Title: Learning the Stepsbr /
Author: Kisnau ( .com and .com)
Artist: AncientWinters ( .com)
Pairings: Slow Build FrostIron, hinted-at-but-practically-invisible ThunderShield
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic violence (a few scenes of it, so prepare yourselves!), foul language, character death, filled-in backstories for characters with minor changes, Loki was married and has children, MCU canon divergence, time skips.
Final Word Count: 32Kish
Started Date: Saturday, August 1, 2015
Finished Date: Thursday, November 19, 2015
Posted Date: Friday, November 20, 2015
A/N: AU due to minor changes. Loki never had the I'm-a-Frost-Giant teenage crisis or tried to commit genocide against Jotunheim. He also hid his magical abilities (from all but Frigga) while growing up in Asgard, and so was accepted instead of ostracized. Thus, after Thor's uninterrupted coronation in 1914, he has served as King Thor's chief advisor. Loki also married Sigyn in 1614, gaining three children by her; Vali(b.1664), Nari(b.1714) and Hela(b.1814). A banished Asgardian, an anarchist sorceress named Innus, leads the Chitauri invasion of New York in 2014. She is working with the Frost Giant sorcerer Esmid, who is obsessed with Loki, to engineer some nefarious plot.
Tony is dead before him.
All his machinations, all his attempts to preserve this one, fatal flicker of a mortal life, have come to naught. Over and over, Loki kept cheating with spells for longevity, kept telling himself he needed 'just a little more time – just a little more'.
But it was never enough, and now that time had run out.
Tony lay in a grisly lake of his own blood, with his heart ripped out and crushed, the arc reactor held aloft in a blue hand on the screen and a manic grin splitting the murdering Frost Giant's lips.
The connection fuzzed with static as Esmid laughed.
"You see now, son of Odin, how futile attachment really is. All things end, and you must give up the hope of anyone lasting long against your insatiable appetite for chaos. We are one in the same. Your very being is an affront to order and rational thought – everything for which this mortal stood. Are you so blind? Come, Loki…"
Loki wanted to tear Esmid apart with his bare hands, but he was frozen in place, staring at the corpse that had once housed the most brilliant star in the galaxy.
Tony's face was cast in unnatural shadows without the glow of the arc reactor nestled below his sternum. How many times had Loki offered him a bite of a Golden Apple? Knowing of the Earth invasion months beforehand, how Loki had tried to manipulate Tony into staying on Asgard, where the defenses were better-prepared against that kind of onslaught.
And when all that failed, Loki had asked.
No-can-do, Loki-baby. Earth's my home and I'm not gonna abandon her in her time of need!
And here was the result: Tony, lying bloodless, heartless (for this creature had crushed it under his boot, shrapnel and all) and reactor-less; body devoid of the energy that had kept it going, and tinkering, and living.
Brought back to the moment by Esmid's laughter, Loki knew his face was a dark mask of rage.
He could only watch as Esmid clicked the arc reactor into some apparatus; huge, blue fingers moving expertly. Esmid was a machinist, too – like Tony. Like Tony had been. Loki felt rage well up again but bit his tongue against the bitterness of it, forcing a liar's smile with teeth as sharp as any of his daggers.
"What do you want, Esmid? For me to eviscerate you? Because you are certainly headed in that direction." Esmid had the gall to laugh at him, hellish red eyes overbright with glee when he glanced back.
"I want you to learn, son of Odin. There is no place for you but at my side." Loki gave him the greatest look of scorn it had ever been his fortune to deliver.
"You – "
"Not that I expect you to understand." Esmid went on conversationally, eyes widening as he grew enraptured with Loki's obvious anger. Loki didn't particularly care about Esmid's explanation or his sickening infatuation – his fingers itched to close around the Frost Giant's throat.
"What is there to understand?" Loki offered instead, tone a dangerous wire between complete madness and sweet vengeance, his mouth at a razor-sharp tilt.
"You murder my lover in front of me, then declare your affections. Your motivations are as transparent as a moron's." Esmid just smiled at him.
"You will understand, Loki." One blue finger pressed a button on the device and it began to whirr as the arc reactor started to spin in its new casing.
"I need only understand you are mad." Loki could see the tendrils of power reaching outward from around the stolen reactor, to power the device in which it was implanted. He watched as more lights lit up in the machine; Esmid's picture had shifted so Tony's corpse on the floor was no longer visible. Something started to hum in a high octave.
"You should be more careful with your blood, Son of Odin." Esmid intoned, a tad ominously, and abruptly Loki became aware of a strange, jarring sensation in his bones that distracted him from yet another pulse of rage. He looked down at his hand. It had started to blur, as though someone had smeared a painted version of his hand while it was still wet. Esmid's laughter made him look up again, but oddly Loki felt as though his entire being were… well, being smeared away, for lack of a better term.
"What are you doing?!" He hissed, shaking his hand and trying to call his magic – to no avail. Esmid's manic grin climbed higher on one side of his mouth.
"Showing you the truth, Loki. The mortal is doomed, and I have woven this science-magic with your blood. You and only you will remember. It will be another life, another chance for you to see how hopeless your attempts at honor are." Esmid's eyes hooded, here.
"Your blood has shown me what you cannot. We are alike, Loki. Learn how, and seek me out instead of the mortal. Together we will destroy the universe; I know that chaos is what truly calls you, in your core of cores. I give you the chance to find out why before allying yourself with me, as you must. Live well, son of Odin – I will always exist, and I will always find you."
Loki feels himself shoved out of existence, then, and stumbles abruptly as he falls to his knees. His head is aching – he puts the back of his hand to his mouth, grimacing, feeling pale and shaken; no, as though he is about to collapse. Nonetheless, he tries to sit without swaying in place, and watches around him as scenes whip crazily. They hadn't been there, before.
There – he and Thor. A scene with two dwarves and sewn thread over his lips. They tingle and Loki rubs them absently, mind locking in old wounds; wounds he had never had, but for this scene. Images of Frigga healing them. Is this a dream?
The scene changes. There is a crowd around a fallen Asgardian, and Loki sees himself looking stricken and pale. He hears a name – Baldur? – but the scene whips away just as fast as it came, lost in the tempest building around him.
More scenes. There is no Sigyn, Loki notices, no Vali or Nari but Hela is there. She is different – not the cherubic babe with ancient eyes Loki knows her as, not golden-haired and full of a youthful glow to rival Freya's, but dark-skinned and dark-haired with half of her face in shadow. Instead of Sigyn, there is a Frost Giantess, and two others – monsters, a wolf and a snake. Loki recoils upon knowing these are his children; he is not certain where the knowledge comes from, but Loki knows it is absolute.
No matter who my mother is, you are always my father.
Hela's words ring back to him, unhurried and unafraid, her blue eyes bearing the brutal honesty and inevitability of death.
Did she know this would happen?
Loki is distracted from this thought by more scenes – the exiling of the children, and Hela being instated as ruler of Helheim to give Lady Death more freedom.
The tempest lessens eventually, after what feels like an entire life has passed before him. It dissipates, revealing to Loki his surroundings.
It is his room - in Asgard.
Loki stumbles to his bed and falls upon it, clutching his head.
There are two sets of lives in his mind, vying for control.
In one, Tony dies horribly at a Frost Giant's hands.
In another… no, Loki has not yet met Tony, in this second life. At least as far as the memories tell.
Did the Frost Giant send him backwards in time? Or is this simply a universe where Tony Stark does not exist? Loki's stomach lurches painfully at the prospect – an emotional reaction. Logically, if Tony does not exist, he cannot be killed by the Frost Giant. There is no reason to worry for Tony's safety if Tony himself does not exist.
Loki strains to remember the Frost Giant's name – it might be important – but that detail has been lost amidst the other countless details weighing down his mind. This must be organized, or he will go mad. With effort, Loki separates out the scenes and shuts off the ones from his old life.
He continues examining the new memories.
Loki tries to hint to Thor, to Mother, that things are different, but Thor laughs him off and Frigga huffs at him for being 'mischievous'. The memories of Hela are recent – Loki knows she exists, and although her body might be young her mind is eternal. He heads to Helheim and knocks on the great gate, which is answered by a silent, stone-faced Nanna. Loki nods his head graciously to her before following after.
Their footsteps echo in the silence of Helheim, Hela's Keep. The intrusion of Loki's life is obvious, for Nanna's footsteps make no sound and there is no whisper of breath from her. Elsewhere these noises might be audible, if Hela wished it so and wanted to make others more comfortable around her – without the oppressive silence characteristic of her realm – but Loki cannot imagine it would ever be often. It is simply not in Hela's character to cover up the truth; that is why she titled herself Sahnnet.
But enough of his daughter – for there she stands, at the end of the hall. A blink and Loki is in his own wing of the palace in Asgard, coming home from another adventure with Thor. Hela's older brothers rush forward to greet him, showing off injuries from scuffles and Loki looks up. Beside Sigyn is Hela; small and young in Sigyn's arms, but never fussing or crying or laughing, her stare steady and ancient. There are no visible words exchanged between them, only a look that makes Loki feel as though he is an ant on the end of a very long telescope.
He feels dwarfed by his daughter, which is absurd because when she smiles it is the brightening of the day, with her rosy cheeks and bouncing, golden curls. She is a child; a princess, the future ruler of Helheim, the realm gifted to her by Odin when she should come of age.
It was an empty gesture. Hela has always belonged in her Keep, in Nilfheim, but Loki could never give up his daughter to that barren place before her time. She would have memories of love and light and happiness and not go to her responsibility as though to a grave. And Hela does smile – she has affection for him, Loki can tell, even though to most she is impassive and even perhaps slightly chilling.
The Hela that greets him now is wrapped in a black robe, half her face hidden, the visible half of her face dark and her curls thick and black. She raises a hand towards him; offering.
"Come, Father." She is barely a toddler, but her eye commands more power than Loki has ever known. Loki hesitates. This is not the Hela he remembers. Still, the same unknown quality clings to her that always has; something uniquely Hela, something untainted and patient amidst Asgard's garish celebration of battle and everlasting youth.
"Am I your father?" Loki finds himself asking, the words drawn out of him like… Truth. Hela's mouth curves, but there is a fondness in it.
"Are you Loki?" Loki blinks at her, and the ghost of a smirk pulls at her expression as he answers.
"Yes." Hela nods, now solemn, and begins to stride forward. Impossibly, she is right in front of him. In three steps, she crossed the entire distance of the room to look up at him, and extend her pudgy, baby hand.
"You are my father." Her fingers brush his and a memory of his old life is brought to the forefront; he with his golden-haired Hela perched in his lap as they watch Sigyn, Vali and Nari spar with Frigga. Loki blinks and the light of the memory is greeted by the shadows of Helheim. Hela's dark eye in her dark face beneath her black curls watches him. Loki smiles, and takes her outstretched hand.
"Yes. You are always the same, aren't you? You remember everything?" There is a twinkle in Hela's eye that Loki is fairly sure Frigga would attribute to him.
"I exist outside of time and beyond space. Changes in form do not change me." Hela half-turns, tugging on his hand. "Come, Father. There is much to be done."
Loki lets his daughter lead him down her hall. Here, at least, he will always find an ally. It is… comforting, to know not all has been lost.
He still does not know what yet to make of her brothers.