Thor padded from the kitchen to the living room, where he saw the Barton children but no sign of Loki. A leather suitcase lay open on the floor. Loki had been opening and closing it like a book only moments before.
"Where is my brother?" Thor asked.
Lila shrugged, mentioning nonchalantly that she thought Loki had gone to find Thor.
They searched the house, but did not find him.
"Maybe he shrunk himself." Cooper went to check the dollhouse, while Lila lay on her stomach to peer under the futon.
They called Loki's name, but that didn't always elicit a response even with him in their sight.
"Loki's gone AWOL," Laura told Clint.
Clint asked if Loki had ever done that before as he scanned the surrounding farmland. Thor recalled many times over the centuries when Loki had gone off exploring the palace or grounds. But Loki was familiar with Asgard, and all of their subjects were familiar with Loki. They knew to bring Loki back to them.
"Did he get kidnapped? Or adultnapped?" Cooper asked, voice laced with concern. He must have eavesdropped on his parents talking with Thor about the reason Loki was here.
"Mr. Loki can beat kidnappers," Lila declared, and Thor smiled despite his worry. Any Midgardian kidnapper who chose to kidnap Loki would likely rethink their career path afterward. He had, after all, nearly set the first batch of kidnappers on fire.
Thor was more concerned that Loki would eat something he shouldn't, or hurt himself in some way.
As the kids tore apart the house in their search, Thor strode outside with his hand clenched around Mjolnir.
He found Loki in the barn. Loki had tipped over the tractor and pulled tools off the wall.
Thor picked Loki up to inform everyone he was found. Loki shrieked, kicking and writhing until he fell back onto a hay bale.
Lila and Cooper ran in, asking how Loki got out. They hadn't heard anyone open a door.
Thor surmised that Loki must have teleported outside, though whether he appeared in the barn or crawled across the yard toward it was anyone's guess. Cooper pointed out how Loki tipped the tractor, seeming surprised to see it remain its usual size.
Thor hugged Loki tightly, glad that this had not happened at Avengers Tower.
Loki made frequent trips to the barn after that, without ever letting anyone know he was planning on leaving.
Thor refused Tony's offer to send a tracking bracelet. Thor grumbled that Loki was not a dog, did not need to be tagged as a beast. He began to consider it one day, when Loki was found only after flying several miles with Mjolnir.
Lila frequently joined Loki in the barn, where Loki spat and shook his head, kicking hay around.
"You're not a horse, Mr. Loki," Lila giggled, though she always took him tossing his mane of dark hair as an invitation to climb onto his back.
After her ride, Lila bemoaned the fact that their farm had no real horses. She tried to talk Loki into bringing the plastic horses to life. "Can you give them skin and fur, not just moving plastic?"
Loki pulled the toy horses' tail hairs out. The horses remained lifeless plastic statues, but the next morning, the lunchboxes literally gobbled up everyone's lunch.
Loki himself seemed quite startled, but clearly found the situation hysterical. He tried to feed the lunchboxes more and more food, until they were just as suddenly as lifeless as usual.
Lila and Cooper were rather hesitant to bring their lunches to school that day.
Without JARVIS constantly watching and analyzing, it took Thor a while to notice that Loki began to get upset or disappear whenever Laura was being motherly toward her children. In fact, Clint was the one who noticed the correlation.
During the first snowfall, Loki screamed as Laura helped the children into their snowsuits. Clint asked if it was Loki's first time seeing snow or ice, despite his heritage, and only understood Thor's answer through lip reading.
After long minutes of shouting, Loki disappeared. Thor found him sulking in the snow, angrily stuffing snow into his mouth.
Loki didn't seem particularly happy in the snow. He shrieked as Laura helped build a snowman, so Thor hauled Loki a distance away. The world around them was muffled and still, as if they were the only two in it.
Thor sat with Loki in the snow, retelling fond stories of their mother, not touching on the ceremony where she was sent off in a boat that was struck with flaming arrows.
Thor held Loki close, mourning with his brother. Seeing Laura with Lila and Cooper often made Thor notice that empty spot in his own life, and he knew Loki felt the same, even if he didn't express it in the same way Thor could.
Loki, quite predictably, caused more mayhem at the Barton farm than Cooper and Lila- or even a whole army of children- could. Cooper showed Loki how to swing on the barn's rope swing, until Loki tugged the rope and pulled a chunk of the rafter down with it. Clint's arrows caught fire during archery practice, and Loki somehow chopped off one of Lila's braids despite not having scissors.
Lila was distraught. Loki held out the braid to her, and she told him to stick it back on her head.
The braid fell to the floor when Lila let go, then morphed into a snake. Cooper backed away, wide-eyed, until Thor flung the snake far enough into the yard that it sailed out of sight.
Lila refused to let Laura cut the other braid, though Cooper pointed out it could become a snake too. Lila was more concerned with getting Loki to fix her hair. She tried more yelling, bargaining with books, pleading and threatening to chop Loki's own locks with her safety scissors.
She watched Loki tug his hair, tugging her shorter half angrily. She shied away when Loki leant to put his mouth to her hair, shrieking "Daddy!"
Clint scooped Lila out of reach but told her "That's how he heals me, you know."
The kiss hadn't fixed Lila's hair, but while Lila sullenly listened to Clint read about Rapunzel that night, she noticed she had two braids once again.
"Why didn't you go to magic school?" Cooper asked Loki the next morning, though Loki had yet to perform magic that day. "Do you have Hogwarts in Asgard?"
"Father was more concerned with my training," Thor admitted, guiltily. Father had quickly given up on Loki, upon realizing his conditions. "Mother and I tried our best, but Loki learns slowly."
Thor paused, feeling even guiltier for talking about Loki as if he were not at the table with them. True, he had left the table to raid the cabinet, but the sentiment still stood. "It matters not that you learn at your own pace, brother."
"You picked up being a DJ pretty quick." Clint nodded at Loki. "And piano,"
"You play piano?" Lila asked, intrigued. "What songs? Can you play-"
Loki shouted, smacking his hands on the countertop, almost hard enough to dent the granite.
"Loki's music is similar to your Midgardian Heavy Metal," Thor answered, glancing at Clint to ensure he'd used the right term. Clint made a sort of gesture, grimacing slightly before turning off his hearing aids.
"You should go to Hogwarts." Lila told Loki. "Then you can learn magic, and make real potions."
"Maybe not Hogwarts," Laura hedged, and Cooper nodded in understanding. Loki was too old for Hogwarts, unless he was a professor. Nobody needed to voice why that idea wasn't ideal.
Thor knew Hogwarts was fictional, but magic certainly wasn't. Perhaps Loki could get magical lessons elsewhere on Midgard.