Chapter 11:
Loki has just turned eleven years old, and he knows already that he is gay.
In truth, he's known for a long time. Known as well as a child his age can. As far as he can understand what it even means.
He knows that when he looks at other boys, he feels funny and interested in a way he doesn't when he looks at girls. Feels his stomach twist in a strange way, almost like he's going to be sick, but not quite. Feels even more shy, feels embarrassed and excited and worried.
Knows sometimes he wants to kiss other boys, though he doesn't know why.
Loki knows also that this is a bad thing. Very, very bad, and that anyone knowing it is even worse.
Though sometimes it feels to Loki like everyone must know.
The other kids at school call him "faggot" and "queer" and "sissy". They look at him like they hate him. And Mom and Dad don't know, because he knows it would only upset them, same with Thor, so he doesn't say anything, about how almost every day the other kids beat him up. They're almost always careful to leave his face alone, so they don't get in trouble, except for when Loki can't keep from talking back, and then they'll punch him in the mouth or the eye. It's worse because they're all so much bigger and stronger than him. It wouldn't be much better, even if he was in a school with kids the same age, because he's so scrawny. But he's skipped ahead several grades, and is in high school. The other kids hate that about him too.
Sometimes they leave Loki so bruised and in pain from the way they kick and hit him all over, that he can hardly move, and it's really hard then, to hide it from his family.
And he doesn't want them to know. He doesn't want them to know he's exactly what the other kids say he is, because then they'll hate him too.
Sometimes it makes Loki cry, to think about how disappointed Mom and Dad and Thor would be, if they knew he was a fag. Dad especially. Thor's so perfect. He's so strong and good looking and successful. He'd just started university, had gotten in on an athletic scholarship of course. There was nothing "sissy" about him, nothing girly. He was as big and strong as Dad, easy, maybe even bigger and stronger.
Nobody messed with Loki when Thor was with him, because they knew Thor would mess them up if they tried.
But, ever since he'd gone away to college, and the other kids knew he wasn't around anymore to pick Loki up after school, there'd been nothing anymore to hold them back. That's almost always when it happened. At the end of the day. They always somehow found Loki, and cornered him, and then...
He shakes his head, trying not to think about it. Trying not to worry. He's got a new route he's gonna try today, and hopefully they won't find him. He hopes...
If they do, he'll just tell them to go fuck themselves. At least then he'll get to see them really pissed off before they lay into him.
Right now, though, he can't stop staring at Steve.
That's Steve Rogers, the best looking guy in his school, and Loki's been crushing on him for a long, long time. He doesn't think Steve even knows he exists, which isn't a surprise.
Steve is about the closest thing to Thor that Loki's ever seen. Big and blonde and strong as an ox. He's the captain of the soccer and lacrosse teams, and he's always seemed like a really nice, cool guy to Loki too. Not that Loki would really know. He's never talked to Steve personally.
Well, Loki likes to imagine he's really nice. Thor is, and Thor was and is the captain of every sports team he's ever been on. Just because you were a jock didn't mean you had to be a jerk.
It's ridiculous anyway. Steve's into girls. He's with Peggy Carter. Even if he were gay, it's not like he'd want to be with someone like Loki.
He knows he should stop staring before someone notices. He should focus on the teacher and what he's saying. But it's hard. It's really hard.
Steve is sitting a couple rows over from him, in the same isle, listening attentively to the lessen, like he's supposed to be.
Every time Loki forces himself to look away, a few moments later, he finds his eyes back on the older boy.
He thinks about Steve sometimes, when he... God. He knows it's gross and wrong, but he can't always help it.
He shouldn't be thinking about this stuff.
He shifts in his seat, thinking about it now, an uncomfortable tightness in the groin of his pants. He's got to stop or someone...
A hard impact against the back of his head throws Loki violently from his thoughts, his head snapping forward as he chokes on a shocked gasp.
Loud giggling catches his ear a moment later.
"Hey, Rogers, you see this faggot checking you out?" The kid behind him laughs.
Steve, to Loki's utter mortification, hears the kid and turns, looking directly at him.
Loki looks away, his face heating instantly. Oh God, he thinks, what just happened?
He expects any second then for Steve to start laughing along with the other kid, to start making fun of him.
Instead, he hears Steve say...
"Leave him alone man. He's just a little kid."
The kid behind Loki scoffs, muttering out something about whatever. But Loki hardly hears him.
Yeah, Steve Rogers seems like a nice guy. He probably thought telling the other kid to let him alone was the nice thing to do too. Only it's just made Loki feel all the more humiliated. Of course that's how Steve would see him. Just some little kid to feel sorry for.
Stupid, he thinks, that he would ever even imagine he'd have any kind of chance with someone like that.
Loki stares at himself in the mirror, and thinks about what a complete loser nothing he is.
They'd finally let him go home from the hospital this afternoon.
Mom had insisted that he come stay with her and Dad, even though he'd wanted to go with Thor back to his apartment.
He hadn't put up much of an argument, and when Thor had said he would come stay with Mom and Dad too, Loki had just given in.
He was passed the point of embarrassment now anyway. He didn't think he could be any more humiliated in front of his family than he already had been.
But that was the story of his life, he supposes. If they hadn't been disappointed in him before, they most certainly had to be now.
Staring back at his reflection, he hardly recognizes himself, his eyes bloodshot red, still deeply blackened, similarly dark and ugly bruising running across the bridge of his nose and along both sides of his jaw. His cheeks and eyes are so sunken, his face looks like a skull, like some grotesque death mask. There are the impressions of fingers around his throat and neck, and Loki tries vainly to shove the memories from his mind, of Thanos holding him down, his massive, powerful hands around his neck, squeezing, suffocating...
He turns away, his eyes stinging, heart beating uncomfortably hard against his ribs, and wonders if this is ever going to go away. If he's ever going to not be afraid ever again.
Looking down at his wasted, scrawny body does nothing to banish the thoughts and fear. He's just as bruised and beaten and disgusting there.
He tries to focus on the special lice shampoo in his hand, reading the instructions for what must be the tenth time.
They'd stopped by a pharmacy to pick up all his various prescriptions after they'd left the hospital earlier, on the way to Mom and Dad's house.
Loki had been too embarrassed to go in, and had been grateful to Mom and Dad for doing it for him, and to Thor for staying in the car with him.
He didn't want to be alone anymore. Was too afraid...
Breathing in deeply, he finally opens the bottle and squeezes a large amount of it out into the palm of his hand. It stinks, and Loki feels his face grimace at the smell. He's supposed to rub this shit all over his body, and then leave it on for twenty minutes?
But then, he supposes he doesn't have a choice.
Mom had offered to help him, but of course he couldn't bear it. He was so embarrassed. He'd thought he was going to die from the humiliation when Dr. Strange had gone over everything with him at the hospital.
His family knew, they had to know. You didn't get three separate STD's from one person. You didn't... didn't...
Oh God, he thinks suddenly, nobody... nobody is ever going to want to touch him ever again. Nobody is ever going to want to be with him. Not if they knew. Not if they knew he'd been raped. Not just once even. He doesn't... he doesn't even know how many times it had happened. There are so many flashes in his memory, feelings of suffocating, overwhelming terror and confusion and disgust. He's disgusted by himself. He can only imagine then what anyone else would think.
They'd hate him. They'd look at him like the pathetic, grotesque nothing that he is. Nobody would ever want to be with him if they knew. If they knew he was so weak and pitiful that he couldn't even stop women from raping him. Couldn't fight any of them off. Couldn't even talk his way out of it, when he'd always thought he was so clever, so much smarter than everyone else.
He's going to be alone for the rest of his life, he thinks then. He's always going to be alone.
And suddenly he's crying again, sobbing desperately.
He presses his hands to his mouth, trying to stifle the sound before someone hears him.
Only he can't stop, weak, sharp whimpers slipping past his fingers and filling the small space of the bathroom.
He doesn't want to do this. Doesn't want to be this.
Thanos had said so many things to him. Had told him he was so many things.
"You're nothing but a faggot Loki." He can hear the older man's voice in his head, even now. "Nothing but a dirty whore. Fuckin' cum bucket. I'll bet you're secretly loving every second of this, aren't you?"
"No," Loki chokes out, as if Thanos can hear him. As if he could ever hear him.
He doesn't even know how he ended up on his knees, his fingers fisted in his hair, the special shampoo smeared all over. The tile is cold and hard against his bare knees, the tears running hot down his face.
"No," he whimpers again, voice barely a whisper. "I didn't enjoy it. I didn't w-want it. Oh God, God..."
He jumps, losing his balance and slamming his shoulder against the cold porcelain of the toilet bowl when a knock suddenly sounds on the door.
"Loki?" He hears Thor's voice call through. "Are you alright in there?"
Loki grits his teeth, squeezing his eyes tighter shut, tears still streaming down his cheeks.
Idiot, he thinks miserably to himself.
"... I-I'm... I'm alright." He calls after a moment, trying in vain to keep his voice steady. "I'm just figuring out how this sh-shampoo works."
There's a long beat of silence, and Loki knows Thor can probably hear the tears in his voice.
"... Are you sure?" His brother finally asks. "I can come help you if..."
"No." Loki calls back urgently. "No, I'm al-alright. I'll be out soon."
Another pause.
For a moment, Loki fears Thor won't listen to him. That he'll just come charging in like he always does, intent to help, but like always with his brother, unknowingly just making things worse.
"Okay." He at last hears Thor say, and Loki sags in relief, laying his forehead against the toilet seat. "Mom's making dinner." His brother goes on, his voice hopeful. "It should be ready by the time your out."
"Okay Thor." Loki answers weakly. "... Thanks. T-tell... tell Mom I'll be out in half an hour maybe?"
"Okay Loki." Thor replies.
Loki listens to his brother's footsteps as he moves away from the door, down the hall.
He feels bad. He knows Thor is only trying to help. But he just can't deal with it right now.
He just wants to be alone.
/
Odin watches Loki carefully as his son pulls out a chair at the dining table and sits down.
His movements are gingerly, slow. He's so obviously in a great amount of pain, and just as obviously trying to hide it, and something about that makes Odin's heart ache almost physically.
He hates this. Hates that his boy feels like he needs to hide the fact that he's hurting at all, like he thinks everyone here will somehow be ashamed of him if he lets them see it.
He hates it worse because he knows, in his own pride and frustration and failure, he's at least partly responsible for Loki feeling that way.
He'd been so hard on the boy when he was growing up. In part, he thinks, it's because his own father was that way with him.
Bor had never tolerated any kind of weakness, or what could be construed as weakness. He'd used to tell Odin never to cry, never to complain, never to be anything less than what had been his ideal of a man. He's used to hit Odin, and hard, if he ever acted in any way his father disapproved of, and Odin, though he'd despised his father on a certain level for it, and vowed never to become anything like him, had done just that.
He'd never hit Loki. Not ever, ever would he hit his children.
But he'd, unconsciously or not, ended up pushing the same expectations and demands on both Thor and Loki that Bor had done on him.
But while Thor had been like him, had dealt with it in the same way Odin dealt with it, at times unhappy and angry, but still understanding, and more or less unaffected, Loki had been different.
Loki, since the time he and Frigga had adopted him, since he was nothing more than a toddler, had been what could only be described as painfully sensitive. The boy had always felt things too deeply, had always taken everything so completely to heart.
Odin knew a large part of that was because Loki was so intelligent.
He saw things other people simply didn't, was so awfully aware and in tune with things, could feel shifts in mood and behavior so acutely. You couldn't hide anything from Loki. And that had worked against him where Odin had always been concerned, because Odin so often found himself infuriatingly frustrated at the boy, for the way his youngest son's intelligence also lent him the ability to know just the right thing to do or say to make someone angry.
Odin still cringes inwardly to think of some of the shouting matches he and Loki had so often gotten into.
More often than not, it had been Odin's fault. He can admit that to himself now. For the way he had constantly harassed the boy for not being what Odin had expected him to be, or rather, wanted him to be.
It was because Odin had been afraid for Loki. Like he'd finally told him in the hospital. He had used to worry so much about his son, because he could see how sensitive Loki was, and how fragile that made him, how vulnerable.
He and Frigga had known Loki was gay early on. When he was probably nine or ten, they'd started discussing it with each other. Frigga, of course, had been the first to bring it up as a possibility.
Odin hadn't wanted to believe it. Not because he had a problem with Loki being attracted to the same sex. It wasn't that. It was just because it would make his life so much harder, when Loki's life had already been so difficult. When he'd already had such a hard time making any friends, or fitting in with any group.
People didn't know what to make of Loki because he was so smart. That was how it always was. Someone that intelligent never made easy friends, not when he was so different, and people were always afraid of what wasn't like them.
When Loki had finally come out to them then, he'd reacted badly, stupidly, he knows. He'd let his own emotions get the better of him, and had selfishly turned the whole situation into something about him, instead of Loki, who had had so much courage to come out to them in the first place.
Odin knows he'd damaged his relationship with his son even further by doing so, and it was something he still hadn't been able to forgive himself for.
And then when Loki had gotten involved with that Thanos...
Odin doesn't think he'd ever been more terrified in his life.
Odin had taken one look at that thuggish bastard and known he was trouble, known immediately he had a cruel streak in him which wasn't the sort to ever be quenched.
Loki was small. He wasn't physically powerful like Thor, or even Odin himself. When he'd been a child, he'd been unusually and early on even dangerously undersized, and had always suffered from a proclivity towards illness.
As he'd grown older, the numerous illnesses he'd suffered as a child had left a very real impact on him, his constitution remaining somewhat weak and compromised, and he still tended to get sick far more often than most, grown adults. On top that that, Loki suffered from what had always been severe asthma, and it left him unable to ever, really condition his body into a stronger frame.
Even if he'd been able to, Odin knows, he never would have been able to defend himself against someone like Thanos.
Odin's panic had, again, caused him to act irrationally and stupidly. Instead of talking calmly about his concerns with Loki, he had exploded in a rage of desperation to make his young, inexperienced and vulnerable son see the mistake he was making, and of course, as usual, Loki had responded by pulling away, thinking he couldn't trust his own father.
And now this had happened.
Odin had always been too good at denial.
When months had started to go by without them hearing a word from their youngest, after Thor had told he and Frigga that his brother had moved in with Thanos, Odin had told himself every lie he could come up with to convince himself that it was just Loki being belligerent, being proud, that was all. That nothing was really wrong.
Odin had known though. He'd known something wasn't right. Loki, no matter how bad his relationship with Odin became, had never neglected his mother. He had always made a point, every day, to either talk to her on the phone or come and see her.
It hadn't been right, and Odin had known.
After a time, he'd even begun actively trying to get in contact with his son, along with Frigga. Constantly calling Loki's cell phone. But his boy never answered, and Loki had never told them where Thanos lived. Odin had tried finding out, but the son of a bitch hadn't been listed anywhere.
That was when Odin had started to really become afraid. When he'd realized he didn't know where Loki was, or what had happened to him.
He'd been thinking for a long time about contacting the police, but fear of driving his son farther from him had prevented him, stupidly. He'd been worried that if he called the police on Thanos, Loki would only grow to hate him more.
He should have done something though. Christ, if he had...
He had never imagined something so unspeakably horrific as this. Never in his worst fears had allowed himself to imagine what Thanos had actually done to his child, to his son...
He knew Thor was angry at him. That his eldest didn't think he was showing enough anger, enough thirst for revenge...
If Thor only knew.
Odin was just barely holding it together, in truth.
Every time he looked at Loki, it was like a deafening siren going off in his head, telling him to go out there, to find the piece of shit that had done this and kill him, tear him limb from limb and bury him where no one would ever find him.
He wanted to murder Thanos. He wanted the bastard to suffer in the worst ways possible...
He knew, for Loki's sake, that he couldn't.
Watching him now, the anger drains away from Odin and he is left only with a crushing sense of sadness.
Loki is so timid now. Odin can see it. He can see it in the way his son shrinks away every time someone comes near him. In the way he startles badly whenever there is too loud a noise, or someone touches him unexpectedly. In how he won't look at any of them now when he speaks, or when they speak to him. The way he keeps his voice at barely above a whisper...
It's so unlike Loki. So unlike the brave, unapologetic, brilliant, courageous, sure young man Odin had always known.
Loki had always had insecurities, he knew. Had known that much of Loki's confidence was an act he put up as a means of defending himself. But, still, it was Loki's choice, Loki's decision to be that way, to present that image to the world, even if deep down he had always been a quiet, even shy person. Reserved and studious and gentle. Afraid even. Yet he had never let that fear cripple him, had never let it control him.
Only this... this was the result of what someone else had done to Loki. This wasn't his son's choice at all.
This was Loki's fear now taking hold and winning, because someone had abused him, had abused his trust and his love and his vulnerability. Had used those things against him to hurt him in the worst possible way.
Odin watches his wife as she sets the dish of lasagna out on the dining table, cutting and scooping a good sized portion and putting it onto the plate in front of Loki.
She'd made the dish for him tonight. It had always been Loki's favorite meal of hers.
He tells her thank you in a voice that's barely audible, and Frigga reaches out, brushing his hair back from his forehead, massaging his scalp.
Loki won't look at her.
"Were you able to figure everything out alright in there?" She asks softly, and Loki nods.
"Yeah, it... it wasn't hard." He tells her, and Frigga forces a smile, nodding.
"That's good." She answers. "I made lasagna tonight. I know you've always loved it, so..."
"... Thank's Mom." Loki says again.
Odin can hardly stand this. The tension in the room is so thick, it's almost tangible.
Thor keeps looking at Loki with such a worried, helpless expression, hardly even seeming to notice when Frigga serves him.
When she finally sits down with her own plate, ready to begin, Odin can't himself stop watching Loki, unable to help noticing how his youngest son doesn't even touch his food, simply shifting it around on his plate, his face so utterly despondent, that just to look at him makes Odin's eyes sting.
Loki needs to eat, he thinks then a little desperately. His son is so horrifyingly thin now. Incredibly more so than his naturally thin frame. And noticing that, Odin then can't help imagining how it is Loki grew to become such. He looks like he hasn't eaten at all in weeks, months even. And he realizes, abruptly, that Thanos must have been starving him.
Oh Jesus, Odin thinks, he can't bear this. Can't bear to think of how frightened his son must have been, how hurt and alone.
"You should eat something Loki." He blurts without thinking, his voice coming out harsher than he had intended it to.
Loki visibly flinches at his voice, dropping his fork and going stiff as a bow string pulled taught.
Odin feels his wife's hand land gently on his wrist, and he blinks, glancing at her, seeing her shaking her head silently no.
Damn fool, he chastises himself, even as he hears Loki says softly...
"I'm trying."
"We know honey." Frigga tells him, Odin feeling suddenly paralyzed with shame.
He hadn't meant to pressure his son.
"Just eat what you can." Frigga finishes, and to Odin's relief, Loki nods, saying nothing.
Only that too seems wrong to him. Loki should get annoyed, at least, at being pestered. Get angry even.
This sudden, docile acceptance doesn't sit right, doesn't feel right.
What did you do to my boy, you son of a bitch, he thinks, feelings his hands clench to fists, his teeth grinding together, a fresh wash of rage rolling almost dizzyingly through him. What did you do?
