A/N: Night of the Wolf happens in this chapter...don't ask, I'm insane. Anyway, yeah, we get Loki transforming, and...other stuff...in this chapter. I'm trying not to spoil stuff 'cause I planned out the ending of this last night so...
Disclaimer: Do I even have to put this anymore? Marvel/Disney's. Not mine.
3. Still As The Thoughts Running Through Your Mind
Natasha continued to come in with meals for the next few days. Sometimes their conversations would be held entirely in Russian, but most of the time it was a mix of English and Russian. It was rare that they'd have a conversation entirely in English.
And then, one day, Loki surprised her by standing in his doorway waiting.
Natasha inclined her head. "Loki? What's this about?"
Loki grinned. "I believe I'm ready to come out of my room now."
He wasn't entirely certain of this - after all, tonight would be the first of his three nights as a wolf - but he'd become semi-comfortable talking to Natasha, and he was willing to brave coming out and interacting with the other Avengers.
"О, это потрясающе! Вы знаете, что они просили вас приходить на ужин каждую ночь, верно?" she said excitedly. [Oh, that's amazing! You do know they've asked you to come to dinner every night, right?]
Loki laughed. "Да, я знаю. Я просто не был готов. Я сейчас." [Yeah, I know. I just wasn't ready. I am now.]
"Well then, what are you waiting for? Let's go!" Natasha all but dragged him out of the room. They'd gotten quite close in the few days they'd gotten to know each other. Loki was kind of amazed at how similar they were, and at how quickly Natasha had forgiven him for everything that had happened in New York. He could only hope the others were willing to give him a chance like she had.
The looks on the Avengers' faces when Natasha came in with Loki in tow were so priceless it actually made Loki smirk. Stark's jaw actually dropped; Rogers looked stunned; Barton looked dumbfounded; Banner looked nervous; Thor looked intrigued but unsurprised; and Coulson was there, watching Loki with a look of apprehension.
Loki turned to Natasha and said in Russian, "Боги Асгарда, взгляды на их лицах бесценны!" [Gods of Asgard, the looks on their faces are priceless!]
Natasha nodded. "Да, они. Мне больше нравится выражение лица Клинта." [Yes they are. I like Clint's expression the most though.]
Loki shook his head, grinning as their expressions stayed in place as they heard him speak Russian. "Мой любимый Старк. Я имею в виду, посмотри на него!" [My favorite's Stark's. I mean, look at him!]
Natasha nodded thoughtfully. "Они все довольно забавные." [They're all pretty amusing.]
Loki shrugged. "У вас есть точка там." [You have a point there.]
Natasha looked out over her friends, still sitting shocked. "Должны ли мы вернуться на английский?" she asked Loki. [Should we switch back to English?]
Loki nodded. "Да, мы их достаточно шокировали." [Yeah, we've shocked them enough.]
"На данный момент," Natasha grinned. [For now.]
Loki grinned back.
"Okay, what the hell was that all about?" asked Stark, regaining his voice first.
"Mm, Natasha, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the point of speaking in another language so that anyone listening won't understand what you're saying?" Loki said, grinning slyly at Stark, who glared back.
"Yep, that is the point," Natasha agreed. Barton looked at her like she was insane.
"Tasha," Barton said, "why exactly are you agreeing with him?"
Natasha glared coolly at him. "Because, unlike the rest of you идиоты, I have actually taken time the last few days and gotten to know Loki. He's really not that bad a person."
Barton began to protest again, but Natasha silenced him with a glare. Loki definitely liked this woman - she had just called them all idiots in Russian. "Clint, I know you're still pissed about the mind-control thing, but get. The. Fuck. Over. It. If you had actually bothered to talk to Loki at all, you'd know he regrets almost everything he did during and leading up to the Battle of New York." Natasha glanced at him; Loki nodded at her, telling her it was okay that she was sharing this.
She moved aside to let him step forward and speak. "I've always had a silver tongue," Loki said. "That doesn't mean I always use it. I'll be brief, and I swear to you all, I will not lie.
"Everything about 2012 was pretty much terrible for me. And for all of you. In the end of 2011, I tried to destroy my home planet, Jotunheim. And then I fell off a bridge into an endless Void that I was sure was going to be the end of me. But it wasn't; it led me to the realm of the Chitauri, somewhere so deep in space that you'd never find it on your own. It was there that I received the Scepter and my orders. The plan was formulated as 2012 wore on.
"And then, obviously, I came to Earth, I tried to conquer it, and I failed in all respects. But I do want you all to know that I regret pretty much everything that happened with the Chitauri. Mind-controlling you -" Loki looked to Barton, whose face registered shock - "I perhaps regret that most of all. You did not deserve that. None of you deserved what I did to you. And for that, though it almost pains me to say it because I have rarely ever apologized in my life, I am truly sorry."
Silence followed this as the Avengers stared at him, letting it sink in. Loki shifted; he didn't particularly like this kind of attention. Natasha murmured something quietly in Russian to reassure him: "Все хорошо, Локи." [It's okay, Loki.]
"Я знаю," Loki replied, equally as quietly. [I know.]
Finally Stark spoke. "I think I speak for all of us - except maybe Clint - when I say that we can forgive you. Trusting you is another matter entirely, but I think we can forgive you."
There were murmurs of assent from the rest, except Barton, who still looked like he was processing everything Loki had just told them.
Loki took that in stride. "I don't even trust me, Stark, I can see why you all wouldn't." He wasn't lying - he didn't trust himself, not really. Especially so near his transformation days. The Jotunwolves generally called it the Turning Hours; Loki had never particularly liked that designation, and so tended not to really think of it. When he did, he referred to it as his transformation days, or his Hunt Nights.
Loki shook himself out of his thoughts as Rogers spoke up. "I assume Natasha brought you out here for dinner, right?"
"Yes," Loki said slowly. "Though I came of my own accord."
Loki's eyes flicked to Thor. His expression was one of muted surprise at this news. Loki sighed quietly; he was never going to figure out how his brother's brain worked.
Brother? Loki wondered. When did I start calling him 'brother' in my head again?
"Well, what are you waiting for?" Coulson said. Loki glanced at him in surprise; out of all of them, Coulson and Barton were the ones Loki had least expected to be kind to him. He had mind-controlled Barton and almost killed Coulson, after all. Nevertheless, Coulson continued, "You're just standing there. If you're going to eat with us, then come eat."
Loki raised an eyebrow in surprise. Natasha waved him forward, and he rolled his eyes at her before hesitantly coming farther into the room, into the midst of the Avengers. None of them stopped him, though Banner's expression was still wary. Loki claimed a spot on a couch, the farthest end from everyone else. Natasha sighed, muttered something Loki was too far away to make out under her breath in Russian (most likely calling him an idiot), and crossed the room to sit down next to him. Barton watched her with a disbelieving expression. Natasha merely glared at him.
The silence was deafening. Finally, it was Stark who broke it. "So I was working on the suits last night, and kept swearing at it because it wasn't cooperating, right? And JARVIS went and said, 'Sir, you can't swear at your suits. They don't have feelings.' I glared at the ceiling for five whole minutes."
Everyone laughed, even Loki; the tension was broken. As the evening wore on, Loki found himself having fun. But he knew it couldn't last. Even his friendship with Natasha could not be permanent, he feared. In part because he was a werewolf, a solitary creature, but in part because he could never have something as simple and as foreign as friendship. He'd ruin it in some way or another.
Loki smiled to himself, a little sadly, and glanced at Natasha. She didn't look over. Loki felt something break a little more inside him, and turned his attention back to Stark.
Not noticing that Thor was watching him, and only him.
Everyone was asleep. Loki threw open his window as wide as it would go and glanced down. He was far too many stories off the ground. Loki cursed under his breath. He'd have to climb down about a dozen levels until he could turn into a wolf and survive the rest of the fall. The moonlight seemed to be calling him, and the wolf that lay dormant in Loki yearned to come out.
Not yet, Loki told it. Wait until we're closer to the ground.
The wolf shut up, but Loki could feel it trying to get out nonetheless. He sighed, swung himself out the window, and began to climb.
It wasn't easy. Avengers Tower was made of metal and glass. Not many hand- and footholds were available. Still, Loki managed, having experience climbing unclimbable structures - such as the Asgardian palace. he made it down a few more than a dozen stories before he found a ledge to collapse onto. There he let himself transform, gritting his teeth against the pain. Because the first transformation of the month was always painful, after a whole month of not switching forms. After that it was always easy, but the first time hurt like hell.
He straightened, examining his paws in the moonlight. Still white. That at least hadn't changed - not that it should have. But even as a wolf, Loki felt different - he could feel the effects of the magic-supressing bracelets, sharper now that he was a wolf. He mentally cursed; of course their magic wouldn't have canceled out as a wolf. All they'd done was fade into his fur, not magically disappeared.
He sniffed the air; the scents of the city were overwhelming, and he recoiled from it. He needed to find somewhere he could be in the natural world...
Central Park. Duh. Loki's ear twitched; he shook his fur out, eyed the distance from where he was to the ground, and then jumped.
There was another fundamental difference between most werewolves and Jotunwolves. Most werewolves didn't keep their sentient minds when they transformed; Loki did. He thought some types of Midgardian werewolf did too, but he wasn't sure - Midgard was versatile with their wolves.
Loki hit the ground already running to absorb the impact. If anything broke, it mended in an instant - thank the gods for werewolf speed-healing. Loki just kept running, sticking to the backstreets until he reached Central Park. There he hesitated; there was a group, possibly a pack, of werewolves already there. Nah, Loki thought. I hate interacting with other wolves.
So he ran off again, thinking he'd cross the river into New Jersey and see if there was any woodland he could hunt in. Loki preferred to hunt the first night and get it over with.
He reached New Jersey in a matter of minutes and once mroe marveled at how much faster he was when he was a wolf. He found a decent-sized forest and set about hunting, prowling through the shadows and sniffing about for prey. He found it in the form of a young doe. As much as the part of him that knew he was as close to human as an Asgardian Jotun could get hated this, he also knew it was necessary. He let his wolf instincts take over for the hunt, for the kill, and finished the meal quickly the way he always did, not liking it as much as he should. That was the curse of keeping your sentient mind - it made the hunt that much harder.
Loki prowled through the forest, looking for somewhere he could curl up and sleep. He was exhausted, and the fall and run hadn't been helpful. He knew he'd wake up in time to run back to the Tower - he'd always managed it with the palace in Asgard - but he needed to find a spot first.
He found it pretty deep into the forest. A clearing with a large rock jutting out of the ground for no apparent reason. Closer inspection revealed that the rock was relatively flat on top. Loki sniffed around, making sure he was alone, then bounded onto the rock in a single leap, raising his head to the moon and howling, just because he needed to. He was so busy doing this that he didn't notice the russet-furred she-wolf lingering in the shadows.
The she-wolf studied this newcomer, intrigued. The moonlight illuminated the white fur, blue-tinted on top so it looked like he was made of ice. She could see the gentle gold-green undercurrent of color that rippled along his fur, so subtle that most wouldn't notice, but she did. His shoulders were powerful, and he held himself up like he knew what he was doing. She wondered if he was an alpha, and if so, of what pack, because she'd never seen him around before.
He finished his howl and looked forward again, his ears angling back to their normal position. His tail flicked; she flinched, sure he'd noticed her. But he didn't move, just looked back up at the moon, his nose in the air.
The she-wolf stepped back warily, but stepped on a twig, which cracked under her weight. The alpha(?) whipped his head around, and she hurriedly shrank back into the shadows. She noticed with a jolt that his eyes were a peculiar, piercing shade of emerald green. Those eyes were familiar...but no, there was no way it could be him.
After a few tense moments, the alpha turned around again, circled a few times, and settled down on the rock, his head pillowed on his paws, his eyes turned towards the moon once more. The she-wolf relaxed and circled around right where she was, laying with her eyes on the alpha. There was something familiar about him, something she couldn't quite place. So she settled down to watch him, sure he hadn't noticed her.
Loki had, in fact, noticed the she-wolf, when the twig had given her away. He'd decided to ignore her, though, as he watched her shrink into the shadows of the forest. She could stay and watch him if she wanted; he was just going to sleep. As long as she didn't bother him, he'd be fine.
Loki curled up on the rock with his head on his paws, and closed his eyes. He was outdoors, under the moonlight, and even with a she-wolf watching him, he was content. This was so much better than the trials and challenges and struggle living as an Asgardian gave him. He knew he'd have to return to his life in the morning, but for now, he was perfectly content to curl up and sleep under the stars.
I had to end it somewhere, sorry if that's a little shitty. I hope you liked the chapter, though. Any guesses as to who the russet-furred she-wolf is? Please leave a review with your guesses!