Chapter 8 - Asgardian Women Don't Wear Pants

"You guys should try to eat something," Bruce told his companions. "It would probably help."

Tony and Leonard huddled together in the now darkened sitting area. Neither could tolerate the sunlight bouncing off of the golden spires of Asgard's palace. Luckily, there were curtains that could be drawn across the walls that opened onto the balconies. Syn and another of the queen's handmaidens had helped him with them when they had brought breakfast.

The food was a little more interesting than what had been served the night before, at least. There were little ball-shaped pancakes, which looked a lot like Danish ebelskivers. When asked, Syn had called them "puff cakes." They were served with a compote made of tart yellow berries— "yellowberries," according to Syn.

Bruce wondered if Asgardians had anything similar to scientific names for their plants, but Syn didn't seem like the right person to ask, as his first two questions had seemed to irritate her enough.

"Any coffee?" asked Tony.

There was a pot of some sort of tea, but Bruce knew better than to suggest that as an alternative. "I don't think they have coffee in Asgard."

"How can this place not have coffee?" Tony complained. "No wonder everyone here just wants to kill things."

"They didn't have coffee in Western Europe until the seventeenth century," Leonard pointed out.

"And that's why they called the time before that the 'dark ages.' Seriously, with everything else that's wrong with this place, not having coffee is still like the worst thing."

Tony and Leonard both jumped when someone knocked on the door to their suite. Bruce got up to answer it, but before he got there, the door swung open, and the other two men flinched back and hissed, like vampires about to burst into flame.

"Friends, what are you still doing sitting in the dark?" asked Thor. "It is nearly midday. Are you all well?"

"I don't suppose Asgardians get hangovers," Bruce guessed, and could tell from Thor's expression that at the very least, he didn't understand the terminology. "After excessive alcohol intake, humans often experience unpleasant symptoms, such as headaches, nausea, and light sensitivity."

"No, Aesir do not typically experience such," Thor confirmed. "Loki has often complained of feeling poorly after a night of drinking, though I suppose he is not actually—" Thor didn't finish that thought. "Ah, it is about Loki that I have come. Apparently, he is the cause of some sort of disturbance in the prison. The guards however, refuse to go near his cell. None of them will say why. I hoped that you three would accompany me to check on the situation."

Thor looked past Bruce to Tony and Leonard, who groaned and attempted shielded their eyes from the light. "When Loki was ill after drinking, there was a potion he would take. Perhaps Mother knows what it was."

~(-_- 。) (╥﹏╥)

Tony had to know what was in the queen's hangover remedy, because unlike other remedies he had tried, it actually worked. If Stark Industries could mass produce and market it—then again, maybe that wouldn't be such a good idea. Excessive drinking ought to have consequences. If he had been able to get sloppy drunk every night knowing that he wouldn't pay for it in the immediate future, he probably would have drunk himself to death before he graduated college.

Even the strong golden glow from the prison's "magical" barriers didn't bother him now. Nor did the screaming, and there was a lot of screaming going on. Most of it seemed to be coming from the cells across from Loki's. That probably should have disturbed him more, but Thor had already explained that while Loki was capable of performing magic in his cell, that magic would be contained within the cell's barrier.

The one thing that was a little disturbing was that there hadn't been any sound coming from Loki's cell, so whatever the "disturbance" was, it was visual. He just couldn't imagine what the other prisoners were seeing that would make them freak out like that.

He thought he'd hang back a bit with Bruce and Leo and let Thor go first. The guy had lived with Loki for over a thousand years, so surely, nothing he could do would surprise him.

"SISTER, PUT YOUR CLOTHES ON!"

That certainly hadn't been what Tony expected to hear. And while he had the niggling feeling that he should stay back and let Thor handle whatever was going on with his sibling, Tony's legs seemed to move on their own.

He came up beside Thor and gave a low whistle for the sexual horror in front of him. He'd seen too many B horror flicks to truly be disturbed by the sight, especially when it couldn't be real anyway. "Are those snakes?" he asked. "I'd always wondered if what Medusa looked like under her toga. And what sharp teeth you have down there—are they naturally that white, or did you have them bleached?" Tony took his phone out of his pocket, opened up the camera app, and took a picture. "Tell me, is that kind of thing handled by your dentist or your gyno?"

"Did you just take a picture?" Loki asked, the eyebrows over both sets of her eyes furrowing —both the ones in her head and the one where her nipples ought to be.

Thor also glared at him.

"Just checking my text messages," Tony lied, and slid the phone back into his pocket. "Nice special effects though."

Bruce stayed where he was, but Leonard came forward to look. The guy's mouth hung open for a second, but then he closed it and didn't say a word.

"Sister, please," Thor begged. "Drop this most disturbing illusion."

"Oh, very well," Loki the sexual horror said with a twist of her lips. The light in Loki's cell seemed to blur, and as soon as Tony blinked, Loki was no longer nude, nor was she likely to be sporting snakes under her clothes.

But she was still very much a she. Loki wore the clothes she had been wearing the day before as a male, but they hung differently now—he wouldn't describe her as voluptuous by any means, but she had breasts the size of small avocados, and her hips had a gentle swell to them. Her hair was still messy and shoulder length, but her facial features were a little more delicate. Her lips seemed fuller and were currently drawn into an adorable little pout.

Tony's jailbait detector was definitely going off, though. If anything, Loki looked younger this way.

"Sister, what is this about? I know you are bored, but terrorizing your fellow inmates and the guards with the most horrific imagery conceivable is inexcusable."

Loki's pout turned into a scowl. "You would call my behavior inexcusable, without even knowing my reasons for it! You're just like your father, always assuming the worst of me and condemning my actions as inexcusable without giving me the opportunity to defend myself."

"Forgive me, Sister, if I cannot think of a single valid reason for you to behave this way."

"If you have no imagination whatsoever, that is hardly my fault, and no, you are not forgiven."

"Okay, time out," Leonard interrupted. "Thor, your sister has a point. You're not giving her a chance to explain. Loki, what happened?"

Loki blinked slowly at him, as if she couldn't fathom why he would come to her defense. "What do you care, you mortal worm? Isn't it obvious? I am Loki, and Loki is an evil, spiteful creature. I was simply being evil because that is my nature."

"Loki, do not call Healer Samson names," Thor growled.

"It's okay, Thor. She doesn't mean it; she's just hurt and lashing out. Why don't you let me try to talk to her?"

Thor nodded. "Please, if you believe you can reason with her, go ahead."

"First of all, I wouldn't call what you did just now evil, exactly. And even if you've made some poor choices, I don't think you're evil either. Now, will you please tell us what happened? I promise we'll listen without immediately accusing you of lying or making excuses."

Loki's eyes drifted up to stare at a point behind them. At first, Tony thought she was just making a point of ignoring them again. Then he looked over his shoulder and realized that she was staring at one of the prisoners in the cell across from hers—one of the ones who had been screaming before, though now he had abandoned screaming in favor of quietly hyperventilating. Tony turned back to Loki and hitched with his thumb over his shoulder. "That guy? What'd he do?"

Loki looked down at Tony and shrugged. "He wanted to see what was under my tunic, so I showed him."

"Sister!" Thor cried. "Are you saying that foul man made unwelcome advances towards you? Why did you not just say? I will speak to him for you right now!" Clearly, by "speak to him" Thor meant he would knock all his teeth out.

Loki rolled her eyes. "I have already handled it, Brother. I hardly need you to defend my honor. Besides, it would look bad for the heir apparent of Asgard to go around beating up prisoners that aren't posing any threat to anyone. Unless you'd like to beat me up, of course; I'm sure everyone would be for that."

Tony couldn't help thinking the kid might be right. That Sif woman especially seemed to hate him, although he wasn't sure he could blame her if Loki really had tried to kill her (not everyone could be as forgiving as Tony, after all). Apparently, he'd cut her hair off, too, but he wondered how long ago that had been. If she was still holding a grudge over something that happened five hundred years ago, it might be time for her to get over it.

Thor shook his head, stabbing a finger in her direction. "Why have you even chosen this form in this place? You must have known it would provoke bad behavior from the kind of men that reside here. Not to mention, your choice of clothing is quite shocking. It is lewd for a woman to wear breeches."

Ah, yippee, Tony thought. Victim shaming. That would sit well with Loki.

Loki didn't flip out at him, however. Instead, she arched an eyebrow at her brother and puffed out her chest. "Contrary to your belief, Brother, I cannot always control my shifts. I just so happened to feel like a woman today, alright? And if wearing breeches is lewd, your little mortal Jane must be a common whore, for she wore them when you brought her to see me."

Thor shook his head. "Those were not breeches, Loki, they are 'jeans.' It is appropriate for mortals of either sex to wear them."

A green light shimmered over Loki's body, and Loki's ren fair garb was replaced by a pair of blue jeans, shiny black stripper heels, and an emerald green crop top that looked like it was made out of a scarf and barely covered her chest.

It wasn't like there was much to cover.

He might not have described Loki as voluptuous before; but now that she wasn't wearing anything that ought to qualify as a shirt, you could see how undernourished she was—it wasn't quite bad enough to be featured in one of those infomercials for charities that helped starving people in other less-developed countries, but she was still on the wrong side of too thin to make it as a supermodel in the nineties "heroin chic" era.

Bruce had come up to the cell now in order to gape at Loki with the rest of them. His eyes seemed to linger over Loki's mostly bare torso, but Tony doubted it was because he thought her outfit was sexy. He might have just been trying to estimate her BMI.

"Is this better?" Loki asked.

Thor did not appear to be happy with Loki's new look. "I said it was appropriate for mortals to wear them, Loki. You are not a mortal."

Another green light shimmered over Loki. "There, now I'm also mortal."

Thor's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "What? Loki! You cannot simply turn yourself into a mortal! If you are truly mortal, you must turn yourself back this instant."

"Why must I? You like mortals, don't you? Maybe you'll like me better if I'm one of them."

Thor bared his teeth and growled at her.

Now, if that had been directed at Tony, he would have turned and run, but Loki didn't back down. "Don't bother. You're not nearly as frightening as Odin, and he doesn't even scare me anymore."

Leonard lightly touched Thor's shoulder. "Trying to intimidate your sister into doing what you want isn't going to work. Maybe you ought to explain to her why you're concerned about this."

Thor winced and nodded. "Sister, please. While you are well protected here, I would prefer you not tempt fate by making yourself mortal, if that is truly what you have done. Mortals are fragile and easily injured. They also age at about fifty times the speed we do. Every second you spend as a mortal may be taking hours off your life."

Loki raised both eyes at that. "Your calculations are a bit off there, but it doesn't matter, since that's not how this spell works. It is the same spell that Odin used on you. Might I remind you that he allowed you to spend three days as a mortal? Do you truly believe that your own father would allow your lifespan to be shortened by half a year?"

Thor blinked at that. "You do not believe he would? But you are the one who constantly accuses Father of cruelty."

"To me, Thor. If Mother hadn't intervened, he'd have killed me by now. He wouldn't do anything to cause permanent damage to his true son."

"He would not harm you either, Loki, for you are his true son as well. Except when you are his daughter, I suppose."

Loki's face distorted with anger, or maybe it was just raw pain. "How can you say that when he has publicly disowned me?"

"You have to admit she's got you there," said Tony. "You were the one that told us Odin didn't recognize Loki as his anymore, Point Break."

Thor pinned him with an unappreciative glare, but at least he didn't growl at him like an animal. "As king, Father cannot officially recognize Loki as an heir, but I am certain she remains the child of his heart."

"That, Thor, is bullshit."

Thor's head swung back around to his little sis. "Where did you learn such an obscenity, Little Sister?"

Loki shrugged. "Midgard. Their language is as colorful and varied as their foods, and I find some of their phrases quite apt. Anyway, if I am the 'child of Odin's heart' he has yet to express that to me."

"Thor, Loki's relationship with your father is ultimately between the two of them," Leonard pointed out. "You might be able to help facilitate communication between them, but it isn't your job to fix what's broken between them and you can't force the issue."

Thor made a face like he had been forced to gargle with vinegar. "Aye." He looked at Loki again, and his expression changed to something that made Tony think of a large golden retriever puppy. "Loki, will you please undo the spell now? No matter how anyone else feels, Big Brother still loves you very much and would be devastated if something were to happen to you."

Loki rolled her eyes so hard that her head moved in a circle with them, but a fierce blush had risen to her cheeks. "Oh, fine. Just give me a—huh."

"Huh?" Thor repeated, his eyebrows furrowing in suspicion.

"Crap," Loki said, letting loose another one of those colorful Midgardian phrases. "I can't undo it, Thor."

"What do you mean you can't undo it?"

"I mean I can't undo it. Like I said, it was the same spell Father used on you. I don't have any powers at the moment."

"Loki?"

"Let me see—nope. I can't even shift back to my male form. Well, this has to be the stupidest thing I've ever done."

Thor sighed. "Indeed. I will go fetch Mother."

Loki nodded, but she looked a little nervous. Thor told them to stay, and that he would be back with their mother soon.

As soon as Thor was gone, Loki sank to her knees, in obvious distress.

"Are you okay?" Leonard asked her.

She shook her head. "Mother won't be able to undo this."

"Thor seemed to think that she would."

"Thor doesn't know the first thing about magic."

"If your mom can't undo it, who could?" Tony asked.

"Odin, perhaps. But he won't. I'm going to be stuck like this until I die, which won't take long."

"I thought that you wouldn't age?"

"If I go back to being immortal, any damage done to me in the meantime will heal itself. That includes aging. But so long as I am mortal I will age, and eventually, I shall have an accident or become ill, or one or more of my internal organs will wear out."

"That is the risk of being mortal."

"If that's the case, surely Odin will fix this," said Bruce, though he sounded anything but sure. "He didn't sentence you to die, after all."

"For my mother's sake, he did not. However, he is very big on people living with the consequences of their own mistakes, no matter how monumental they are. You do realize that Odin has the power to rid you of your beast? Don't bother asking him to do it. In fact, it is against our laws to use Asgardian healing technology to save a mortal's life. We are not supposed to 'interfere' in that way. Come to think of it, just one more of our laws that is apparently fine for Thor to break."

"You really think there's no way Odin will help you?" asked Tony.

"I suppose if I'm extremely lucky, he might return my immortality after I've lived as a mortal for a while, and have proven that I've 'learned something' from the experience."

"Well in that case, it's not that big of a deal, is it?"

"I steadfastly refuse to learn anything from this," said Loki.

Tony found Loki's capacity for stubbornness impressive, in a way. "You should have learned something from it already, kiddo—like not to alter your own DNA on a whim when you don't know how to undo it. Anyway, being mortal isn't so bad."

"It isn't bad for you because you have lived your entire life with the expectation that your life would not last more than a century," Loki accused.

"Right, so maybe you should try to grow as a person or whatever, so that Oz the Great and Powerful will take pity on you."

He might as well have been talking to himself, because Loki's catastrophizing had taken a new turn. "Not to mention, I am stuck in this form."

Leonard seemed to perk up at that—not that he hadn't been listening and observing the entire time. "Are you generally more comfortable as a male?" he asked.

Loki wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly seeming to become self-conscious about how little she was wearing. She shrugged. "Not necessarily, but at the present, I am not as familiar with this body. I have not used it much in the past fifty years or so."

An awkward silence ensued. There really wasn't anything any of them could say to comfort the kid, which was too bad. As improbable as it seemed, Tony was actually starting to feel sorry for her.

(҂▼ 益*) ~~~ヾ(- - ;) ﾟ｡

When Thor came back, he was followed not just by his mother, but by some dude with a white beard and a gold eye patch. From the look of utter horror on Loki's face, Tony had a pretty good idea who it was. And while Mom looked worried, Dad looked like he was about to rip apart a small animal with his bare teeth.

Odin came to a stop in front of Loki's cell. "You will explain yourself, Laufeyson." Calling the kid by the name that both identified her as her biological father's kid and assigned her the sex that she currently was not—a fantastic start.

As much as the kid had claimed that she wasn't afraid of Daddy Dearest anymore, Loki cowered backwards.

"Dear, please," the Queen said. "You must be able to see that our daughter is frightened."

"I have no daughter," said the king douchebag of the nine realms. "All I see before me is the son of a frost giant, who I am certain has some scheme in mind with this. He is not unintelligent enough to have done something like this accidentally."

Tony cleared his throat. "If you'll excuse me, your righteousness, I'm pretty sure Loki is that stupid. I mean, she's a kid, essentially. Kids do dumb things, even the smart ones."

"Loki is not a child. Any claim he might have had to childhood he forfeited when he chose the dark path he is on now. And who are you, mortal, to contradict me?"

At least now they knew where Loki's imperious attitude had come from. Of course, this was the king of all the universes or whatever, so maybe he ought to keep his mouth shut.

Luckily, Thor spoke before he could. "This is the Man of Iron, Father. One of the Midgardian heroes who put a stop to Loki's invasion."

"I see. And the other two? I seem to remember that you asked to bring two Midgardian heroes to last night's feast, and yet there are three mortals in Asgard—four, actually." Odin glared at Loki again.

"Bruce Banner is the other mortal that I asked to be allowed, Father. The other is Doctor Samson, a Midgardian healer."

"And why is this Son of Sam here?"

Apparently, it didn't even occur to Thor to lie, or maybe he just knew better than to try. "Doctor Samson is a psychiatrist, Father. A mind healer. I have brought him here to help Loki."

"I see," Odin said, gnashing his teeth together. He turned to Leonard, who to his credit, didn't flinch back in terror the way the guy's own kid had. "And what are your impressions of Loki Laufeyson, traitor to all of Asgard?"

"I haven't spent enough time with Loki to make a formal diagnosis. In fact, we haven't even had time to speak alone yet. However, I can tell you that right now, Loki is frightened. He did made a mistake, and doesn't believe that you love him enough to help him fix it."

"And what love should I bear for the son of an enemy? For a traitor, who attempted to murder my own son, and allowed enemies passage onto our soil? He has also caused much death and destruction in your own realm, so forgive me if I fail to understand why you would wish to aid him yourself."

"Helping people is my job," Leonard told him. "And I have to think that if you didn't still love him, you wouldn't have been concerned enough to come down here. He can't hurt anyone but himself so long as he's in that cell. There's no reason for the king to come down to the prisons himself just to scold a criminal for doing something that hurt no one but himself."

Odin attempted to stare Leonard down, but Leonard had the nerve to smile back at him. Tony's respect for the man went up, like ten times. Odin, however, shook his head. "I am not here to save Loki Liesmith from his own foolishness. I am here because now that he is mortal, he cannot remain here. Asgard is no place for mortals. As I cannot banish Loki to Midgard, there is only one option left."

Well, that sounded ominous. Poor Loki had started chewing her own thumbnail, and looked like she was a few moments away from jamming her entire thumb in her mouth and sucking it.

"You are not killing our child," the queen said, her voice quiet but commanding as hell. And damn, Tony knew that voice. Whenever Pepper used that voice, Tony knew he was about to lose an argument.

Odin gave her a look that was probably supposed to be sympathetic but came off as patronizing. "Frigga, that is not our child, and never was."

"Loki is my child," Frigga insisted. "And if he is no longer yours, I will take him from you, and you will see neither of us again."

"This is not the first time you have threatened such, so forgive me if I do not—"

She cut him off. "I am serious this time."

Thor's eyes shifted uneasily from one parent to the other. Tony was willing to bet that neither he nor Loki had known that Frigga had threatened to leave and take Loki with her before.

Odin and Frigga's eyes locked with one another in a staring contest, which Odin eventually lost. "Do what you will," he told his wife. The man turned to leave. "I shall give you all until dusk. If any mortals are left in Asgard by then, they will be killed on sight."

"Father?" Thor called to him, his voice full of uncertainty.

"I expect you will want to make sure your friends are able to find their way home and see your mother and brother settled in where ever it is they are to settle. Ah—I do have to warn you, I cannot allow you to use the Tesseract for this task." He shook his head. "I should have forbid you from going near it after you used it to pick up pizza. That was highly irresponsible of you, Thor."

And then the man was gone.

Loki spoke first. "He's really just going to let me go?"

Thor nodded. "I told you Loki, Father still loves you. He is just not good at expressing such feelings."

Tony raised his hand. "Um, excuse me, but it sounded a lot like he's condemned all of us to death if we're not out of here by sundown and forbidden you from using the one thing that would get us home, since your bridge-thingy is still broken. How is that love?"

"Do not worry, Man of Iron," Frigga said. "There are other ways in and out of this realm. We should leave now, however, for I fear the appointed hour draws near, and Odin does not make idle threats."

Thor nodded. "If there is nothing of great importance in your rooms, I can retrieve your things for you later."

"Okay? So, the guards are just going to let Loki walk out of here?"

"He will be walking with his Queen and the crown prince. It should not be a problem. However, Loki, I would like you to hold my hand so that you don't become lost."

Loki rolled her eyes. "I won't get lost. I'm not three centuries old, Mother."

"You shall hold my hand, Loki, unless you would like to hold Thor's hand. This is not up for debate."

Loki narrowed his eyes at her. "You're afraid I'm going to run off, aren't you?"

"I think I would be foolish not to consider the possibility, wouldn't you? And in your current state, I fear you would not get far on your own."

Loki sighed. "Alright, you might have a point. It's probably good if I don't have that option." Loki looked around his cell, almost wistfully. Then he started picking books off the shelf.

"Loki, we do not have time for you to pack," Thor told him. "If there are things you need, I will come back for them when I come back for our Midgardian friends' luggage."

"Who knows when that will be, though? I only need my journals and a few books. Mother, you'll put them in your dimensional storage for me, right? Obviously, I can't access mine at the moment."

"Choose quickly, Loki," his mother warned him, as she put her hand on a panel that Tony hadn't noticed before. The barrier in front of Loki's cell dropped, and Tony took a step back before he remembered that Loki probably wasn't much of a threat to him now.

Tony caught a glimpse of Bruce out of the corner of his eye. He was starting to look a little green. Tony couldn't be sure if that was because Loki was being set free, because their lives were all under threat, or because of Odin's general douchebaggery. Tony didn't quite buy the whole, "Daddy loves you, Loki, he's just got a funny way of showing it"—and seriously, why were their lives being threatened? What had they even done to deserve that, other than have the audacity to be mortal? "Bruce Buddy, you doin' okay?"

"I'm fine," said Bruce. "I'm really wondering why I came on this trip, but I'm fine. Also, we're going home now right? Back to Earth?"

"I think it would make the most sense for us to accompany you to your realm," Frigga told them.

"Now, wait a minute," Tony said. "Loki is still considered a war criminal on Earth—not that anyone's going to recognize her like that, I guess. Still, we can't just let her loose once we get there."

"I assure you that as Loki's mother, I will be watching her."

"Yeah, that's not going to be good enough."

Frigga gave him a doe-eyed look that reminded him a lot of the puppy-eyes her son had used on her daughter earlier. "I am afraid that there is no where else in the nine realms where Loki will be welcome, as a mortal."

Tony sighed. "Really? The other realms suck, then. Fine—tell you what, you guys can stay in the tower. That way, I can have my AI monitor her twenty-four hours a day. It's not like I could just let you guys live on the streets anyway. But there are going to have to be rules—for starters, Loki-dokes sees Doc Samson at least twice a week. If he wants her on meds, she goes on meds."

He turned to the doctor in question. "Just name your price, Doc. I'll pay it. I'll even give you a suite in the tower and pay for you to relocate."

Frigga and Leonard both nodded in agreement. Loki began handing her mother a stack of books and leather bound journals one at a time. Frigga took each book in her right hand, but as she passed it to her left, it disappeared. Bruce and Tony looked to one another in silent agreement. Dimensional storage—they hadto know how that worked.

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Author's Note:

For anyone who lives somewhere where the word "pants" means something different than in the US, know that the title of this chapter is in fact referring to trousers, not undergarments ;P

Of course, I didn't imagine that Asgardians would use the word "pants" either, so the word "pants" doesn't actually appear in this chapter at all. But "Asgardians Don't Wear Trousers" or "Asgardians Don't Wear Blue Jeans" just didn't work for me as a chapter title—obviously, the word "pants" is objectively funnier.

Do you think I'm striking a good balance between narrative description and dialog? Some writing advice tells you to "show don't tell" no matter what, but I have a couple of better books on writing/editing that emphasize that it's actually about striking a balance.

For example, the beginning of this chapter started with a bit of description about how Syn and another of the Queen's handmaidens brought breakfast. That could have been turned into a scene with dialog, but I didn't think it was important enough to be a scene.