A/N: I graduate in **FOUR DAYS, TWENTY-ONE HOURS, FIFTY-SEVEN MINUTES AND FIFTY-THREE SECONDS. SEND HELP. I DON'T WANT TO ADULT! I DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO SEARCH FOR A GROWN-UP JOB!**
Thank you xbecbebex, Donlaeta and lovecherishprotect-16 for your reviews! Also, thank you (and you should all thank her too!) FMA Human Starter Kit for 1) reviewing, 2) offering me "special creativity mushrooms" 3) eventually bullying me into getting this up.
Witch
September 23rd, Loki officially got transferred out of the café, and onto the sales floor. His pay was raised by $1.50 per hour, and after the initial excitement, he spent a few hours feeling thoroughly sick to his stomach at the thought that this was his life now—that something like that could make him so happy. He was a god and a prince—and now he was rejoicing over $1.50 more per hour and the prospect of spending his time in the same building on the other side of the café counter.
He began to confine himself to his room more than before, picking up his books or his tablet or turning on music on his phone, only to set them down, turn them off, and lay on his bed, tracing nonsensical patterns in the scattering of imperfections on the ceiling. He felt tired, but restless at the same time, and didn't know what to do with himself, so he spent a great deal of time doing nothing.
It became harder and harder for him to motivate himself to do anything. School seemed pointless—he knew eventually SHIELD would take him back in to work for them in a more full-time capacity, or else whatever he still couldn't remember would catch up to him, and he'd die, so what was the point of pursuing the education? He made himself go to work—pride prevented him from ruining things so shortly after getting the transfer—and showed up for his monthly meeting with Coulson, but his head felt fuzzy, and he had a difficult time focusing. What had been, for a while, a challenging puzzle—figure out how to protect the bumbling little humans from practically everything that moved—had somehow become an impossible task; a mental hurdle far too high for him to reach.
He hid it as best he could, but Coulson seemed concerned, and kept asking if he was feeling all right.
"I'm just tired," he sighed as convincingly as he could. "I didn't sleep much last night—just couldn't settle in." In fact, he wasn't sure he'd slept at all—he'd tossed and turned, then got up only to spend hours pacing back and forth aimlessly in the small room, then fell back into bed to try and fail to sleep again.
On Monday he had an exam, and just enough of his faculties left to him to decide not to quite fail Empires in History, so he somehow fumbled his way to school on time. He wasn't entirely sure that anything he put down on the paper made any sense, and wasn't certain whether he gave a rip either way, but by the end of the period he'd handed in a few sheets of paper with writing on them and "Luke Randle" written legibly at the top, so that was… something.
Afterwards he didn't really want to go back to the apartment—he loved Darcy as much as he could love anyone right now, but he didn't know if he could handle hearing her talk. Although he didn't particularly care about anything, everything was somehow on his last nerve. He wasn't entirely sure how both could be true at the same time, but apparently they were. It felt like he had sand in his mind, slowing him down, making his thoughts heavy and thick and sluggish, and yet constantly itching in a place impossible to reach.
"Yeh look lost," a familiar Scottish-accented voice commented, and Loki realized belatedly that his distracted feet had carried him to one of the corridors that held offices, and Professor Rowena Ahlström was peering around the always-open door of hers.
"Just distracted, thank you," Loki responded automatically, turning to resume his aimless wander in another direction.
"Well, come in—hav'a cuppa tea," she invited, beckoning with a braceleted hand.
"No, thank you," he replied stiffly, really not wanting to make conversation, or sit still for a sustained length of time.
"So, yeh have somethin' better ta'do, then?" she checked, crooking one eyebrow. "Like ah said, laddie—yeh look lost. Tea's magic, yeh know…" Her torso vanished with a swing of green skirt and vibrant red hair braid, and he heard the loud "click" of her electric hot pot switching on.
Although Loki usually hated when anyone tried to make his decisions for him—touchy subject and all—somehow it was less of an irritant when it was Rowena. That, or perhaps he'd just lost a lot of his ability to be truly bothered about anything. Either way, he turned his footsteps to her office, and dropped his backpack on the floor before sinking down himself onto one of her several armchairs.
"They still callin' yeh heathen fer preferrin' tea?" she asked with a smirk. That was the first time they'd met, he remembered with something like fondness. He and Darcy had been in Starbucks, talking to some of her friends while they all waited for their drinks, and he'd made the apparently egregious mistake of admitting he wasn't much of a coffee person. He'd immediately glossed it over as all the mortals within earshot jumped down his throat over it, by commenting blandly that he hadn't realized it was such a big deal in America—all the while glaring daggers at Darcy. She'd dropped him right in it, the mischievous little minx…
That was what made Rowena notice him, though—the out of place "Brit" surrounded by brash Americans. She'd empathized with his experience of culture clash—though of course she didn't know how extreme it really was. Although she—like everyone else—couldn't know all the details, he'd told her the gist of his story. She was easy to talk to because—like Darcy—she not only didn't judge, she didn't pity. Despite the actual chronological difference in their ages, Loki saw her as a sort of mentoring figure—at least inasmuch as any human could possibly be in such a position to him. Perhaps it was only the character of Luke Randle who saw her that way; he couldn't say for sure. However, she could obviously see right through his attempts to hide his discomfort, and he supposed if he was going to tell anyone about his issues, she would probably be better than most.
"Rowena," he began—she allowed all of UC's students to use her first name, saying that part of college was that they were all experiencing the process of study together, rather than it being like high school where the teachers spoon-fed the students bits of knowledge to regurgitate come finals week. "When you were younger, what did you think you'd be doing with your life? Is this…" he gestured around her eclectically decorated office, "where you expected to be?"
He knew he was making what Darcy called a Hail Mary—a last-ditch and likely-to-fail cry for help. It felt pathetic—he was pathetic—but he really was that desperate.
"Oh," she huffed thoughtfully, "tha' was a long time ago. I'm older than ah look, laddie." The hot pot clicked again, the little red light at its base blinking out, signifying that the water had risen to appropriate brewing temperature. Rowena stood gracefully, her draping "hippie" clothing swirling around her as she retrieved a pair of mugs from the shelf of mismatched dishware behind her.
"In mah youth…" she mused, pouring the water and adding the little metal animals that she used to hold the leaves for steeping. "Ah expected te teach, yeah—though, no' quite in a settin' like this," she laughed, sliding a mug over to him. Loki helped himself to a spoonful of honey, as was his habit, and stirred the boiling liquid broodingly. When he looked up, Rowena was eyeing him critically, lips tight, eyes calculating—making a decision.
"Can yeh keep a secret, Luke?" she asked finally.
"I'm the Fort Knox of secrets," he assured her. It wasn't a lie—she didn't even know his real name. She hummed thoughtfully, then flicked her fingers, closing the door behind him… from five feet away.
"Yeh see, laddie," she explained as Loki blinked in shock, mind reeling, "ah don't focus on occult studies just because it draws in today's young'uns. Ah've go'history wi'the subject meself. Ah grew up in a magic-filled household, became a sorcerer like mah father. A pretty gud'un, if ah may say," she added with a laugh. Loki had finally caught up—remembering that earth did indeed produce the occasional wizard; they'd just called themselves and their arts by different names for centuries to avoid persecution. The Ahlström family must've been very traditional—or very old and powerful—he reasoned.
Which meant that Rowena's upbringing had to be vastly different from anything an ordinary human would understand. Perhaps they had more culture clash in common than he'd first realized.
"And ah can sense that you and ah are… similarly out'a place," she admitted. Of course, she'd only register him as a low-level magic user because low-level magic was all he could currently produce… "I dinnae know what's eatin' at yeh," she sighed, "but en answer teh yer question, yes, ah do know what et's like to go my whole life believin' ah'd end up a certain way, then suddenly findin' meself som'ere else entirely."
"And how did that feel?" he asked quietly.
"Oh, like dyin'," she laughed humorlessly. "Or perhaps like bein' born. Et's hard teh say, when et's happenin'."
"And the way you saw yourself back then… was it good? Did you like that future? Did you want it?" Had she improved herself, escaping from a coven she did not want, or had she lost everything, like him, and settled for a mediocre life, explaining Shaman and Druid histories to bored young adults looking for a more interesting anthro credit?
"Ah think et was—a'the time, yeah," she responded slowly. "Et was good… and ah was good at wha'ah did. Ah was a prodigy, en fact," she added, nodding at him proudly.
"What changed?" he whispered. His voice was dry, and he took a sip of still-too-hot tea.
"Ah had a baby," she laughed. That was not what he expected to hear at all.
"I didn't know you had kids," he admitted. Her office was devoid of any family pictures—unlike her somewhat sentimental colleagues, who covered their desks in visual evidence of their big, healthy, happy families.
"Aye, two of'em, matter o'fact," she continued. "A wee girl ah called Aspen, and later a son." She paused, swallowing. "Didn't get teh name him," she murmured, then cleared her throat. "Tha wasn't all tha' happened, o'course," she added quickly. "The coven had et's own issues, ah made some life decisions, got married, split up… yeh know, ah still don't know ef ah was right, teh do all of wha' ah did. But ah do know tha' at the time, et seemed like the best thing ah could'a done. Real life is messy, laddie," she mused, leaning back in her chair and staring at the tapestry-covered ceiling, "and decisions made under pressure can be just as messy."
"So you mucked everything up, and ended up here," Loki muttered, then realized a moment too late how horribly callous that sounded. But she snorted before he could apologize.
"Perhaps ah did," she shrugged. "But the thing is, people change. Desires change. The idea tha' somethin's going teh be a constant, tha' the future's set en stone, that life follows some predictable path from one thing teh the next… well, tha's simply not how et all works. Sometimes yeh have teh lose what yeh thought yeh wanted—maybe even what yeh thought ye were—to become who yeh are. Part o'livin is learnin' and changin'. Once tha' stops… yeh may as well be dead. Tha's why I wound up teachin'," she finished. "Because here, there's always somethin new teh discover—always a little more growin' teh do. Keeps meh young," she smirked, taking a long sip of her tea.
"Do you miss it?" he asked after a long silence while he digested that. "The future you thought you had?"
"All the time!" she exclaimed. "'Cause et was good, yeh know? But et doesn't make where ah am now any less good. Ah am a complex enough person to entertain more than one idea of a good life—tha's part o'growin' up too."
"Hm," Loki hummed, taking a long draught of his own tea and finishing it. When Darcy had said that college was meant to help people find themselves, he hadn't expected anything this overt. But… some of what Rowena had said seemed to almost make sense. Of course, that didn't make it any easier—grieving a life he'd never get to live. He set down his empty mug contemplatively.
"Did yeh find what yeh were lookin' for?" she asked as he slowly stood, retrieving his bag. He looked down at her and actually managed a brief smile.
"I think perhaps I have to decide what I'm looking for, before I can go about finding it," he responded cryptically.
"Well, knowin' tha's half the battle, trust me," she responded, toasting him with her empty mug before setting it down beside his.
"Thank you," he said sincerely.
"Ye'r quite welcome," she replied with a warm smile. Then with a flick of her fingers, she unlatched the door and it swung open. "Mah door is always open, yeh know." Loki laughed—a brief exhale through his nose and a wider smile. Then he hitched his bag higher onto his shoulder and strode purposefully out, headed for the parking lot.
A/N: This chapter's Easter egg is from Smallville! Who remembers that show?
So! This story includes a lot of OCs—Loki rubs shoulders with a ton of new people, it can't be helped. Now, in my Red Queen series, I used The Originals characters for OCs that have speaking parts—instead of spending a lot of time crafting my own OCs when people often don't like them much, you know how it is. In this one, some of my OCs are actual OCs, while some will be other fandoms' characters repurposed at my discretion.
This chapter contains my first example—Supernatural's Rowena! This version of her isn't the same as the one we see in SPN (and you don't have to watch SPN to get anything from this fic—fear not!) and that's how it'll be with other inter-fandom cameos. They'll have similar personality traits, some of them will have the same names, but that doesn't mean this story is going to turn into a Superwholock crossover or anything. MCU is still the MCU.
Those of you who've seen Doctor Strange are already familiar with the existence of magic within the MCU—that's the kind of "witch" Rowena is. I've created a hybrid of the original Rowena and a few of my favorite professors for a recurring character.
Chapter 13: Reflex
"And you're sure he hasn't noticed anything?"
"Positive," Sitwell muttered casually into his phone as he sat in a reasonably crowded restaurant in the middle of the day, invisible among the other suit-and-tie-clad men and women getting their lunches before continuing their work on Capitol Hill.
"This is the god of lies and trickery we're talking about. I don't like him so close to us, now that he's already had a run-in with rogue agents."
"I don't think anyone does," Sitwell agreed, taking a sip of his coffee. "But if Romanov and Fury and Carter herself didn't notice, I doubt an outsider would."