Chapter 24 - Goddess of Stories
Loki made it down several flights of stairs before deciding that in case she had a pursuer, it would be a good idea to take a detour though one of the floors and take a different set of stairs, or perhaps the elevator. In her panic she had failed to remember that JARVIS was unlikely to make things easy for her. She tried to push open one door but found it wouldn't budge, so she ran down to the next level and tried again. When it didn't give either, she began kicking the door and beating it with her fists.
"Miss Loki, hitting the door will not make it open. You are not authorized to be on any floor lower than the common floor right now."
"Just let me go, please." She detested begging, but she thought it might get her further with the AI than threatening to infect him with malware.
"You are not allowed to leave the tower, Miss Loki. Might I suggest heading to one of the floors above if you wish to hide from the others for a while? You are still allowed on the other residence floors and in the penthouse. You have not specifically been denied access to the helipad either."
The helipad, of course—she might just be able to escape from there. But the little bit of magic she had used at dinner hadn't been anything like the magic she'd need to scale the side of the building or transform herself into a bird. It didn't matter though; she had little other choice than to run up the stairs, knowing that every door between the residential floors and the ground floor would be locked tight.
Loki had to pause to catch her breath a few times before she made it back upstairs, and pure adrenaline took her up the last couple of flights. Perhaps she ought to have stopped to ask why JARVIS had been as helpful as he had been, or at least taken a precursory glance out before barreling through the door that led out onto the helipad. If she had, she would have seen Tony waiting for her, and she wouldn't have run smack into him.
Tony grabbed her by the shoulders, holding her in place, and spoke to her as if she were a small, wounded animal. "Hey there, kiddo. It's alright, okay? Even if you did put a spider in Clint's food, we're not mad. It was actually kind of funny, I've never heard him make that noise before. You're not in trouble or anything."
Loki didn't know how to respond, so she just stood there stiff as a plank, unable to meet the man's eyes.
"Why don't we go back in and talk—just me and you, or if you don't want to talk to me, you could talk to Doc, or Bruce, or even Pep."
Tony still had her in a death grip, and it occurred to her that he might have assumed she'd come outside in order to do something that would have been an over-reaction to the situation even in Loki's estimation. Of course, Thor would have blabbed about how Loki's fall from the Bifrost hadn't been a complete accident.
Loki found herself feeling suddenly exhausted. She brought her arms up, not to push him away from her, but to wrap them around his back. Just to support herself, of course. She nodded as she snuggled into his chest around the arc reactor casing, shifting herself so that she curled around it.
"Oh—okay, then," said Tony, clearly shocked at how things were playing out. "Let's go."
───==≡≡ΣΣ(づ0﹏0)づ⊂(・෴・⊂)
Loki sat on the couch in Doctor Samson's office with her legs curled under her, staring at the oversized mug of sub-par chai tea in her lap. Tony and Pepper sat together at the other end of the couch, and Bruce sat across from them in one of the overstuffed leather chairs. Doc Samson perched on another, his hands clasped together over his knees. So far, no one had said a word.
Pepper spoke first. "Loki, are you sure you want all of us here? It's okay if you want us to leave you alone with Doctor Samson."
"It's fine." If Loki hadn't wanted them all there, she wouldn't have asked for them. "And by the way, I wasn't going to jump off the side of the building or anything."
"I'm glad to hear that," said Samson. "Do you want to talk about what did happen?"
"Not particularly."
"You don't think you'd feel better if you did? Clearly Clint's accusation bothered you."
Loki lowered her head as she traced a finger around the edge of her mug. "I did put a spider in his bowl."
"Are you sure about that?"
"I'm not delusional, Doctor Samson. At least not today."
"But how?" asked Pepper. "You never left your side of the table."
"I didn't have to."
"Ooh, ooh. Let me guess—you talked the spider into crawling into Clint's bowl."
"I am not a Disney princess, Stark. I can only communicate with animals when I am one, and I don't really speak with them so much as I can share a telepathic connection with them."
"Hey, um, can I ask where the spider came from?" Bruce asked, ever the practical one among them. "You didn't find it in the atrium, did you? Because it wasn't anything I recognized as native to this area. It also seemed to disappear as soon as it crawled off the edge of the table, which is kind of worrying. I'm just hoping it wasn't anything poisonous."
"It wasn't real," Loki told him. "You don't have to worry about it crawling into bed with anyone tonight."
"So it was magic, then—" Tony seemed to realize what he had just said. "Hey, you did magic!" he exclaimed, but it wasn't an angry accusation. Instead, he seemed to be—happy for her? But that didn't make sense.
"It was only a little magic," Loki said in her defense. "The spell didn't even do what I meant it to. If it had worked properly, there would have been dozens of spiders, not just one."
"Well, that sounds like it would have been abjectly terrifying," said Bruce, after a long moment had passed in which none of them seemed to know what to say. "In the future, could you maybe not do that kind of magic when I'm around? I'm sorry to have to remind you of this, but I don't handle surprises well. That's not a threat, okay? I just don't want to hurt you again, not even accidentally."
"Oh, yeah," said Tony. "Sorry kid, but for safety reasons, no sudden illusions around Bruce. Consider it a rule from now on, alright?"
"But I'm not prohibited from casting illusions, so long as I don't do them around Bruce without warning him?"
"As long as you use common sense and don't do anything that could be dangerous or cause an actual panic," said Tony, shrugging. "There's a fine line between practical jokes and yelling fire in a crowded theater."
"And yelling fire in a crowded theater would be dangerous?" After all, if the theater patrons were to evacuate the theater properly, no one should be hurt.
"Uh, you know what? If you want to pull any more practical jokes, run them by one of us," Tony told her. "Actually, run them by Bruce, that way he definitely won't get caught in the middle of something that would cause him to Hulk out."
"So you don't mind if I play practical jokes, if Bruce says they're okay?"
"I mean, try not to overdo it or anything, and expect that if you prank me, you're going to get pranked back."
Pepper cleared her throat to indicate that she wanted to add something. "There's also a difference between playing practical jokes for fun, and playing them instead of having adult conversations with people in which you let them know that they've done something to hurt your feelings."
"Oh, yeah," Tony said again. "Pepper's right too. No pranks for malicious purposes, and no more jokes on Clint until you two are on better terms, because that's not going to end well for you. If he doesn't put an arrow between your eyes one of these days, he might decide to call Fury and tell him you're here."
"You said that Clint had a right to be angry with you, but it definitely seemed to upset you when he accused you of putting the spider in his bowl," Doctor Samson prompted.
Loki felt it should be obvious. "He had no evidence. He just assumed I must have done it, because of some stupid appellation that your people gave to me before I was even born— into this cycle, anyway. I was born in your year 965 AD, but the Norse were telling stories about Loki, God of Mischief, before that."
"Wait—how does that work, if you're really the same person?" asked Tony. "Are you even the same person?"
Loki shrugged. "Yes and no. The stories they told could have been prophesy, but I have a theory that they could have been things that happened in a prior cycle, or to a Loki in another timeline, or in another dimension entirely."
"When you talk about cycles, you're talking about the cycle of Ragnarok," Samson guessed. "The death and rebirth of the universe."
"Maybe not the entire universe. Depending on your interpretation, it might only be Asgard that's to be affected. As you might be aware, I am the one who is to cause it."
"Those are just stories, aren't they?"
"Stories are never just stories," Loki told Samson. "And I would know. Stories are lies, so I'm practically the Goddess of Stories as well, or at least the Goddess of Fictional Stories. And it's possible that I've already set off a chain of events that's going to lead to the obliteration of half the universe, not just Asgard or the nine realms."
"If you're talking about that Thanos guy, I'm guessing he would have attacked the Earth with or without you," said Tony. "Eventually he would have found a way. You're not responsible for anything he does from here on out, either."
"It is kind of you to say."
"No, it isn't kind, it's the truth. Holding you responsible for what he does now would be like holding Bruce personally responsible for old Thunderbolt Ross continuing to try to make super soldiers after his gamma experiment gone wrong."
"Or holding Tony responsible for Obadiah's under the table deals with the Ten Rings after he tried to put a halt on weapons productions," added Pepper.
Tony shrugged, and Loki got the sense that while he was willing to let others off the hook, granting himself the same consideration was difficult. "If Thanos attacks again, it's on him, not you. If anything, you've thrown a wrench in his plans, because thanks to you, Asgard has the Tesseract and SHIELD has the Glow Stick of Destiny—I'm guessing that was a gift from him? Point Break said he'd never seen it before and it wasn't anything that old one eye specifically sent him to retrieve, which was why SHIELD ended up with it."
"It was less a gift, more a loan that he'll definitely be wanting back. Earth will be in more danger with it here, not less, just like it is in more danger with me here."
"Loki, come off it. We don't seriously believe you're going to attack us anymore, even if you do get your mojo back. If you have another tantrum, we'll handle it."
"That's not what I meant. As things are, there are now at least two reasons for Thanos to attack Earth again sooner rather than later. The scepter is here, and I am here."
"And you think he'll want you back too?"
"Only so that he can punish me for failing him."
"And he'd be motivated enough to come all the way here just for that?"
"Again, there is also the scepter to retrieve, so he would be able to kill two birds with one stone. Though likely, he will not come himself. He will send someone else again—one of his children, perhaps."
"He has kids?"
"They're adopted."
"Huh, where have I heard that one before? And by adopted, you mean—"
"Taken from various worlds he decimated and trained as deadly warriors and undyingly loyal lackeys from the time they were children. Not too unlike my own background, when you get right down to it."
"That's terrible," said Pepper. "Are all of them adults now?"
Loki tried not to roll his eyes at what he considered to be an inane question. Why were Midgardians so bothered about protecting "children," and what could they do about it were he to tell them that Thanos still had a dozen prepubescents in his care? "When I was with him, his daughter Nebula was the youngest known to me, and we seemed to be of an age—or of a relative age, anyway." Which meant that Thanos's children were likely all adults by Asgardian standards, but perhaps not by the standards of these modern, scientifically enlightened Midgardians. "I have no idea how long lived her people are or their rate of maturation. She could have been a thousand of your years, or twenty, or a hundred." There were a few parts of her that were significantly newer, but he wasn't even going there with these people, or they might start planning something as insane as traveling across the stars in order to save one of the universe's most dangerous assassins from her adoptive father's abuse.
A little of the tension in the room seemed to dissipate, as if it put their minds at ease to know that Thanos was not currently torturing anyone too young to drive one of their vehicles (Loki had done a little research into that and had started wondering if she could convince one of them to teach her how to drive. Tony had already mentioned something about forging fake identification documents for her in case someone figured out she was living in the tower and they needed to explain who she was to "CPS," whoever that was. Surely Stark could also forge some sort of "learner's permit" for her.)
"So what do you think Thanos is going to do if he gets his hands on you?" asked Tony.
"You mean before he kills me? I try not to think about it." Loki glared at him for bringing it up. "Suffice to say, it would be something worse than revoking my electronics access."
"Loki, this is just another reason you need to stay where we can protect you," Bruce told her. "No more trying to run off. I know it's difficult for you to trust us, but we aren't going to hurt you again. We aren't enemies anymore. Even if you threatened someone, we would do our best to restrain you without hurting you." Clearly Bruce didn't think Loki capable of hurting them unless she was having some sort of psychotic episode.
"Yeah, and we'd try to make sure Clint didn't hurt you either—"
"Tony, I doubt even Clint would hurt her if he didn't have to," said Bruce. "He might be a trained SHIELD operative, but he isn't really a violent person."
"What did you think would happen just because you put a spider in Clint's meal?" asked Tony. "'Cause like I said, we're not mad about that, other than Clint. But you obviously thought you needed to escape."
Loki took a sip of her now lukewarm chai tea before answering. "I thought if you knew my magic had begun to return, you would decide I was dangerous and lock me up, the way Odin did."
"Uh, no. We're not going to lock you up just because of how potentially dangerous you are. Most of the people here are potentially dangerous. I'm not letting the government lock up my science bro just because he gets a little smashy when he's angry, and we're not going to lock you up either. Besides, where would we even lock you up? This tower doesn't have a dungeon."
"I was fairly certain it did not, but I didn't think it had an atrium either. Do you truly not have any containment cells in this place?" Loki couldn't keep his eyes from darting towards Bruce. The containment cell in the Helicarrier had been designed to contain a rampaging Hulk, though Loki doubted it would have held up. It wouldn't have contained Loki for as long as it had if she hadn't wanted to be contained.
"Nope. If we have a code green, I doubt we'd be able to get Bruce in a cell before he turned, nor is it likely we'd be able to get the Hulk to go in one after it happened. Besides, I don't like building cages to put my friends in, unless they're into that kind of thing." Pepper furrowed her eyebrows at him disapprovingly, but he only shrugged.
"I'm not your friend," said Loki.
"Man, what is this? No one wants to be friends with me this week. Everyone used to want to be friends with Tony Stark. Bruce, you're still my friend, right?"
Bruce shrugged. "Eh."
"Pepper?"
Pepper twisted her lips and made a humming noise, as if considering it.
"Doc, you'll be friends with me, right?"
Samson smiled teasingly. "Where do you think this need to be friends with everyone stems from?"
"Hey, I don't need you to psychoanalyze me. I already know it has everything to do with the fact that I didn't have friends my entire childhood, unless you count the household staff, and they were literally paid to be around me. Even at MIT, Rhodey was pretty much it—and maybe he still is, by the sounds of it."
Loki had difficulty believing that Stark wouldn't have loads of friends if he wanted them. He had to have at least as many adoring fans as Thor did. "The only people who have ever wanted to be friends with me were people who wanted to get close to Thor."
Loki expected them to make polite statements of disbelief, as if they couldn't believe that someone with her wit and charm wasn't crawling with admirers, but that wasn't what she got. "That happened to me too," Stark told her. "Especially when I was at MIT. I'd start getting close to someone, only to find out it was Howardthey wanted to get cozy with. They were just looking to make some business connections or maybe land a job at SI. And before Pep, most of the women I thought were interested in me turned out to be more interested in the money, or getting their own fifteen minutes of fame, or in the case of certain reporters, getting a story. It's just something that comes with being related to someone important, or with being someone important for that matter. I'll bet Thor has to deal with that kind of stuff too—people just wanting to get close to him to get the king's ear or wanting to be friends with him just because he's next in line for the throne."
Loki had never thought of it that way before, but perhaps there was a reason Thor preferred the company of the Warriors Three and Sif to others of the court. At least none of them were what he would call social climbers, though he suspected Volstagg hung around them mostly for access to the crown prince's feasting table. Then again, the man had a wife who was considered one of the best cooks in Asgard, so it wasn't as if he couldn't just go home and eat. The people his brother had chosen were not the kind of people who were impressed by royalty, or they wouldn't have all turned their backs on Loki the moment he ascended to the throne in Odin and Thor's absences. "Thor had friends, though. He would tell you that they were my friends as well, but they never were."
"Did you want them to be?" asked Samson.
"No. Well, perhaps at first, but—" If Loki was honest with herself, it may have been her intense need for Thor's friends to pay attention to her that had caused them to ultimately dislike her. Of course, she had done all the wrong things to that end. Cutting Sif's hair may have earned her Sif's attention, but in retrospect, it hadn't been a good way to keep her as a friend.
"Why not try to make friends of your own, then?"
"Because Thor was my best friend, until I realized I wasn't his anymore." Oh Norns, had something that pathetic truly just come out of her mouth? It had to be her weak, mortal female body at fault. She had always been more emotional as a female—no, scratch that, she wasn't more emotional, male Loki had plenty of emotions to spare, but male Loki's range of emotional expression was much more limited thanks to the All-Father's insistence that "princes do not cry." ("Look, Loki, your brother isn't crying even though he just got his face smashed in with a battering ram, why can't you be more like him?")
In this form, she might burst into tears and then punch someone, instead of jumping directly to the anger response. If Odin had caught her in the vault instead of him, it might have been an entirely different scene. If she had cried instead of screaming at him, would Daddy have held her and told her everything was going to be alright? That had been what she desperately needed—
Oh Hel, and she was crying now, wasn't she? She was stupidly breaking down and crying in front of a bunch of mortals because Thor hurt her feelings two centuries ago when he had stood her up to go hunting with Sif instead of helping her search for the golden foxgloves needed to complete the increased stamina potion that nearly everyone had declined to try anyway, just because the floral scent had been a little intense. (Fandral had been the exception. When he had proposed a way in which the two of them could test the potion, she had calmly kneed him in the place where most of his ideas seemed to originate before turning him into a slug.)
Doctor Samson handed her a box of tissues that had been sitting on the table next to him. "Loki, it sounds like you've felt isolated for a long time. I think it would be good for you to try to make some friends that aren't your brother or your brother's friends, although I'm not sure how possible that would be right now. Normally I would advise you to join some sort of organization or do volunteer work, put yourself out there and try to meet people—"
"But I can't leave the tower, and I can't even make 'online friends' as I am now prohibited from using your Internet to communicate with other people." As if she would want to make mortal friends anyway.
"Maybe I could relax the parental controls on your tablet just a little," said Tony. "I mean, as long as you promise to be smart about it and don't give out personal information. Nothing that would indicate that you're not just a normal human, got it? Of course, we don't want you catfishing people either. Wait, I've got it—I could get you a World of Warcraft subscription and you could play on an RP server. Then you could make all sorts of friends who are also pretending to be someone else, and it would be totally legit, because you'd just be playing by the rules."
"I'm not sure that's—"
Tony steamrollered right over whatever Doctor Samson's objection might be. "Yeah, that's brilliant. Not surprising, because it's my idea, and all my ideas are brilliant. All we need is to get you a gaming laptop!"
"Might I suggest you have Loki participate in the quality control tests for the prototype Starkware gaming laptops?" asked JARVIS.
"Good thinking, J. In fact, tomorrow morning have R&D send enough up for everyone on the residence floors that wants one. That ought to distract Clint for a while too. Maybe he'll be too busy playing Mass Effect III to go directly to Fury."
Well, this conversation had taken an odd turn. Loki hadn't understood much of what Stark had just said, but World of Warcraft seemed to be some kind of game. She couldn't guess what an "RP server" would be. As much as she wanted to discount whatever scheme Stark was cooking up, Loki did enjoy games. The only reason she didn't play them more often was that not many people wanted to play against her. She rarely lost at games of either strategy or chance, having always had a lucky streak a mile wide (too bad that had seemed to run out the day of Thor's coronation). She had often been accused of cheating, whether or not she had been.
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Author's Note:
For once I don't have much to say in the author's note. Who's excited for Black Widow?
Don't be shy, comment :)