Chapter 35 - Death Cannot Stop True Love

Pepper yawned as she stepped onto the tower's elevator. It was late, but all she needed to do was grab some extra clothes for Tony and all three kids. She would have liked to bring Loki and Wanda back to the tower with her so that they could get some sleep, but trying to convince them to leave the hospital's waiting room while Tony was in surgery and Pietro still hadn't woken up would have been an exercise in futility.

The elevator doors opened out onto the penthouse, and Pepper heard the television. Tony must have left it on, she reasoned. She was nearly to the bedroom when she realized that something wasn't right. As she spun around, she pulled the concealed handgun out of her purse and pointed it at the unfamiliar dark haired woman sitting on her living room sofa watching television. "Who are you, and why are you wearing my robe?"

The woman looked at her, then looked at her pistol without seeming too concerned that it was pointed at her. "We've met before, Ms. Potts. Over the summer, in Malibu."

"I don't remember—" Pepper began, but then she realized that she had met the woman before; she just hadn't been a woman at the time. She relaxed her stance, but didn't put the gun away. "What are you doing here?"

"Rotting my brain on your insipid mortal entertainment. I would have gone back to the TVA, but it occurred to me that there really isn't a reason to go straight back. I can spend as much time as I wish here, and when I do eventually leave this dimension, no one—Sylvie, Mobius, or any of the worker drones—should have noticed. Finally, I can get a little me time, without any inane talk of jet skis, lost childhoods, the timeline this and the timeline that, blah, blah, blah."

Deciding that this Loki was likely no more of a threat than their Loki, she put the gun back in her purse. She had been extremely reluctant when Natasha had first suggested she carry a weapon. All the statistics pointed to those who carried a gun being in more danger of being the victim of gun violence, she had argued, and the most likely thing that would happen would be that someone would steal the gun and turn it on her, or that she would shoot herself accidentally while rummaging for her lipstick. Natasha had argued that with enough training, she would be more deadly to others than to herself, but Pepper wasn't so sure about that. Eventually they had compromised, and she had agreed to carry an unloaded prop gun as a deterrent. "JARVIS, why didn't you warn me that someone was here?"

"You didn't ask," said JARVIS, and this time when she heard the amusement in his voice, she didn't tell herself it was only her imagination.

"From now on, if there are non-tower residents in the residential floors of the tower when I get home, let me know."

"Loki is a resident of the tower," JARVIS pointed out.

"This isn't the same Loki, obviously."

"Their essential biological markers are the same."

"Interesting to know, but I still think you're smart enough to be able to tell the difference. Obviously, this Loki is older."

"We're the same age, actually," said Lady Loki.

"If you say so. Either way, I want you to take my clothes off," said Pepper.

The corner of Lady Loki's mouth quirked upwards. "As you wish, Lady Potts."

A second later, Pepper found herself standing there in her underwear. This Loki really was too much like their Loki, and she should have known better. Feeling exposed, she crossed her arms over her chest and set her mouth in a straight line. "You know that's not what I meant, and after the day I've had, I'm really not in the mood. Now give me my clothes back, or you're going to be in big trouble."

The woman had the nerve to laugh. "I'm going to be in trouble am I—and just what will you do?"

"I'm going to count," said Pepper, because actually, she had no idea yet what she could do to the goddess sitting on her couch. "I expect my clothes to be back by the time I get to three."

Lady Loki's eyebrows drifted towards her hairline.

"One," said Pepper. Loki yawned.

"Two," she said. Loki leaned back and put her feet up on the coffee table. Pepper noted that she was wearing her favorite Saint Laurent faux fur slippers.

"Two and a half," she said. When Loki continued to ignore her she pulled out her phone, went to her contacts, and brought up Frigga's number. She turned the phone where Loki could see it. Her finger hovered over the call button.

Lady Loki's jaw dropped open. "You wouldn't dare."

Pepper pressed the button, and brought the phone up to her ear. As she expected, it went immediately to voice mail, but Lady Loki didn't know that.

"Alright, alright—you can have your stupid clothes back!"

Pepper smiled and pressed the button to end the call. As soon as she did, Lady Loki waved her hand through the air and once again, Pepper was fully clothed. She frowned down at herself. "Actually, can you put me in what you're wearing? I think I'd like to get some rest before I go back to the hospital." Luckily, she trusted Happy with the kids completely. At the very least, they would be just as safe with him as they would be with her.

Lady Loki rolled her eyes before making another lazy gesture. They switched clothes, and Pepper sighed in relief to no longer be wearing what Tony had called her "most dangerous heels." She collapsed on the couch next to her unexpected guest. "You know, maybe you could take Tony and the kids their clothes, since you're here?"

"You're asking me to do you a favor? What is wrong with people in this time line?"

"I'm just asking you to take a few things to the hospital. I'm not asking for one of your kidneys. I'm not even asking you to stay with the kids, because Happy is still there. Besides, can't you teleport or something? It seems like it wouldn't be that much of an effort for you."

"I can't teleport, actually, but the effort required isn't the problem."

"Then what is?"

"That you trust me to do anything for you at all."

Pepper turned her head towards the other woman and arched an eyebrow at her. "Is there a reason I shouldn't?"

"I threw your fiancé out of a window."

"Actually, I think that was our Loki—"

"Semantics," Loki mumbled. "I threw a Man of Iron out a window, whether or not it was the one from this timeline."

"And if you're anything like our Loki, it was because you were being manipulated. If no one's told you this yet, I'm telling you now—what happened during the invasion wasn't your fault."

"Don't be a fool." Lady Loki snorted. "Whether or not I was in control of myself at the time, nothing I did was anything I wouldn't have done. I've never cared at all about any of you mortals or your mayfly existences."

"I don't believe you."

"Oh, now you don't believe me, when I'm telling the truth—"

"Maybe you think that's the truth, but I still don't believe it."

"For Norns' sake, why?"

"Because for the most part, you're the same as our Loki. And when you say you don't care, there's this look on your face; like you hate yourself for saying it."

"Whether or not I hate myself seems beside the point. I'm fully capable of directing my hatred in both inward and outward directions."

Pepper slid closer to her on the couch. Feeling bold, she put her head on her shoulder and put her hand over Loki's. "Admit it, you're just a big old softy—"

"You're so tired you're delirious."

"Maybe," Pepper admitted, with a yawn. "So could you please take the kids and Tony some clothes? I've spent all day trying to convince the United States government that our Loki is my intern, and that Sif and the Warriors Three are her cos-player friends."

"And how did that go?"

"Not great. They want to talk to Tony; and to Thor—and to Loki, but I'm going to try to keep that from happening."

"You don't trust my younger, cuter self not to reveal themself?"

Actually, it had occurred to her that under the pressure, Loki might say or do something to reveal themself, but that wasn't the main issue. "Being interrogated by a governmental committee would probably be distressing for them. I want to protect our Loki from that if at all possible."

Loki sighed. "It isn't fair."

"What isn't?"

"No one's ever wished to protect me from anything."

Pepper doubted that was true. "What about Frigga and Thor?"

Loki shrugged. "Perhaps. They weren't too good at it, though. Not that I ever made it easy for them."

"I'm sorry," said Pepper, patting Loki's knee. She yawned. "Anyway, JARVIS will tell you where to find the kids' clothes."

(・・、)ヾ(^^ )

"Your brother is waking up. Do you want to see him now?"

The nurse didn't need to repeat herself. Loki was left wondering if Wanda could teleport or if she'd suddenly been blessed with her brother's speed. She had been sitting next to him on the floor one second, and gone the next.

"Hey, hold on—" Happy ran after her for a few steps, then he stopped and turned around. "Come on, get up. I'm supposed to watch both of you."

Loki headed down the hall to Pietro's room at a casual pace. When he got there, he stood in front of the door.

"Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to go in?" asked his temporary guardian.

"I think I'd rather stay out here," said Loki, struck with a sudden worry over how Pietro would react to his new appearance. While he had never appreciated Pietro's pining over him before, it would be rather a hit to his ego if Pietro fell out of love.

Happy got straight to the point. "What? You're worried because he hasn't seen you blue?"

"That is rather the problem," said Loki. "What if he's disgusted?"

"Or maybe he won't be. You never know, blue aliens might be a real turn on for him. Now are you going to hang around in the hall all night stressing about it, or are you going to go in?"

Maybe Happy was right; he couldn't be sure how Pietro would react until they saw one another. So far, the mortals around him hadn't paid much attention to the unusual pigmentation of his skin.

When Loki entered the room, Wanda was already curled against her brother in his bed, bawling into the front of his hospital gown. Pietro still looked a little drowsy; he played with his sister's hair absentmindedly, and when he saw Loki, he gave her a goofy grin. "The nurse said I was technically dead for three minutes. You know, they say that death cannot stop true love; it can only delay it for a while."

"Glad to know that technically being dead hasn't changed you at all."

"Your daughter says hello."

Loki blinked in surprise; he hadn't expected the sudden confirmation that he wasn't insane for believing that the entire incident with Hela had happened. "You met her, did you?"

"She is a beautiful woman, just like her father."

"Pietro, you haven't noticed anything different about me, by any chance?" Perhaps being technically dead had rendered him colorblind.

"You mean the fact that you are blue now?" Pietro waggled his eyebrows. "I think it's sexy."

Loki gave him a tight lipped smile. "Right, of course you do."

Pietro frowned. "You do not like the way you look?"

"How could I? I look like a monster."

Pietro shook his head. "You look like you, just with a few differences. Your skin is the most beautiful shade of the sky, and your eyes are red—"

"Like blood."

"No, like the color of red carnations. They were my mother's favorite flower."

Loki could feel himself blushing. He had never been certain of how to take complements, having not received many.

-{—❃

"So how do we get out of here?" Leonard asked Betty.

Betty looked at him as if he'd just grown a second head. "If I knew that, I would have left by now."

"Okay, second question. You don't happen to know where my cellphone is? I was supposed to call Tony if I ran into trouble, and I think we might be past that point."

"As far as I know, you didn't have it on you when you were brought down here. It doesn't matter, since there isn't any cellphone service down here."

"You'd be surprised how good the service is on these Stark phones now. I'm pretty sure Tony's planning on expanding the network to Asgard next."

"Asgard?"

"Let's just say a lot has happened since you've been down here. We can explain later."

"There's a land line in the General's office."

"Great—I don't actually know Tony's number, though."

"I know it," said Bruce. "I made sure to memorize it in case I ended up somewhere without my phone."

"Okay, let's go then."

Betty looked at him again with raised eyebrows. "If it was possible to just walk into my dad's office and use the phone, don't you think I would have done that by now?"

Leonard blinked at her. "Yeah, I guess you would have—so what's standing in our way? I haven't actually seen anyone else down here, other than the people who are in this room."

"That's because there isn't anyone else around right now. Holidays, you know? But there is a lock on the door."

"Isn't this a military base? How is everyone on vacation at the same time—okay, well anyway, that doesn't sound impossible."

"It's a two-factor biometric lock. It only opens with a retina scan and a fingerprint."

"That's sounding a little more impossible."

"The door is six-inch-thick steel."

"Isn't that overkill for an office? What does your dad have in there?"

Betty shrugged. "A phone. It's the only link to the outside world in this place. There's no Internet either, by the way. I've had access to research databases so that I can do my work, but that's it."

"You've been completely isolated?" That really wasn't healthy. "Have you even had anything to do, other than your work?"

"Well, there's a few copies of National Geographic from about ten years ago in the staff lounge. There's also a room with a movie projector. There are two films; one of them is a workplace safety video, and the other is Gigli."

"So was that really as bad as everyone said it was?" asked Karla, possibly just to remind everyone she was still there.

"I wouldn't know," said Betty. "I never got desperate enough to watch it. But did you know that every year, over three million accidents occur in the workplace?"

。。。

"So this is it, huh?"

Betty nodded. "But again, I'm not sure what you're going to do. I'm not even sure Hulk could get through that door."

"I'm definitely not ready to go again, by the way," said Bruce. "I kind of have a headache, actually."

"I'm sorry," said Betty. "I really didn't know how forcing the transformation was going to affect you, but I couldn't see another way to get you out of the cell. Again, it only opens with my father's biometric data."

Karla smiled at them sardonically. "Aren't you all sweet? So concerned for one another's feelings."

"Normal people generally are," Leonard told her. He was really starting to look forward to handing her off to the police. He didn't think she belonged in jail—she'd be a lot better off in a mental hospital, and he would testify to that in court. But he also didn't want her within one hundred yards of Bruce, Betty, or anyone she could easily manipulate anytime soon.

So then again, maybe a mental hospital wouldn't be the best place for her either—but that would be up to a judge to decide, and not up to him.

"Alright, everyone stand back," said Leonard.

"Why? Do you have some sort of explosives?" asked Bruce.

"Not exactly." Leonard backed up as far as he could, so that his back was to the wall facing the door.

"Uh, Leonard," he heard Betty say, as he rushed shoulder first into the door—and bounced off of it, landing on his back on the floor.

"Ow," he said.

Karla cackled gleefully.

Bruce leaned over him. "Leonard, what was that?"

"I thought that maybe I could knock it down—"

"Sorry, but I think the serum I gave you wore off," said Betty. "You didn't notice? Your hair isn't green anymore."

"No, I can't see my own hair, and we haven't passed any mirrors. You should have told me! I don't get it, though, until I ran into that door, I still felt great—"

"It was probably just the built up adrenaline."

Karla cackled again.

"Oh, shut up Karla." He pulled Karla's gun out of the waistband of his pants to examine it.

"Going to make me shut up, are you?"

"It's tempting, but I'm not going to shoot you. I was just thinking—maybe I could shoot the lock off or something? It always works in movies."

Bruce arched an eyebrow at him. "Do you even know how to use that?"

"How hard can it be? You take the safety off and pull the trigger." Leonard inspected the gun, looking for something that could conceivably be the safety.

Karla suddenly decided to be helpful. "It doesn't have a safety."

"What kind of gun doesn't have a safety?" Leonard wandered aloud, and pointed it at the door.

"Leonard, maybe you shouldn't—" Bruce was cut off by a loud bang and a explosion of debris as the door and half the wall came down.

"Holy crap," said Leonard, staring at the weapon he was still holding. "This thing doesn't have a safety, and I HAD IT STUCK DOWN THE FRONT OF MY PANTS."

Once again, Karla laughed at him, and this time, Betty joined her, though she covered her mouth with her hand and was obviously trying to contain it. Bruce just stood there, as stunned as he was. Finally, Leonard turned towards Karla. "Where the hell did you get this?"

"So that's what it does—I've never actually fired it before. You know, ever since aliens attacked New York, you can find the most interesting things on the black market."

Betty looked from Leonard to Bruce uneasily. "Aliens?"

"We've really got a lot to catch you up on," Leonard told her. He began picking his way through the rubble, looking for the phone Betty had told them about.

Betty and Bruce had followed him. "There," said Betty, and a moment later, the three of them converged on the spot she had pointed to.

Bruce picked up the handset and dialed the number before handing it to Leonard. Leonard put it up to his ear. After three rings, it went to Tony's voice mail. "He's not answering," said Leonard.

"If you dial 'zero' you can talk to JARVIS," Bruce told him.

Leonard took the handset away from his ear and punched the 'zero' key, then held it back up to his ear.

"This is JARVIS. How may I help you, Doctor Samson?"

"How did you know it was me?"

"Call it a lucky guess. I gather you are trying to reach Sir for back up."

"Well, yes—where is he?"

"In surgery, I'm afraid."

"Surgery? JARVIS, what happened?"

"It seems he insisted on carrying a three-hundred-pound blue alien across Central Park and gave himself a hernia. So I'm afraid that Sir won't be able to come to your aid, as he is currently under sedation. Shall I connect you with Captain Rogers instead?"

"I'm not sure how he's going to help us. Have he and the others even made it to wherever they were going yet? If they'd flown commercial, they would still be on the plane." It was probably telling that they had just skimmed right past the whole "three-hundred-pound blue alien" thing as if that was a completely normal way to injure yourself.

"The Quinjet is not a commercial airliner," said JARVIS. "They arrived at their destination around the same time you arrived in Virginia earlier today. With any luck, they should just be wrapping up their mission. Just stay on the line, and I'll connect you."

"Okay, but I hope you're right and we're not going to be interrupting him in the middle of something important."

Leonard waited for JARVIS to put him through. A moment later, he listened to another phone ring three times, but this one didn't go to voice mail. "Tony?"

"No, it's Leonard. Tony's in the hospital."

"Again? Can't he go one mission without getting injured?"

"Yeah, actually—he was supposed to be waiting a few miles away in case I needed backup, but I'm not sure what happened. Apparently, he went back to New York. Anyway, I found Bruce and Betty, but now we're all trapped in this bunker. So how are things at your end?"

"Er—so good news is, we found the scepter."

"I'm guessing there's bad news?"

"Zora disappeared with it, and we're pretty sure she took it to Doom."

"So what you're saying is that Victor von Doom, an insane dictator whose favorite pastime is making robotic clones of himself, is now in possession of a powerful magical artifact capable of controlling minds."

"Yep."

( う-´)づ︻╦̵̵💥|

Loki strode into the room, and dumped the paper sack she was holding out onto the foot of the hospital bed.

Her younger self and the two mortal children stared at the heap of clothing that had tumbled out of the sack.

"Who are you?" asked the little red haired witch.

Her brother turned to young Loki. "Is this your mother?"

"No," said Loki, at the exact moment his younger self said, "Yes." Loki scowled at him. "Just take your clothing and get changed. I've brought you both night things and 'street clothes' as the mortals say."

"None of these are my clothes," said the witch girl, picking through the pile. She picked up what appeared to be a black piece of string, though Loki suspected it to be some sort of mortal undergarment invented by men for the purpose of torturing women. "I think these are Natasha's, actually."

"And Clint's," said young Loki, holding up a gray t-shirt emblazoned with the words "PROPERTY OF SHIELD."

"I think these are Steve's," said the boy, holding up a pair of high waisted, tan-colored trousers.

Loki shrugged; Stark's snotty AI must have directed her to the wrong floor. "Oh well. Mortal 'casual' clothing is all essentially the same anyway."

Her younger self shrugged off the jacket he had on, and pulled the SHIELD t-shirt over his head. "You haven't said anything, yet."

"About what?"

"My appearance, obviously. You don't think it's shameful?"

Loki sighed. This wasn't a conversation she was prepared to have with herself, because it wasn't even one she had had with—well, herself, yet. "I suppose you are a bit on the scrawny side. Perhaps you should try to get more protein in your diet."

"Don't play stupid. You know what I'm talking about."

"If you don't like that form, change back."

"I can't. I'm stuck this way, otherwise I would have turned back by now."

"You're probably over-thinking it. At the risk of sounding cliché, all you have to do is be yourself."

Young Loki stared at their own hands with an expression of distaste. "But this is me. This is what I truly am."

"You're Loki. You get to be whatever you want to be. If anything, limiting yourself to the form you were born with would be a sin against your own nature." Loki held out her hand and conjured a small projection of herself. With a flick of her wrist, it changed to a projection of their male form, and with another, of a Loki who was a frost giant. Then she flicked through several other projections, each showing one of their variants: old Loki, fox Loki, faun Loki, Hulk Loki, zombie Loki, alligator Loki—she stopped on a projection of Sylvie. It had only been a few hours since she had seen her, but Loki might be starting to miss her a little.

"All those are us?"

"You have the power to be whatever you wish, so you might as well be whatever feels right. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks of it." Look at me, thought Loki, sharing wisdom with a youngling. If Frigga could have seen it, she might have been proud for once.

Young Loki frowned. "Now I feel even more confused. Gender is one thing, but race-fluidity isn't a thing, even on Midgard."

The child couldn't just be grateful for the wisdom that had been shared with him, could he? "Race is mostly a social construction anyway."

"Maybe it is when you're talking about Asgardians and Vanir or mortals with different skin tones, but not when you're talking about Frost Giants and Asgardians. They aren't even the same species. An alligator isn't even a mammal. Also, how did we become a zombie?"

"Obviously, we were bitten by a zombie."

"That's not a choice, then."

"Who said anything about choice? Although if you intentionally get bitten by a zombie—"

"Who intentionally gets bitten by a zombie?"

"Like I said before, you're over thinking this. Loki's are Loki's. We probably ought to qualify as our own species. But there will be plenty of time for you to have an identity crisis tomorrow. Do you have any idea what time it is? All three of you children should be in bed at this hour."

"I am in a bed," the boy pointed out.

"I meant that good little children should be asleep at this hour."

"I couldn't possibly sleep right now," said his younger self. "Besides, where are Wanda and I supposed to sleep?"

With a sweep of her arm a full sized four poster bed, complete with an emerald green crushed velvet canopy and matching bedding made from the finest Egyptian cotton, appeared in the empty space between the door and the hospital bed.

Her younger self stared at it with their mouth gaping open. "How did you do that? Do you have the Reality Stone?"

"I have at least twenty," Loki told him. "But I've told you before that I don't use any of those damned stones. I just pulled that out of my dimensional storage."

"Why would you carry around something that large?"

"Because pocket dimensions offer an almost unlimited amount of storage space, and you never know when you might need to sleep in a space that lacks adequate furnishing."

"I'm still not tired," her younger self objected.

"What do you want me to do, sing you a lullaby?"

Her young, obnoxious self grinned at her. "If you actually sing, I'll go to sleep."

"Oh, for crying out—fine. Put your night things on, first."

"Clint's night things, you mean."

"Whatever. Get ready for bed, and once you're in bed, I'll sing."

Loki watched as her younger self took his pants off and put on a pair of plaid flannel pajama bottoms that must have belonged to Barton. The witch girl held up a silky black negligee and looked at it uncertainly. "I think I would be too cold in this."

"You could wear Steve's pajamas," her brother said. "I'm probably not supposed to take my hospital gown off yet, and I'm not sure how I could with these tubes and things coming out of me." The boy tugged at one such tube that was coming out of the crook of his arm. Younger Loki snatched his wrist, pursing his lips at him disapprovingly.

The little red haired girl picked up a pair of flannel pajamas that were sure to be much too large for her. She took them into the bathroom to change. A few moments later, she came back, the waistband twisted around her hand as she struggled to keep them up. Before she lost them completely, she climbed under the covers of Loki's bed.

Young Loki got in on the other side. "Could you tell us a bedtime story, too?"

"Don't push it," Loki growled. When the children had settled in, she sat down at the foot of the bed, cleared her throat, and began to sing to the tune of "Brahm's Lullaby:"

Go to sleep,

Little brats,

Or I'll murder you surely—

Go to sleep,

Ri-ight now,

Else you won't see the light of day—

Rudely, her younger self interrupted her. "No, I want a real lullaby."

"Fine," Loki snapped. "Tell you what—I'll sing you a real lullaby. An old Midgardian folk song from Scandinavia. Would that make you happy?" Her younger self nodded as Loki took a deep breath and began to sing softly, beginning in a sweet falsetto:

A man walked into a timber wood,

Hey farah, the timber wood,

There a crow sat in a tree and crowed,

Hey farah, farah, farah—

That crow wants to kill me, the man did think,

Hey farah, the man did think,

So he shot the crow dead and she fell from the tree,

Hey farah, farah, farah—

He took the crow back to the barn,

Hey farah, back to the barn,

He skinned her and he cut her up,

Hey farah, farah, farah—

From the pelt, he made some shoes,

Hey farah, he made some shoes,

Twenty pairs of shoes he made,

Hey farah, farah, farah—

In barrels he preserved the meat,

Hey farah, he preserved the meat,

The tongue he saved to eat for Yule,

Hey farah, farah, farah—

The intestines made twelve pairs of rope,

Hey farah, twelve pairs of rope,

From the talons, a pair of pitchforks he made,

Hey farah, farah, farah—

From the beak he made a fishing boat,

Hey farah, a fishing boat,

The heart he used as a fishing hook,

Hey farah, farah, farah—

The eyes of the crow he made into glass,

Hey farah, made into glass,

From the neck he made an altar piece,

Hey farah, farah, farah—

And he who cannot use a crow like this,

Hey farah, a crow like this,

Is not worthy of shooting a crow,

Hey farah, farah, far-aah!

This time, her younger self waited patiently for her to finish before lodging his complaint. "What kind of lullaby was that?" he pouted. "It's going to be your fault if we all have nightmares now."

Loki smiled. She stood and leaned over her younger self, allowing herself to fuss with the covers a bit before giving him a peck on the forehead. The two Midgardian children had already fallen asleep, and now her younger self yawned and closed his eyes as well.

＼＿ﾍ(•̃͡•̃͡

Author's Note:

The song that Lady Loki sings is based on a real Scandinavian folk song called "Kråkevisa." I looked at a few different translations, then wrote my own version, changing the words a bit to make the English sound more lyrical. If you search for it on YouTube, you can find different versions of it, including one with a creepy animation to accompany it.