.
"Do you trust him?" Frigga had asked, after a few weeks of Loki's imprisonment.
"I would be a fool to," Thor had replied; angry and sad- confused for the combination.
Frigga had caressed the side of his face tenderly, as only a mother can. "You are a fool, my son."
Loki examined his hand cuffs as he and Thor walked through the grounds.
"They're my own fault," Loki said, before Thor could apologise.
Thor just looked ahead and smiled.
When they settled down under the shade of a tree, Loki asked, "A few weeks ago, you apologised for something. What were you apologising for?"
Thor laughed. He had been doing that more recently, and Loki would be lying if he said it didn't please him.
"An advance apology for having no intention of stopping, though you clearly aren't pleased by my visits."
"Weren't pleased," Loki corrected. "There was a time I found it exceedingly irritating."
"Is that to say you have a different opinion now?" Thor teased, nudging Loki with his elbow.
Loki rolled his eyes. "Now I just find you exceedingly stubborn."
"Oh come now," Thor said, gesturing grandly. "The grounds are beautiful and the day is long! You cannot say it doesn't put you in good spirits."
Loki hummed in confirmation and closed his eyes, letting the warm sun touch his eyelids, as the breeze shifted the leaves.
"I took an interest in magic because I didn't understand how the world would change colours when the sun touched it," Loki said.
"Why does that happen?" Thor asked.
Loki opened his eyes and turned on his side to look at Thor, who was sprawled out beside him. "The world isn't any different, the sun just alters one's view," Loki explained.
Thor understood.
"Then the light is the only one to see the world for what it is," Thor half-stated, half-asked.
"Yes, I suppose so," Loki mused.
They laid silent under the tree for a long time. It really was a beautiful day. They only stood back up when the tree's shadow had shifted too much to shield them anymore. They got up and walked back lazily. Thor was worried about telling Loki that he would have to return to his cell, but Loki already knew and silently acquiesced to it. He was grateful that Loki would spare his reputation; which reminded him of a fair confession to make for Loki's earlier statement.
"I made a mistake in courting Jane," Thor said softly, his happy mood deteriorating with every step down further into the prison.
"Finally took Sif to your bed?" Loki asked jokingly.
Thor shook his head and stepped outside Loki's cell. "I cannot return," he said, looking at the floor. "I could not love her as she loves me."
"I'm not sure what you're suggesting," Loki said. He had an inkling, of course, but Thor would be horrendously insulted if he was wrong. If he was right, then what he had shared earlier wouldn't be a fair trade.
Thor looked around, opened his mouth, then looked at the ground and shook his head.
Loki hesitated, but then put a hand on Thor's shoulder and said quietly, "When I fell off the Bifrost, I didn't let go to spite you, or to escape justice. I feared you would be the first to let go."
Thor put his hand over Loki's on his shoulder as he looked him in the eye. "I would never-"
"I know," Loki replied. "And you know that I would tell no one what you have to say."
Thor took one last look around, and opened his mouth to speak, though he couldn't bring himself to look Loki in the eye again as he did. "I have no desire to bed women," Thor said dejectedly.
Thor shrugged Loki's hand off to make to leave, but somehow found himself in Loki's embrace instead. With Loki's arm across the back of his shoulders, and a hand on the back of his head, he was crying. He was crying on Loki shamelessly.
Loki made no effort to coddle or hush him. He simply accepted that this was a long time coming, and that Thor needed it. Loki gave it to him.
When he finally pulled away, Loki offered him a handkerchief, which Thor took gratefully.
"You would embrace me even after knowing?" Thor asked as he dried tears from his cheeks.
Loki shrugged. "The only way in which it concerns me is how it was on your mind. It doesn't matter to me, and it shouldn't matter at all."
Thor pressed the handkerchief to his eyes, so Loki continued, "It doesn't take from your honour, and it doesn't make you any less of a man. Is this what plagues your mind most heavily?"
Thor composed himself further and replied, "As of late, there is only one matter greater... I spent so much time trying to make sure no one would notice. I only tried to best you in all so no one would ever question."
"All we've ever wished is to be the other's equal," Loki mused.
"This is ridiculous," Thor said. "This is all ridiculous. Could we not have talked sooner? You are nothing but my equal."
"I would not have believed you. I would have assumed you were mocking me, and gone to greater lengths to prove my point."
"What was the point you were trying to make?" Thor asked, knowing that he may be on thin ice.
"That we are equals. To Midgard, I could be the ultimate villain, where you are the ultimate hero. We could be equals on a different level, since I knew I could not match you on the same field."
"We are not each other's complement or opposite," Thor said with a sigh. "But do you believe me now?"
"I do," Loki replied. And then, "Do you promise to think no less of me if I tell you what weighs most heavily on my mind?"
"Of course," Thor said, nodding.
"It's why I wanted to badly to be your equal..." Loki looked him in the eye unflinchingly. "I don't care for women either. And I have always been as much yours as you have been mine."
Loki could see that Thor was confused.
"Think on it," Loki said. And to cheer Thor up before he had to leave, he asked, "So, do you prefer to give it or take it?"
When the realisation dawned on Thor's face, it was followed first by a scowl, then by a punch to Loki's arm.
Thor puts a hand on the back of Loki's head and drops Mjolnir to cup his cheek as well.
"You don't have as much control over him as you think," Frigga had said, just before he departed for Midgard to chase after Loki.
"He is my brother," Thor had retorted angrily.
"But that is why you don't," Frigga had said sadly as she watched her son storm away.
"Sorry, I was away again," Thor said breathlessly.
Loki put his book aside and went to greet him.
"Miss me?" Loki asked. He could've been serious or joking.
"Greatly," Thor replied in the same tone. "Are you angry with me?"
Loki shook his head and sat down. "I have enough faith to figure there was a reason."
"Thank you," Thor said genuinely, as he sat down and shedded three layers of thick clothes.
"Where were you?" Loki asked as he watched.
"Midgard," Thor said. "Very cold this time of year for them. February twenty-second was supposed to be the end of the world, according to their mythology of us. Apparently they panic at every religion's prophecies, so a few of us went there to reassure them... And set them straight on a few mythological facts."
Loki laughed at Thor's correction of Midgardian beliefs. "Ragnarok was mentioned at the end of the book. I just finished."
"Did you find what you were looking for?" Thor asked.
Loki nodded. "They believed me to have had a wife. And they thought me very cruel."
"You are cruel," Thor said. How could Thor see Loki as anything other than what he was? "And the reason for your wife was interesting... It seems important for you to have one."
"Not interested," Loki said, giving Thor a secretive wink. "I would hate to owe someone such a great debt."
They looked at each other levelly, like they were sizing the other up.
Thor broke the gaze first. "Then you would have to forgive me," he said.
"You understood my meaning then? From before you left?" Loki asked.
Thor nodded; looked down.
Loki grinned. It was equal parts glorious and terrifying.
"What do we do?" Thor asked miserably.
"Do you trust me?" Loki asked wickedly.
"Against better judgement."
"It really is a bad idea, isn't it?" Loki said as he stood up to pace so he could think more clearly.
Thor put his face in his hands as Loki plotted.
Loki rounded on Thor suddenly. "How much do you trust me?" he questioned.
Thor looked up from agitatedly rubbing his forehead. "With my life."
Loki cringed for him. "That's very foolish of you."
He returned his face to his hands. "I know," came the muffled reply.
"Would you give it to me? Would you put your life in my hands?"
Without moving, Thor nodded.
Loki had a choice in Thor's stead. Thor's honour, or Thor's happiness.
Thor brings their foreheads together slowly and looks into Loki's eyes. He sees everything he feels reflected back at him.
Trepidation, exhilaration, trust, fear... love.
"I love you," Thor murmurs.
Loki promptly kisses him. They both know they they will be banished for this. In all technicalities, Thor would suffer the penalty of treason, since he vouched his life for Loki. However, he is- was- the crowned prince. As such, he won't be executed and neither would Loki.
Thor is kissing him back as the chaos dies down. They sit together, side-by-side as Loki lazily flicks the city back to rights, leaving it pristine, without potholes, and clean-smelling.
"You thought I would let you fall," Thor says.
"Not for a second," Loki replies.
Thor smiles and they watch their first Midgardian sunset on the roof with assorted disgruntled members of the Avengers.
Eventually, Fury shows up and says that Loki can accept the monitoring willingly or unwillingly.
Loki accepts, and offers his services to the Avengers Initiative. Fury suspects something is amiss, but thanks him all the same.
"If you could have anything, what would you ask for?"
"I have it already," Loki replies.
"Then why would you join the Avengers? There is nothing for you to gain."
Loki watched the top of the moon touch the horizon before he replies, "I don't like having debts."
He feels Thor's questioning gaze, so he elaborates thoughtfully, "Midgard gave me someone to keep the poison from my face."
The first thing that Loki had to accept about Thor was that he was extraordinarily annoying. Annoying, pig-headed, and brazen. If he really wanted something, he would do it; consequences be damned. To be fair, he would accept the repercussions of his actions with grace and dignity.
The second thing was that he was determined. It was the sort of determination that was nothing but infuriating because it made him stubborn. He would get his mind stuck on something, and he would fight tooth and nail to achieve whatever he was hung up on. And he wouldn't always think his words or actions through. He certainly was passionate, if nothing else, but it had caused him a fair amount of trouble; he was just too exceedingly stubborn to learn.
The third thing was that Thor wasn't his brother. Their situation had changed, and it wouldn't ever be easy.
At least Loki has gotten around to accepting that.
A/N: For those of you who aren't brushed up on your Norse mythology, shame on you. It's very entertaining. Thor did indeed cross-dress (so did Loki) to get Mjolnir back, and Loki really did give birth to Odin's favourite horse.
Ragnarok (the Norse Apocalypse) was on February 22, 2014. Loki was doomed to spend his days with the venom of a giant serpent dripping on his face, but his wife caught the dripping poison every day and every night to save him; hence the title To Keep the Poison From Your Face.
That's about it. Comments and criticism encouraged, of course. Mistakes are my own.
(Norse Mythology is seriously the best though)