All characters © Marvel Comics

Summary: In which Odin screws up royally, the Casket of Ancient Winters is stolen, and something is the matter with Thor. Set post-Avengers, before Surtr uses the Casket in the Marvel-verse.

Note: This is a gift-fic for the amazing writer Helennotoftroy. Get well soon!

Thunder's Half

III.

In the time it had taken him to walk three miles, Loki had devised twenty-nine elaborate battle strategies step by step. Only ten of these actually consisted of retrieving the Casket of Ancient Winters; the rest were, infuriatingly, fixated on the problem of Thor.

He was busy setting the groundwork for his thirtieth plan when he caught a splash of blue from over the hill ahead of him. In all fairness, Captain Rogers was considerably more surprised to see Loki than Loki was to see him.

Rogers, to put it mildly, gawked. "Loki," he said. It almost came out as a question. He instinctively reached for his belt, but Loki held his palms up to indicate that he meant no immediate harm. Loki could see the thoughts flitting across Rogers's features like brightly colored flags: recognition, confusion, hostility, suspicion, awe. The last was definitely awe, however faint. It was gone almost as soon as it had appeared, but for the life of him Loki could not understand why Rogers would have that expression on his face.

"Why hello, Captain," he said, smooth as moose fur. "Not joining the battle today?"

Rogers actually looked guilty. Loki's red eyes narrowed, drinking in the new expression and swirling it in his mouth, trying to discern its taste. The captain had clearly been separated from the team, but as their leader he should have been bursting at the seams to return to them. Instead, he was sitting on a rock in the snow. How odd.

"Why are you here, Loki?" Rogers asked in lieu of a direct answer. His eyes ran over Loki's blue skin, giving him another once-over. And why do you look like that? was the unspoken question, but Loki heard it as if it had been blasted through Gjallarhorn.

He gave a one-shouldered shrug. "The same reasons as you," he answered. "I will benefit from returning the Casket of Ancient Winters to Asgard, so you can interpret my aid today as a temporary truce of the sorts. I do not offer perfidy but a genuine alliance in the name of a greater cause."

"Which is?" Rogers asked. Loki only responded with a wry smile.

"Enemies are known to join forces from time to time," he responded. "Allow me to offer my assistance, Captain Rogers, despite our unconscionable and slightly un-agreeable history." Loki smirked and watched Rogers mull it over. His skin may have turned blue but his tongue was still silver.

After a minute Rogers dipped his head in agreement. He sighed, looked into the distance, and finally rested eyes on Loki. "Thor didn't say you were coming."

"No, I do not suppose he did," Loki said. He gestured to the sky. "Shall we, Captain?" Rogers was still sitting in the snow, propped on a rock and twirling a broken earpiece around in his fingers. He looked…hesitant, which, giving what Loki knew about him (he had seen the good Captain jump out of a plane bareback in a storm), seemed decidedly out of place.

"Something the matter?"

Rogers gave him a dark look. "Let's go," he said, jumping up and wiping some crusted blood from his cheek. His eyes fell to the footprints in the snow behind Loki. "You walked?" he asked. A loud crack filled the air and a grubby plume of smoke drifted up from the tops of the trees in the distance.

Loki tilted his head toward the sound and smiled faintly. "What can I say?" he replied. "I like the quiet. But you are avoiding the question, Captain." Oh, how fun it was to be able to tease somebody again! The rest of the journey would be most enjoyable.

"Yeah?" Rogers began to walk. "I'll answer that if you tell me why you are, uh, colored."

"Since you put it so nicely," Loki said, rolling his eyes, "this is my true form." Rogers raised his eyebrows.

"I am of Asgard but not Æsir. A foster child, you might say. The Allfather thought this form would be more appropriate to deal with your world's current problem."

"You don't sound too happy about it," Rogers noted. He sniffed, nose pink from the winter air. "Does this mean you and Thor are not actually brothers?"

Of course it does, you dolt. "That is all you shall hear from me, unfortunately," Loki said, shaking his head in mock pity. "I'm rather more curious about you, Captain."

Rogers's nostrils flared and he tightened his lips begrudgingly. "Fair enough," he said. "When you're cryogenically frozen for a few decades you tend not to look at ice the same way."

"Ah," Loki nodded, "so you ran."

Rogers glared. "I did not run. I got hit."

Loki had been looking at the snow around his boots, but at this he turned and met Rogers squarely in the eye. "Oh please. There is no difference," he said. "Fear governs your subconscious. It is human primitiveness at an extremely base level, after all." Rogers gave him a quizzical, if slightly offended look.

"Perhaps you wanted to get hit so you could be away from it," Loki continued. He smirked, unable to help himself. "How cowardly."

"Any of the others would have killed you by now," Rogers said, holding up a finger. "Be thankful that I can tolerate you on an extremely base level."

Loki blinked. Who would have guessed that Rogers had a tongue on him as well? "Well that's a start," he said, not surprised to find that he had broken into a grin.

x

The Hulk did not take kindly to having an icicle the size of a telephone pole spearing through his deltoid. To top it off, he was in his boxers and the outside temperature was negative ten degrees Fahrenheit. Even he felt some of the cold.

A second spear pierced his upper thigh while another one went straight through his forearm. The Hulk roared, and some of the thinner ice coating the ground cracked.

Tony had prepared for "icing problems" in advance, but the unrelenting power of the Casket was still causing major damage to his suit. Clint was inhibited by a broken leg, Steve was MIA, and Natasha was getting tired. The only one still fully in the game was Thor.

"Watch it!" Tony shouted as Mjölnir whizzed by within an inch of his helmet. The hammer subsequently splintered an entire evergreen tree that had been frozen in a block of ice. For a minute it seemed that it was raining crystals, which would have been transcendent had it not been for the imminent danger of a falling tree. Tony quickly moved the trunk out of the way as it began to fall.

As Thor became more involved in the battle he grew increasingly less mindful of his surroundings. Tony had always known Thor to be calculating in battle, strategic. He was like a natural disaster incarnate (much like his brother, Tony thought dryly), but he was always careful to direct his destructive proclivities away from civilians and the team. Tony could tell that Barton and even the Hulk, to some extent, had picked up on the change. First Rogers, now Thor.

"Stark!"

As if sensing his thought, Barton gestured to the Hulk. His leg was twisted spectacularly beneath him and his face was wan and pinched with the pain. He was still shooting what remained in his arrow reserves, but even he could see that his efforts were ineffective.

The dwarf had pinned the Hulk against an enormous spruce and was holding the Casket directly in front of the Hulk's chest. Tony flashed Barton the okay and whizzed over.

"Oh no you don't," he said, and could almost feel JARVIS channeling the exact same sentiments.

x

"Now fire I have a strong disliking to," Loki mused aloud, simply to make their short journey as annoying for the good captain as possible. He also enjoyed the company and banter of somebody who was not actively trying to kill him, more so than he would care to admit.

It had been so long, because of the Well.

There was just something so delightful about having a simple conversation with someone that Loki took far too much pleasure in. Everyone on Asgard harbored the idea of Talking Bad, Fighting Good, but no one saw the true gems that could be found in just words and expressions. You could uncover an enemy's fears and secrets; even his entire life's reflections if you rubbed verbal elbows hard enough to create a shine.

Prying people open with discussion had become an almost compulsive habit of Loki's, much to the chagrin of those around him.

"I thought I said I didn't want to talk about it," Steve grit out. There was a hole in one of his boots and the snow was seeping in, uncomfortably soaking his sock and freezing his toes. "I don't make you talk about your—"he waved his hand at Loki's blue skin—"what do I even call this?"

"Jötun," Loki replied, because it was more difficult to poke fun at than frost giant. "I am Jötun royalty, which is actually a lot harder to talk about than one might think. It makes me want to dig my fingernails into every eye socket of the House of Odin and tear out their brain stems in little ropes. But you do not see me complaining, Captain."

Rogers looked mildly disgusted for a minute. Then he seemed to recall who he was talking to and shook it off. "Look," he said, "anything to shut you up until we get to the Casket. We've all got issues, like you said. Freak shows." Loki's grin widened, and Rogers tried not to notice the acrimony behind it.

"Trauma, shock, call it what you will. I don't suppose you'd understand what it's like to be in suspended animation for decades." Rogers grimaced. "A real gas. Asleep in water while the world passes you by."

"Actually," Loki pointed out, "you'll find that I do."

Rogers turned toward him. "What?"

to be continued.