Chapter 29 - When Self-Love Goes Too Far

AN: Warning for the sexual assault of a minor Loki by an adult Loki. They stop before anything that would affect this fic's "teen and up" rating happens, however.

"Oof!" After being dragged through the portal, Loki fell at least four feet, ultimately landing on something that was an odd combination of both squishy and hard.

"Get off," complained his other self, voice somewhat muffled.

Loki rolled off him onto the floor of the common room. "It's your fault for opening the portal in the middle of the air. I thought you said you knew how to use that device of yours." He sat up and looked around the now vacant room where he had left the twins earlier. "JARVIS, where are the children?"

"They left," said JARVIS.

"I see," Loki drawled. "And where did they go?"

"Regretfully, I couldn't tell you."

Regretfully? He doubted that. "JARVIS, how could you let them leave?"

"You were the one who was supposed to be watching them, Master Loki."

"Yes, but to be fair, you were supposed to be watching me."

"And yet you were the one Sir left in charge," JARVIS complained. Had it upset him that Tony had left him in charge, and hadn't even considered officially making naming the AI babysitter, even though JARVIS was probably a lot more responsible than he was?

"You let them out of the building on purpose just to get me in trouble!"

"Not everything is about you," said JARVIS.

"Yes it is," said Loki and his other self at the same time. "Jinx," they both said.

"What am I going to do?" Loki demanded of his other self. "Tony is going to ground me for the rest of his natural life when he finds out that I let this happen."

"That's your problem, not mine," said his significantly less-cute counterpart, as he sat up and brushed off his TVA jacket. "Maybe you shouldn't have left them alone when you were supposed to be babysitting."

"I didn't think they would run off the first chance they got." Then again, he probably should have realized that if they had tried before they might try again. "JARVIS, why did they leave?"

"I couldn't tell you," said the AI.

"Couldn't or won't?"

"Does it matter?"

"You know, I think I liked you better when you weren't aware of your own sentience. You realize that if Tony comes back and the twins aren't here, he's going to be angry with you too."

"Perhaps, but there's not much Sir can do about it. Grounding me would hardly be effective."

"He could always delete you."

"Sir said that he wouldn't."

"I could delete you."

"You wouldn't either." JARVIS sounded less than certain, however.

Loki wasn't so sure he was bluffing either. "If I were you, I wouldn't try to find out."

"Alright, that's enough," his other self chimed in. "You two are giving me a headache. If the two of you insist on carrying on this way, I shall delete your entire timeline and be done with it."

Loki looked up at him with the same doe-eyed expression that he used to use on Thor to get him to do whatever he wanted. "You have to help me. Please? If I don't find them, Tony will never trust me again."

"He should have known better than to trust you in the first place. Is it just me, or are mortals actually less intelligent than usual in this timeline?"

"Tony isn't unintelligent. He's just easy to manipulate, especially when I'm in my other form—"

"What does that mean? He hasn't done anything untoward, has he?"

Loki scowled at him. "Of course not. That wasn't what I meant at all."

"You can't blame me for asking. Across nearly all of the timelines, that man has a certainreputation."

"Tony is engaged to Pepper. He sees me as a child, nothing else."

Other Loki made a humming sound. "Perhaps in this timeline, he does."

Loki wasn't sure he wanted to know what his other self meant, so he changed the subject back to something more relevant. "Are you going to help me find Wanda and Pietro or not?"

"What part of 'not my problem' didn't you understand? I've already interfered here enough for one day."

"I thought you cared about me," whined Loki.

"Oh, I do. That's why I'm going to stay until your adults come back, to make sure you don't do anything stupid, like chasing after them on your own."

"You can't do that. I need to—mmmhmmmhmm—" Loki's hand flew up to his mouth. He hadn't even seen his other self cast a spell. How could he be so powerful? He lunged towards himself, but as if someone had tied his shoelaces together, he landed gracelessly, his face buried in the carpet.

╰(•̀ 3 •́)—.*･｡ﾟ ο(_ _ο)彡

Usually, Pietro had to walk slowly so that Wanda could keep up, but this time, he didn't need to walk quite so slowly. Though he was certain had no idea where she was going, his sister was filled with conviction, bordering on a frenzy. "We should go back," he told her. "We don't know this city, and we have no place to go."

"We cannot go back, Pietro. You heard what the captain and the widow were going to obtain. If they find it, they might find out what we are."

"So?"

"So, we don't know what will happen! They are enemies of HYDRA. We were recruited by HYDRA; do you not remember?"

"But we left."

"That doesn't mean they wouldn't hold it against us! Or, they might use the scepter to experiment on us like HYDRA did."

"I don't think that would happen. So far, they've treated us well."

"Those HYDRA scientists treated us well at first. We cannot trust them just because they gave us food and a place to sleep."

Pietro thought that what the Avengers had done for them went somewhat beyond providing food and shelter. It hadn't been necessary for Steve to take him out running every morning, or for Ms. Potts to watch television with them, or for Tony to make them palacinka. Even though he didn't exactly enjoy his sessions with Doctor Samson, he had come to understand that the man did want to help them, and didn't have any ulterior motives.

"But where are we going to go?" Pietro repeated. This is how we ended up with Hydra in the first place, he thought. When Wanda gets emotional, she does not make good decisions, and I can do nothing but follow. He was getting a little tired of following."Someday, you're going to get one or both of us killed."

Wanda stopped abruptly, nearly causing him to collide with her. She spun towards him. "You know I have always done my best to protect us."

"I'm the one that's supposed to protect you," argued Pietro. "I'm your older brother."

"Only by a few minutes, and between us, I'm the smart one and the mature one." Wanda turned around and started down the sidewalk again.

Usually, Pietro would agree with her, but there were times when Wanda didn't see things rationally. "Where are you even going?" he called out to her.

Again, Wanda stopped abruptly. "I don't know!" Wanda screeched so loudly that some of the other pedestrians they had been walking among turned towards her. They had been speaking in Sokovian, and for all these people knew, they were a boyfriend and a girlfriend having a lover's quarrel.

If Pietro saw a girl scream in the middle of the street and he saw that a man had been following her, he would probably punch the man in the face and ask questions later. Cautiously, he stopped five feet away from her and tried to make his voice as calm and even as possible. "Wanda, please don't make a scene. People will think I'm trying to hurt you."

Wanda turned around.

"Or, I could be wrong," he said, more to himself than to his sister. "They might be looking at the way your eyes are glowing and thinking you're some sort of freak, or a bomb that's about to go off."

In less than three seconds, he had closed the gap between himself and his sister, hauled her over his shoulder, and ran the rest of the ten blocks until he reached the massive park in the middle of the city. If Steve were there, he would have scolded him for not stopping to look both ways before crossing at intersections, but Pietro had never seen the point anyway, when he was perfectly capable of weaving in and out of the traffic without the traffic noticing.

He put Wanda down in the middle of some trees where there weren't any people around. He might not be as smart as Wanda, but he was smart enough to know that appearing in the middle of the park out of nowhere could cause as much of a panic as his sister's still glowing red eyes. "Wanda, snap out of it."

Wanda didn't respond. He wasn't worried that she would hurt him; this just happened when she got upset sometimes. The powers that had taken up residence within her were extremely protective of her. Whenever she felt threatened, they took over. But Wanda knew that he would never hurt her, and hopefully her powers knew that as well. "Wanda, you have to stop that. We're safe here, at least for now."

Pietro closed the gap between them and gently gripped her shoulders. The crimson light from Wanda's eyes faded, and she fell bonelessly into his arms. "We're not safe," she argued. "We're alone in a strange country where we have nowhere to go and no one we can trust."

"We can trust each other," Pietro reminded her. Pietro debated with himself over whether or not he ought to say that he thought they could trust the people they had been living with up until twenty minutes ago, but decided that it was unlikely he would be able to convince her. He couldn't blame her; after everything they had been through together, he knew how difficult it was for her to trust.

(ﾉ_；)ヾ(。。 )

"This type of flimsy dressing (or should we say undressing) gown comes from the French for 'neglected.'"

"Negligée, obviously," said his other self, half a second before the female Jeopardy contestant answered, "What is 'negligée?'"

The contestant selected "Word Origins" for eight hundred, and Alex Trebec read the next question. "Greek for 'sun' and 'turned toward' give these flowers their name."

"Heliotrope," said his other self, again a moment before the contestant could give their answer in the form of a question.

Again, the contestant selected "Word Origins," this time for twelve hundred.

"The word for this crime against humanity was coined in the 1940's; it was used in the official indictment of Nazis in 1945."

A different female contestant buzzed in this time. "What is genocide?"

His other self sighed. "JARVIS, change the channel."

Loki lay on his side at his other self's feet, unable to speak or move. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Thori enter the room. He headed for his water bowl, and after quenching his thirst, trotted in Loki's direction. Loki felt a twinge of hope; surely his faithful canine companion wouldn't stand to see his master treated so.

Thori licked him on the nose. He then turned around and trotted back in the direction he came from. Loki tried to call after him. "Mmmmm! Hmmm, mmmhmmm mmm…"

His other self let out an exasperated sigh. "Oh, for the love of—if I release you, do you promise to behave?"

Loki looked up at him, nodding vigorously.

"You're not stupid enough to try to lie to me, are you?"

Loki shook his head equally as vigorously. His other self flicked his wrist upward, and he felt his invisible magic binds dissipate. He pushed himself off the floor. "You have to let me go find the twins."

"I don't have to do anything."

"But if I don't find them and one of them gets hurt, it will be my fault. You said that your interest in me was because I have the potential to be good. How can I be good if I have their blood on my hands?"

"Don't be melodramatic. I'm sure your little friends are at least moderately capable of taking care of themselves."

"But they're alone in a place they don't know."

"Oh, please. You aren't worried about them. You're worried that you're going to get in trouble for losing them."

"That isn't true."

"Oh? If it isn't, prove it."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

His other self shrugged, apparently indifferent.

Loki supposed he had no choice. "JARVIS, call Tony."

"Do I sound like Siri to you?" asked JARVIS.

He rolled his eyes. "JARVIS, please call Tony."

Over JARVIS's speakers, he heard Tony's phone ring. A lead feeling settled in his stomach. After the third ring, Tony picked up. "Hey, kid. Everything okay?"

Loki opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

"Kid?"

He forced himself to speak this time. "I'm really, really, sorry Tony."

"Uh-oh. That doesn't sound good. What's going on?"

"I lost Wanda and Pietro."

"What does that mean?"

"I went to my room to do something and when I came back, they were gone."

"They have to be in the tower somewhere, Lokes. JARVIS wouldn't let them leave."

JARVIS spoke up. "Actually, Sir—"

"Ah, man—J, you're joking right?"

"No, Sir." JARVIS sounded guilty now. As Loki had suspected, the AI might not believe that Tony would delete him, but he still felt a need to please his creator.

Silence emanated from the other end of the line, and Loki was sure he was about to get yelled at; but that wasn't what happened."Thanks for letting me know what's going on. Just stay where you are, and I'm going to be there as soon as I can. Just don't you leave the tower, got it? Don't go looking for them yourself or something."

"Oh—okay, Tony. I promise I won't." Tony really wasn't angry with him?

"I love you, alright? See you in a bit."

"Okay." Loki should have told Tony he loved him back, but again, he found it difficult to speak. Now he felt much guiltier than he had when he thought Tony would be angry. Why couldn't Tony have yelled? Better yet, why couldn't he have just kept better watch over the children in the first place, as he had promised Tony he would? Calling his other self could have waited; technically, he could have done it at any random point the future, so long as he remembered to take care of things at some point before his own death. He wouldn't blame the man if he never trusted him again.

"Are you going to cry again?" asked his other self. "Honestly, of all the timelines I've been to and all the us's I've met, you've got to be—" He didn't get to finish his statement, because Loki overtook him with a surprise attack. "Gah," said other Loki. "What do you think you're doing?"

"It's called a hug," said Loki.

"I know that's what it's called. Why are you hugging me?"

"Because I need a hug, and no one else is here."

"That is not a good reason. I demand that you unhand me at once."

Loki settled into his own lap. "Admit it, you like this too."

"Maybe I do," said his other self. A hand snaked up Loki's shirt, and the pad of his own thumb brushed against his nipple.

Loki pulled back just enough to look himself in the eye. "I know what you're doing, and it won't work. You can't scare me off by pretending to—-"

"How do you know I'm pretending?"

"How do you know I wouldn't be interested if you weren't?" Loki knew he was playing a dangerous game, but he wasn't about to admit defeat.

His other self responded by pushing him off his lap. He put a hand in the center of his chest, and pushed him down, pinning him against into the cushions. He then leaned over and nipped the top of Loki's ear with his teeth, as if to prove he was serious. "Just so you know, you can stop this at any time," he told him, his voice husky. "I don't do this kind of thing unless it's consensual."

Maybe Loki shouldn't have called his other self's bluff to begin with, but now that they were here, the way he saw it, he had two options: he could call off their game of chicken, or he could double down.

He hated to loose, so he chose the latter, reaching for the buckle of his other self's pants. As Loki expected he might, his other self tensed. "What do you think you're doing?"

In response to the question, he began to unbuckle his other self's belt, fumbling for his zipper.

His other self caught his hand. "Okay, that's enough—" He was cut off as suddenly, they were caught in an indoor rainstorm.

Water dripped from his other self's hair and into his mouth. Loki turned his head to spit it out. "JARVIS! What is this?"

"I've taken the liberty of activating the fire sprinklers," JARVIS informed him. "I don't think Sir would approve of—hmm, whatever this is."

"Well, you can turn them off now, JARVIS! Odin's beard—"

The sprinklers turned off, and Loki sat up. His other self stood, attempting to wring water from his shirt. "Well, that was unpleasant."

"Which part of it?" asked Loki. "The part where I almost let you sexually assault me because neither one of us knows when a joke has gone too far, or the deluge?"

"If you don't mind, I would appreciate a towel and some dry clothes."

"Can't you just use magic to dry off? Or summon a towel and some clothes? You seem to be able to do just about anything else you want to with magic."

"I may be immensely powerful beyond your wildest dreams, but sometimes I still prefer to do things the old fashioned way. It isn't good to use magic for everything."

Frigga used to say that, thought Loki. "I guess Tony probably wouldn't mind if you borrowed some of his clothes. He certainly has enough. Just let me dry off and change first, then we can go up to the penthouse."

｀、ヽ｀ヽ｀、ヽ(ノ＞＜)ノ (/o＼*)｀、ヽ｀ヽ｀、ヽ

Loki sat curled into the sofa in the penthouse's sitting area, reading while his other self cleaned himself up in Tony and Pepper's bedroom.

The door to the other self opened, and other Loki stepped out.

Loki looked up from the copy of Vanity Fair he had found on the coffee table, which happened to include a profile of Pepper Potts, Stark Industry's newest CEO. "You changed."

"You're surprised? That is why I went in there."

"I didn't realize you were going to change that much," Loki clarified.

"Stark must be part dwarf," his other self said. "I'm not sure how you expected me to fit into any of his clothes."

His other self did a spin, modeling a green satin nightgown that must have belonged to Pepper.

"Your boobs are a lot bigger than mine," said Loki. "I mean, obviously they're bigger than mine when you're that way and I'm this way, but what I meant was that they're bigger than they are when I'm a girl. Is that natural, or did you use magic to make them look bigger?"

"That's a rude thing to ask."

"I just wanted to know because—-"

"Because you're wondering if yours are ever going to get any bigger?" his other self guessed.

"Well, yes."

His other self adjusted the top of her night gown, attempting to stuff the two over-sized flotation devices back into their slings. "It isn't an illusion, but I might have used magic to enhance them somewhat. A little cosmetic modification isn't a crime, you know."

"Would you mind showing me what they really look like?"

Other Loki gracefully waved a hand in front of herself, and her chest shrank to a more reasonable, yet respectable size.

"I think they look better that way," he told herself.

"They don't hurt my back as much this way, I suppose." Other Lady Loki sat down next to him. Then she sighed, and took hold of his upper arm, dragging him into a hug. "Damn. Much as I hate to admit it, in this form I can't help but look at a smaller me and feel—almost maternal, I suppose."

"Boobs notwithstanding, I'm not that much smaller than you are," Loki pointed out. "You're probably just more in touch with your feelings in this form; that's the way it works for me a lot of the time. It's not that we don't have the same feelings when we're male, but because of Odin, it's hard for us to express them. Maybe you should talk to Doctor Samson when he gets back. He could explain it better."

His other self pet his hair affectionately. "Perhaps I will."

＼＿ﾍ(ﾟeﾟ#)

Author's Note:

My old laptop finally gave it up this week. Luckily, I keep all of my writing backed up, but I did lose a few days this week to getting a new computer and setting it up. That's why this week's chapter is a little short. And maybe a little silly, since I didn't have much time for rewrites.