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: Holy. Freaking. Crap. You guys are amazing, seriously! Almost 1400 reviews on this baby, I really cannot believe it! Never in a thousand years did I ever think that this little fic of mine, this fic that was supposed to be a cracky little one-shot, would ever have this large of a following. It truly amazes and humbles me, not just as a writer but as a person who writes for fun because it makes me happy.
Thank you so much.
Also, I will put the complete tag on this fic on the last chapter; there are a couple left after this one! It's not over until it's over, and I hope that you all continue to stay with me until the end.
Oh! I've already started a few new things, now that I'm officially done writing this baby.
Thor/Avengers:
Thunderpunch
Summary: No one really expects to end up with their nine-to-five nemesis shrunk down to pint size but that's what the Avengers get in the form of a confused, petrified little Norse god. No one really expects for him to have been such an adorable kid. For that matter, no one really expects for his strongest support to come in the form of Steve Rogers, much less Captain America himself. This is the story of how Steve Rogers takes on the role of everyone's mother.
Untitled
Summary: Fate/stay night and Avengers Xover. Tony Stark's never been very good at leaving well enough alone and while he's never had a lot of formal training, he's always wanted to be a mage, and who doesn't have a wish they'd like to have granted? He'll regret this line of thought when one magic ritual later, he's gotten himself flung head first into the Holy Grail War with someone who goes by Caster at his side. It doesn't help that Caster happens to be a man named Loki who's not particularly happy with being mistaken for a Heroic Spirit and has absolutely no intention of fighting a war for a wish, command seals or no command seals, and he's sure as hell not interested in fighting a war that has nothing to do with him for the sake of a mortal's ego and curiosity.
That's going to change when Jane Foster summons his brother, Thor, and things get personal.
Tales of Graces:
Hubert and Pascal's Excellent (and Untitled) Adventure:
Summary: In which Hubert and Pascal are big, dumb idiots, someone gets tackled, and both of them discover that everything's best with feelings. Rated M for ero and a happy ending. (Ever wonder what it's like when I write porn? This is it right here.)
Chapter Thirty-Six: Turquoise
Loki left on a Sunday, unremarkable except for being the day before Monday, which was when he normally went to yoga before his life went upside-down and after Saturday, which used to belong to hours of sitting seiza and cutting stems and arranging blossoms and branches in a way that both appealed to him and the severe Japanese woman who ran the Ikebana class. He'd have to start going back; he'd missed it dearly. Actually, he missed it with an intensity he'd refused to allow himself before it became apparent that, given some time, he'd be able to go back.
He missed Lydia and Angelique from yoga, and Mrs. Kim with her strong, gentle hands.
Loki still didn't know where home was, but he was pretty sure that if he tried he might be able to make one. Home didn't have to be perfect but maybe it could be perfectly imperfect, with overflowing bookshelves and a cabinet door that squeaked no matter what he did to try and fix it and boxes of flowers that lent his penthouse a light, sweet scent that mingled with the smell of paper and ink and the spices he always had on hand.
Maybe home could be a leather chair and a stuffed bear that had been routinely flung against the wall and a cool, quiet place that let him be calm.
Maybe home didn't have to be a place at all. Maybe it could be a person, with warm eyes and a disposition that wasn't always gentle but generally well-intentioned and who despite it all, Loki had never stopped loving.
A person who, currently, was helping pile up Loki's belongings to transport in a way that wouldn't have his brother bristling with irritation. Loki wasn't even going all that far; to be entirely honest, he could see the massive glowing sign of Stark's ugly tower from his own living room windows, but Thor was acting as if he was going to the end of the world. Loki tried more than once to tell him that they'd been further away before but Thor would hear none of it and Loki had given up when he realized that see that hurt expression of betrayal still sent his heart and stomach into guilty knots.
"You are sure that you are fit to travel?"
And really, the only response to that was for the wings on Thor's helmet (safely stashed away in the other room) to start flapping on their own and escape to the outside, where it began to do loop-de-loops outside the window.
Once, Thor might have been angry.
Now it made him smile sheepishly and shrug, fixing Loki with a fond look. Loki, who noticed too late that it was a look he was matching on his own face before he could wipe it off.
"I am sorry," Thor said quietly, "But I cannot help but worry. You were so very close to dying and I knew that I would not be able to rely upon Heimdall's prudence. It frightened me to be so helpless. Truly, I don't mean to be overbearing."
Dressed casually in green skinnies and an oversized hoodie, Loki sighed and stepped out of the ring of book stacks and bags of clothing to walk over to Thor, patting his arm.
"I am already being mothered by Rogers and I'm not entirely sure, but I think Stark had been keeping an eye on me too, and that is overbearing. The Captain is one thing, but like Tony can talk to anyone about needing looking after…" As did most conversations that came around to Tony Stark, this one also descended into grumbling, "But I digress. I admit, it's…difficult for me to get used to, but your concern is not…unwelcome." A smile was already beginning to lift Thor's lips and Loki tried to ignore the warm fuzzies making their triumphant return. "I would ask that you trust me, considering that I am more experienced by far in magical workings than you."
"But you are also prone to pushing yourself."
"Do I tell you how to swing Mjolnir?" Loki asked, placing his hands on his hips. "You stick to what you know and leave me to mine, please and thank you." Thor frowned again. "Thor, I assure you, I am fine and fit. And I will not be far."
Loki had a sudden stroke of genius, which in his opinion was a daily event, at least in this house, and held out a hand.
"Give me the phone that Stark gave you."
Thor handed it over and muttered something about not knowing how to use it and Loki took it from him, unlocking it and clicking into a new screen. A few moments later, he handed it back.
"Here. Slide this part to unlock it and then press 'two' on the screen. That will dial my phone. Alright? Or text or something, I don't really care. Whatever makes you feel better."
"Brother, I—I know that it did not happen under the best of circumstances, but I liked having you here," Thor admitted. "I do not want things to go back to the way they were. I do not want to go back to being blind in regards to you and I do not want you to feel the way you have before. That you've felt so alone for so long is unacceptable to me still. This world has been good for you as Asgard never was and truly, I am happy to see you in a place where you feel safe and, hopefully, content. And yet, it feels as if I am losing you."
Thor grit his jaw and looked away, stiff and unhappy and like he'd rather be crying instead.
Loki's response was a long, shocked exhale that left him wide-eyed and raw, as if Thor's words had physically scraped something painful inside him.
"Thor…" he breathed quietly, unsure of where to take this. Then, slowly, he opened his arms. "Come here a moment."
There wasn't any hesitation in the way that Thor flung himself forward to drag Loki into a crushing hug, reeling him in without so much as thinking about it. Loki patted his back.
"I need you to listen to me. Are you?"
Thor nodded into the juncture linking his neck and shoulder.
"I'd like it if you would stop feeling so guilty. We've both…we've both made our mistakes," Loki admitted, unable to stop the familiar feelings of his own shame and guilt making his stomach twist, "And we are paying for them, now and probably for a good long while. I know that…" he stuttered, "I know that I am."
"But you were—"
"I asked you to listen, thank you," Loki interrupted, hands brushing patterns down Thor's spine. "Please listen until I've said my part. Yes, I was put under immense duress. Yes, I have been…unstable and fragile for a very, very long time. But despite where my mind was at that time, however chaotic and mad I was and how little I can call up from it, my actions were mine. And they were wrong. I was wrong, Thor. So let me take my part in it all so I can keep some small part of myself from being so ashamed. It doesn't mean that everything's perfect. It doesn't mean that I wasn't wronged. I do know that in some way. But that doesn't—that doesn't negate that I did commit the crimes for which I am accused. And whether it stems from pity or merely a sense of obligation, that also doesn't negate that I am…grateful for the chances that I'm being given. It is a gift that I don't particularly deserve, but I'm still taking it. We will speak again very soon about such things, but for now, I need to go." The words ripped him open in their honesty, so honest that they hurt and when Loki quieted, Thor squeezed him firmly.
"All I want is your happiness, Loki, however it comes."
And Loki couldn't help the smile that curled at his lips then, stunned and shamefully pleased.
"You speak as if this is some kind of long goodbye," he said, "My building is even within walking distance if you had taken the time to notice; you've even been there." Loki crossed his arms and Thor stepped away looking sheepish but relieved, as if thinking himself silly for needing the reassurance. "One thing I've learned is that you can't ever go backwards. Not ever. I can't go back and neither can you. Only forward."
And he reached out a hand and flicked Thor sharply in the nose.
That said and done, Loki stepped back into his little circle of things that he'd made, stacked close enough to him that it would be no effort at all to transport them all right along with himself. He dragged Thor with him, just to the point that any closer and they might be at risk to start knocking things over and leaned in close, whispering in his ear,
"I will see you around, my brother."
Loki flicked out without another word and took his things with him, leaving Thor standing in the middle of an empty room, utterly thunderstruck.
He was still standing there when Steve popped his head in to check up on things, hunched over and futilely wiping at his eyes.
Loki didn't lie when he said that it wasn't goodbye, not by a long shot. It wasn't because he had some sort of sight that allowed him to see into the future but more because he knew Thor and knew that he'd never be able to stand leaving him alone and because Loki now knew himself better than ever before and knew that he'd never be able to leave him alone. Not now, not after all this, and certainly not after he'd gotten ridiculously attached to his apartment.
The first thing that he thought when he winked into sight in the middle of his living room is that it was so good to be back. There was some cleaning to do; no dust and there hadn't been a break-in (who would dare, when he has his name on the door?) but his spells against unpleasant scents and general cleanliness hadn't stopped all his food from going bad and by this time, all of his flowers were long dead. The thought made him a little sad but Loki could replace them easily enough.
His magic sang when he uses it after such a long time going without but sometimes it felt good to do things by hand. Appreciate the process and not just the result, even when the process involved cleaning out flower boxes and the result was something empty, waiting to be filled with something new.
He just had to go back to class, which certainly wouldn't be a hardship for him at this point. He would have to wait a week but until then, he made sure to pop into the little flower shop run by a free-spirited man of about forty a few streets over to buy a cluster of daisies and another of lilies wrapped up in tissue.
He showed up at yoga the next day (and no matter what anyone says, he did not anxiously hover just outside the door until Angie caught sight of him by chance and ran up to him, shrieking excitedly, to catch him in a brisk hug) and he found himself welcomed back with a warmth he didn't expect. It was one thing to be told that he'd been missed and quite another to see it, and not even Loki could ever be that blind. It's terrifyingly foreign in its normalcy, the way no one seems to care.
Oh, they cared that he'd been gone but because he'd never tried to hide who he was, they didn't care that he's Loki, only that he's back. And sometimes, that scared the daylights out of him.
No one hovered or simpered over his return, except that Angie wouldn't stop touching him and that wasn't strange because she was always been incorrigible to the point that Loki didn't worry about it anymore, but Lydia made sure that he ended up with most of the hazelnuts when they split her granola and trail mix stash and that was strange because in his experience, she always took those for herself.
Loki was a little stiff and a little out of practice but with enough stretching it came back to him easily.
Knowledge, in his experience, was always easier to keep than it was to forget.
That credo applied to other things as well because when Loki makes sure to mean what he says, he's fully capable of keeping his word. Putting his mobile number into Thor's phone wasn't the only thing he did and numbers were easy for him to remember, far easier to remember than certain spells that he'd mastered over the years, and if Loki's made sure that he can get in contact with any given person on that contact list because Thor doesn't remember numbers like he does, he won't be telling anyone why.
He wasn't entirely sure why he did it. Actually, that's a lie because he knew exactly why he did it, but it was easier to tell himself that he didn't than admit the real reason, the reason that everyone would know had they known what he'd done:
He cared.
Sometimes Loki wished that he didn't but when it came down to it, he did nonetheless and there's nothing he could do except for make it easier on himself by doing what he can, even if that involved covertly stealing phone numbers and keeping an eye on the news and being sure to answer Thor's phone calls.
He thought he'd been rather covert about the whole thing, really, and was actually in the process of congratulating himself when his phone rang and it was Tony demanding that he leave the next afternoon open and prepare for a kidnapping, because Tony wanted shawarma and Steve refused to go. Which was strange in itself because Loki knew for a stone-cold fact that Steve loved shawarma to the point that at one point it became a game to taunt him with it so that couldn't possibly be it, but the only other option is that Tony seriously just wanted to do lunch with him, and that was just surreal as hell. After a moment of deliberation, he said yes anyway and they actually had a good time. So Loki couldn't really be too annoyed that Thor handed out his phone number, though he'd certainly put on a good show of pretending if anyone asked.
No one did because no one needed to.
Loki didn't want to do the hero thing.
He knew that his help would be accepted should he jump in, probably, but he didn't want to. He was content with what he had: sessions with Doctor Moran (who was already in a noticeably better state) twice a week and his otherwise normal routine that had been edited to allot for time spent with various people that he refused to admit that he might actually be friends with.
At least, that's what he said until a truck got thrown through the window of Mrs. Kim's salon and then it was personal, and Loki found himself storming outside and right into the fray, manually yanking Rogers out of the way so that he could personally start pummeling someone's face in.
And then it was all downhill from there because suddenly, it's like he's getting into it all the time and maybe it was because someone out there was sore about his whole, as Tony called it, calling off villainy thing, but Loki didn't really care. The last straw was the bomb planted in the trash can next to his building where a very nice old woman walked her saint bernard and Loki ended up bursting into Stark's tower (which had by this point had his name removed, leaving only a large glowing A), full of angry demands that they do something about this before he does, only to take care of it himself anyway because Loki had always been a firm advocate of doing your own dirty work.
The worst part of the whole thing was the reactions it garnered, he thought. Despite the fact that he didn't go out of his way to go around busting skulls or stopping crime and he most certainly was not going to go around calling himself an Avenger anytime soon or ever (honestly, Loki got a little bit of secondhand embarrassment at the very idea), trouble seemed to find him more than ever now and Loki saw no other option but to take care of it himself. There was only so much idiocy that should be allowed to exist in this world, most of it being allocated to Thor, and it wasn't any time at all before the headlines were proclaiming him "The Newest Hero" and having "Turned Over a New Leaf".
Honestly, it was enough to make him want to throw up, but he settled for smacking Stark upside the head with the rolled up newspaper every time he started teasing him about it.
It's all patently ridiculous.
His routine, so treasured, changed a little bit to accommodate the fact that now he was now working on getting Thor to appreciate the merits of reading. What had started with The Phantom Tollbooth had expanded to include Harry Potter and Doctor Dolittle and Loki knew he wouldn't always win but so far, he'd been doing a pretty good job of picking out books that will get Thor to work his brain without sliding him into boredom either. That aside, it was a good excuse to see him though one he knew he doesn't necessarily need.
It was nice to have one, anyway.
Answering Tony's invite for lunch was like opening a floodgate because the next thing Loki knew (and even afterward, he wasn't really not sure how it happens), he was getting a phone call from Steve to ask if he still had cooking classes (he did) and if he'd mind company next time (he didn't) and that was how they ended up at Mai Thai together the following Tuesday. It was how they ended up discovering just how much Steve Rogers liked curry (the hotter, the better) and how as long as Loki didn't tell him what it is, he'd eat about anything if it tasted good. It was a funny thing, really, and Loki didn't know how he didn't see it before, despite the fact that by this point, he knew all of their eating habits about as well as he knew his own. Rogers liked the process, liked the way it felt to produce something from his own hands, liked to watch people eat, but to eat and enjoy it himself…that was another matter altogether.
Coconut milk, lemongrass, sriracha, giant prawns…it took hell and a half to get Steve to try anything unfamiliar and it had little to do with taste and everything to do with fear.
Loki thought, though he'd never say anything about it, that it had a lot to do like feeling out of his time and needing to connect with what he knew, clinging to the familiar with a desperation that Loki could understand. How could he not, when he does the same thing but in reverse? Instead of keeping the familiar close, his own instinct was to reject it entirely. It would be hypocritical of Loki to fault Steve Rogers when he couldn't so much as stomach boar anymore, when it reminded him of the things he couldn't keep and everything he broke.
He tried and kept trying, though (hypocritical or no), and there was a strange, warm satisfaction in the way Rogers smiled when he found something he liked, something he liked because Loki'd nagged or guilted him into trying it, despite that it wasn't apple pie or scalloped potatoes or anything that even remotely reminded him of military rations.
Loki found himself smiling more and he didn't even have to work at it.
If Loki thought that being proclaimed a hero was weird, that's nothing compared to how he felt when a veritable stampede that consisted of his brother and his friends (who somewhere along the line had become his friends, and Loki'd never really had friends before like Thor had friends, not his own, and the very thought made him both delighted and terrified all at once) showed up at his door and none of them had any manners except for Rogers, who apparently had to talk Thor out of bringing a palm tree and handed over a bundle of snapdragons instead. It was tied together with a silk ribbon and Loki's gratitude was sincere if a little embarrassed; never before had he been given flowers and it flattered him to the point of shock, the sheer amount of feeling it garners gifting him with absolute silence.
A shock that left him standing still, surprised and wide-eyed amidst the bustling action of the people around him who seem to have temporarily taken over his home.
Loki had barely enough time to stammer out a hello before Thor, huge and gregarious Thor, was slinging an arm around his shoulder and herding him into the kitchen. They've taken that over too and Loki didn't get the chance to order them not to so much as dare lay a single superpowered finger on any of his appliances. Tony was already unpacking the bags in his arms, pulling out steaming containers enough to feed an army, and Loki rolled his eyes but insisted on getting out plates like a civilized individual because he has them for a reason.
He had his standards, after all.
AN2: Thank you all for reading! If you have anything at all to say, please tell me in a review!