Hi everyone! I know: it took a while... sorry! I really hope you'll like it!

Chapter 11

Loki ran up the stairs. Floor after floor, until he lost count. Finally, he blasted open the door leading to the roof and ran outside. It was already dark and the moon and stars lit up the black sky. The young king didn't know where he was, what he had done and what he was gonna do, but it didn't matter anymore. He'd had enough!

Loki grabbed his head while he ran further on the roof. He wanted to scream. To scream out all his frustration, but all he could think off was that look of pure terror on Frigga's face. She had been so scared, so terrified… of him!

"How could I've been so stupid!" he shouted. Why did every plan of his had to turn out bad… It all had looked so perfect in the beginning. Why did he let Thor go in the first place! He had been right there, right in front of him. He could have stopped him from leaving, but he didn't because he thought Thor could be useful later and because the prince was too dangerous to keep on Asgard, even imprisoned.

"Heimdal! Open the Bifröst now!" Loki shouted to the sky. He didn't care that he was standing on top a building the Bifröst would probably destroy… He didn't care he was in the middle of the city… All he wanted was to go back.

"Heimdal, you bloody idiot! Open the Bifröst now! I command you!" Still nothing happened.

Loki could feel the energy running over his skin, creating new shockwaves, but he didn't care. He was too angry to give a damn.

"I told him, didn't I?" Loki called out pacing around the roof. "I told Thor the truth, isn't that what you wanted? Now open the Bifröst!"

Loki's word echoed in the wind until he couldn't hear anything, but the sounds of the never sleeping city beneath him. The young king walked to the side of the roof and looked over the barrier to the street underneath him. He placed his hands on the cold stone and bend over, breathing heavily, like he'd just ran a marathon.

"Sure.." he whispered with a broken voice. "Just ignore me… just hate me… like everybody else…"

The young let out a frustrated breath and turned around, allowing himself to sit down on the edge. He took his head in his hand and just listened to the noises around him for a moment. For the first time ever he actually felt lonely… He'd always been lonely, but it never really bothered him. But now, it almost felt like he was completely alone in the world, in the universe.

Loki rubbed his temples. "Just get used to it, idiot!" he whispered to himself. "You're never gonna win, not from Thor, not from anyone… You know why?"

Loki got on his feet and started pacing around the roof again, trying to keep himself calm.
"Because you're the damn bad guy, Loki! And the bad guys never win, they never get … happy endings…" Loki shouted thinking of what his mother always used to say after a story or when he'd woken up from a nightmare.

(MEMORY)

"Can't you sleep, Loki?"

The young prince shook his head, forcing his tears of fright to return to where they came from. He pulled up his sheet until only his light grey eyes were visible. Frigga smiled and walked in the dark room. She set down on the side of Loki's huge bed and softly touched her son's sweating forehead. The little boy shivered under her cold touch, but relaxed when he saw her kind smile.

"Did you have another nightmare?" she asked after a short silence.

The young prince first shook his head furiously, but after his mother's meaningful look he slowly nodded. Why couldn't he be as brave as his brother? Thor never had nightmares! At least he said he didn't…

"What was it about?" Frigga asked in a whisper coming closer to her son's face, as she always did when Loki was going to tell her a secret.

Loki cautiously let go of the sheet and looked at his mother. He bid his lip. It wasn't really courageous or anything to tell your mother about your nightmares. What if Thor found out? He would laugh at him for years to come…

Frigga noticed Loki's hesitation and looked around the room, as if she was checking if anyone was watching. Then she leaned over to Loki and smiled her mysterious smile. Her eyes lit up for a second and Loki already knew what she was going to say, before the words left her mouth.
"It's our little secret!"

The young prince smiled.
"Father told us about the frost giants today, mother… And Thor said he was going to kill all of them. We said we were ready for it… But…I wasn't scared or anything… but I was thinking… What if we have to fight the frost giants one day, mother? What if I can't do it? What if I'm too weak? Thor is always talking about fighting and he's also really good at it, but I'm not… even Sif is better than me… and she's a girl!" the young prince said with a embarrassed blush on his cheeks.

Frigga waited before answering. She could see that her son was still struggling to tell her the real problem. After a short silence, Loki continued.

"What if something would happen to Thor? What if I couldn't protect him? What if he d… dies because of… me…"

Frigga frowned. "Is that what your nightmare was about?"

Loki nodded. "They were everywhere, mother. And I couldn't move, I was so scared, but Thor…"

Frigga stopped her son from talking. Loki's big puppy dog eyes looked up at her.

"First of all: it's not because your brother is better now that it will stay that way. And I've been teaching you magic, I think you'll be more then capable to protect Thor from about anything… I even think you're already protecting him right now… every day!" Frigga added in a whisper.

"Secondly, there is one thing you need to keep in mind!"

Loki looked at his mother expectantly. She smiled an put a lock of his black hair behind his ear before continuing.

"When your father told you the story of the frost giants… what were the frost giants in the story?"

Loki frowned. "The… the bad guys…" he answered softly.

His mother smiled again, her eyes lit up. Another secret was coming! Loki went even more silent while he eagerly waited for his mother's advice.

"There's one thing you should know about bad guys…" she said before leaning over again to whisper in her son's ear. "The bad guys never win, they never get to live happily ever after…"

(END MEMORY)

Loki never really thought of himself as the bad guy… But after what he'd heard in the library…

And it was all so obvious… he was a frost giant! He'd been the bad guy ever since he was born!

The young king sighed and stroke back his hair. That's when he realised he'd fucked up… he really messed up this time… Now Thor would never believe he could be king, a good king!

-xxx-

Loki groaned and turned around. He was now sitting on the edge of the building, feet dangling down. The height didn't really frighten him. Loki just sat there, thinking over the times he used to spend with his mother. Why didn't she ever tell him? All right, that Odin was a senile liar… he could live with that, but Frigga? She never lied to him, about anything. But even when she knew who and what her son was, she still portrayed the frost giants as bad guys. Loki wondered if Odin or Frigga would have told him anyway… Probably not… If it weren't for that "unfortunate" moment in Jotunheim, they would – probably – only tell him when it was necessary… When he was needed… The young king scowled and looked down at the cars and people beneath him. For a moment he thought about jumping, but he was quite sure the fall wouldn't kill him. It would probably just hurt, really, really bad!

Loki shook his head. What was he thinking! Now he even started to think as those puny humans!

Still, though... there was one thing the young king just couldn't quite understand… Neither Odin, nor Frigga had told Thor anything about his true nature. Not even when he came of age… Why not?

Immediately Loki had to think of what Odin had said.

I wanted only to protect you from the truth…

The young king sniggered. What a great job Odin had done protecting him…

Loki sat quietly for another ten minutes, staring down, thinking about Asgard. About Heimdall and how he probably was enjoying the sight of him messing up brilliantly…

A sudden sound sounded through the night. Loki didn't turn around, he just listened. Someone had come up the stairs and almost tripped over the door he had ripped out off the wall. It wasn't Thor, Loki was sure of that. He would have heard his brother coming from two floors down. So who was it then? It had to be someone who knew Loki, because every rational mind would have turned around at the side of the destroyed door.

The young king still refused to look. The stumbling had stopped. Whoever it was, he or she was clearly hesitating to come further. Was it Frigga? What was she doing here? Wasn't she supposed to be hiding under her blanket? Curled up in her bed, crying…

The steps came closer. Loki could feel a pair of staring eyes in his neck.

"You're not gonna jump, are you?" a female voice sounded through the night. Loki was surprised. Jane Foster… Why did she come up? He still didn't turn around nor did he answer.

Jane wasn't going to give up that fast. Carefully she walked closer until she knew Loki could see her. She hesitated. Would she go sit next to the God of Mischief? Would he push her of the roof? Jane decided to ignore her instincts and sit down next to Loki, making sure she didn't look down. Heights weren't really her idea of comfortable. She looked at Loki, expecting some kind of reaction but he didn't move.

"Thor thought you would be here… Seems like he was right… He said you always used to sit on the roof after a fight…" Jane started while she fixed her eyes on the top of the Empire State Building. Don't look down, don't look down…

Loki still didn't respond. He just stared into the night, no expression on his face. Jane sighed.

"Oh, come on! You just blew up my house! The least you can do is talk to me…"

Loki sniggered.
"If I wanted to blow up your house, I would have blown up the whole block. That was far from an explosion…"

Jane pulled up her eyebrows. Oh well, at least he was talking to her… She hesitated to ask the next question. She had been thinking about it quite some time and she knew what Loki's reaction would be, but still…

"Why… Why do you hate him so much." She asked. "Why do you hate your brother that much…"

Jane bit her lip. What now? She expected Loki to start shouting stuff like :"He's not my brother!" or at least an expression of pure surprise, but what happened was something entirely else…

The young king didn't do anything!

Jane waited. She had the feeling Loki would answer… He had to!

After a couple of minutes the God of Mischief opened his mouth.
"I don't hate my brother! I never have…" he said softly.

Jane blinked confusedly. Did she miss something?
"Then you should know that destroying someone's house is the wrong way of showing that…"

Loki sniggered. "I never hated my brother.. I just hate Thor!"

"Do you have any kind of other brother then? Because I'm not following…"

Loki stayed silent for a moment, overthinking his words.
"People always seem to forget Thor and I had a life before all… this… Quite a long one by the way…"

Jane nodded. "Your point being…"

Loki sighed. "It's really not that hard to understand!" he said more harshly then he initially meant.
"Thor and I grew up together, side by side, no matter what happened in the end. We were the princes of Asgard and even though we knew that every single citizen of our world would gladly lay down his life to protect us, we knew that - in the end – we only had each other. We looked after one another, even though Thor's always been a little brat."

"So, back then you didn't hate him…" Jane asked. It was hard to think of Loki like that after everything that had happened.

Loki looked at the woman next to him. "Yes… is that so surprising?"

"Yes!" Jane answered a little too quickly.

Loki looked at her for a couple more seconds, overthinking Jane's reaction. He sighed and shook his head.
"You should thank me! If it weren't for me, you probably would never have met Thor in the first place…"

Jane's first reaction was to say: "If it were up to you, Thor would be dead already!", but Loki's words made her keep her mouth shut. Neither of them said a word and silence filled the air.

"Thank you…" Jane suddenly said softly after a couple of minutes. Loki looked up in surprise. He hadn't exactly expected her to actually thank him, but he refused to let Jane see that.

"For… everything…" Jane continued cautiously.

This time Loki couldn't hide his surprise.
"Everything meaning what exactly?" he asked after a short silence.

"Everything you've done for Frigga…"

Loki swallowed. "If I'm not mistaking: your daughter hates me and is terrified… of me…"

Jane rolled with her eyes. "What is it with you and 'hating'…"

Loki didn't answer so Jane went on.
"Frigga doesn't hate you and she's not scared of you… at least not for ever…."

Loki rolled his eyes, but Jane wasn't finished yet.

"My point is that you managed to make her trust you! I put her in bed just ten minutes ago and you know what she said? 'He still saved my castle, Mummy!'"

Loki frowned.

Jane understood she finally had Loki's full attention.
"Just so you know: Frigga gets bullied at school. There're a couple of guys there who think it's funny to bully my little girl. She has a really hard time trusting people, but she decided to trust you of all people."

Jane's words echoed through the night. Her voice broke. She never really talked about the fact that her daughter was bullied. Even Thor didn't know. They had decided that it was safer if Thor didn't show up as Frigga's father. There was a big chance that all those Avenger-obsessed kids would recognise him. For as far as the school knew, Frigga's father travelled a lot and was barely at home. Therefor Jane took care of all the school business.

She'd never told Thor because she was almost certain her husband would teach those kids a lesson himself.

"I'm not saying that I agree with that, but my little girl seems to trust you. If she wants to give you a chance then I'm ready to do the same…"

Loki didn't know what he was hearing. Was this a dream? Was he sleeping? Was he hallucinating?

Jane could feel the tense situation reach its peak and decided to quickly add something.
"But, honestly, blowing up my house isn't my idea of a new chance…" she said with a smile.

Loki smiled and Jane was almost certain there was something different about that smile. It wasn't the sinister grin she'd grown used to, no, what she saw was a real smile…

-xxx-

Loki didn't quite understand what was happening to him. Feelings he'd never felt before in his life started to take over his heart. Feelings he could only describe as some kind of happiness… some kind of …proud…

Jane hesitated to ask the next question. She'd been thinking about it a lot these last days, but she was scared of Loki's reaction. After a minute of fighting against her rational sense she finally opened her mouth.
"What was… What did I… Did I…" she started, but the words just didn't seem to find the right way to form the sentence.

Jane took a deep breath and tried again.
"Did I say something wrong about… The Tesseract?"

Loki froze and clenched his teeth.

Jane immediately regretted asking the question. Why did she even ask! She'd finally managed to get Loki to open up. Just a bit! Jane sighed, but made sure the god of Mischief couldn't hear it.

Oh well… Jane knew Loki wouldn't say anything anymore. She was ready to leave when Loki opened his mouth.

"You have to stop!" the young king said softly.

Jane looked at him in surprise, alarmed by the scared tone in his voice. "Excuse me?"
Jane's eyes fixed on Loki's trembling hands. It was obvious he was trying to hide it, but his clenched jaws and rapidly blinking eyes betrayed him.

Loki sighed and closed his eyes. He knew that tone… Jane'd noticed he was scared. Damn!

"You have to stop!" he repeated in a stronger voice. "Stark has to stop!"

Jane frowned. Honestly, she was surprised… Loki, The God of Mischief, the monster that attacked New York, killed innocent people, faked his own death and murdered his own father was actually scared to death!

"I suppose you mean the Tesseract?" she asked cautiously.

"You can't make a new Tesseract, you'll need some kind of ancient dark magic. But you, especially Stark, can make an equal power source! You have no idea what kind of danger you're putting yourself and everybody else in!" Loki answered while fixing his eyes on the women next to him.

Jane immediately wanted to sigh and say something like: "What is it with that Tesseract! Why does everybody think we're going to use it for bad purposes!", but Loki's words and serious look, not to mention the now obvious fear in his voice, convinced Jane to keep her mouth shut.

"All right…" she said after she'd made sure the young king wasn't playing with her… For some reason Loki's words had more effect on her then Thor's endless speeches about the dangers of the Tesseract. She wasn't going to stop her research, of course, she'd put way to much work in it to just give it up now, but she promised herself she would look in to the potential danger the Tesseract could be.

Loki nodded and looked back at the city. He still wasn't able to stop his hands from trembling and it was starting to annoy him! Why couldn't he just let it go!

-xxx-

Jane was lost in thoughts. The sudden screeching sound of two cars crushing into each other woke her up. Automatically she looked down. Oh dear… why did she do that!

The moment Jane's brain registered the height, everything started spinning.

Oh my God! I'm soooo high!

Colours faded and melted together to a messy compound. Nothing made sense anymore.

Don't look down! Don't look down!

But it was too late. Jane knew she was about fall, but another part of her brain shouted that she was all right. She knew she was falling! Falling forward! Falling down! Jane stopped breathing. Her heart skipped a couple of beats. Everything was turning and spinning. She heard screaming! Was that her voice or was it all happening inside her head? It had to be because she could still feel the cold stone of the roof under her slipping fingers. Or was it above her? Was it even there? Where was she anyway…

A strong hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled her backwards. Jane had the feeling she was turning upside down. Again and again. Or wasn't she?

Jane fixed all her attention on the hand on her shoulder. She squeezed her eyes shut. Slowly the sounds of the city found there place again. Under was under again and above was above. Carefully Jane opened her eyes It was then she noticed she'd been holding her breath. She breathed out and looked at Loki who was watching her with a playful grin on his face. He was clearly enjoying this! His hand lay on Jan's shoulder making sure she wouldn't fall over.

"Don't tell me you're scared of heights! Just in case you didn't notice, you're married to The God Of Thunder who likes to fly around in his spare time…"

"Thank you…" Jane squeaked while she tried to smile. Everything had happened in a matter of seconds, but Jane felt like she'd just run a marathon… twice…

Loki nodded and let go of Jane's shoulder. That was the second "thank you" he'd got within ten minutes. It made him feel really uncomfortable.

-xxx-

Jane fixed her eyes on the city making sure she didn't look down. She was still trembling with fear. After a couple of minutes, Jane had finally calmed down a little bit. She looked at Loki, but the God of Mischief just ignored her, so Jane slowly turned around – Don't look down! – and put her feet on the roof. She couldn't suppress a sigh of relief.

Jane got to her feet and looked at Loki. She hesitated. Could she just leave him like that? Here, alone on the roof? But the young king didn't seem to make any attempt to get up so after some more hesitation, Jane decided to leave. She made her way to the door – or what was left of it – but turned around halfway. There was something she had to say. Something she should have said a long time ago…

"And thank you for saving my life back on Svartalfheim… you pushed me out of the way when that bomb-thing went of… could of killed yourself… just wanted to say thank you…" she said with a smile. Loki didn't respond so Jane just turned around and disappeared.

-xxx-

Loki waited until Jane's footsteps had faded before breathing out. He closed his eyes, put his palms together and touched his lips with his fingers. He had to think. Jane had thanked him four times… four "thank yous".. in the same night!

The young king shivered. He knew what he wanted right now. He wanted his mother to walk through that door or to just appear next to him like she'd done when he was in his cell. She would know what to do with these knew feelings.. she would be able to tell him what to do…

For once Loki allowed a couple of lonely tears to leave his eyes. He opened his eyes and looked at his hands. He concentrated. Slowly a small green light started to glow in between his palms. Loki moved his hands away from each other bit by bit. Every second the light grew bigger and stronger until a bright ball of pure light was dancing between his fingers. Loki stared at the light. Afterwards he slowly lifted the ball above his head to the sky.

The young king took a deep breath.

"Fare well, mother…" he whispered while he lett the ball go. It slowly floated skywards. Loki watched it until the ball was nothing more than a bright star, glowing in the dark sky…

There you go... Hope you liked it!

I'm really sorry it took so long, but I got sooooooo much work for school! It's just crazy! I'll try uploading as soon as possible ;)

Let me know what you think!

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