#21
Loki blinked and found himself lying in a dark room with floor-to-ceiling-windows that revealed nothing but the smudgy gray of a gloomy night outside. For a moment, he was disoriented, as the voices of the Infinity Stones he had encountered in this outlandish dream conversation were still echoing through his sleep-drugged head, whispering of Frigga's love, Odin's deceptions and Asgard's creation and stirring up the single memory of Yggdrasil standing tall in the Great Hall, its branches sparkling with the Odinforce. Ultimate power and, along with it, mastery of time, reality, space, mind, and soul—mastery of all six Infinity Stones. The allfather built the Realm Eternal with all its technological marvels on their magic, creating a beacon of hope that perched atop the universe for an inconceivably long time, he thought, a little disheartened by the revelation. And what did we do? We annihilated it and let all of the Stones fall into the hands of Thanos.
Why are you glowing?
Loki sat up quickly and the motion sent a sharp pain shooting into his neck. His eyes swept the room and when they had finally adjusted to the darkness, he spotted Thor, who was slumping in a chair by the wall across from his bed, his chin resting on his chest, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. "Brother?" Loki asked but there was no response except for a soft snoring noise. Then, he remembered that it had been around midday when his conscious mind had passed into dream. He moaned softly and whispered to himself, "Gods, for how long have I been—"
"Almost fourteen hours," interrupted a mechanical voice from somewhere inside the poorly illuminated room. "It is now nine o' clock in the evening, Eastern Standard Time."
Eastern St—what? Loki craned his neck until his vertebrae creaked and felt for the mattress beneath him in the dark until his fingers identified a chunk of ice where a pillow should have been. For a moment, he was stunned, unable to decide whether he should feel grateful or offended. They brought you back to Headquarters and put you on ice like a norndammed specimen. "Stark?" Loki growled quietly. He realized that the room temperature too was pleasantly chilly and moved towards grateful. You are Jotun. They are doing you a favor.
"I am not Mr. Stark," the disembodied voice replied. "My name is Friday but I will immediately notify Mr. Stark that you are awake."
Great, Loki thought. He swung himself out of bed and inspected the room, which was empty except for the bed, the chair and a few cabinets. When the stupor of sleep began to wear off, the more significant revelations of the dream wobbled back into his mind. The Infinity Stones were going to destroy themselves because Thanos had betrayed their magic by lying about what it was that he had most desired when he had snapped his fingers to decimate half of all life in the universe. They needed help. The universe—and all life still left within it—needed help. The help of a fallen god who did not have the mental resilience to keep his own demons at bay. You need to absorb our energy and restore it in the waking world. Ha, what a monumental joke. This must have been just a dream after all. The Infinity Stones could not have really said those things to him, could they? Or maybe it was all true and Loki was just afraid that it was because of how much effort he would have to put into redeeming himself while he had absolutely no certainty that Midgard and the Avengers would ever forgive him.
Always so perceptive, Frigga had told him shortly before her death. About everyone but yourself.
No more of that, Loki declared in a moment of sudden, inexplicable clarity. This time, I am going to make you proud, Mother. He walked over to the chair and jiggled Thor's shoulders. "Wake up, brother!"
Tony Stark's voice reached his ears through some invisible transmission system. "Loki? Thor? Are you okay up there?"
"Yes," Loki replied, marveling for a second how that could actually be the truth. The presence of all six Infinity Stones inside his mind should have depleted him and yet here he was, feeling more energized that he had when he had lost consciousness on the ice floe.
"Is he sleeping?" asked Stark. "Really?"
Loki glanced upwards. "Wait, are you watching us?"
"Of course we are," Stark replied casually. "You are kind of a safety hazard."
So, you agree that he is a hazard, the mercilessly unsympathetic voice of the Soul Stone clattered through his head. "Listen to me, Stark," Loki snarled as he reflexively flexed his hand muscles, bracing himself for casting a mind bolt. "If you think that I am in the mood—"
"Brother," Thor mumbled drowsily. "Don't. It's alright."
"Is that a Gods thing?" Stark asked grimly. "Keeping your eyes on people while they're closed?"
Thor yawned as grandly as a lion. "It's alright. Nothing happened." He turned to Loki. "You're okay, right?"
"Yes," Loki growled, enraged by their distrust. He knew it was a mere safety measure—and by the fallen Real Eternal, they had every right to be suspicious of his allegiance—but it enraged him nonetheless. He raised his clenched fist and felt the sparks of his magic crackle against his skin.
"Loki, put your hand down," ordered Thor. "We were just worried that Thanos might be inside your head again when you wake up; that it might have been him wielding the Infinity Stones when they sent some kind of message into your mind."
Loki breathed out impatiently when he realized that he could not blame them for this line of thought when it had been his first conclusion as well.
"Might have?" Stark repeated. "That sounds as if you're quite sure grape-face isn't in his head."
Grape-face? Loki repeated silently before he said, "He is not."
"Prove it," said another voice that Loki could not identify before it broke off again.
Loki tried to ignore the fact that the Avengers probably sat assembled somewhere inside this building, watching him on some kind of screen the same way he had watched them toy with the Mind Stone through astral projection, completely reversing their positions of power. The dark voice stirred ever so slightly but Loki fought it back with the words of the Mind Stone. More than anything, you want to belong. Stop being your own worst enemy. Embrace this chance.
"I suppose you will find it difficult to imagine this," he began softly, "but the Mind Stone told me that you created some sort of vessel that you reckoned might be able to harness its power." He tried to suppress a smile when he heard them gasp.
"But … how does," began a female voice.
"How does the Mind Stone know this?" Loki finished for his disembodied interlocutor. "Well, she said she saw it in the Iron Man's eyes. I suppose this must have been on the ice after I first felt their presence in my head."
This explanation stirred up a murmur of voices talking across each other. "I did think that, yeah," Stark said eventually. "When I saw the Power Stone wounds, I thought 'What if he can kick-start our Mind Stone?'"
"What do you mean your Mind Stone?" Loki asked incredulously but Stark paid him no attention. "That's actually kinda creepy."
"Isn't it?" mocked Clint Barton and Loki's heart sank when he heard the archer's voice.
They built a vessel for me. Apparently, they did more than that, Loki thought. "Is that proof enough?"
"No," replied the female voice he identified as that of the Black Widow. "If Thanos was the one wielding the stones and used them to deceive you, he would know that."
"Listen to me," Loki interrupted her and glanced at Thor, who was biting his lip in uneasy anticipation. "I know you do not trust me, and that you have absolutely no reason to, but the Stones showed me things, told me things, that Thanos would never want me to know." Hold yourself ready and make haste, Loki! "And I swear I will tell you everything that you want to know about how we can put that vessel for the Mind Stone you built to use if you let me talk to you in a constellation in which the distribution of power is less obviously to my disadvantage."
Thor gave a confirming nod. "This is my brother talking."
The voice who had spoken first asked "Everything?" and Loki figured it might belong to Steve Rogers.
"Everything," Loki promised. Well, obviously not everything you want to know. Only what you need to know. There was a moment of silence as the Avengers probably communicated with each other nonverbally.
"Alright," Tony Stark said eventually. "By the way, there's a bathroom next door, in case you want to freshen up first."
Loki could almost hear the engineer's smirk. "Excuse me?"
"I'm just saying because you look, you know, rather terrible," Stark explained. "And I'm not referring to the fact that you're blue."
He glanced at Thor, who shrugged and mumbled, "You look kind of worn out, yeah. A quick shower wouldn't hurt, I suppose."
Loki looked down at himself and found that he was still topless, with a mane of filthy-looking, knotted curls that almost reached down to the bottom of his ribcage. The sight made Loki recall the raccoon's words—Did you practice that in front of a mirror?—and he realized with a sudden dismaying clarity that he had not looked in a mirror once since Thor had freed him from weeks of Hela's excruciating torture, which had been, what, two whole days ago? Not to mention that he had spent the first night since his return to Midgard struggling through a feverish torture dream and the second enslaved to a dreamscape conjured up by the same powerful magic that had brought the entire universe into being. At least, the power stone wounds had dissipated. "Do you have some sort of surveillance in there as well?" Loki asked grimly.
"We'll trust you this far," Stark conceded. "Plus, I don't think anyone wants to see you naked."
Loki ignored the jibe and walked over to the bathroom. The Mind Stone had urged him to make haste but, surely, a quick shower would not result in the immediate extinction of what was left of the universe. He hesitantly grabbed the door handle and pushed down softly, feeling his brother's gaze on his back. The bathroom was small and as sparsely furnished as the room he had slept in. There was a white toilet bowl, a glass-walled shower stall, and a white lavatory cabinet with a mirror above it and a set of toiletries spread out across its surface. A set of towels was dangling from a rack mounted to the granite tiles. He wondered briefly if Tony Stark had arranged this for him but realized immediately that it hardly mattered. You are stalling, Loki admonished himself and shut the door behind him.
He took a deep breath before he faced the mirror; and shrank back in horror. Even though he should not have been surprised—he'd had enough time to grow accustomed to the sapphire blue of his skin on his hands and torso after all—his reflection still repulsed him to the core. On top of being Jotun blue with unruly black hair, he was grotesquely gaunt—you are completely starved out; your jawline looks like blades under your skin—his eyes were pale red where they should have been white and his irises glinted in a demonic red the color of freshly drawn blood. Loki tumbled backwards, instinctively shapeshifting into his Asgardian form and finally succeeding. Gone were the blue skin, the unruly hair and the red, monstrous eyes. He was looking into his own face again at last—his smooth, pale-skinned face with his sparkling green eyes framed by his shiny, slicked-back black hair—and breathed out in relief.
It is too late, sneered the dark voice in a singsong. They all saw you for the monster you truly are.
"Stop this nonsense," Loki hissed quietly as he thought of his baby-self that he had seen in the Reality Stone's projection and tried to make himself remember how Frigga had cradled him to her chest with that soft appreciative glow in her eyes, determined to love him despite his dark origin. "I am through with you. I am not a monster."
No? Then why are you quivering? Why are you afraid of your own reflection? The dark voice laughed hysterically. Why did you long for me when you were faced with the Infinity Stones' judgment? Why am I back here if you don't need me anymore?
Loki studied his delicate Asgardian features in the mirror—the texture of the skin, the thin lips, the high cheekbones—and suddenly sensed in the core of his existence that no matter how desirable his Aesir appearance might be, it was naught but a lie devised by Odin himself to accomplish a purpose that was still obscure. And worse than that, it was the leverage the dark voice had over him. If he truly wanted to be rid of it, he could no longer cling to lies. Well, not to this particular lie, anyway.
"Oh, I do need you," Loki conceded softly, "but you are a comfort I can no longer afford."
Finally, after all those years, the dark voice appeared to be agitated; maybe even threatened. What is that supposed to mean?
Loki drew a sharp breath and lifted the shapeshifting spell. "It means that I need to stop lying to myself," he whispered as he forced himself to look deeply into his own fiercely gleaming Frost Giant eyes. "You tried to make me hate Thor because you knew hatred would be easier for me to bear than having to live with the fear that he might reject me for who I am. You convinced me to lash out and hurt them all before they would get the chance of hurting me first. You tried to make me feel powerful whenever I felt helpless, powerless." Loki smiled at his disheveled reflection. "It is so blatantly obvious that I find it difficult to believe it took me so long to figure it out," he said in astonishment. "But I cannot hide from that fear, that pain any longer. Don't you understand? There really is nowhere left to hide."
The dark voice growled like a beaten dog and then lapsed into silence.
Loki smiled a smile of victory as he struggled out of his pants before he stepped into the shower, turned on the cold water and tested if it was going to freeze upon his touch. When it did not, he let it beat onto his skin. He would have loved to stay under the soothing cold water forever, washing away the grime of death, dreams and ruin in its chilling fingers, but there was a war to be fought and this time, he was quite determined to try out the other side. The side that was bound to be showered with praise and recognition once the war was won. And be it only to spite the dark voice and prove it wrong; to make it realize that he could earn their forgiveness if he played by their rules.
Loki stepped out of the shower, wrapped his body up in the towel and set to the task of forcing the hairbrush through the entangled mess on his head. Since he found no clothes except for a charcoal bathrobe when he was done with his hair, he slid back into the pants he had dropped on the floor and conjured up an illusion of a black shirt before he opened the door and braced himself to face the assembled Avengers.
"Who were you talking to in there?" asked Thor as he pushed himself off the chair and eyed him suspiciously.
"Myself," Loki murmured.
Thor frowned. "You sure? It sounded—"
"Yes, I am sure," Loki cut him off. "Surer than ever. Let us just go and get this over with. We don't have much time."
Thor seemed to reconsider but eventually, he nodded and led him out of the room.
Knowing that none of the Avengers was going to be anything but loath to align themselves with him, Loki felt his entire body tense with reluctance as he willed his feet to follow Thor down the stairs and tried to brace himself for the imminent rejection. The room Thor led him to was much larger than Loki had expected. It hosted a kitchenette with marble countertops and a seating area that opened into some kind of open space laboratory, in which people he did not recognize were working on the machines the mortals called computers.
"We're here," announced Thor, unnecessarily. Loki drew in a sharp breath and greeted them in a voice that did not carry the way he would have wanted it to. Now, now, said his God of Mischief voice. This is about the worst time to lose your nerves. Let me handle this.
The Avengers were scattered on lounge chairs and regular chairs around a large table that was cluttered with bottles, glasses, books, papers, technological gadgets and horridly smelling boxes made of cardboard and plastic. Loki's chest tightened when he spotted Captain America, Black Widow and Hawkeye, who had last seen him when he had just been vanquished and subdued, more for emphasis than out of necessity, with a muzzle by his mighty golden brother. They were sitting on chairs with their legs spread apart, elbows resting on their knees, emitting a reluctance that was almost palpable. Bruce's posture was a little more relaxed but Loki still saw caution in his gaze and remembered that the scientist had witnessed the mayhem that his taking of the Tesseract had unleashed upon the Asgardians first hand.
The Asgardians. He had thought of his home numerous times in the past few days but never of its people and it wasn't until now when he recalled the attack on the ship that Loki's brain finally grasped the gravity of his actions. He gulped. "Where are our people, Thor? Are they all … How many have survived?"
His brother's features darkened with guilt and pain. "Too few. But those who have are out doing …" He glanced at the others for help. "What's it called, again?"
"Humanitarian Aid," said Tony Stark, who was the only member of the original team that did not look overly tense as he was sprawling unarmored on a lounge chair with a glass of whiskey in his hand. "You will see by daylight tomorrow how devastating the Snap hit here. It's nothing compared to what you saw in Norway. There are billions of people out there who lost their families, their houses, their everything. So much was destroyed when planes fell from the sky and trains derailed," Stark mumbled, his face a grimace of pain; ineffable pain. His eyes were the eyes of a man who had suffered unspeakable loss and spent every waking minute in its crippling shadow. The circles under his eyes were of a dark blue and his cheeks seemed almost hollow. "My friend Rhodey is coordinating one of the emergency aid programs."
"Our people wanted to help. They are out there with the rest of the healing stones," Thor added. The rest of Asgard's magic. "Korg and Miek, too, in case you were wondering."
Loki gave a slow nod—no he hadn't, really—and quickly studied the rest of the group. Valkyrie was sitting next to Pepper and Rocket, who was shoveling food from one of the boxes into his snout with his paws. Nebula was pacing the room impatiently. Behind her, Loki spotted a dark-skinned, young female with braided hair rolled into two buns on the top of her head and a fiercely intelligent glow in her eyes, who was studying a chunk of ice on a glass table that seemed to be connected to the screen above it. Even though they did not look poised to attack per se, Loki found to his dismay that their superior number and their overall rather unwelcoming expressions were disconcerting him a little after all.
"Anyways, where did you get this shirt?" Stark continued.
The question took Loki by complete surprise. "It's not a real shirt," he replied as he silently dwelled on the engineer's reasoning. "It's a glamour."
"A glamour?"
"An illusion," Loki explained as he lifted the spell around the cuffs in a shimmering emerald glow and realized too late that bluntly admitting to the fact that his appearance was a deception would probably not help him gain their trust.
The Black Widow wasted no time to call attention to this. "So, you're saying we don't even know if you actually look like this right now. That's reassuring, really."
Loki smirked apologetically and restored the glamour. "The alternative would have been a bathrobe and I would really like to maintain a certain image. In my defense, though, the pants are real fabric at least."
"Seriously, why are we talking about this?" asked Thor. "I thought you said we didn't have much time."
Loki glanced at the clock. It was now twenty minutes to ten in the evening. Thanos had picked up the Infinity Gauntlet and noticed the stones' sparkle about forty minutes ago and only the gods knew what he had done during that time, which Loki himself had wasted on body hygiene and meaningless banter. "Right. Sorry."
Stark defensively held up his hands. "Okay. Loki? This is Shuri." He jerked his head in the direction of the dark-skinned mortal girl. "She is the smartest person on this planet."
There was a flicker of fear in the girl's eyes when she turned around and looked into Loki's but she stood firm and said "Hello" with a hardly noticeable bow of her head.
"She's studying the molecular structure of your ice right now," Stark went on, "and at the rate she's going, she might have figured out a plan to stop the poles from melting by tomorrow. Which is also not important right now because there might not be any poles left to melt if we don't act," the engineer added when he saw Loki's puzzled expression.
"Never mind. Her far greater achievement," Tony Stark went on as Shuri handed him a weapon that Loki instantly recognized, "is this."
Loki's lips parted in surprise as he turned to his brother. "You were referring to that scepter on the plane? How is that possible?"
"It is not the original," Shuri explained. "Shortly before Thanos' attack, I managed to copy the molecular structure of the Mind Stone into my computer, which allowed me to recreate it with vibranium."
"Because vibranium can withstand the power of the stones," Loki mumbled. "That's smart. And the scepter?"
"That's just for show," Stark replied on a shrug. "We could have used anything for the protective casing, really, but we thought—well, I thought—it would be a tad more dramatic this way."
Loki extended his hand towards the scepter. "I can assure you, it is about to get a lot more than a tad dramatic."
"Hold on," interrupted Steve Rogers. "Not so fast. I want to know exactly what we are dealing with before you touch that thing."