In the morning, Thor and Loki were once again called before Hlidskjalf. Odin dismissed the guards when they arrived, leaving the three of them the only ones in the throne room. "Heimdall has just informed me that the Midgardians have located the Tesseract," he said. "You should now be able to retrieve it."
"Yes, Father," said Thor. "When do you wish us to depart?"
"It will be a more delicate operation than the rescue of the warrior, so it may take longer to plan. Ideally, you will leave no later than three days hence."
Loki clenched his jaw and looked down.
"Is there a problem?" said Odin.
"No, Father," he said. "It is only that I had hoped to attend to another matter."
"Would this other matter pertain to Jotunheim?"
Loki rounded on Thor. "You told him?"
"I did not!" said Thor indignantly.
"Silence," said Odin. "Thor told me nothing. When I instructed Heimdall that he was to show you your origins if you asked, I did so knowing what the outcome might be." He beckoned to them. "Come here, both of you."
They got to their feet and climbed the golden steps.
"Tell me what troubles you, Loki," said Odin.
Loki couldn't look at him, or at Thor. "You knew," he said. "At the very least, Heimdall told you of Farbauti's fate, or perhaps he showed it to you like he did me. Why have you allowed Laufey to remain on the throne of Jotunheim all these years? The Jotnar unwittingly bow to the man who murdered their queen!"
Odin remained silent until Loki looked at him, which took a while. "I could have removed Laufey—had him executed or thrown in Asgard's dungeons, perhaps. But I could not have made the Jotnar understand the justice of it without compromising you, and that was not a course I was willing to take."
"What do you mean?" said Loki.
"Your existence is the only incontrovertible proof of his lies. To expose him, I would have had to expose your true heritage to Jotunheim, and thereby all the nine realms."
"You could have used other methods to depose him," said Loki.
"Such as assassination?" said Odin shrewdly. Loki could feel Thor's eyes on him, and heat rose in his cheeks. "And how long before the finger of blame was pointed at Asgard? The truce is a fragile one. Laufey's actions led to one war; I was not about to give his death power to start a second. There was no easy path towards holding him accountable for Farbauti's murder, and so I contented myself with knowing that he had failed in his plans for you."
"Then you will not let me do anything for her?" said Loki. He tried to keep the emotion out of his voice, but he knew it was a futile effort. These particular emotions were too new and raw.
"Did I say that?"
Loki stared at him.
"If you would have justice for Farbauti, you must find a way to get it without compromising Asgard's truce with Jotunheim or being too careless with your own safety. It is unlikely you will succeed if you run off in your anger and carry out the first plan that occurs to you. This is why I insist that you and Thor complete your mission on Midgard first. Use this time to consider very carefully what you will do."
X
Loki had far greater patience than Thor, but the drama of the last few days and the knowledge that he could not immediately pursue vengeance had combined to make him quite restless. Sitting through even one strategy session about how to retrieve the Tesseract without causing problems with the Midgardians was torture. What he really needed now was a good bit of mischief to help him unwind. Happily, Eir provided just the right opportunity for it at the midday meal.
"What is it, Eir?" said Odin when she entered the royal family's private dining hall.
"I've come to report on Steven Rogers, my king."
"Has he awoken?" said Thor, sitting up straighter.
"Not yet, but his body temperature is back to normal and stable, and his wounds are responding more quickly to my healing spells than I expected. He should wake this afternoon."
"Oh, wonderful," said Frigga, looking at her sons. "Then he'll be ready to return to Midgard in time for your own departure."
"Perhaps he will even prove useful," said Odin. "He has worked with the people who have the Tesseract, and he is now in Asgard's debt."
"Indeed," said Loki, keeping his expression carefully neutral as his mind raced with possibilities.
X
"Oh look. The mortal's finally awake."
That was the first thing Steve heard. The voice sounded bored. Steve was very confused. He blinked. His surroundings slowly came into focus, which did not ease his confusion. There was...a lot of gold in here. He tried to sit up. That was a mistake. Everything hurt. He hadn't felt like this since before the serum. If he could still feel pain, then he probably wasn't dead, and this probably wasn't heaven. And besides, heaven wouldn't have this much of a Celtic knotting motif, would it?
He gritted his teeth and fought through the pain to push himself upright, then looked around. The only other person in this room, which vaguely resembled an infirmary, except that all of the textures were wrong, was a young man who looked his age, sprawled in a golden chair with his feet up, apparently engrossed in a book. His black, chin-length hair was slicked back—very different from the military hairstyles Steve was used to—, and he wore the strangest clothes Steve had ever seen. Some kind of tunic in green and black, with silver scales in places, and black leather breeches and boots.
Steve realized that his own clothing didn't feel like the uniform. He looked down at himself and saw that he was wearing a tunic and breeches in a similar style, though his tunic was blue and much less intricate.
"Uh...where are we?"
"Asgard."
That was extremely unhelpful. "What's Asgard?"
"The Realm Eternal. Home of the Aesir."
"I...understood some of those words."
"To be more specific," said the man, casually turning a page, "you are currently several hundred light years from Midgard. Or, as you call it, Earth."
Steve's brain balked at the very suggestion, then rejected it. "Is this some kind of trick by Hydra?" He had no idea what Hydra thought it could gain by trying to make him think he was on another planet, but that was the only possibility that made even a tiny bit of sense.
"I certainly do not work for the same organization as Schmidt, if that's what you're suggesting," said the man, sounding offended.
"How do you know Schmidt?" said Steve.
"Not at all, except that he shot me in the arm before the Gatekeeper could run him through. Good riddance."
"What?" He'd watched Schmidt disintegrate right in front of his eyes when he held that glowing blue cube thing in his hand. "Where are we, really?"
"Look out the window. See for yourself."
Steve frowned at him, but did as he suggested. His muscles were very stiff and his left arm and leg felt particularly sore, but he'd had worse, and he already felt better than he had a minute ago. He got up and slowly walked to the window, and his jaw dropped. He'd been all over Europe in the last three years, and he had never seen architecture like this before. But more importantly, there were not supposed to be planets hanging in the sky.
"I'm on an alien planet," he said faintly.
"Ahem. You are currently the alien on this planet. Don't be rude."
"How are we speaking the same language?" said Steve, briefly glancing back at the man, who snorted.
"I assure you, we are not."
"H-how did I get here?"
"My brother and I went to collect you. We thought we were bringing you here to give you a funeral befitting a warrior, but it turned out you were alive. Imagine our embarrassment."
"Why would you want to hold a funeral for someone from a different planet?"
"Because you seemed unlikely to be found by any of your own people, and our Gatekeeper thought it a great injustice that one such as you would be forgotten in the ice."
"Is this the same Gatekeeper who killed Schmidt? How did he even know about either of us?"
"He can see every soul in the nine realms. Yours and Schmidt's apparently stood out."
"Could you stop reading that book and look at me?" said Steve, now on the verge of losing all patience. He had survived the crash for reasons that were now making his entire reality come apart at the seams, and this guy was just sitting there reading like their conversation wasn't worth his full attention. "Who the hell are you anyway?"
In a flash of greenish-gold light, the chair and book were gone, and the man was standing straight-backed, facing Steve, now wearing armor, including a golden helmet with large, curving horns. He looked like a medieval king, except that Steve had never imagined a medieval king having such a dangerous glint in his eye. "You stand in the presence of Loki, the God of Mischief, mortal, and you will show me proper respect."
"You haven't really given me a reason to," said Steve, dropping into a fighting stance. He didn't know what this guy's deal was or what was going on, but he sure as hell wasn't going to treat him like a god.
"Let's see what we can do about that," said Loki with a grin. He waved his hands. Steve raised his fists, but before he could use them, there was another flash of greenish-gold light, and this time it was blinding.
X
Thor strode cheerfully to the healing room. He was looking forward to properly meeting Steven Rogers and discussing his unusual weapon. Perhaps he would even like to come to the training grounds to demonstrate his skill with it. Surely there would be time for that before they had to depart.
"Is Rogers awake yet?" he said when he arrived.
"He might be," said Eir. "Prince Loki requested the honor of being the one to greet him when he did." She pointed to the closed door to the recovery hall.
Thor frowned. Loki might've told him that was what he intended to do. Had they not shared the task of bringing him here equally? He walked over to the door and pushed it open. Loki was sitting reading not far from Rogers's sickbed. "Loki, why didn—" He broke off, because three steps into the room, the image changed. There was no sign of Steven Rogers at all, and Loki was standing in his full ceremonial regalia before an eagle, which scrabbled on the floor, squawking and flapping its wings about wildly.
Thor folded his arms and stared at Loki. "Change him back," he said.
"Oh come on," said Loki over the eagle's screeches. "I got stabbed through the shoulder retrieving this man. I'm entitled to a bit of fun. Besides, if you were familiar with his nation's symbolism, you would appreciate how hilarious this is."
Thor's expression did not soften.
Loki gave an aggrieved sigh. "You are a dreadful spoilsport, Brother." He waved his hands, and in a flash of seidr, the eagle turned into an extremely red-faced, disheveled Steven Rogers, who wasted no time in slamming his fist directly into Loki's jaw. Loki didn't move, no doubt because he expected it to hurt the mortal more than it hurt him. Instead, he was knocked off his feet by the blow, and there was an odd shift in air pressure as the spells he'd cast on the room to avoid detection dissipated.
Thor smiled. "You're right! That was hilarious."
"Oh, shut up," said Loki, rubbing his jaw and scowling, his armor now gone.
"What the hell did you just do to me?!" Rogers shouted.
"Only a temporary transfiguration," said Loki, getting to his feet. "It was perfectly harmless."
"I'm sorry about my brother," said Thor, moving to stand between them. "He occasionally takes his jokes too far. I am Thor, son of Odin. Welcome to Asgard."
I can't believe I was initially just going to have Loki be mildly annoying to Steve. That would've been such a waste. Also, while Loki definitely does seem like enough of a nerd to do research before he pranks someone, I'm not sure he'd have any way of knowing which specific species of eagle to turn Steve into, so I'm imagining that he wasn't being *quite* as clever as he thought he was (which makes it even funnier, at least for me).
I'm not sure I'll be able to get another chapter up before I see Infinity War Thursday night, but hopefully I will survive it with my will to write intact, because I'm looking forward to more Steve on Asgard shenanigans.