Title: a taste of lightning
Fandom: Highlander/Avengers movieverse/Norse mythology
Disclaimer: no one mentioned here is mine
Warnings: mentions of child favoritism and a suicide attempt; intentionally wrong Norse mythology; possibly a too-fluffy reconciliation
Pairings: Baldr/Nanna, Odin/Frigga
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1930
Point of view: third
Note: according to Wikipedia, Baldr and Nanna only had one kid. I pulled a few other Norse deities and declared them to be Baldr and Nanna's, too.
Baldr has always loved his brothers. He has never thought of Loki as anything but a little brother, an annoyance, a pest. That is the way of older brothers. He noticed Loki's attempts to gain attention, but he had other things on his mind – and then he met Nanna and had no reason to return to Asgard and an eventual throne he had never wanted.
That the All-Father disinherited him for it… well, Baldr had expected nothing less. That Mother refused to let it stand, he was glad.
Nanna gives him many fine children, and Baldr lets them know they are loved, and that, whatever they choose to do with their abilities and their lives, he will love them still.
.
Loki had been a strange child. Baldr remembers Odin bringing him home – Baldr had been four hundred and starting his training in earnest. He had no time to coddle the infant Odin announced as his youngest child.
But Thor was fascinated with their younger brother. Thor adored him. Thor followed around whoever was carrying the child and babbled at them.
And if Baldr was sometimes jealous of the bond that grew between them, the younger sons of Asgard… it was unimportant. He had his duties, and then he had Nanna, and then he had children.
And then Thor was banished and Loki fell.
.
Thor had the Warriors 3 and Sif, and a court full of people who played to his pride. Loki had Sleipnir, and then Fenrir. After Fenrir was returned to Ālfheimr, Baldr often found Loki playing with his hounds (the swiftest and cleverest in all of Asgard). Loki spoke to them like they understood, like they were friends. Like he had treated his wolf. Baldr let him, though it set back the training of the pups.
Baldr never spoke to Loki of it. After Loki's fall, holding his youngest child Forseti close and listening to his son's heartbeat, he thinks maybe he should have.
.
Baldr argues with himself for days before deciding not to return to Asgard, not to bring his children to his once-home for the celebration of Loki's life.
Odin sends no word either way, and Baldr keeps his children close. He does not mention Loki to anyone, and ignores everyone who asks – except his children.
When Fosite, the firstborn, so very proud and exacting, asks Baldr about the mischievous uncle he had never met – Baldr tells them all to gather 'round, four sons and three daughters, with their mother's eyes and their mother's smile: Fosite, Fulla, the twins Hermódr and Hodr, Ēostre, Hrede, and young Forseti.
Loki had been so daring, so clever, and Baldr tells them everything he remembers.
.
And then, of course, comes the slow trickle of knowledge across the realms: Loki, son of Odin, lives. Loki, son of Odin, has played a brilliant trick, and Baldr exhales a sigh of relief.
He has never understood Loki, but he is so very glad that Loki still lives.
.
Odin does not send warning before the Bifrost opens and deposits him in the midst of Vanaheimr's capitol. He tells Njord that he is not here as king or All-Father, and then he goes to Baldr's house.
"Hello, Baldr," Odin says, head raised high, voice soft. "I have come because it is past time."
The children are with tutors or masters. Nanna is with Freja.
Baldr steps back and lets Odin in, wishing he had gone to the training yard with Hermódr and Hodr. He's wished for a lot of things in his life.
"All-Father," Baldr says quietly.
Odin closes his eye, looking old and tired. Older than Baldr remembers him being – which, of course, makes sense. He has not been home in – not been to Asgard in nearly five hundred years. Not seen his brothers since… oh, it must have been just after Ēostre's birth when Mother and Loki visited, and Thor – after that nasty business with Sif's hair, when he wanted to know how to deal with Loki.
Baldr had laughed at him. If Thor was too blind to see Loki's jealousy at being cast aside, it was not up to Baldr to open his eyes.
He would give very different advice, now, having dealt with children for four hundred and a half years. Very different advice.
"Baldr," Odin whispers, sounding even older than he looks. So tired. "I must apologize. I acted in anger, and I acted in pain."
"I acted of love," Baldr says, because though he knows he, too, has much to apologize for, he will never apologize for Nanna.
"Yes," Odin agrees. "Your mother has spoken well of Nanna. She has praised your children, their strength and cleverness. Seven, I hear."
Baldr stares at him, because this is not the eloquent All-Father, King of Asgard, (third) most powerful sorcerer or greatest warrior in Nine Realms.
Odin meets his gaze before looking away.
"I am not here as a king," Odin tells him, head bowed low. "I am here as a man who made hasty and foolhardy choices. I am here as a father who wishes to finally know what I have done that is so wrong. I am here as a grandfather who has grandchildren he has never met." He hesitates; Baldr waits, hands clasped so they won't fidget, and Odin finishes, "I am here because I have learned how it feels to think a child dead. To believe that I failed so greatly it resulted in a child choosing to die." Odin wipes at his face, and Baldr chokes back a cry. "I am here to see you, Baldr, to mend things between us because I love you. You were the first son I ever held. You were the first son I ever saw." He smiles, glancing at Baldr again, meeting his gaze. "You were the first child that was mine. I have missed you."
"Father," Baldr says. "I… I have missed you."
The scorned, cast away, proud youth he had once been wants to make Odin grovel. The father in him wants only to embrace Odin and wholeheartedly welcome him back into Baldr's life. The onetime heir of Asgard wants to bow and promise to never again disappoint his king. And the son… the son wants to throw a temper-tantrum, to demand to know what he could have done that was so horrible, to shout and scream, to fall into his father's arms and finally feel safe again.
He settles for something in the middle and leads Odin to his table, where he bids Odin to sit and pours him a mug of mead.
"I have seven children," he tells his father, settling across from him with his own mead. "And I will introduce them to you when they come home. But first – please, I must know. How are my brothers?"
Odin's smile is sad and weary. "They both live," he says. "And they – I had thought Loki might decide to become Thor's nemesis, but that fear has been proven incorrect." He laughs, sharp and bitter. "Violently proven incorrect." He sips his mead. "What do you remember of the Oldest?" he asks.
Baldr shrugs. "A legend Mother told me so that I'd sleep."
Odin shakes his head. "The Oldest is very real," he says. "And he has taken custody of Loki from me, renamed him Van, and been a much better father than ever I was."
Baldr has no response to that. Instead, he tells his father of his life up to now, of how he met Nanna, how he courted her, how Freja welcomed him to Vanaheimr.
Fulla is the first home, and she blows in like a storm, complaining about her arms' tutor's unreasonableness. But when she notices the All-Father sitting at her dinner table… oh, her look of shock is wonderful to behold.
"Daughter," Baldr says gently, "this is my father, Odin. Father, this is my eldest daughter, Fulla."
"Hello… hello, Grandfather," she says hesitantly, before standing up straight and lifting her head, pulling on a cloak of surety and strength. "Be welcome and well-met."
Odin smiles at her. "Granddaughter," he says.
"Fulla," Baldr asks, standing and touching her arm. "Please, go fetch your siblings and mother. I think… it is past time for the family to meet my father."
"Of course," she says, smiling brilliantly and standing on her toes to kiss his forehead. "I'll be back soon." She ducks her head towards Odin. "Grandfather." She's gone in a swish of her skirts, quick as lightning.
"Fulla has decided to become a warrior," Baldr tells Odin. "She dresses like the most ridiculous courtier imaginable whenever she's not training. It frustrates both her teacher and her mother."
To be honest, Fulla reminds him of Loki, sometimes. She has his taste for mischief. The difference, he's found, is that the vanir take to her sense of humor more than the aesir ever did Loki's.
"She's lovely," Odin says, hands wrapped around his mug. "I am… it gladdens my heart to see you so happy, my son."
Baldr smiles, something inside him settling after half a millennium. "It gladdens my heart," he says softly, "to see you again."
Baldr knows he will never be a king. He has never wanted to be. He is a scholar at heart, a historian. He is counselor to Njord, King of Vanaheimr. He is a father and a husband – a son and a brother. He doesn't want to rule anyone or anything.
He could have stood down without running away, but the father he ran from would never have accepted a prince wedding a handmaiden.
"How is Mother?" he asks after a moment.
"She will be content again," Odin says, "because I have come here to see you."
Baldr nods. "We may – I'm sure Nanna would love to see where I grew up." He grins. "And your halls have long been silent, I'm sure, in want of boys running through them." Hermódr and Hodr had not been as drawn to pranks as Thor and Loki, but only because both of them lacked the patience. When Hrede planned things, though…
"I will welcome your children, Baldr." There is nothing of the king in Odin at that moment. He is only a very old man, and a grieving father whose heart has finally begun to heal.
"I shall start planning with Nanna tonight," Baldr promises.
.
Baldr remembers well the night he met Loki. Father ended the war, casting Laufey King low, and he brought home both a weapon and a son.
Father and Mother named the infant iLoki/i and called him Baldr's youngest brother.
Thor had still been too young to realize that Mother had never carried Loki, nor bore him.
And Baldr never cared. What was one more brother? He was busy training with Tyr, learning to be both a king and a warrior, and what did it matter if he wanted neither? If he preferred time in the library, reading of ancient history and of magicks he had not the inborn skill to cast? Baldr could do small things, but he was much better with words than magic, and he could command men, though he had no taste for it.
Loki was his brother. And maybe he'd never known Loki as well as he might have liked, looking back. But he had the chance, now.
Father is sitting at his table, waiting for Nanna and the children to come home, and Baldr makes an oath: he will visit his brothers, will come to know the men they are, and he will not let five hundred years pass with no word again.