Loki has a theory Stark cannot disprove. He is a man of science, and she has the data on her side.
She finds it pertinent to distinguish, given that English is her fifth language, the exact meaning of the word. Unbidden, she slips into a memory. A dark bedroom that smells sharply of sex, and two friends laying on sheets that should be charcoal grey but are actually sunshine yellow.
Anthony is naked, as he often was during the first two weeks. Of course that means she is too. He's drawing figure eights on her stomach, or perhaps they're infinities, or molecules, or motorcycles. These are all things Anthony draws whenever there's a spare moment.
He's long winded when he's drunk. And very touchy.
"Cause, see, people are just idiots. That's the first thing you gotta know about us humans, alright? We're stupid. Like, unbelievably stupid. You want an example? Okay, we have this word, 'theory.' And a theory, is like...the Oscars of science. A theory is an idea that nobody can disprove. It's supported by facts, it's tested, it's like 99.999% gotta be true. Gravity. Time. Evolution. But people, stupid people, they run around talking like, 'i have a theory that my boyfriend's cheating on me. I can't prove it, but I just know'. Well that's bullshit, right? Bullshit. That's a hypothesis, not a theory."
The memory fades, and she returns to the yellow room again. There is a chalkboard on the wall, although on Asgard they used enchanted placards. Her theory is written there, in large flowing letters.
Everything is Loki's fault.
She doesn't see why this is so objectionable to the gatekeeper. Her data set is comprehensive, well organized, and consistent. Three out of four parents agree that she wasn't worth the trouble, and her many jilted lovers will vouch for her detestable character. She doesn't see the problem.
"May I die yet?" she asks petulantly.
Stark's voice emanates from the ceiling. It has grown progressively more annoyed with each iteration.
"Let's try this again."
The room dissolves into darkness, and Loki flops on the floor. Enough, she's had well enough of this nonsense.
Her first memory has no visual component. It is warmth, and safety. The sensation of being held by a large body and rocked back and forth.
In life she recalled it often, pushing herself to remember more. This memory taunts her because her infant self did not open their eyes. She does not know who made her feel so secure. Are they pale or dark blue, male or female, neither or both? She doesn't know, and she never will.
Light returns with the flicker of flames in a sitting room. Noble ladies in yellow robes sit around the fire pit gossiping while Loki crawls about the floor. Thor is in mother's lap, and all the women are cooing over his yellow hair. Loki is too young to give a tit, pawing on hands and knees toward Aunt Freya. She wears the most beautiful shoes he has ever seen, and he wants to put his mouth all over them.
Covering her face in her hands, adult Loki groans. The memory pauses, and Stark walks out of the fire. Yellow eyes give her that assessing gaze she both dreads and craves. She wants to shrivel up and die already.
"What's so bad about this?" Stark asks.
"Would it make a difference if I begged? I can be humble, if that is what you want. I can be a great many things."
"But isn't that the problem? With this memory, I mean. You shift for the first time when you touch her shoes."
"That isn't why I hate it." Loki says, glaring at her younger self.
She hates this memory because little Loki sits at Freya's feet for ten minutes wanting to ask to be picked up. He never does, because he is afraid. Adults are unpredictable and quick to punish when he uses the wrong words, so he contents himself with admiring her shoes.
Her younger self's cowardice angers her. Was she not called silver tongue for a reason? Is it so difficult to open one's mouth and talk? When he turns into a snake, the shrieks of fear are amusing by comparison.
"You aren't even old enough to walk. Do you think it's fair to expect clear speech?"
"Fairness is a construct. There are standards, and those who fall beneath them. It matters not why." Loki snaps.
"But was it really your fault?"
"My behavior frightened my mother's guests and brought shame on my house. Yes, it was most clearly my fault."
Stark shakes his head, and the memories move on. The sitting room becomes a stable, with yellow horses tied to the stalls. Master Gofriedr, his tutor, holds out a shovel.
"It's not fair!" Loki says, kicking dirt on Gofriedr's robes. His face is red with fury, and his little hands balled into fists. "I didn't do anything, it was Thor."
His tutor frowns at his soiled garment and throws the tool at Loki's feet.
"Watch your words, young one. Some would call them treason."
"Well I call it hogwash." Loki spits, picking up the shovel.
"Do you truly not understand your mistake?"
Loki glares at the man twice his height, and shakes his head. Gofriedr puts a hand on Loki's shoulder and walks him deeper into the stable.
"You're not like other boys, Prince Loki. Your brother is important, and not so wise. You are being punished because you allowed him to run wild at the tournament. He insulted the regent of Vanaheim, and nearly started a war."
"How am I supposed to stop him?" Loki asks, pudgy face scrunched in a scowl.
The glaze of childish anger makes grown Loki very proud of herself. Inside she'd been a torrent of guilt and shame, replaying that day at the tournament over and over and hating herself for doing nothing. But to her tutor she passed it off as anger, and it was skillfully done. Her mother would have been proud, if she hadn't already been furious.
"He is indeed a precocious fighter, but you are clever and persuasive." Gofriedr says, frowning with a peculiar look in his eyes. "Learn to sway him with your words. One day he will be king, and a leader needs wise council."
"Father says we will both be kings."
"And so you shall. You will be his most trusted advisor, and when he rules it will be your wisdom he speaks. Do you see?"
"I understand." Loki sighs, stepping up to the first stall and coughing at the stench.
Gofriedr pats his back. "Good. I would hate to teach your lessons in the stables whist you shovel dung all the rest of your days."
Loki sticks his tongue out and his tutor walks away chuckling. The chalkboard returns, along with a line of Midgardian students desks. The writing is the same, with only a small revision.
Everything (?) is Loki's fault.
Stark sits at the teacher's desk, slouching like a king on a throne. At least the stone is giving her a nice view, if this is how she shall spend eternity. Stark reads the text, eyebrows raised.
"Hard to argue with that one, isn't it?" he says, crooking a slight grin. "I mean, seriously. Your brother nearly started a war, and they convinced you it was your fault. If you ask me-"
"No one asked you."
"-someone else deserves the title God of Lies."
The scene whips, and the desk Loki was sitting on disappears. Hitting the ground so hard makes it difficult to determine the memory at first. Then she hears her mother's voice. The first time, she struggled with this one, but now she expects it. Exposure makes the pain less biting.
"To deceive is to be one with a person's perceptions. In order to trick, you must first determine what their expectations are. How they see the world." Frigga explains, casting replicas of herself in a circle around Loki.
Older now, his nose is level with her shoulder. Glancing at her shadows, he chews his cheek thoughtfully.
"How do I do that?"
"With empathy." she says, all six of her shadows fixing their dresses. "You summon up everything you know about a person, and try to imagine how they feel. And most importantly, what they want. Each person has a unique perspective, just as each of these shadows can see only one angle of you. All together, they see everything, but individually they are restricted."
Loki nods, spinning in a circle to see each clone individually.
"Deception is the art of isolating one perspective, and using what that person does not know against them."
"What if I don't know the other perspectives?" Loki asks.
He looks thoughtful, but it's a facade. The question was worded and reworded before it left his lips. He was already a better liar than he knew. This lesson only codified techniques he'd intuited years before.
"Then you've acted too soon. Gather as much information as you can before making a decision. Decisions close doors. Once you've made one you cannot go back."
Frigga clasps her hands in the small of her back, and trades places with the clone behind Loki. He jumps, spinning around, and his mother smiles.
"Now enough instruction. Why don't you try?"
The memory washes away like rain on a window pane. Stark remains seated at the teacher's desk, nonplussed by Loki's frustration.
"You are woefully mis-representing the facts." Loki says, setting her hands on her hips.
"They're your memories, I don't see how I'm representing anything."
"Context is everything. Here-" Loki says, walking to the chalkboard. She clears the writing with a wave of her hand and writes in slanting cursive.
1) Svaðilfari
"This, I think will very clearly demonstrate the theory." she says, reforming the room around her. The teacher's desk stays, as does Stark in his smug pose, but the rest transforms into the King's Study on Asgard.
It's more subdued than other palace rooms. The closed walls lending themselves to more privacy and focus. A long table spans the columned walls, and Odin's advisors cluster over a yellow map.
Thor stands to his right, and Loki to his left. Every eye in the room is bleary from hours of debate.
"I don't see why we need a wall." Thor complains, waving at the pile of sketches dismissively. "Asgard has never fallen, and any who try shall feel the wrath of my hammer."
"What of the citizens? Are we to allow the enemy free entry while you battle?" Tyr asks, affronted, and Loki stiffens at Odin's side.
Thor begins to reply, and Loki cuts him off. "Forgive Thor, dear Uncle, he did not mean to dismiss your concerns. Merely to say that the price is far too high."
Again, Thor opens his mouth, so Loki continues in a rush. "Perhaps I may propose a solution?"
Tyr shifts his weight, and suddenly Loki feels all the eyes on him. He swallows, thinking fast.
"If this giant is a gambling man, then maybe we can tempt him with a wager? Give him one third the time to build it, and offer his full price only if he succeeds." Loki says, standing straighter when two advisors nod along. "Since he certainly cannot build a wall around all of Asgard in one winter, we will have what we require without paying his outrageous price."
Odin looks upon him with surprise, and even from her place in the corner Loki feels the pride emanating off her former self. The sight sickens her. So hungry for approval, like a puppy begging for scraps.
Stark spins back and forth in his swivel chair as the men stand and filter out.
"You can't blame yourself for how it worked out."
"Context." Loki tuts, "Context."
The memory warps at the crackling fire, the walls becoming trees and taking on the low light of a full moon.
Loki is wearing the same clothes. Or rather, getting out of them. Svaðilfari shoves her into the trunk of a tree and she jerks him close by his unbuttoned yellow tunic.
His lips slide down her neck and she moans. "You're rather attractive, sir, when you're not a horse."
"You're very daring, madam, when you're not a man." he growls, and chases after when she runs into the woods laughing.
Stark spins his chair, watching them go. "You only did what they taught you to do. Lie, hide, deceive."
"Context." Loki says, crossing her arms.
The flickering fire acquires a latticed iron grate, and the towering pines blur out into an early spring sky cut into rectangles by golden columns. Odin's open air observatory has never felt so claustrophobic.
"He forced me, father. That horrible beast forced me-" she cries, clutching the bump on her stomach. "But I could not let him complete the wall. I did as you asked and kept him away. For Asgard, all for Asgard."
Odin sits sternly beside Frigga, their faces a study in shock and disappointment. Loki still feels ill, although it is only a fraction of how she felt then.
"I want to keep it. The babe did nothing wrong." she says, curling around her stomach like she expects to be attacked. Like she is a battered victim and not an unexpected mother learning too late what it means to create a life.
The classroom returns, this time with nondescript posters and a big, round clock. Stark's intelligent yellow eyes read her every tick and twitch.
"Okay, so that's pretty bad." he admits.
"At last we agree. Now may I please pass on?" Loki asks, forcing her hands away from her stomach. Eight hundred years and she still hasn't kicked the habit.
Stark tips his head to the chalkboard.
"Why don't you finish your list. I want to see where this goes."
"By the Norns." Loki curses, stalking across the room and selecting a piece of chalk.
1) Svaðilfari
2) Angrboða
3) Sigyn
4) Váli and Narfi
5) Laufey - twice
6) Earth
7) Thor - no regrets
8) Baldr
9) Höðr
10)
Tapping the chalk on the board, she hesitates over number ten. It's nonsense, though, since the gatekeeper already knows her thoughts.
10) Tony
"Although the mortal concept of hell is false, I find this a remarkably close approximation." Loki huffs, dropping the chalk on the wooden tray.
"This isn't about morality." Stark says. "If it were you'd be doing great."
Even the implied failure is enough to get her negative thoughts going, and she slams her hand onto the nearest desk. Breathing around the pain, she concentrates and allows it to center her. Anthony would disapprove, but she's dead, what does it matter?
"Then what, pray tell, is this about?"
Stark is unfazed by the violence and the noise, he simply pivots back and forth on the chair's axis.
"You mean you really don't get it?" he says, tilting his head. "Ok, let's try this again."
"Tell me." Loki demands, kicking at a desk and sending it sliding away. The whole order of the room is disrupted, and she finds that uncomfortably satisfying. Stark sits up, suddenly attentive.
"That. That's it, you're so close."
"To what?" Loki asks, losing her last shred of calm.
"Your big lie, dipshit." Stark says, jumping to his feet energetically. He wipes away Loki's list and scribbles out a new message. "Everyone's got one. That little voice in your head. You know the one. I know you know the one."
He glances back at Loki like he expects some kind of response. She nods, sharply, still not comprehending. Stark continues to write, his hand flying across the board and sending white dust flying with the intensity of his tapping.
"That's their lie. When they come to me, I make them sacrifice. I show them what really matters. And I have to say, I've never met anyone as stubborn about it as you."
He steps back, and Loki balks at what he's written. Reads it three times before it sinks in.
Loki is NOT the god of lies.
A bell rings, aggressively loud and in a manner Loki's never heard before.
"Ah, damn. We're out of time. I guess you'll have to do the rest for homework."
"What in Odin's beard is homework?" Loki spits. And falls backwards, passing through the floor like the surface of a lake. Stark bends at the waist to watch her go. The soles of his shoes are as black as the square outline of the room, getting further and further away.
"Good luck, kiddo. I believe in you." he calls mockingly, flashing a peace sign just as Loki smacks into something warm and unpleasantly squishy.
Awareness drips in like a leaky tap.
Itchy skin. Recycled air. A sea of seiðr roiling under the surface.
She sits up the moment she remembers. Thanos, Vormir, the Soul Stone. This is no time to be laying about.
The light burns when she opens her eyes, and already she resents returning to this fallible body. The Jotun eyes are too sensitive, and she knows she cannot change. Covering them like some weak mortal, she rolls on her side and coughs at the overwhelming smell of blood.
"What has that fool done?" she croaks, although she has no genuine desire to know.
She wants to be dead again, unbound and weightless. This body is too large, too sweaty, and in severe need of a shave. Her skin prickles and itches from the burns. Healed and wishing to be exfoliated. Maddening, horrible.
Hela's magic licks at her side and she twists, forcing her eyes open. They are on the shuttle, in the sleeping quarters, and there is blood smeared on the wall below the hatch.
Her child is whimpering on the floor with a handgun at their feet. Loki's stomach drops.
"What's wrong?"
Hela wails, shaking their head and pulling their knees to their chest. Loki stands.
"Where is Tony?"
Distraught and barely breathing, Hela mouths soundless words and points at the hatch. Dread creeps up her spine. She runs to the door.
"Don't-" Hela shouts.
There is a body in the kitchen. On the floor. Under a sheet.
Loki blacks out. She doesn't know what she does, or for how long. All she knows is that when she returns she has Anthony's head in her lap and her hand on his chin. His body is still warm but he's not there. His throat is not there, his brain is not there. She touches his cheek, his scraggly overgrown beard, and feels nothing. She holds his hand to her wrist and feels nothing. She puts her forehead to his brow and feels everything, everything at once.
No trial has ever hurt like this. Not punishments, or severed limbs, or venom burnt eyes, or childbirth. It is every unfair thing condensed into a poison creeping through her veins.
Life before Anthony was a bleak white waiting room. A thousand years of waiting to finally, finally meet him. And when she did, it was as if the doctor came and led her to another, different limbo where she waited for Anthony to die. All the while thinking if only I had my apple if only, if only.
But the apple was worthless. It merely dropped her in another waiting room. A black, empty void where she must wait to join him on the other side. She knew it was coming, that's the worst of it. She knew and she did nothing. Of course she tried, but that doesn't count if she failed. Not for anything.
Lucidity strikes her like lightning. Lady Death. Of course, of course. She's been there before, she knows the way. All she needs is a bargaining chip. A life, a soul. Perhaps her own, in a pinch.
She reaches for her locket, and it's not there. Not on her neck, not in her pocket, not on her wrist. It's gone.
Without the Space Stone she's trapped, in every sense. Trapped in this body, trapped in this room, trapped in a life without Anthony. Magic gushes out of her skin, and red, red energy seeps out her arms. Dripping down, down, down like her soul is bleeding.
It is not the first time her body has horrified her, but it is very nearly the worst. She stares at her sharp-nailed hands where energy bubbles like pus, like an infected wound.
"What in Bor's balls-"
Hela hovers on the other side of the hatch, swaying on their feet. She turns to her child, and all she sees is fear and apology.
"It left him, after-" they break off, covering their face, "I wasn't fast enough, I couldn't get him through the door."
The aether boils and swirls around Loki. Without her anchor she is adrift, her mania weaponized. It picks up speed, growing larger. She freezes, holding it as though it were her own. Frigga's mantra soothes her fears, an old ritual to help Loki contain herself.
Stop, Breathe, Think, Decide.
Stop. Breathe.
Draw your seiðr from the ground. Inhale, and the power flows to you. Exhale, and release it to the Norns. Keep a tight hold, don't let the chaos own you. Never let the wild parts win.
Inhale. Two. Three. Four.
Exhale. Two. Three. Four.
Red ropes reverse their descent and return to her body. Too full, now she can feel her own power underneath. Stoppered with no outlet, stubbornly refusing to flow.
Now more than ever, she cannot lose control. She must be better than herself, must obey her rules. For Anth-
For Hela. For her children.
She stares breathlessly at Hela, but more specifically at the locket in their hand. It glows a brilliant sunshine yellow, like maps and horses and unbuttoned shirts and campfires, and suddenly Loki understands.
"You didn't." she says, stunned.
"I'm sorry-" they plead, stepping through the door with their arms outstretched.
Loki flinches, repelled by the supplication.
"And you obeyed?" she snarls, gripping Tony's pale face and watching it blur around her tears. "Did I raise a spineless servant?"
"I didn't want to. Please-"
"Get in the cockpit." Loki orders, bent over Tony and rocking.
Hela shakes their head, stepping closer.
Loki points at the door. "Now, before I say something hateful."
"I'm sorry." Hela says again, shuffling towards the security door.
"Child, I swear-"
"Give me to Death. I'll go. I'll make it right."
"I gave my word that I would not. To you, and to him." Loki chokes, "I made an oath before the Norns. Now go to the cockpit and set a course for Muspelheim."
Hela sniffs loudly. They close the door. Loki cradles Anthony's body in her arms and disintegrates half the kitchen.
The plane of fire is sweltering, unbearable. Worse, the quiet of the cockpit got her thinking.
Contemplation is a dangerous enterprise. It gives her treacherous mind ammunition. Anthony's last words reverberate inside her skull like the bullet ricocheted in his. Do I have to order you? Guilt burns her stomach remembering his tone, his exasperated expression. The last time their eyes met she wore a look of defiance.
She truly was unworthy of him. Unable to obey even a simple request. Get out your daggers. Fight. Prove your allegiance. Honor and good judgement are well out of her grasp, but loyalty and obedience has been beaten into her since birth. She ought to know how to be useful, by now. But when the critical moment came, she hadn't a scrap of deference for her protector. The man who'd given her everything.
Gut turning like an over-hot cauldron, she carries on. The sharp-stoned craters and hissing vents nearly match the boiling of her blood as she seeks out Surtur's throne. Her Jotun body is not meant for this, but her magic lies dormant still. If anything it shrinks further and further away as her thoughts spiral and she pulls harder and harder at her last dregs of control.
To unleash her emotions now would guarantee failure. Under the heat and the pressure of this realm she would sink, and never again rise. Even as the molten ground ate the flesh from her bones she would sit and wail, burning one atom at a time for a hundred years.
It is no exaggeration. Jotun are difficult to kill, and she would not hurry. She deserves every second of suffering for failing Anthony. For allowing this to happen when it was her primary duty to keep him safe and satisfied. But not yet, not now. First, she must honor his sacrifice.
The path there is tediously long, and her legs feel like jelly from the heat. The fiery king slouches in his glory, his sword white hot and resting at his side.
"Odinson. Chaos Bringer. You're so late, I thought you weren't coming."
"I always arrive precisely when I mean to." Loki lies, tugging experimentally on the aether's power. The frequency of it pricks painfully at her fingertips, uncooperative and reluctant to hold shape.
"And Lady Death's pet, what an honor." Surtur says, rising.
Hela scowls, their anger manifesting in a two handed blade they hold poised at their shoulder.
"Can we get on with it? I have a pressing appointment with the apocalypse." Loki replies, tightening her arm guards and drawing the aether into a rotating ring around her person.
Surtur's face splits in a cracked, white-hot grin. "All will suffer. All will burn."
The ground begins to shake, groaning cracks forming in the charred ground. At first Loki thinks the chamber is erupting, and then the fire giants charge from the shadowed pits of the caldera. Hela summons a circle of black blades, arms outstretched and ready as the army advances, the two of them versus hundreds. Loki grimaces.
"If you stab me on accident, you can kiss your internet time goodbye." she threatens.
"It would be worth it to see the look on your face." Hela says, clicking their tongue and tilting their head in a way that reminds Loki devastatingly of Anthony. There's no time to think about it though, for they are swiftly overrun by the blur of bodies and carnage.
Hela is a dancer at Loki's side, graceful and deadly in their efficient strikes. Eight giants run at them in a circle, and Hela does not so much as flinch. Jumping into the air, they spin and a rain of onyx daggers strike down the whole wave at once. Fiercely proud, she leaves the small fry to Hela and returns her attention to Surtur. He is as large as a bilgesnipe, and slow. Loki hopes that will prove advantageous.
The glowing blade of Surtur arcs through the cloying air, and Loki rolls to the side. She lands in a crouch and thrusts out her hand to send a shock of aetheric energy into Surtur's side. Rocky skin crumbles from the blow, but the magma within his body melts and in seconds the wound is repaired.
Continuing its swing, the massive sword comes back in a fast slash. It cuts a burnt slice right through her armor, searing her skin and throwing her into a stone pillar.
Ash invades her nostrils as she pants for air, the odor of sulfur overwhelming her as the column shatters and rocks rain down on her. She knocks away as many as she can, but the effort distracts her. Surtur's next swing nearly divorces her from her legs.
Fortunately the blade is lit up like a torch, and she manages to dodge the follow-up stab. It lodges deep in the ground, and she acts fast, drawing the aether into a dagger and slashing with all her strength at Surtur's wrist.
The blade cuts true. A craggy, black hand hits the ground like lead and Surtur spits fire. Everything is growing foggy as the foot soldiers stir up dust and her body temperature approaches critical levels.
That is her excuse anyway, if someone should ask how she did not notice the dragon before it struck. With feet as large as Loki's torso the beast grinds her into the dirt.
When the rock cracks under her she doesn't feel the burn of steam. She feels stabbing cold, as if she's been dumped in a vat of liquid nitrogen. Surtur stomps closer, the vibrations resonating through Loki's pinned body.
"I had time to think about this day." Surtur growls.
Sharp points of pain dig into her chest, as the weight turns dull rocks into torturous pikes.
"A thousand years of fire and dust I waited. Why should my victory depend on a tiny son of Odin?"
She screams. Feels her ribs flex just on the edge of shattering, and her vision whites out. The dragon's claws bite deep gashes in her back and she can't help wriggling even though the movements worsen the wounds.
All the while Surtur's speaks. "I will have my own name written on the ashes of Asgard. The only crown which will burn is yours."
"Father-" Hela yells, far off. Loki peels her eyes open, searching. It's bleary. She's so hot and overwhelmed by pain, but she reaches her hand out and hopes. The hazy figure of her daughter struggles against a veritable wall of enemies and Loki knows she will not make it.
A frigid burn lances through her shoulder, the searing stab of a molten, soul-forged sword. Stark's classroom swims to view in her pain drunk mind, horrible chicken scratch writing defacing the chalkboard.
Loki is NOT the god of lies.
After all her failed efforts she's finally, truly dying. Her body is breaking and as everything goes dark she realizes with gaping certainty she wants to live.
Loki is NOT the god of lies.
He promised her. That idiot human with his bleeding heart and bottomless eyes, he promised her a life. A whole one. He promised her safety, and she is dying like a literal ant under a boot. That imbecile broke his promise, and she will not accept that kind of insolence. No mortal, living or otherwise, defaults on her deal.
Loki is NOT the god of lies.
Somewhere deep, a spark ignites.
Loki burns. Inside and out, all over. Flames from her mouth, from her hand, from her rage. Her nails dig into the ground and push. Arms shaking, sweat pouring from her brow, she pushes with the ferocity of an explosive charge.
Inhale power. Exhale flames. Burn every restraint.
Seiðr floods her senses. Licking flames erupt from her back as she stands. Dragon claws dig trenches in her flesh and the pain only spurs her further. She grabs the smoldering blade in her chest with both hands.
Inhale. Power. Pleasure. Pain.
Exhale. Heat. Energy. Flame.
Spitting sparks, she pushes the blade out of her back, the cuts on her palms bleeding and burning and filling her nose with the odor of singed life. Her body is too small, doesn't feel right.
Inhale. Dust. Sulfur. Ash.
Exhale. Bigger. Hotter. Higher.
Surtur's sword is longer than she prefers, but it's so very satisfying to turn it against him. The injustice of a thousand souls warms her palms as she beheads the dragon with one fluent cut. She doesn't wait for the body to fall, she rotates to the retreating form of Surtur and drags the sword's smoldering tip on the ground behind her.
"I would have your fealty, monster." Loki growls, kicking Surtur to his back and holding him under her boot.
"You cannot stop Ragnarok."
"I aim to cause it." Loki says, grinding down with her heel. "Your oath, beast."
"I am Asgard's doom. The great prophecy will come to pass."
"Excellent. Now, if you'll excuse me."
Loki brings down the blade, removing Surtur's crown with a brutal swipe. The form beneath her surges and smokes, and retreats within the severed, blackened skull.
The clash of blades and a death cry signals the end of Hela's fight, and Loki shifts down to normal size. Flames still flicker from her hands and she finds she doesn't mind. Were she to follow her training, she would snuff the unpredictable magic immediately. But it has been nearly a week. She lets the fire live and revels in the sense of rightness.
Approaching Hela with easy strides, she shifts from Jotun to woman to man and back simply because she can. The alignment of body and spirit is a sweet relief, after a week of always feeling wrong.
Her child pants, stepping through a field of once-living rock, and wipes soot from their face.
"That's not the aether."
"No." Loki agrees, holding out her hand for them to see. It's no ordinary fire. Her hand is black and cracked, glowing red within and emitting pops of yellow-green fiendfyre.
"It's amazing." Hela says, waving fingers through the flames. Their face falls. "I wish he could've seen."
The fireball flares, burning her emotions like gasoline. She closes her fist, sighing, and gradually cools down. The faint smell of carbon is reminiscent of home, to scents of burning wood and engine oil.
An old ache beats at her chest, and she feels tired. So unreasonably tired of controlling herself, of being good. One thousand years is well enough time to pay one's dues. She is owed some happiness, and she will have it. Dragging the cold steel sword, she retrieves Surtur's head.
"He will see. Soon." Loki says.
Hela's demeanor sours. Suspicion, Loki's oldest companion.
She sighs. "Do you not trust me?"
"No." Hela says, bold faced.
Loki approves. They should not trust her. "Alright, can you trust me? In this specific context."
"I would more easily trust a plan."
Reaching cautiously for her dimensional pocket, Loki is pleased to feel her magic flow after such a long absence. It flickers less consistently than it used to, has a certain mind of its own. Gratitude soothes what frustration she would otherwise feel. She can excuse imperfection, in exchange for this small comfort. The pocket opens like the clasp of a purse, and she deposits her burdens with a flick of her wrists.
A gold locket hangs around Hela's neck, and Loki unclips it. Opens the face, and holds it before her like the only compass she needs.
"We can discuss on the way." she says, and bids Hela to follow her.
Technically speaking, one can enter Niflheim from any realm. Loki expects the stairs from Muspelheim to be long, but the escalator is a surprise.
The ride is slow. Stainless steel ceiling panels gradually become exposed wiring and bare scaffolding. Evidently the plane of the dead is under renovation.
They are deposited into a never ending corridor. Black painted wood doors, black walls, red paisley carpet. Stylish, if one's barometer for style is a cloak-clad secret society. Loki alters his armor to a slim-cut suit for the simple delight of matching. Besides, it wouldn't due to look a mess when he sees Tony again.
And he will. Provided Lady Death takes the bait.
He waits, playing idly with the locket in his pants pocket, and keeps a proprietary arm around Hela's shoulders. They fidget, expression surly and eyes darting around as though looking for an escape. It's vexing. He stands to lose half his family today, if anyone should be upset it's him.
A woman in a black veil and cocktail dress exits a door far away. Loki straightens his tie. Goosebumps rise on his arms in time with her clicking heels, and Hela becomes progressively more agitated as she drawers near. He holds tight. It will be disastrous if they run.
"You know who I am." Loki says, "And what I want."
The lady stops, shrewd eyes expectant.
He shoves Hela forward. "I've brought payment."
Loki expected to feel nervous, or at least guilty. This is something he swore not to do. But good sense is not enough anymore, it's ash in the bottom of his heart. He wants Anthony, no matter the price.
With a measured step forward, Lady Death inspects Hela. The movement places her under a light, and when the beam ghosts over her face it reveals her true appearance. Bare bone, devoid of skin or any kind of softness. She moves past, and her glamour returns.
Loki can't help but shiver. He is a coward at heart, a closely guarded secret that is nonetheless true. Death scares him immensely.
The slender woman bites the middle finger of her satin opera glove. It slides off her finger like the most sensual caress, and she drops it to the floor. Hela jumps, stepping back, and Loki puts a hand to their back.
Snapping her fingers, the lady summons a soul. An orb of the most brilliant white blue. She rolls it over her fingers like Anthony sometimes flips with coins, and Loki knows she does it on purpose. Drawing bone white fingers elegantly out, she turns and beckons Hela to follow.
"Pardon me, I forgot-" Loki says, pulling the necklace from his pocket. "A parting gift."
Stepping between them, he clasps the locket around Hela's neck. Their eyes are wide with fear. He leans close, tucking a lock of hair behind their ear and kissing their temple.
"Quickly, love." he whispers, opening the locket and urging their hand around the stone. They swallow, and close their eyes.
Body glowing yellow, they pull an orb out of their mouth. It sparkles in the darkness, shimmering like seashells and crystals and all good things. Then it splits, like the diagrams Anthony showed Loki once about cell division. At first just one, then a stretch, a pop, and suddenly two. The new one is purple, deep and smokey like a dreary day.
"Well done." Loki says, holding them both in his palms. "Which is which?"
Hela points at the purple one, stiff and only half aware. Loki takes it, and turns.
Death is bemused, which he's never seen before. He extends his hand, unabashed.
"A soul for a soul. It is a fair trade."
"Incomplete." Death says without opening her mouth. The sound is not unlike a record played backwards.
Loki grits his teeth and represses a flinch. "No, it is a complete identity. Their destiny. See for yourself."
Death plucks the little sphere of light and licks it. The orb grows, expanding outward in the shape of hands pressing against a viscous barrier. It changes and reaches and resolves into a skeleton with long purple hair and spiders in its eyes.
"You have your reaper, as was prophesied." Loki says, trying not to show his relief. "Payment in full. Now, my prize."
A cold wind blows from nowhere, and Lady Death lays the blue orb in Loki's hand.
"Go." she says, and Loki does not need to be told twice.
When he turns his back, they are already at the top of the escalator. Hela swallows their soul, and the light returns to their eyes. Loki breathes for the first time in minutes.
"Are you well?" he asks.
Hela seems perturbed. They shift, several times in quick succession, and none of their forms have skeletons on display.
Staring at their right hand in wonder, they smile. Where there used to be carpals, phalanges, and tough, dry sinew is a fleshy blue hand. Loki runs his thumb over it.
"Let's go." Hela says, leading the way out of the fiery depths of Muspelheim.
All the way back Loki holds the walnut sized orb tight against his chest. Jumping at every hiss of steam and bubble of magma, he rushes, ready to swallow it if he must. Not since Jori's birth has he held something so precious in his hands, and he will not lose it.
Despair nearly catches him when they return to the shuttle's kitchen. It is as they left, and Loki aches at the realization that Anthony's body is no longer a suitable vessel for his soul.
Entrusting the blue orb to Hela, he kneels on the floor for hours and knits Tony's pieces back together. Reconstructing his brain is pure terror, each motion as likely to destroy as it is to heal. This is not his art, it never was, but he doesn't allow himself to doubt.
He knows this man, inside and out, he does not need skill. The process flows by feeling alone, as if Anthony himself is guiding Loki's hand. Reconnect this first, now that, don't worry it'll be fine, I know you can do it. By faith alone he urges his magic and the aether and whatever scraps of himself he can spare to collaborate and recreate.
By the time Anthony's heart is beating and his brain no longer resembles ground meat, his lungs start to breathe on their own. Loki melts into the wall and waves at Hela. They rush over, sweaty and tense with the nails of one hand bitten to the quick.
Souls, it seems, are not so hard to handle. The orb wiggles in Hela's fingers the closer it comes to Anthony, and flies right into his mouth when they release it. Loki crowds him, chewing his lip raw.
If Anthony does not rise, Loki may indeed give up and watch the world burn. There is so much he failed to do, so many things he wishes he told him. Bottomless pits of questions he wanted to ask. All methodically worded and reworded. Meticulously sorted into not now, not ever, and not in a million years.
Would he mind if Loki drew constellations with his freckles? In marker on his skin, but also in the sky on a clear night. Is there anything Loki could do that would chase him away for good? What things specifically, and are there degrees of badness? Would he mind terribly if Loki smelled his memories? If he laced his food with stardust? If Loki was careful, if he was very, very good, could he possibly turn into vapor and have Tony breathe him in and out?
Is there a place on Anthony's body that Loki could brand his name? Preferably where everyone will see, but he's willing to compromise. What about the other way around, would Tony write his name on Loki? On his neck or his ear or his hand or his knee? What about his toes? Would he do it in paint, in Sharpie, in jewels or syrup or razor cuts? Would he, if Loki showed him how, would he possibly do it in seiðr on his soul?
All the unasked questions flood Loki's mind while he crouches over Anthony and panics. His skin is tan again, his eyes darting behind his lids, but he doesn't wake. One of his hands twitches and Loki feels like he's fallen off a building.
"What's wrong?" Hela asks.
Loki shakes him. Nothing.
"He's going to wake up, right? He has to." they say, and Loki starts to feel lightheaded.
With a deep inhale, he lays his hands on Tony's cheeks and soaks him in seiðr. He drains pure energy into him and washes his consciousness against the edges of his mind.
Tony gasps. Loki sags.
"What the hell." Tony groans, touching his throat, his chest, his ears.
Terror returns, as they progress to the stage where Loki could have failed monumentally. He waves a hand in front of Tony's eyes.
"Thought I told you not to bring me back."
"I didn't." Loki says defensively. "I convinced them to do it."
"Hir." Tony grunts. And Loki could cry, he's so relieved.
"Don't you ever die without me again." he growls, gripping Tony's shoulders. He smiles, eyes burning Loki like they always do. Perceptive and all-seeing as truth serum. He touches Loki's neck and ghosts a thumb over his jaw.
"Something's different. Did you get a haircut? Tattoo? You're like, twenty-eight percent less morbid."
Loki tears up, can't seem to stop. The statement is every reason he loves Tony in one innocuous phrase. The insight, the steadiness, the scientific precision of 'twenty-eight percent' that he knows is neither arbitrary nor made up. Not to mention the hidden question, tucked under the surface so Loki can avoid it if he wants. She shifts to show him her progress. Proof he hasn't lost his observational touch.
"I've had a day." she breathes. He wraps her hair around his fingers and pulls her head to his chest.
"We're okay." he says, lips to her hairline.
"We will never be okay." Loki replies, half elated and half hysteric.
"That's okay. Cause we're okay." Tony says, and by the Norns, Loki believes him. She clutches his ugly, unfashionable, blood spattered band shirt and believes him.
"Come here, Split-Screen. Don't be shy." he says, pulling Hela in, and Loki hears hir (?) huff. "I don't know how you managed it, but good game team."
Tony holds them for longer than either of them would prefer, but he does eventually let go.
"Alright, gimme a minute. I gotta piss." he grunts, rubbing at his eyes and using the table to get to his feet. Then he looks around and freezes.
"Holy shit, this place is trashed. I've seen tents at Burning Man with fewer biohazards."
"You have that effect on most rooms you enter." Loki says.
"I'll clean it. It's my fault." Hela murmurs, picking at hir bitten nails. Tony grabs Hela again. It's well meaning, but the expression on hir face over Tony's shoulder begs Loki for help. She doesn't intervene.
"It wasn't your fault." he says, patting hir back and putting both hands on hir shoulders. "I shouldn't have made you do that, but you did. And you did perfect."
Hela nods, clearly overwhelmed. Loki slips a finger through Tony's belt loop and pulls him to the bedroom. The handgun is still on the floor beside a pool of blood, and Tony kicks it under the bed.
"When we get to Earth remind me to get Hela a therapist. Don't let me forget." he says quietly.
After all they've been through she's suddenly overflowing with information. Things that used to seem silly or irrelevant all clamoring to get out. To be known.
"I saw a therapist." she confesses, surprising herself.
Tony blinks, like Loki is a light that's too bright. Like he can only look at her directly because he's half blind from continuous exposure. Her weak heart skips, and she rushes onward. Tries to tell him why she's telling him, although she herself doesn't know.
"While you were in South America. I saw a therapist and she was awful. I walked home thinking humans were fleas infesting the Earth."
"I hope you left a Yelp review." Tony says, and isn't that the most wonderful sentence ever spoken?
I hope you left a Yelp review. Because that would be funny to him. To him it's perfectly natural for Loki to do something he wants her to do and never tell him. And he thinks it's equally natural to want to blow up the subway train on the way home, but he knows she won't. Because Tony thinks she's a good person who does not blow up subway trains anymore.
She kisses him, as though it is the last thing she will ever do. Perhaps it is. Perhaps this is the final breath of Loki, God of Lies. She surges forward, folding around Tony and pouring herself between his lips.
She wants him to devour Loki, God of Lies like one of his ridiculous protein shakes and leave Loki, Just Loki behind. Or perhaps, if it pleases him, he can leave Loki, Who Sometimes Lights on Fire. Tony can be so enamored with explosions, when he's not overthinking the morals.
She breaks away, and Tony shudders, dazed like they've done far more than kiss. It fans up her courage, makes her want to be daring. Sucking his earlobe and neck, she walks them to the tiny bathroom and only stops once he's leaning on the sink.
"I want to burn my name around your neck." she says into his ear. When his eyes go wide and admiring, she slams the door in his face.
"You what?" his muffled voice shouts, and Loki bites her lip. Half terrified, half delighted.
"Don't come out until you've scrubbed yourself ruddy. You smell like rotten meat." Loki calls, and goes to help Hela with the cleaning.