Truthfully

Summary: For a prompt on NorseKink:

Loki had every intention of wreaking havoc upon Midgard the moment his suicide attempt had failed. Really. He'd planned on setting cities ablaze, smashing buildings, pillaging, all of that good stuff.

Too bad he hadn't planned on the place being so FUN.

Destroying City Hall? Maybe if he can squeeze it in between ikebana and his Thai cooking classes. Oh, he tries for the whole supervillain thing, but is it really his fault that he really likes going to yoga and hair products that don't require massive amounts of oils that leave him feeling greasy? Is it really his fault that manicures are so damn RELAXING and that those little Asian ladies in the salon are so charmingly adorable? Besides, his therapist says that all the rage is unhealthy.

TL;DR Loki gets a therapist and finds Earth hobbies that he enjoys in between bothering his brother and his friends.

Disclaimer: Ahahahahahaha. No.

AN: So we've hit chapter ten already~ Thank you so much to everyone who's reading, who's reviewed, who's put an alert on this story…I appreciate everything you have to say and I hope you all continue to enjoy this little story of mine.

The funny thing about this story is that really, it was originally meant to be a relatively silly, cracky little one-shot.

Then plot happened.

On with the show!

Chapter Ten: Halite

Loki had always been a child predisposed to nervous habits. Thor was the one who bounded off into the underbrush while Loki had tended to hang back, either fretting or plotting and twisting his hands (sometimes literally) until he couldn't take it anymore and followed after him and either saved his stupid princely butt or got them into worse trouble than they'd started. They were no longer children but the major things hadn't changed, which was how Loki found himself falling back into his usual habit of pacing in front of the closed door.

He hadn't set his phone down since he'd gotten it back.

Accepting Rogers' deal had been one of his worse ideas simply because if he'd been thinking properly, he likely would have told him where he could stuff his bargain instead.

Loki's face twisted with disgust and he held out an arm. The tightened tether that he held to his recovering magic strained against the dampeners , forcing its way through to shimmer just slightly.

He forced off his familiar form, the form that he could not and would not accept as not being his, and his fingertips began to go blue.

Instantly, Loki stiffened and reshifted, ignoring the immediate fatigue that washed over him and made him sway on his feet. It would have been easier, he knew, to shove his hand deep within his pockets and leave the room to 'accidentally' brush up against any of the warm bodies that inhabited that mansion but he couldn't, not right now. Not when he found himself shaking with loathing and revulsion and he knew that he wouldn't be able to hide that, not from people who had been specifically ordered to keep a close watch on him.

A sad state to find himself in.

He almost would have preferred legitimate confinement to this fallacy of freedom, would have preferred to rage and snarl and fight than suffer this.

Loki longed, suddenly and surprisingly, for his apartment in New York City. It wasn't quite home, but what was now? Home didn't exist, not for people like him. Next time he got captured, he'd remember to set a charm to his plants because his were all definitely dead by now. Were the shelves covered in dust? Were his books still in their places where he'd left them? …was all of his food bad by now?

The blue stayed in his mind.

It was disgusting.

Despicable.

Wrong.

Just like him.

"You know, Loki, you seem quite ready to believe that there's something inherently wrong with you."

"Do I? I think I'm fantastic, actually."

"Really?"

"Of course."

Surprise, surprise, the liar had lied.

No one could love a monster, not even the monster himself.

"…you gave him back his phone." Tony's voice was incredulous and Steve shrugged from where he sat on the couch, sheepish but unrepentant. "What the hell is wrong with you? Has everyone completely gone off the deep end? Am I the only one still sane? …god, that is a terrifying thought. Where the hell is Thor? Maybe he can use that hammer of his to lobotomize me."

Blue eyes rolled skyward.

"Yeah, okay, so I gave him back the phone. Not like he can really mess with it too much, not with the way we're keeping an eye on him and the way he is right now. Have you noticed the way he moves? Sways and nearly falls over half the time he gets up."

"Could be a trick. He's kind of known as a –GASP- trickster."

Steve huffed a little but didn't get up, leaning back to recline against the plush back.

"Or I could have made a bargain. A useful bargain."

Addressing the heavens, Tony threw his hands into the air.

"Are you hearing this, God? God-God, not any of you Norse assholes? This sweet, naïve idiot over here made a bargain. With the goddamned lying god."

"Oh, cut the dramatics. I told you, useful bargain."

Tony stopped his pacing in front of his friend, looming down at him and trying to be intimidating when really, he just appeared frazzled.

"And what kind of bargain did you make, exactly?"

Steve smiled in a fashion that wouldn't have been out of place on Loki's face. It was a subdued look but dripped in pure, unadulterated I know something you don't know. Maybe smug was catching. Glancing shiftily to the upstairs, he beckoned Tony down to his level with a crooked finger and brought their faces closer so that he could whisper.

"Loki, that Loki, has spent, if I were to take a guess, the last six months going to see a therapist. A certified mental health professional by the name of Doctor Caroline Moran." It was worth every bit of the agony and self-restraint to not say anything just to see Tony's jaw drop now. Was that what it felt like for a villain to have a plan go perfectly? Tony gaped and began to sputter.

"Wait—wait, what? Wait, you said Moran—that's why you had me look into her? You dirty, sneaky little-!"

Steve preened.

"Why are you telling me this now?"

"Other than the fact that it was killing me to keep that to myself? The phone was a goodwill gesture. I'd just like you to consider, maybe mentally calculate, how much damage Loki's caused in the last six months. Give me a number, or even a comparison to the norm. What's it look like?"

Tony glared at him but nevertheless performed the requested mental gymnastics. His face went slack. Steve's smile widened.

"…holy shit."

"Right?" Steve prodded, verbally and literally, reaching out and shaking Tony's shoulder back and forth.

"If you add up the damage he's done in the last six months…I could pay that in a week. Shit, shit, shit. That's like, my booze budget."

"Maybe you ought to make a few appointments yourself," Steve muttered, trying not to pull the judging face. "Also, you're not allowed to use this against him in any way. No teasing, no making fun of him, no using that information to make him feel weak. There is no shame in what he's done."

"Hush up, you wet blanket," Tony snapped back, pulling away and beginning to pace again up and down the length of the room. Suddenly, he stopped short and whipped around to face Steve again. "…what would I have to do to get you to make a phone call for me?"

"If it's to Fury and regarding what I think it is? There is not enough money in the world to tempt me."

"Brother, I wish to speak to you."

"I don't," Loki said, cocking his head from where he sat on the bed, spreading himself out further to take up as much space as he could when Thor entered the room, a determined look on his face.

"Are you sulking?"

"I'm ruminating on my situation. Go away."

The request was ignored, completely and utterly. Instead of turning away, Thor took another step into the room, closing the door behind him. Loki watched him with all the wariness of a cat put out in the rain too often. Subconsciously, he reached out for his magic. Mental fingertips trailed over the glass case that kept him from accessing the power he knew he still had, close enough to see and feel but too quashed and weakened to use.

That knowledge only served to make him bristle.

"Why do you despise me so, Loki?" The question was spoken softly in a tone that didn't belong on Thor, said so softly that it couldn't be anything other than sincere.

Anything Loki said in that tone of voice would automatically been suspect whether he was lying or not.

Thor, though… Thor was honest and Loki hated him for it.

"What have I done to you to inspire this. If you told me, I could—"

"Shut up," Loki snapped, daring Thor –not his brother, not his brother, not his brother- to take a step closer. He might not have his magic but that wasn't his only weapon by far, despite how naked and exposed he felt without it. "Just shut up. What makes you so special," he continued, voice low and venomous, "That makes you think you have so much to do with this? Shining Thor, always the center of everything, right?"

"Do I not though, at least in this? Loki—"

"I hate you. I hate Fa—Odin. I hate him too. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him, I hate him."

"And what has he done to you? Tell me."

Thor made a movement as if to reach out and grip Loki about the shoulders but thought better of it at the last moment.

Loki shivered.

Blue, blue, blue, everything was blue and disgusting and lies, nothing but lies. The liar lied and the monster always died. His vision swam and he blinked rapidly, trying to clear it. Everything just blurred all the more.

No, Loki.

Loki shook his head. Once, twice, three times before he stopped himself and looked away because if he didn't, he'd end up hurling something heavy and painful in the other man's direction.

"You have ever been a mystery to me, Loki, but never have I been so ill-adapted to ease what ails you."

That was it.

Loki scrambled to his feet and took the four steps needed to approach Thor, getting up in his face. The bulkier man didn't back away or recoil, choosing instead to stand steadily, even when Loki pulled back a fist to slam it into his shoulder.

"What ails me has nothing to do with you, will have nothing to do with you, and even if it did, I want nothing to do with you," he hissed furiously, suddenly digging his teeth into his cheek hard enough to draw blood. "You would do yourself the favor to listen to Stark and hand me off to someone else because you're too soft-hearted by far for this job."

"What is wrong with you?" Thor lashed out to grab Loki by the wrists, grip firm and unyielding and too gentle, too gentle by far, "What is wrong with you, Loki? Why do you refuse to be helped—"

"Because you can't help me!" Loki bellowed in reply, pulse roaring in his ears and fury surging through his veins even as his voice began to pitch, higher and higher and higher until he was screaming the words that tore out of him like hurricane gusts, out of control and bitingly honest. "You can't help me!"

His voice broke and then all he could do was laugh helplessly, broken and razed and so, so blue.

Thor didn't let him go but stared at him as if he'd never seen Loki before in his life. All of the frustration had slipped out of him and those blue eyes only held concern and sadness. Still giggling, Loki sagged to the floor, his wrists still restrained in Thor's hands that had always been larger than his own. Awkwardly, he curled in on himself and didn't know when his laughter had turned into something more akin to a sob, haunting and half-hysterical, the kind of noise a man made when there was no other option.

"Brother…"

"I'm not your brother! Stop saying that!"

"Why do you insist on saying such things?" Thor protested. His expression was openly hurt. "Father told me that he'd adopted you. It doesn't matter that we don't share blood between us; you are my brother and my parents are yours—"

The laughter that Loki had just managed to quell came up again and when his hands were released, he wrapped his arms around himself in a mockery of a hug.

"O-oh my—ahahahaha, you don't get it!" he forced out between peals of mirth, "You don't get it at all! Of course the Allfather wouldn't have told you. You don't know! If you did…"

Thor knelt down and grabbed Loki by the shoulders, shaking him briskly back and forth, all the while feeling them tremble under his fingers. For all of his eccentricities, Loki had never been prone to mania, not in all the years they'd spent together. He'd oft laugh when teased as a defense mechanism, but this…

"What don't I get? You're running me in circles!" Thor insisted and as if a switch had been flipped, Loki quieted, staring up at Thor. He was grinning wildly but his eyes were dark, agonized, and openly in pain. The whipcrack quick reaction was more than a little disconcerting.

"You want to know…" Loki murmured lowly under his breath. His hands clenched and unclenched in the hem of his shirt. "You really want to know."

He didn't know when the tears had begun to well up but they didn't fall.

Loki's movements were jerky as he shook himself out of Thor's grip, settling back on his haunches.

He held up a hand, pale and long-fingered, and wrenched his sleeve up with the other.

He forced himself to shift just the tiniest bit, allowing the blue to creep up from his fingertips, up his arm, up to his shoulder. Thor's face drained of all its color and his mouth dropped open. He made a motion to say something but no sound came out.

All he could do was stare, horror written all over his face.

"Allfather told you that I was adopted," Loki said. "But he didn't tell you where he adopted me from."

"W-what—what?"

Loki smiled, one that didn't reach his eyes.

"Disgusting, isn't it?" he asked lightly, examining his arm as if it wasn't a part of him, like it was a horrifying specimen laid out under a glass case. Thor couldn't move, his eyes wide and stunned. He reached out, excruciatingly slowly, and Loki prepared for whatever would come, be it a blow or a recoil.

In the end, it was neither.

As if expecting him to dissolve or shatter at contact, Thor brushed his fingers against Loki's bared shoulder. Within seconds, Jotun blue was replaced with Loki's normal Aesir pale everywhere Thor had touched. Loki froze and fought the urge to shudder. Made braver, Thor repeated the motion in another area to chase away the evidence of Loki's heritage.

"Why does it change?" he finally asked as if to force himself through his own shock. Numbly, Loki shook his head.

"I…don't know. It's not foreign spellwork and it's not of my own doing. It's not my normal shapeshifting either. Maybe just one more reason I was left in that temple," Loki ground out bitterly. "I suppose 'Father' wouldn't have told you simply because he feared you might slay me in the cradle if you'd known." Thor gave the tiniest flinch. "Or maybe it all worked out the way he planned. Why else, then, would he encourage such hatred?"

"Loki…"

"So which is it, Thor? Can you still claim me as kin even knowing this? Even knowing that I am not only not the son of Odin, but the son of Laufey? Does it make you rage? Or is it worse, now that you know that I slew my own father for being a monster?"

For a period, all Thor was capable of was breathing raggedly.

"You had better hope that I remain incapacitated because when I get out of here? I am going to make everything burn," Loki promised through the silence. As if shaking himself out of a dream, he got to his feet and left Thor kneeling on the floor to settle himself back down on the bed. He turned away and pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his face in them to hide the moisture in his eyes. He wouldn't look over to see Thor get to his feet.

"Loki, my brother. You have done terrible things. Monstrous things. But you have a good heart and I don't know where you lost sight of it, but be sure that I haven't. I will not hand you over to SHIELD if I can help it, but it may end up out of my control."

A hand came down and stroked dark hair, just once, before Thor was dragging in a harsh breath and half-running out the door.

AN2: Please review if you have anything to say, be it good or bad! Thank you very much for reading.