The man in front of him was wearing nothing but a pair of Midgardian "sweatpants," arms spread with his palms facing forward. His mane of black hair was loose and cascading down his shoulders, his eyes deep, deep red, and curving horns raised high above them. Raised lines traced patterns into freezing skin.
This was Loptrki, the man (monster) in the mirror.
It was strange how things had turned out this way. At first, his birth skin had sent burning fear into him. Now though? Now it was something like fascination. He couldn't stop glancing down at his hands, peeling away the paleness in favor of sapphire Jotun. His Asgardian skin was almost never on now, only there in front of others. It was odd, how much his scars stood out in the mirror, visible on the blue but not the white. The one on his chest, the little needle holes on his lips, the whippings and burnings, and the slash across his throat. There were nicks across the family lines running around his body. He wondered, did his sire and dam have similar markings? Did their knuckles catch the light the same way?
Long ago he had hoped to answer his questions, so when Loki-as-Odin 'fell into the Odinsleep' yet again, he flitted from one branch to the next until he was on Jotunheim. That was before everything fell apart, Ragnarok came, and Asgard was burned into the stardust from whence it came. Then they were on the Statesmen, then he truly became a part of Asgard's ranks, then he murdered Thanos.
And now, he stood on Midgard, his greatest foe vanquished, and the only thing to show for it was the scars on his body and the demons in his heart.
"Prince Loki, it is time for Agent Barton's lessons."
His Asgardian skin snapped up to mask the truth underneath it. The voice calling him was the ceiling being. She was made by Stark. What an interesting being she was, by the name of FRIDAY. Over the days he had been there, Loki had been fascinated by the realm of Midgard. He had felt that feeling in increasing amounts recently, almost like when he was younger and learned about everything he could. He hadn't been so curious in a while.
(Curiosity was a weakness. There wasn't room for weakness in battle and nothing hadn't been one since the void).
Loki ran a hand through his hair and snapped his fingers in a weak attempt to change clothes like he would've done before Thanos everything started, but every time he tried to use his seidr he found it grating against his skin (It was never right anymore, the Chituari had pulled and pulled until it had snapped). As he manually put his shirt on and walked down the hall, he changed his thoughts to the dynamic of Midgard's so-called 'defenders,' the Avengers. From what he had heard, there had been a little spat that they were all recovering from. Their dynamics were shifted and jagged, out of place. They were grinding new edges to the pieces now, as it always happened like when a secret came out or something went wrong.
like after Loki's skin had first turned blue.
Arriving at Clint's floor, Loki knocked four times on the wall with the back of his knuckle. "Come in!" came his voice from the kitchenette. It was one of the first rooms next to the elevator that ran through all the housing floors and one he had been to many times over the course of the few weeks he had been at the tower. Clint was sitting on a stool (purple, of course, but of a darker shade than Thanos' skin) and had a glass of lemonade with the pitcher a few feet away. As Loki approached, Clint nodded his greetings.
'So, how was your morning?'
'It was well. How about you?'
'It was good. Have you spent time with any of the others lately?'
Loki gave him the most deadpan stare he could muster. 'No.'
Clint snorted and signed something new, which Loki dutifully repeated in turn. Clint moved on to explain both with his voice and hands. "Now this is the sign I use when I mean Steve. Most times you don't want to spend time fingerspelling each name, so you'll use a sign name instead…"
Clint was an interesting character. At first, he resented Loki for the control he had been placed under and the things he had been forced to do during it. Later, as Clint learned more about Loki and learned less about the inside of his ass in general, he became more receptive to how Loki acted and less of how he had been before. It turns out that it was easier to get along with people when you knew about their minds from the inside.
Nothing involving mind magic is a one-way link.
{"Loki? Are you paying attention? This is why we don't generally like the Asgardian philosophy of 'I'm better than you.' You learn less when your senses are distracted by something else." A figure turned back to the map on the wall, pointing with a staff of tapered ice that glinted in the lanternlight. "Now, the providences under Mother-King Laufey were united after of the loss of the Casket because we had a higher chance of survival…"}
"Loki? Loki!" A voice said urgently. "You good, man? You were spacing out there, more than usual that is."
'I am fine,' Loki signed. It was one of the first things he had learned if only to appease others. (Why did he do that so much? It made things easier but did it make things better? Did it make him any more of a man?) 'Did I miss anything other than the sign-names of the tower's residents?'
"No, but you probably should've paid attention to those."
'Even if I never speak to them?'
The skin around Clint's eyes tightened slightly, his mouth dipping into a frown that he stubbornly refused to let show. "Loki… I know that you don't exactly get along with us, but you can't just avoid interacting with everyone forever. If Thor comes back you know he'll be worried."
'Yes, but do I care?' Loki replied lazily. He really didn't want to get into another conversation about this. He was almost of age and knew perfectly well how to take care of himself. He didn't need the approval of anyone, mortal, or Asgardian, or Jotun, especially not from a Midgardian 17 times younger than him.
He did He did He did.
"Loki. It's okay to be loved, even by your brother. It doesn't make you weaker." Clint wasn't signing along to his words now, instead, his hands were twitching against each other in his lap. They wanted to reach out to Loki, to comfort him in some misplaced deed of kindness. Loki looked up from Clint's hands to his face.
Clint didn't know. He didn't know anything. No mind connection could run as deep as to the reasons why Loki shouldn't show weakness. Affection was a weakness. It let your enemies know exactly to torture to exploit you. Loki's mouth curled up in a scoff.
'What would you know?' He didn't bother to sign, instead just letting text flow over his head like a speech bubble in the comics Shuri had shown him. Loki stood and turned towards the cabinets behind the counter where he and Clint had been sitting.
"Wait, Loki there's something-"
He wrinkled his nose at the address, but the text above his head remained precisely polite. 'This has been fun. Thank you for the lemonade, .'
And with that, and to the continued blabbering of Clint, Loki did a lesser version of sky-walking, taking himself directly to his room. It was his most innate ability, and so was cool water flowing around what remained of his seidr channels instead of pulling against the fabric of his being like a child pulling off a scab.
When the tug was over, Loki had appeared in the study on his and Thor's floor. There was a desk at the back of the study, one that held various drawings, observations, and experiments involving his travels to the realms he could reach without raising suspicions, such as the ones with a time dilation or within a similar ring of Midgard. These were disguised as Loki practicing writing in English and many other languages and sustained by a small strand of seidr.
Loki, of course, did not need to study Midgardian languages: he wasn't called Silvertongue for nothing. It was another magical attribute set deep within the patterns of the core of his seidr, just like walking Yggdrasil and the way people around him would be inclined to believe everything he said and how he could manipulate ice and temperature with a flick of his wrist. These were things he couldn't help, just like he couldn't help being Laufey's son.
Would Laufey have loved him if he were still alive?
No. Surely not. The lost prince of Jotunheim would never be able to return with what it had become. The eldest prince would never be a king, not of Asgard, not of anywhere. That was never the plan, in any case, he was always meant to advise Thor. It wasn't that he couldn't become a ruler that stung him, it was the utter denial that he could ever. Because of course, Thor would be better.
Loki did not let his mouth morph into a familiar sneer. The reflex reminded him too much of what Thanos had done to him to ensure his compliance in all matters of free will, molding his heart into a different shape, one that beat to the drums of the war he had thought to set across all being. What Thanos had thought was Loki was not, for Loki was chaos and could not be contained. The sneer was something he had designed to contain his urges to utterly destroy einn saman bikkja.
Loki snapped back into reality for the nth time that day. With no tasks to occupy his thoughts, he found his head filled with himself. How selfish of him. Making himself busy, he picked up a shred of paper off of the otherwise spotless floor. Reading the writing- not one of Midgardian origin, however.
Loptr. Another reminder of what he wasn't. Of what he didn't deserve.
During his trip to Jotunheim, he had been in disguise. It wasn't a very good one, but the person he had landed next to merely raised an eyebrow at the clearly royal lines on his skin and set about educating what she had viewed as a child to be raised by someone who would take care of him. Loki normally would've railed against this with all his might- he was not to be patronized- but he had no ground to stand on. Regardless of his true origin, he was still a prince of Asgard and represented them. Asgard had oppressed Jotunheim for hundreds upon hundreds of years. Loki was there to learn- and besides, Loki was not yet of age and Anjeinelgr was clearly an elder.
Seeing the handwriting of his dam, Laufey had sent a strange spike of cold (ha) from his spine to his ribs. The same dam who he had-
Regardless. It was a learning experience.
{"How were you raised, to think that you were inferior? If you hadn't been stolen from your Afl-Raun as a mere babe you would've been the crowning jewel of the entire realm. A Jotun with those ruby eyes and the flashes of seidr you already had shown? Yes. The pride of Jotunheim." Anjeinelgr huffed and turned around to fill a bowl with thick stew. "Now eat up, you need fuel for your 1,500-year growth spurt, you won't shoot up like an ice spear if you don't have anything to do it with."
"Yes, Fodirsystir."
Anjeinelgr smiled at the term Lok- Loptr had used. Loptr felt a strange feeling of warmth bubbling in his heart at the expression.
He wished things could stay like this forever, but it couldn't and Asgard's throne came unbidden to the forefront of his mind. He forgot he could never be one of them. He could never belong anywhere.}
Loki put the paper on a shelf above the desk and pushed aside the first stack of papers, mostly written by him for submission to the well of knowledge for others to research with. At the very back of the desk, there was a pile of correspondence. Next to that was a half-written letter in flawless, if not slightly smudged, green ink.
It was not written during his most rational mindset and Loki intended to throw it away. He didn't look at it. He refused to-
'Brother why would you-'
He tore his eyes away and crumpled the paper. The trash can was down in the commons. He had taken it there intending to throw it out. He straightened up and away from the desk and took a deep breath. Fuck.
He would have to be on the communal floor, where there would undoubtedly be the entire team because the Norns liked to fuck with him. Loki needed to avoid contact with another being for the next forty-five minutes or he would eviscerate someone. Norns know the Avengers and their plethora of mortals couldn't keep to themselves for one moment in their short lives.
Nonetheless, the letter itched at his soul, an itch to be gone. His heart burned, but not a physical ache. He wanted it gone, gone so he could get something done and not be a useless stoltinn-hyggiandi.
He turned his head to the doorway, sighed, and walked towards the hall. The way from the study to the common room was long and gave too much room for thought. He'd rather rip his way through the fabric of space to drop off the cursed paper in a furnace, but the nearest furnace was too close for walking Yggdrasil's branches and he didn't want to try pulling himself through space again so soon. He'd rather walk than be reminded of how broken his magic was. With a second sigh, deep enough that it scraped against his throat, he pressed the button on the elevator.
Time for the March to his doom.