Chapter 31 - On a Scale of One to Ten

"Loki Odinson, do you have any idea what it did to me when I heard you had been killed? And mind you, this is far from the first time I have received such news." It wasn't even the second. Loki had been assumed dead on a few occasions even before he had fallen from the Bifrost—never for as long, but each time had felt like a knife through her heart. The loss of a child wasn't a kind of pain you became accustomed to.

"What it did to you? I was the one who was dead! And do you truly expect me to believe you would have missed me? You clearly don't even want to be around me, which is why you disappeared without a word as soon as we got to Midgard."

Frigga hated that Loki had felt abandoned, but she wished he would grow up enough to realize that everything was not always about him. "I was only gone for a few days at a time, and I did not disappear. I told you I was going before I left; if you wanted to know where, you might have asked."

"You didn't tell me you were going."

"Yes I did, Loki. I told you and asked you to inform the others that I would be away. The first time was when I had you send an email for me to Doctor Drumm."

Loki scowled at her. "Who?"

Now that Frigga thought about it, perhaps she shouldn't have relied on Loki to remember something that had happened when he had been half asleep and had gone back to sleep moments afterward. But the second time— "The second time was shortly after I'd returned from my first journey. As I recall, you didn't act as if you'd missed me at all. All you could do was complain about how you had been banned from using your electronics. But I did tell you I was going again, Loki. I believe your response was, 'Whatever.'"

"I don't remember that either!"

"If that is the case, Loki, I imagine it is because you were not listening. Though I suppose that between you, your brother, and your father, I have grown accustomed to not being listened to."

"He isn't my father. How many times do I have to say it? You're the one who isn't listening. And I know you didn't tell me you were going the last time you left, because I was a pangolin!"

"I asked Agent Barton to let everyone know of my departure. But forgive me your majesty, for I did not realize I required your permission—"

"I think it might be a good idea to hold off on having this conversation," Doctor Samson interrupted. "Emotions are running high right now, and you're both just going to end up saying things you'll regret later."

Frigga knew she had already said quite a bit she would regret and wished the doctor had spoken up a little earlier.

An uncomfortable silence settled over the room, but after a moment, Bruce stepped forward. "There really isn't a protocol for when someone inexplicably comes back from the dead, but I think I should at least examine Loki to make sure all of his injuries have healed. If the rest of you could give us some privacy, that would be great."

Samson nodded. "That should give everyone time to cool down a little. Loki can come up to my office once you're done."

ヽ(*`︵´)ノ ◟(`ﮧ´ ◟ )

"I assure you, Doctor Banner, I will be fine. Or I will be, as soon as someone gives me something else to wear. What is this that I'm wearing?" Whatever it was appeared to be made out of pale blue paper and wrapped around to tie in the back. It didn't provide much warmth, and he felt horribly exposed.

"It's a disposable hospital gown."

Loki frowned down at himself. "I'm not sure I want to ask this, but—"

"I'm the one who dressed you. I'm a doctor; it's nothing I haven't seen before. Also, you were dead."

"But why remove my clothing?"

"Because they were covered in blood and debris. Natasha put some make-up on you too, to cover up the bruising to your face. We were trying to make you look a little better before your family saw you."

"Perhaps you shouldn't have. Perhaps you should have let them see exactly what they allowed to become of me."

"Loki, stop it. You just sound childish and vindictive." Bruce grimaced no sooner than the words were out of his mouth, and began back-pedaling. "I'm sorry, that's not what I meant to say. It's just that what happened was upsetting for all of us. Deeply, deeply upsetting, and I'm so sorry that I left you in that restroom. Everything is my fault."

"It isn't," Loki argued, taking pity on him. "You couldn't have known what would happen. And it is my fault, for turning myself mortal just to spite Thor in the first place. Anyway, everything is fine now. Hela won't allow me to die."

"You really didn't have to make some sort of deal with her?"

Loki scoffed. "I wouldn't make that kind of deal, I'm not stupid. Do you know how often deals like that have worked out well for the people who made them? My guess would be zero times. Hela didn't even give me a choice of whether or not I wanted to come back."

"And if she had?"

Loki stared at him, wondering what he was getting at, until it occurred to him that this was the man's roundabout way of asking if Loki was still suicidal. Well, that was annoying. Loki didn't want to dignify the question with an answer, but if he didn't, Bruce would draw his own conclusions, and they would likely be the wrong ones; then he'd be on some sort of misguided suicide watch. "I don't want to die, Bruce. When I let myself fall, it was because I was frightened of how much worse things could get if I kept living." He would never admit that to anyone else if he could help it, but somehow, he knew Bruce wouldn't judge him for it. "But then I did keep living, and things got worse than I ever imagined they could. I can't be frightened anymore, because I can't be frightened of things that have already happened."

Bruce nodded. He put his hand on Loki's shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Loki thought the man would leave the display of affection at that, but instead, he boldly pulled Loki into a hug. "I'm glad you're back, Loki, and I'm glad you want to be here. If that changes, you have to tell one of us, okay?"

Loki nodded into Bruce's shoulder in a silent promise. He'd been rendered speechless, still hardly able to believe that anyone other than Frigga or Thor cared for him.

"I still need to examine you. I don't even know how many of your bones were broken this morning. Your ribcage had been crushed, and your lungs had to have been punctured, which might have been the cause of your death—then again, it could have been the blunt force head trauma."

Loki rolled his eyes, even though Bruce couldn't see it with his head still resting on his shoulder. "Obviously, my ribcage can't still be broken, or being squeezed like this would hurt a lot more than it does."

Bruce loosened his hold on him and took a step backward, looking him up and down once more. "You really feel okay?" His eyebrows knit together, and he pursed his lips. Something about the expression demanded Loki tell the truth.

The truth was, Loki still had the lingering feeling that he'd been hit over the head with Mjolnir. He wanted to lie and say he was fine, but ugh, that look. Loki squirmed uncomfortably for a moment, then shook his head.

"What hurts?"

"Everything."

"Can you give me a number from one to ten?"

"What?"

"Your pain level."

Oh. "What you must understand, Doctor Banner, is that I've experienced quite a wide range of pain. A seven, perhaps? If a one was getting an injection and ten was being struck by lightning."

"You've been electrocuted before?"

Loki arched an eyebrow at the man.

"Oh," he said, sounding a bit sheepish. "But—it wasn't on purpose, was it?"

Loki shrugged. "It usually wasn't."

Doctor Banner made a choking sound. "Usually?"

Loki had stopped counting how many times he had stabbed Thor, but he knew it was in excess of five hundred. "When you're immortal, that kind of thing is just considered horseplay between siblings."

"You just said it was extremely painful."

"Oh, it is. Especially when parts of your body catch on fire, and you're left with severe burns."

Doctor Banner closed his eyes and began muttering to himself. He seemed to be bargaining with his other self. "No one is currently being hurt. Loki needs us to be me right now; throwing Thor through the wall can wait." Doctor Banner's eyes popped open. "Loki, how does being Hulk-smashed rate on that scale?"

Loki wasn't sure if he ought to answer that, but something in Bruce's face said that he needed to know. "Perhaps an eight?"

Instead of turning into his other self, as Loki thought he might, Doctor Banner let out the breath he had been holding onto and seemed to deflate. "Loki, I am so sorry. Wait— you're in almost as much pain now as when the other guy repeatedly smashed you into the floor? That isn't good, Loki. I don't care if you think you can power through it, I'm going to give you something for the pain."

ϟ

ヽ(・口・)ノ

"I cannot go back to the way things were," Frigga told them, staring down at her folded hands in her lap.

"Oh, come off it, Madame Pontellier." Loki rolled his eyes. "I've been imprisoned, and before that you all thought I was dead for a year. Forgive me for thinking you might like to spend a few minutes of your precious time with me this week."

Thor swore under his breath. He had only left his younger brother in Stark's care for a couple of weeks, and he was already starting to sound like him.

Frigga pursed her lips together and gave her youngest what Thor liked to think of as the Look that Could Stop a Stampeding Herd of Bilgesnipe. "I have been searching for a way to fix the messyou made for yourself, Loki."

This time, the Look seemed to have no effect on Loki whatsoever. "I never asked you to. Don't pretend that it was all for me. If it was, you would have stayed here and tried to help me yourself, instead of sicking some druid charlatan on me."

"That 'druid charlatan' was the Sorcerer Supreme."

"How do we know that she really was who she claimed to be, Mother? She turned me into a pangolin."

"What in all nine realms has gone on since I left you two here?" Thor demanded, though it might as well have been a rhetorical question, as much attention as anyone had been paying him. Thor suspected that even Odin wasn't as far out of the loop as him. Odin had his ravens, and Thor wouldn't be surprised to learn he'd been using them to spy on his wife, and maybe on Loki too, if they could see into Avengers Tower.

Not that Odin had been participating in anything that was going on, so much as he was sitting there with his arms crossed, looking as if he were above it all.

"Alright, let's all try to take a step back," Doctor Samson said, clearing his throat. When all the heads in the room swiveled towards him, he seemed almost alarmed, like he hadn't actually expected them to heed him. "Loki, surely you can sympathize a little with your mother. The last couple of years have been difficult for her as well."

"I'm not unsympathetic. Believe me, I can't help but sympathize with anyone who has been married to that for over a thousand years." Loki pointed to Odin.

Thor gasped—did his brother still have a death wish?

"No one speaks to me like that, you insolent child," growled Odin.

"I wasn't speaking to you, I was speaking of you," Loki pointed out.

"Loki, do not speak to—" Frigga began.

"He's not my father."

"You didn't let me finish, Loki. I was going to tell you not to speak to your king that way."

"He's not that either. I'm defecting."

"You cannot defect after you have already committed treason!" bellowed Odin.

As the back and forth between his little brother and his Father continued with a few heated interjections from Frigga, Thor shrank back into the couch, wishing he could disappear between the cushions like a stray coin. When had his family become this? They had been happy once, hadn't they?

Frigga had taken them into her garden for picnics and taught them which herbs could be used to make medicine, and which ones could be used to poison one's enemies. Then he and Loki would play down by the pond, as Mother sat watching—and doing nothing to stop them when their play turned into a fight, Thor pushed Loki into the pond, and Loki turned him into a frog in return. Come to think of it, she had drunk quite a lot of wine on those picnics.

Odin had told them stories, as they had hung on his every word. Most were about his battles against the frost giants—which now seemed in bad taste, to say the least. And he hadn't said much to discourage Thor when he'd said that one day, he'd slaughter all the frost giants, as if they were beasts to be hunted down—in front of his younger sibling, who would one day find out he had been born to them.

On second thought, maybe their childhood hadn't been as idyllic as Thor remembered it. Just what was wrong with their parents, anyway?

The sound of laughter pulled Thor back from the thoughts he had retreated into. A hysterical sort of laughter, Thor realized, which came from Doctor Samson. "You know, I've never had to say this in over twenty years of practice, but I don't think I can help you people." He cast the notepad he'd been scratching on off to the side. "The only advice I can give you is to cut ties with one another, because the relationships I'm seeing here are nothing but toxic."

Loki nodded in agreement, but Thor couldn't accept the doctor's diagnosis. "But we love each other. Surely that counts for something."

"We don't love each other, Thor, though I can see how you might make that mistake," said Loki. "Everyone loves you. They don't love me nearly as much. And I am beginning to think that Mother and Odin haven't even liked each other in a while."

"Do not presume to speak for your mother and I." This time, Odin hadn't bellowed. Instead, he had gone back to sounding tired.

"Loki, I love you more than my own life." Frigga turned to her husband; her jaw squared as she glared at him. "But when it comes to the two of us, Loki isn't entirely wrong. There is part of me that still loves you, but liking is not the same."

"Loki, please," Thor begged. "I love you."

"I know you do, and I—well, I said everyone loved you, didn't I?"

Hearing those words shocked Thor to his core. He never thought he would hear Loki ever admit again that he still loved him. The last time he had heard those words were before his failed coronation, and afterwards he hadn't been certain how sincere they had been.

Odin glared at Loki. "If you love your brother, why did you try to kill him?"

Loki rolled his eyes. "You'll have to be more specific. The two of us have tried to kill each other quite a bit over the years."

"I am referring to when your brother was mortal."

"Oh, that. It's not like I didn't know he would come back."

"How could you possibly have known?"

"Oh, please. We all know you wouldn't have let Thor die. Besides, all it took was for me to try to lift Mjolnir myself for me to work out the curse you'd put on it. To break it, all he needed was an opportunity to prove his 'worthiness' with some big act of self-sacrifice."

"Are you saying you set me up to be the hero that day?" asked Thor.

"Every story needs a hero and a villain." Loki leaned back, putting his feet up on Samson's coffee table and smiling smugly. "Seriously Thor, why would I have bothered sending the Destroyer to kill you otherwise? You were already banished, and if I hadn't done what I had, you might still be running around New Mexico. Sorry about that, actually. I suppose you might not have minded playing house with Jane a bit longer." He wiggled his eyebrows at Thor suggestively and made a rude gesture. Thor slapped his hands down, but Loki only giggled.

"But why bring me back to Asgard?"

"I meant it when I told you I never wanted the throne."

"Why did you tell me Father was dead, though?"

Loki shrugged. "I hurt and wanted you to hurt as well? I'm not proud of it."

"And what you tried to do to Jotunheim?" Odin demanded. "How will you explain that away?"

Loki tilted his head to the side, as if considering his answer. "Tricking Laufey into coming to Asgard so I could kill him seemed like a good way to end the war at the time. But using the Bifrost as a weapon wasn't something I had planned. Doctor Samson thinks I might have been having a psychotic break."

"How very convenient."

"You would call me a liar?"

"STOP," Thor bellowed in his best impression of Odin. "This back and forth between you accomplishes nothing. Perhaps the doctor is right, you two shouldn't even attempt speaking to one another! Not when you've both determined not to listen to a single thing the other says."

"Perhaps I feel justified in not listening to him anymore, Thor." Loki brushed tears out of his eyes with the back of his hand, though Thor couldn't be certain they were real—his brother had developed the ability to make himself cry by the time he had been out of diapers. "Not when everything he has ever said to me has been either a lie or a condemnation."

Thor decided that it didn't matter if the tears were real or not. Even when he made himself cry, Thor suspected it was because he needed reassurance and didn't know a better way to ask for it. He put an arm around his brother's shoulders and drew him close, so that Loki was nearly sitting in his lap.

"I believe I need only point to what happened when the truth came out to explain why the lies you were told were necessary. And condemnation is what you will get when it is what you deserve, Loki. Know this, if your mother chooses not to return to Asgard, there will be nothing to protect you from justice being carried out."

Thor felt a lump catch in his throat. He tightened his hold on his brother, as if there was anything he'd be able to do to protect him if their father decided to strike him dead right then and there.

"No," Frigga said with a sort of grim determination. "I refuse to be manipulated in this manner. No longer will you threaten my child in order to force my hand."

Odin scowled at her. "This is not a threat, wife. Loki is no longer mortal, which means I can no longer allow him to roam free. He will return to Asgard, and if you do not return as well, I will have no choice but to give in to the demands of the people, who insist that he pay for his crimes with blood."

"Who are these people who demand the death of their prince?"

"Lady Sif appealed to me personally," Odin told her. "She even volunteered to act as executioner."

Thor felt his jaw drop open. "Sif did?"

"Are you truly surprised, Thor?" asked Loki. "She has hated me ever since I cut her hair."

"She cannot still hate you for that. It was five hundred years ago. You were too young to know better!"

"I knew better, Thor, I just did it anyway. And Sif is the kind of person who keeps grudges, if you haven't noticed. I'm honestly surprised she has not attempted to murder me before now, but I suppose she was waiting for an opportunity to do it legally."

Thor shook his head. "I will not allow my brother to be killed. Such a thing would not be justice. Not when we know now that Loki was not of his own mind on Midgard, nor was he in his right mind when he attempted to destroy Jotunheim."

"And yet, thanks to your brother's sabotage of your coronation, your opinion on this does not matter, because you are not yet king," said Odin.

"But Sif's opinion holds weight?" Thor asked. "Am I not also one of your people, Father? Besides, I have the truth on my side!"

"You will find, Thor, that truth is highly subjective."

"Are you serious? That's the most idiotic thing I've ever—" Thor's own eyes bulged as he realized what he was saying, and to whom he was saying it to.

Loki chuckled softly beside him. "It doesn't matter. I'm not going back." Loki let go of Thor and stood, his hands limed with a green ðumbla's ample udders, it was finally going to come to blows between his father and brother; and then there would be no turning back, because then there would be no denying that Loki would have committed treason. Thor reached for his brother's wrist, so he could grab him and hold him back, but before he could, the green light swept over Loki, and then faded. "There, it's done. I'm mortal again, and therefore below Asgard's notice. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go talk to Stark and find out how serious he was about adopting me." Loki turned on his heel and strode towards the door, his head held high. Once he was gone, no one spoke for a long time.

( ╬◣ 益-) (;`O´)o 。゚(TヮT)゚。 o(-`д´- 。) ( ゜-゜;;)

In the elevator, Loki breathed a sigh of relief. What he had just done had been a complete bluff. Somehow, none of them had realized that he had still been mortal to begin with. He didn't even have all of his magic back yet, because he had agreed with Hela that it would be too much of a risk. It had taken some effort for his little show of "special effects," as Stark would have called it. He would be lucky if he got away with it. Frigga wouldn't have been fooled, but hopefully Odin had been too angry to notice. Though now that he thought of it, had it even been necessary to pretend to turn himself mortal again, when he had been mortal to begin with? It had made for a dramatic exit, anyway.

And even after all that had happened, Loki still felt oddly relaxed and uninhibited. It was probably the Vicodin Bruce had given him. Bruce didn't think he had any major injuries left. Nothing life threatening, anyway, but his entire body still felt like one big bruise—or it had, until the pain medication kicked in. Loki had asked Bruce why, if he had something more effective than Ibuprofen, he had never been offered it before. Bruce had told him that the "prescription" medication was highly addictive and could have terrible side effects if abused. He wasn't going to be on it for any longer than necessary, and Bruce would dole it out to him one dose at a time to make sure he didn't accidentally overdose.

The elevator arrived in the common room, where the others were sitting around drinking, including Bruce, who didn't drink most of the time. Loki looked at the label on the bottle in front of them. It was the Dalmore 62, the bottle that Tony had promised to Clint if he let Doctor Samson psychoanalyze him. Apparently, Clint had decided to share it. "Can I have some of that?" asked Loki.

"No," said Bruce immediately.

"Ah, come on, Brucie. Loki didn't get killed just because we let her drink mimosas, and after whatever just went on up in Doc's office, he probably needs a little—"

"I gave him Vicodin earlier."

"Oh. In that case, your Auntie Brucinda is right, you can absolutely not have any of this."

"Auntie Brucinda?" Bruce repeated.

Loki sat down on the couch between them. "Tony, is it alright if I stay here for the foreseeable future?"

"Yeah, sure kid. Guess family counseling didn't go so well?"

"Odin wants me to return to Asgard so he can let Thor's ex-girlfriend execute me."

"It doesn't matter to him that you weren't actually behind the invasion?"

"According to him, truth is subjective."

"Sounds like a few politicians I know."

"Odin is nothing if not the ultimate politician," Loki agreed. "He said it was the will of the people that I die."

"The people who obviously don't have all the facts, since Odin didn't even have them until today."

"Odin has already spoken on the matter of my guilt. Any facts that come to light after Odin has spoken are irrelevant, because Odin All-Father is infallible."

Loki reached for Tony's glass, and Tony swatted his hand away. "I might be irresponsible enough to let you drink a pitcher of mimosas by yourself. I might also be irresponsible enough to lose you in the middle of a super villain attack. But I'm not enough of a disaster to let you mix pain killers and alcohol. Go get a soda out of the fridge, Bambi."

"You ought to have water, actually," Bruce fretted. "You know what, just sit here, I'll get it."

Loki wanted to tell Bruce not to fuss, but he knew the man still felt guilty for failing to protect him that morning. Besides, being fussed over wasn't so bad. Wasn't it okay to let himself be fussed over a little, after having been so recently deceased? If you didn't count Thor, the last person who had fussed over him had likely been the last nursemaid he'd had. For all Frigga's claims to martyrdom, she had never been that kind of mother.

When he had first learned of his true heritage, he had thought he had known why. But now that he looked back on it with a clear mind, Frigga hadn't fretted over Thor either. She had always wanted them to stand on their own, and when she had told Loki that he could be anything he wanted to be, he had believed her. Out of all their family, Thor was the nurturer. It occurred to Loki that perhaps, between the two of them, he had been the lucky one, because he had grown up with at least one person who doted on him. Where had Thor even learned such a thing from? Maybe he hadn't learned it. Maybe it was genetic, and he had gotten his disposition from whoever his real mother was. He'd heard a rumor once that Thor was Odin's bastard, and that his real mother might not even be Asgardian. But he'd always assumed it to be another mean-spirited lie, like the one concerning him and Sleipnir's father. And there was no way that after everything that had happened, Odin and Frigga would still be keeping something like that from Thor—

"What are you laughing at?" asked Tony.

Had he laughed aloud? "It's nothing. I was just thinking —huh, I can't remember."

Tony nodded into his whiskey. "Vicodin is fun, isn't it?"

"Tony," hissed Bruce, as he leaned over the back of the couch and handed Loki a glass of ice water.

The elevator door opened with a ding, and Thor stumbled out, looking a bit shell shocked, or like he'd been hollowed out. He made his way to the couch and flopped down where Bruce had been sitting earlier. Seeing that he had been displaced, Bruce returned to the kitchen; hopefully his intention was to look for something they could have for an early dinner, because Loki hadn't eaten since breakfast, and having been dead since then, he had worked up quite the appetite.

"That bad?" Tony asked Thor.

"I told Father that I wasn't returning either. Not until Loki is welcome back, without threat of execution."

"Dumbass." Loki rolled his eyes. "You can't do that, you're next in line for the throne."

"If you and Mother can defect, so can I," Thor told him. "Besides, I'm not going to leave you again when you're vulnerable."

"I'm not vulnerable."

"You were dead this morning."

"I came back."

"I'm not having this argument with you. Besides, didn't you imply that the scepter you brought here may have fallen into the wrong hands? If that is the case, I suspect I might be needed here in the near future."

"Wait, what's this about the scepter?" asked Steve. "Loki said something before about SHIELD not being what we thought it was."

Apparently, Vicodin loosened Loki's tongue in the same way liquor did. Otherwise, he might not have said, "Oh, right. SHIELD—it's full of HYDRA sleeper agents."

"But HYDRA was wiped out over seventy years ago."

Loki made a lazy chopping motion with his hand. "Cut off one head and another will take its place—isn't that their motto?"

"Oh shit," said Tony. "Kid, there anything else you'd like to tell us while you're drugged up?"

"You mean like how HYDRA had your parents assassinated?"

"What?" The reaction was far smaller than what one might expect. For once, Tony didn't seem to know what to say.

"Or how that Betty woman's father has her locked in an underground bunker to keep Bruce away from her?"

A crash came from the direction of the kitchen. Bruce seemed to have knocked something over.

The Black Widow drowned what was left of her obscenely expensive whiskey in one gulp. "Alright, I've got a few things to look into, and I'm not particularly interested in hearing any spoilers for my own life. Coming, Clint?"

He eyed the rest of his own drink, and then put it down on the table. "Yeah, sure. Pretty sure this stuff is corked, anyway."

"I'm coming with you," said Steve.

Loki tried to swipe Clint's glass, but Tony swatted the back of his hand and grabbed the glass himself, handing it to Thor instead. Thor arched an eyebrow at Tony, and he explained. "Your brother is on pain meds. That's why he's all uninhibited right now. They don't mix well with booze."

Thor nodded. "That might explain a few things about that discussion with our parents." He drained the rest of Clint's glass before making a face. "You aren't missing anything, Brother. I believe this is, as Clint said, corked."

(* ̄ー ̄)ノ (。・ - ・。) ヽ( ̄_ ̄*);;日

"You wouldn't really have Loki executed, would you?"

Odin puffed out his chest. "You think that the All-Father of Asgard makes idle threats?"

"Yes, I do." Leonard had almost panicked and run from his own office when he'd realized he'd been left alone with Odin, who quite frankly terrified him. But this might be the only time he got to talk to the man alone, so he decided he'd better rise to the occasion. "I think you were doing exactly what Frigga accused you of. You were trying to manipulate her."

"I was attempting to motivate her to return to Asgard. Neither she nor Loki belong in Midgard."

"Are you worried for them, or for us?" Leonard smiled as though the question were a joke, but he would have liked to know the answer. It would be easy to take the things Odin did and said at face value, and assume that he was a sadistic, megalomaniacal sociopath with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. But from a distance, Loki looked a hell of a lot like a megalomaniacal sociopath too, and Leonard knew better than to jump to conclusions.

Odin relaxed into his chair, dropping the facade he wore so well. "Can you blame me for worrying? I know Frigga is restless. I can see now that I married her too young. Perhaps I should never have married her at all; she was a wild thing when I met her, and wild things can never truly be tamed. If you take a wolf from the wild, the only way to 'tame' it is to convince it is not a wolf at all, but a dog. But inevitably, one day, it will hear another wolf howling in the distance, and remember that it is a wolf.

"Loki I have never understood. When I took him in my arms the first time, he took the form of an Asgardian infant, and I was fooled into thinking that I could raise him to be one of us. But though he may look like an Asgardian, he will never be one. I fear now that bringing him home with me at all was a mistake. Like the mistake Loki made in bringing home a young dragon—dragons may be noble, beautiful creatures; but they are not meant to live in palaces."

"You can't seriously be comparing both your wife and your adopted child to animals."

Odin stared him down with his one good eye. "If you would, try not to willfully misinterpret me. I spoke metaphorically; I simply meant that both Frigga and Loki are uncontrollable forces, and do not fit easily into Asgardian society. I did not mean that they were less-than." Odin snorted. "Also, you have obviously never met a dragon, or an Asgardian wolf. If you ever do, I would advise you not to address them as animals either."

Leonard didn't think it was likely he'd ever come face to face with a dragon, and he wasn't sure he wanted to. "But that's the thing. You can't control other people. They're just going to resent you for trying."

"I am a king. If I cannot control my own family, how can I expect to keep my subjects under control?"

"Look, I don't know anything about kingship, but I do know that this is the kind of thing that happens in dysfunctional families. People try to control their spouse or their children—or their parents, for that matter—and when they can't, they feel guilt and shame, like they've failed them. Because most of the time, the reason they're trying to control them is that they want what's best for them. They don't trust the people they love to make the right decisions and do what's best for themselves."

"And should I trust Loki to 'do what is best for himself?'"

"To an extent, you're going to have to trust him, or you're just going to drive him further away from you. Loki is young and still needs a lot of guidance, but if you try to take away all of his decisions, you're going to make him resent you. He's also not going to learn how to make good decisions on his own. You can't lock him away in a cell again, even if you think it might be safer for him."

"You believe that I would imprison Loki for his own safety?"

"I can't see any other reason you would want to lock him up again, when you know he's innocent."

"Innocent is one way to characterize it, I suppose." Odin wasn't looking him in the eye, though. He also hadn't denied outright that Leonard was on to something.

"The isolation isn't good for his mental health. And keeping those bright lights on all the time in your prisons pretty much amounts to psychological torture. Loki still has serious sleep problems thanks to that."

"The lights—? I never thought about them. But it is Loki who designed the prison; he was also the one that suggested that magic users be kept in isolation. It seemed less cruel than the old ways, at least. In my father's days, they used to cut off a sorcerer's hands, or cut out an enchantress's tongue, to keep them from ever using their magic again."

Leonard felt his stomach tie itself into a knot. At least Loki hadn't been permanently maimed. "It doesn't matter whose idea it was, or how much worse things were in the past. It just needs to change. There has to be a better way."

Odin nodded. "I will consult with my advisors."

Overall, this discussion was going better than Leonard thought it would. Even though he had balked earlier at Leonard's involvement, now Odin had deigned to treat him almost as an equal. Leonard had already begun to suspect that Odin wasn't an intentionally cruel person. Maybe it shouldn't be surprising that he could be reasonable, so long as you caught him in the right mood.

"What do you believe I should do then?" asked Odin. "I am an old man, and have little time left. I would have my queen at my side once more, and I fear what should happen if Thor is serious about abdicating his title as crown prince. But Loki cannot return unless he returns to a cell, or else to confinement in the palace's royal quarters. He has made many enemies in Asgard, and it would not be safe for him."

Leonard wasn't sure what to say; it wasn't completely safe for Loki on Earth either, because he'd made a lot of enemies there. And somewhere out in space, there was a genocidal warlord he'd gotten on the wrong side of. That might come back to haunt them all eventually. But as long as Loki was on Earth, he could leave the tower in his female form without being recognized. More importantly, as long as Loki was on Earth, Leonard could continue to help him. They'd been making a lot of progress in therapy, and he'd hate to see that go to waste.

He wasn't worried about his own position; he was pretty sure he could write an entire book based on just Clint, Natasha, and Tony's case studies. He imagined that Pepper might benefit from talking to someone as well; she had a stressful job and being Tony's significant other couldn't always be easy either. Not that he was worried about their relationship. Tony and Pepper's body language around each other told him they were infatuated with one another; they always sat angled towards one another, they found little excuses to touch one another, they even mirrored one another's movements—not in a weird way, but if they were eating dinner together, they'd take a drink at the same time. Leonard wished he had something like that with someone. He wasn't even sure he'd had that with Betty; maybe it was because she had still been in love with Bruce. He couldn't even blame her for that, because as Tony had pointed out, Bruce was a "totally-likable guy."

"Well, what would you advise?" Odin repeated. "I am eager to hear your mortal wisdom."

Leonard wasn't sure now if Odin really wanted his advice, or he was only being patronizing, but he would give it to him anyway. "You can't force Frigga or Thor to go back. And if what you're telling me is true, Loki is probably better off here."

Odin nodded. "I suppose that allowing him to stay might be a temporary solution. To the Aesir, banishment is considered a fate worse than death, so his detractors in Asgard ought to be more than satisfied. But what will happen to Loki when all of you are gone?"

"Gone?"

"Need I remind you that Loki might outlive you all by four thousand years or more? That little trick of pretending to turn himself mortal didn't fool me. Even if he were mortal, I suspect he would find a way to turn himself back eventually."

Leonard did some quick math in his head. Physiologically, Steve was the youngest resident of the tower. Natasha wasn't much older, and women usually lived longer than men. If either of them made it to their nineties (and given their line of work, that was a big if), they were talking about another seventy years. But maybe by that time, Loki would be a little better equipped to cope on his own. Another half century or so of therapy might do wonders. And maybe— "Maybe by that time, things will have blown over a little in Asgard."

"I doubt it. Asgardians have long memories, especially when it comes to grudges. Sif has held the same grudge against Loki for half a millenia."

Leonard shook his head. "I don't understand that. He was a child, and all he did was cut her hair."

"Shorn hair is a mark of shame for a woman in Asgardian society. It's the symbol of a fallen woman."

"But did Loki even understand that?"

Odin nodded. "It was no harmless prank. He meant to punish her for usurping Thor's attentions and admitted as much. I believe the words 'shameless harlot' were used."

"What did you do when you found out what Loki had done?" As soon as the words had come out of his mouth, a cold dread settled in Leonard's already knotted stomach. He had witnessed the verbal and emotional abuse that characterized the man's relationship with both of his children, but he had never been able to ask Loki if Odin had been physically abusive, because bringing up Odin at all tended to make Loki shut down. Thor hadn't thought so, but it was possible that Thor didn't know. Frigga had said she would have never allowed such a thing, but it was possible she'd been too ashamed to admit that she hadn't been able to protect him. There was also the possibility that what constituted 'abuse' in Leonard's mind might not register as abuse for either of them, or for Odin or Loki, for that matter.

"It wasn't necessary for me to do anything. Sif was capable of defending her own honor, and she did."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that Sif had already given Loki quite the thrashing by the time I heard any of it," said Odin. "He had reaped the natural consequences of his actions; there was no call for me to add to them."

"You're saying that she beat up a child—your child—and you were okay with it?"

"Sif was still a girl herself. In Asgard, we generally allow our children to work things out amongst themselves. What better way for them to learn to be self-sufficient? And Sif also reaped the consequences of her actions; for when Thor found out what she had done to his younger sibling, he was none too happy with her."

Leonard tried to remind himself that there was such a thing as cultural relativism, and that he shouldn't judge Odin too harshly for raising his children in the only way he knew. "You know, there's a book you ought to read. It's called Lord of the Flies."

Odin nodded. "I shall check to see if we have a copy in the Halls of All Knowing."

Leonard rubbed his temples, trying to ease the headache that had only been getting worse since that morning. "I really think Loki would be better off here. I think the reason you have difficulty understanding him is that he's highly sensitive. Somewhere between fifteen to twenty percent of Earth's population are born highly sensitive, and they have it difficult enough. I'm not sure how Loki survived as long as he did in Asgard, because I'm starting to suspect it's not a genetic trait that's found at all in the Asgardian population. Like you said, he's a dragon that doesn't belong in a palace." Or more like a mischievous, easily overstimulated kitten that didn't belong in a pack of rabid dogs. "Maybe it wouldn't be a permanent solution for Loki, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it. Tony and Pepper might have kids someday. Even if they don't, there will probably be someone who can be there for him when the rest of us are gone. And Frigga and Thor will still be around. Even if they go back to Asgard, they can always come back to visit."

"It is decided then." Odin stood and strolled leisurely towards the elevator, hands clasped behind his back.

Wait, what was decided? Leonard nearly leapt up to try to stop Odin him from leaving, but the man had just agreed to the course of action he'd suggested; he probably shouldn't press his luck. Then again, why did he feel like he'd just gotten played? Maybe Loki wasn't the only "trickster god" in the family.

╮ (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) ╭

Author's Note:

I didn't want to leave Odin as a caricature, but that definitely doesn't mean you have to like him. You don't have to like Frigga either, for that matter. I just write this thing, I won't tell you how to feel about it.

This chapter got so long that I almost split it into two. But I didn't want to do that when I'm trying to wrap this up, and I didn't feel like there was a good place to cut it in half.

The final chapter will be posted Tuesday, and then the "summer special" will be posted Friday the 13th of August. So, Friday the 13th—easy to remember, right?