Title: Laughing As I Pray
Rating: PG-13

Summary:
At the time, the lesson had seemed clear: Your strength is not for your careless enjoyment alone. You must use it to protect those weaker than yourself. At the time, Thor had felt as though he had completed a long and grueling journey of self-discovery. Now he wondered if he hadn't taken the first few steps on the road, then turned around, run back into the comfort of his familiar home and slammed the door behind him.

It was a long night. Physically, Thor certainly had little to complain about; the house was warm, quiet and filled with a soft darkness that still allowed him to see his surroundings. The couch beneath him was quite soft - if narrow - with an abundance of pillows and quilts. He could always retire to the floor, if he had to, and still sleep in better luxury than on a hundred nights of more bitter camps.

So it was not a physical discomfort that kept Thor awake, and chewed away at the edges of his thoughts. Instead it was a familiar, haunting sensation that he had not known since his banishment. A feeling of failure, and something deeper than failure, for a single failed effort could be righted. A single failure could not account for his somehow managing to drive away every one of his allies, his loved ones. This spoke of a failure of something more fundamental, of an intrinsic flaw or error in his very being.

It was a small comfort to heft Mjolnir in his hands and turn his fingers over the handle. Mjolnir still answered his call; he was not unworthy of it, according to the terms of Odin's geas. But Odin was not the only source of judgment, it appeared, in the universe.

Another night spent sleepless and empty, wondering at his place in the world. Somehow it was always Midgard that managed to do this to him. Hadn't the first time been enough?

… Had the first time been enough?

The fact that he was sitting here, feeling an echo of the same empty desolation as when Mjolnir had failed to answer him, seemed to say that it had not.

At the time, the lesson had seemed clear: Your strength is not for your careless enjoyment. You must use it to protect those weaker than yourself. And he had done that, or tried to.

And his father's curse had been broken, Mjolnir had come to his call, and he had returned triumphant to Asgard. At the time, Thor had felt as though he had completed a long and grueling journey of self-discovery. Now, Thor wondered if he hadn't taken the first few steps on the road, then turned around, run back into the comfort of his familiar home and slammed the door behind him.

There had been little reason to dwell overmuch on it, once he was restored to Asgard and his role as Prince. His father, his friends, Mjolnir itself - all the universe seemed to line up to tell him that his work was complete, that he had done a good job, that he had learned his lesson. Now it seemed that his teaching had only barely begun - and that he'd left the path of learning behind when he'd left Midgard.

So. What lesson was it that was yet unlearnt?

He had definitely made a mistake in rushing in to battle with the mutants. That, Thor could admit with a guilty cringe. It was a mistake he had made before; when he had charged thoughtlessly into battle on Jotunheim, when he had leapt to battle the SHIELD agents his first time on Earth, when he had struck out at Iron Man and Captain America during his pursuit of Loki...

All right; this was a mistake he made a lot.

Even Loki himself; he couldn't help the uncomfortable thought that if only he had tried harder with words, instead of leaping to blows upon his first encounter with Loki on the mountaintop, then perhaps Thor would have noticed how strange and unlike himself Loki had been behaving. Perhaps he could have discovered the mystery of the mind-control earlier, before so much death and disaster had followed.

So much of his current woes came from his terrible predilection to jump quickly to combat, to let his muscles and his battle-training do the thinking. All right, then. He tried the vow on for size: I will no longer attack before I am myself attacked.

It was a good thought, and yet... it was not battle alone that had brought him trouble. His current woes with Jane had not their root in Thor's eagerness for battle; instead, they came from thoughtless words he had spoken that had hurt her unknowingly. And that, too, was a common source of woe: his argument with Loki at the school today had been peaceful, almost civil, until Thor had said something that drove him into a wounded rage. He was not even certain what he was that it had said - but that only confirmed, indeed, that he had not thought very hard before saying it.

A second vow, then: I will think before I speak.

Well, then.

Was that enough?

It didn't feel right, didn't feel... complete. It was all well and good to say 'I will think,' when that told him nothing about what he should think. There was still something fundamentally out of fit, some missing piece of the puzzle that he had not yet grasped.

It's not that simple, Thor.

He was truly beginning to hate those four words; it seemed like every person he had spoken with since his return to Midgard had told him some variant on that sentence. And yet no one would explain to him what else it was, except that it wasn't simple.

He was going to have to find this out himself.

But not, perhaps, all by himself.

Thor never fully slept - his troubled thoughts and the unfamiliar territory would not allow him such ease - but he had long practice in taking what rest he could, and so he was awoken from a light doze by light coming in through the windows and noises coming from the adjoining kitchen. He heard the low murmur of female voices - Jane and Darcy were both awake, then - and the clank of metal cookware.

Time for breakfast, then. Thor's stomach growled - the meal from last night, while delicious, had left him feeling hungry again in a surprisingly short time. He pushed back the blankets and pillows from the couch, straightened his clothing, and went to wash his face and hands in the downstairs bathroom before he joined the company for breakfast.

Somewhat warily, Thor let himself into the dining room and took a seat at the table. Darcy sat at the other end of the table, crunching on some manner of cereal; since her mouth was full, she gave him an affable good-morning nod, which he returned.

Jane glanced over at him a few times while preparing food, but did not speak. Thor was just beginning to wonder if he should be doing something - offering to help, although he did not know how this kitchen was organized and if was not sure if he would just be in the way - when Jane turned off the stove, picked up two plates, turned around and marched over to the table. She set one down in front of Thor with a firm clunk - toasted bread and eggs, it looked like - and the other at the empty place in front of her. She took a deep breath, then looked at Thor with determination.

"I want to apologize for the things I said last night," Jane said, and the words were so unexpected that Thor was thrown utterly off-balance. "I've been building up a lot of frustration over how my research has been going lately and, well, it all just sort of spilled over. I had no right to take it out on you, and I'm sorry that I did."

Thor, who had been expecting a re-opening of the impassioned shouting from last night, barely had the presence of mind to stutter out "Th-think no more on it, Lady Jane. All is forgiven."

Jane nodded firmly, and sat down to begin spooning up her eggs.

Truth be told, Thor thought that he had rather more to apologize for than Jane did, and this seemed to be the time for it. He took a deep breath of his own, trying to stitch his words together into something resembling an elegant tapestry, and began.

"Jane, I want to apologize as well," he said. "Not for my words of last night, but for the acts of before that caused you such pain. I did not realize that you were so hurt by my decision to keep you safe instead of bringing you into our counsels. Please understand, it is both my duty as Prince and my fondest wish as a man to protect, especially those who cannot protect themselves. It was only because I cared for you in the first place that you were put in such danger - and I do care for you deeply, Jane -" of all the words that Jane had thrown at him last night, the implication that he did not love her was the one that stung the most. " - and therefore, neither my love for you nor my duty could not allow you to remain in danger."

Once finished, he looked hopefully at Jane for her reaction. Jane was looking down at her own plate, not meeting his eyes, and seemed to be struggling with herself. After a long moment she gave a nod, a small, flat smile, and said. "I accept your apology, Thor."

Thor paused. Although her words were forgiving, her manner was not, and Thor was flummoxed as to what could have caused this. Darcy looked between the two of them, sighed loudly, and dropped her spoon into her bowl with a splash. "Really, Thor?" she said. "That's what you're going with, 'I'm sorry I'm so awesome'? That you're just too noble and caring and that's what you're sorry for?"

Thor blinked at her, confused. "I do not know what you mean," he said. "I have apologized -"

"Really?" Darcy said, crossing her arms on the table and leaning over them. " 'Cause that's not what I heard. What I heard you say was, you don't think you actually did anything wrong, you don't plan to do anything to fix it, and you'll probably do it again next time. How exactly is this an apology again?"

Thor gritted his teeth. As fond as he was of the mortal girl, she was making this process much more difficult than it needed to be. "Darcy, perhaps you should absent yourself," he said. "This is a matter between Jane and myself -"

"No, no, you know what I think?" Jane interrupted. "I think this is Darcy's house too, Darcy's kitchen. So she can stay if she wants to." She had crossed her arms over her chest - and her legs, too, one foot tapping on the leg of her chair - and two high spots of color had appeared in her cheeks.

Feeling unjustly tag-teamed, Thor opened his mouth to disagree, then paused with it still open. I will think before I speak, he reminded himself. If Jane was insistent upon Darcy remaining here, that meant she agreed with what Darcy said. Why then could she not simply say so herself?

Because, Thor realized, she cared about him in turn - and being as kind a soul as she was, she found it difficult to speak harsh words to those she loved, at least without the heat of anger to fuel her. It was easy to stand in defiance against an enemy; much harder to muster that same fighting spirit against a loved one. That, at least, Thor had no trouble understanding.

Jane wished to have her friend nearby as a support and backup, for the blunt and outspoken younger woman had no qualms about saying the words that Jane herself struggled to articulate. And if both of them were in agreement that Thor's apology was somehow insufficient, he realized, then he had no choice but to reconsider his words.

Thor sighed. "Jane, I am not sure what to say," he said, subdued. "My actions have hurt you and for that I am truly sorry. But I cannot see how I could in good conscience have acted otherwise. I love you, I worry for you, and if you are in danger I must take action to mitigate that danger." He paused for a moment, running his mind over the argument of last night. "I admit… I failed to consider the possibility of Loki approaching you in disguise. That was my lapse, and I am sorry."

Jane frowned. "But Thor, don't you see that's exactly the problem?" she said, and Thor did not see. "You acted unilaterally, like you had full command of the situation, when it turns out you didn't. You say you didn't consider the possibility, but I might have, if you had asked me. It's not the fact that you want to protect me that I have a problem with - it's that you made decisions about my welfare without consulting me at all!"

Her small hand struck the surface of the table, letting out a startlingly loud bang. "That was an insult to both my courage and my intelligence. If you had come to me, told me of the danger, then maybe we could have worked out some compromise - maybe I could have been squirreled away in some remote facility apart from where Loki was being held, but still keeping in touch by phone or video, so that I could work on the problem alongside SHIELD's scientists. Or maybe we could have done something else. The point is, you didn't ask. I am not some treasure you can put in a vault and guard, Thor; I am not something you can take out to play with when you're on earth and put away the rest of the time. If this is going to work - if you and me are going to work - then you have to treat me as your partner."

Thor dropped his head in a slow nod, abashed. He truly had underestimated Jane - as he kept on underestimating those around him, both mortal and not. "I understand," he said, voice subdued. "I am sorry, Jane. I never meant such disrespect. We can hope that the situation will not arise again - but if it does, I will absolutely take your counsel before deciding how best to act."

Jane let out a forceful breath and sat back in her chair, the harsh tension draining out of her face and body. "That's all I ask," she said, and then she smiled, that heartrendingly lovely smile that Thor loved so much. "I accept your apology, Thor. I forgive you."

And this time Darcy did leave the room, with a knowing grin and a thumbs-up to Jane that Thor studiously ignored, so that they could finish their reconciliation in privacy.

Breakfast time turned to lunchtime in the peace and quiet of the house, broken only by the tinny noise of the television in one room. Despite the presence of Jane and Darcy, Thor was hyperaware of how empty the space around them otherwise was - miles of greenery and empty road between them and another human. It was like being on a camping expedition, but with all the comforts of home. It was extraordinarily peaceful, and just what Thor needed to think.

It had been easier, in a way, to face against Loki during the Chitauri invasion and plead with him to return home. As much as Thor had still clung stubbornly to hope - to the resolution to never give up on his brother - at the time, Loki had made no sign of relenting. That his heart might soften, that he might return to Asgard in friendship, was a potent daydream, but only a fantasy. Thor might wish for it, but did not really have to worry about the logistics, as they were unlikely to ever really be an issue.

Things were different now. Now, there was the possibility that Loki might actually be relenting from his evil ways… there was the possibility that he might actually, some day, come home. And that forced Thor to consider, in ways he hadn't had to before, just how many difficulties were going to be involved with that.

Even before his return to Midgard at the head of an invading force, Loki had committed crimes against Asgard. In the desperate hour of Malekith's siege, Thor had promised Loki a pardon if he would lend his aid, and Thor had no intention of retracting that offer; both his love for Loki and his honor demanded that he uphold it. But Loki had his share of enemies and detractors, who would not be happy to see the second prince's return. Thor commanded Asgard's forces - for now - but his position was hardly a secure one, and throwing his reputation behind Loki's would weaken it further.

As of now, Asgard did not know the whole story of Loki's fall, nor of his past. The official announcement told of Loki's death as a tragic hero sacrificing his life to save Asgard from the Dark Elf invasion, and made no mention of his Jotun heritage. If Loki returned, would he allow the cover story to stand, or would he insist on making the whole truth known? Would he be willing to return to a life of lies, after the lie that he had been told his whole life had been so painfully revealed to him?

Thor knew his people well, and knew that they would always be fonder of a dead martyr than a live traitor. In that, he could understand where Loki had gotten his wild idea that Thor loved him better dead than alive, although it still hurt him deeply that Loki would think Thor's love for him so shallow. Loki was unpredictable, contrary; Thor could not know how he would react if returned to Asgard, whether he would make peace with the kingdom and its people or whether his restlessness would inevitably start stirring up chaos and discord once more.

All these things Thor was willing to face unflinchingly if it meant Loki's return to his side, and yet… and yet…

What if Loki did not return to Asgard? What if he stayed on Midgard, as he had been, in peace? Could that happen? Would that be safe, would that be responsible, would it be the right thing to do for either of their realms? Would his alliance with the mutants lead to noble efforts, or further down the path into darkness?

He went looking for his friends and found them in the living room, Darcy engrossed with her handheld computer and Jane with a stack of notebooks, currently abandoned as she prepared yet more coffee in the kitchen. That was fine by Thor, as it was not actually Jane's advice he sought just yet.

"Lady Darcy," Thor began. "May I ask some questions of you?"

"Oh, so I'm Lady Darcy now, am I?" Darcy muttered, as she propped her chin on her fist and set her elbow on the table. "Sure, what about?"

"You are a student of politics in this realm, are you not?" Thor asked. He was fairly certain he had heard her refer to herself as such before, although as usual for Darcy it had been buried in waves of disguising chatter that made it hard to grasp what exactly she meant by it.

Darcy looked at him, nonplussed. "Uhhh, sort of, yeah?" she hedged. "Political Science studies, that's me. I mean, actually technically I'm a double major now, Political Science and… another major that UNM doesn't actually have a name for, basically they just let me hang out with Jane and assist her with her stuff and count that as a major. But I finished out all the PoliSci requirements before I started this internship, so yeah, I think that counts even if I don't have my B.A. yet."

Most of that speech flowed by Thor like running water, and he let it. "I wondered if perhaps you could advise me on the politics of this kingdom," he said.

"Well, sure, I'll do my best," Darcy said, sounding delighted to be asked. "What did you want to know about?"

"Can you tell me of the mutants?" Thor asked. "I have been told many things about them: that they are evil, that they are trying to poison America, although I have been assured that this is only a metaphor and no actual poison is involved, but I still do not know what I should believe."

Darcy blinked at him, eyes wide and startled behind her heavy black glasses frames. "Uh, wow, that's kind of a heavy topic," she said. "Why do you wanna know?"

Thor sighed. It seemed as though the time had come that he must explain the true circumstances of his return to Midgard, as reluctant as he was to break the idyll of his reunion with Jane. "I must know because the business of Asgard has become entangled with the fate of these mutants," he said. "You see, I recently discovered - through the gaze of all-seeing Heimdall - that my brother yet still lived."

Darcy gasped, hand flying to her mouth, and Thor hastened to add, "I understand that for you this news may be a dire portent, and I regret that I must break it to you; but please understand, that to me it is… it is…"

"No, no, Thor, I understand," Jane said quickly, placing the two mugs of coffee firmly on the table. "For your sake, I'm glad. That's good news."

"Aye," Thor said with a nod, relieved that he would not feel like he must either apologize for or defend his own tangled feelings to Jane. "For me as a brother, it is joyous news. But it does not end there, for he has not returned to Asgard. He was seen here, on Earth."

"Um, the same planet he tried to conquer last year?" Darcy chimed in uneasily. "That's… bad news."

"So I feared myself," Thor said, "and yet, I have but recently heard the revelation - told to me by my shield-brothers, whom I trust - that Loki was not himself during those dire events. That he was being controlled and manipulated by another, by means of foul mind-sorceries."

"So Loki is actually innocent?" Jane said, eyes widening. "That's great news!"

"I thought so too," Thor said dolefully. "But when I tried to speak to him at the school of mutants, we exchanged only words of anger, and almost came to blows. I have been barred from that place, and have no other way of reaching him. I fear our relationship may have been damaged beyond repair."

"That's… bad news…" Jane sighed. "Tell you what, Thor, why don't you just start from the beginning and explain everything?"

So he did.

To establish the proper context Thor had to go all the way back to the beginning; Jane knew some of the tale, but not all of it, and Darcy knew only fragments. He started with what they already knew: his disastrous raid on Jotunheim and subsequent banishment to Midgard. Loki's brief, disastrous kingship, and the Bifrost attack on Jotunheim leading to the breaking of the Bifrost itself.

The tale of the Chitauri invasion they already knew, and so he touched only briefly on Loki's furious, mad rampage, his capture and binding at the end of it, how he had attempted to bring Loki home with the Tesseract and failed. Those events led directly the invasion of Asgard by the dark elf army, and Thor's desperate plight with no defense against Malekith's dark magic.

His voice strengthened as he told them how Loki had returned to Asgard - of his own volition, when no one could have forced him - and found the key to breaking the Dark Elves' siege. How he and Loki had snuck out by the dark paths to Svartalfheim, luring Malekith in pursuit of his treasure; how Loki had feigned to betray Thor, stab him and incapacitate him and sell the coveted artifact back to Malekith for his own gain. How that betrayal had involuted on itself at the last moment, and Loki's cunning sabotage of the Deepness had turned it on its owner the instant he tried to make use of it to devour the light. How it had devoured him, instead, and brought all of dead Svartalfheim into nothingness along with him.

How Loki had died on that dark and barren plain, choking on his own blood from the wound the Kursed had given him, and how the collapsing realm had swallowed his body beyond all hope of retrieval.

Even now, knowing that it had all been a feint (a trick within a trick within a trick) and that Loki had survived and was alive and well now, the memory still hurt; still choked Thor with a grief now tinged with betrayed anger.

But he pushed past the remembered grief and continued on with his tale; how three days ago Heimdall had summoned him with the news that Loki had been seen on Midgard, alive. His journey back to this realm, the incredibly unhelpful first interview with Fury, the warm welcome he had received from Steve. His growing puzzlement over the mutants, which everybody seemed to understand and nobody could explain. The broadcast (and as soon as he said Mannstrom's name, Darcy had winced and put her hands over her eyes, a reaction Thor could only now appreciate) and its catalytic effect on Thor's temper. His disastrous journey to the school, and the utter debacle that had been his subsequent argument with Loki.

By the time he finished his tale, the mug of coffee had gone cold in his hands, and both of the humans were sitting at the table, staring at him wide-eyed. "That's… that's a lot to take in at once, Thor," Jane said in a hushed voice.

"He seriously almost blew up an entire planet?" Darcy asked, subdued in a way Thor had rarely seen her. "Wow. That's just… shit."

"Aye," Thor could only agree with a grimace, for even the tale he had told was the simplified version, which did not even touch on half of his confused, contradictory feelings. How could he be so fiercely joyous that Loki yet lived, and yet so angry at him; how could he so long for Loki to return home to him, and yet be filled with trepidation at how badly that homecoming might go?

"Truthfully, my friends, I am not… I am not certain of my own mind in this," Thor admitted, and the words seemed to wrench their way out of him. "I love my brother, and my heart rejoices to know that he may be restored to me. But I find there is much anger within that heart, as well. Even if the words spoken by this mutant Charles Xavier are true, and Loki's mind was not his own during the Chitauri invasion… it was his own during the events that came before, and after. No one else forced his lies to me on during his regency, nor his deception on Svartalfheim, and for those acts I struggle to find understanding."

"It's all right to be angry, Thor," Jane said. "No one's denying that he's hurt you pretty badly."

"Yeah, but there's a pretty big difference between the sort of dick move that leaves you stranded on Earth without a ride for three weeks, and the sort of dick move that destroys planets," Darcy said. "It's totally fine to be mad at him, so long as you have a clear idea of what you're mad at him about."

Thor grimaced, looking away. "Indeed, I know well what my brother is capable of," he said. "So you can see why I was so concerned when he disappeared from view, only to turn up with these mutants, about whom I knew nothing. If not to plan more mayhem, as I feared - and I understand now I was wrong - but I still do not understand why."

"I think I get it," Darcy said, slowly tapping her fingers on the table as she considered. "Why Loki decided to shack up with the mutants, I mean. From your description of Jotun-Asgard relations, it sounds like it has a lot in common with the mutant situation here on Earth. I mean, humans and mutants have to share a planet, so there's never been a single all-out, nuclear strike on the mutant community like Asgard did to Jotunheim..."

Thor shook his head, interrupting her. "Asgard has never tried to destroy Jotunheim," he corrected."

Darcy looked up at him, surprised. "But you just said that the Bifrost would have destroyed Jotunheim if you hadn't stopped it?" she said.

"Yes," Thor nodded, "but was done by Loki, not an act of Asgard."

"Uh, excuse me?" Darcy said sharply. "Aren't you always saying that Loki is your brother, and how you two grew up together? How did 'Asgard' suddenly become defined as 'everybody but Loki' ?"

"You do not understand," Thor protested. "Perhaps I did not adequately explain - "

"Maybe you didn't," Darcy bit off. "So okay, explain a few things to me. Asgard has a patriarchal lineage monarchy, right? A single state leadership position that passes within the family from a reigning king to his male heir?"

"Yes." Thor nodded. In all Thor's lifetime he had only ever known one king - Odin - but he certainly had studied the history of his own kingdom.

"And you and Loki were both the acknowledged sons and heirs of Odin, right?"

"Yes," Thor said, and he couldn't help but add, "- although it was always understood that I was the rightful heir. I was the older, and -"

Darcy interrupted him. "Yeah, except that you were in exile at the time, right?" she said with emphasis.

"Yes, but -"

"Now I don't know how it is on Asgard, but on Earth, historically speaking, 'exile' doesn't mean 'on paid leave for a few weeks while investigations are proceeding.' " Darcy, Thor noted, was almost as good as Director Fury at delivering blistering sarcasm. "You were out - out of the country, out of the line of succession. And if the big seat goes up for grabs during that period of exile, well, that's just shit out of luck on your part. Loki was next in line, right?"

"Yes, but -"

Darcy continued over him remorselessly. "And when your dad went down, Loki was confirmed as King, right? Officially and everything?"

" …Yes." Thor had not been there for that part - it had occurred during his exile on Earth - but upon his return, his mother had told him everything.

"And you guys were at war with Jotunheim at the time, right? Because of the truce that got broken? The one that you broke?"

This time, Thor said nothing at all. Not that Darcy seemed to need any input from him, rolling on to her inevitable conclusion. "So let's recap," she said, and began ticking off points on her fingers. "You - plural you, as in Asgard - built a giant intergalactic railgun. You - as in Asgard - had a thousand-year feud going on with the Jotunns which you spent talking up how evil and awful and monstrous the other guys were. You - singular you, as in you, Thor - crossed their borders and killed a bunch of dudes, restarting the war. And then you - plural you again - set up Loki to be your leader, at which point he pulled the trigger on said giant intergalactic railgun pointed at the country with which you were at war. I'm sorry, what part of this is not Asgard's doing again?"

"Loki was acting alone - " Thor began.

"So fucking what?" Darcy's eyes flashed and snapped, high color rising into her face as passion rose in her voice. This was a side of his friendly, playful mortal friend that Thor had never seen before, never seen her engaged with a subject she cared about so passionately. The result was more than a little intimidating. "Loki wasn't born in a vacuum! Loki didn't just spring out of the ground fully formed and start committing genocide. He was taught, given the education meant for future kings, that put all these ideas and values in his head. You guys are a monarchy and that means the king is the country. L'etat, c'est moi and all that bullshit. This is actual literal acts of state, carried out by government leaders using national infrastructure.

"Now that the war is over and you've gotten what you want, you're acting like your confirmed hereditary leader was somehow not in any way associated with the country he was leading at the time and therefore you - as in Asgard - totally have no responsibility and are not culpable in any way? That," Darcy stabbed a finger towards his chest, "is some serious Shinzo fucking Abe bullshit right there."

Jane, who had been following the exchange between Thor and Darcy with a hand over her mouth, moved to intercede between them. "Listen, this is kind of getting off the point a bit," she said, "which is deciding how Thor is going to handle interacting with his brother now."

"Uh, actually I think this is very much on the point," Darcy retorted sharply, "if this whole 'using Loki as a culpability dump for our dirty deeds' dynamic is informing their personal relationship as well."

"Darcy…" Jane sighed.

"I'm just sayin'. " Darcy slumped back in her seat, arms crossed, apparently having said her piece. Her entire face, not only her cheeks, was bright red from the strength of her emotions, and she seemed almost as embarrassed by her own anger as she was angry in the first place. Loki, Thor couldn't help but think, had been much the same way; he always struggled to keep a façade of strict control, and anything that forced that mask to slip, showing his true feelings, would infuriate and embarrass him.

Even without Darcy interrupting him, Thor did not know what he could say. He had no idea what to make of Darcy's vehement insistence that Asgard was somehow responsible for Loki's acts of destruction with the Bifrost, but her last statement struck a nerve in him - a stinging twinge that seemed to hint there was more truth in it than he would like to admit.

Dirty deeds. That was an apt summation of Loki's ways; even when he accomplished good and positive things, he always seemed to find a way to do it that was twisted and underhanded, offensive to the sensibilities of Asgardian honor. Thor knew that about his brother, and yet he could not deny that over the years of their brotherhood he had many times benefited from Loki's "dirty deeds." So often Loki's tricks and deceptions had been what allowed them to get out of - or into - a tough situation, crucial to their success; yet afterwards, Loki's efforts had only ever warranted scorn and mockery.

Thor had tolerated Loki's tricks better than most - partly because Loki was his brother and he loved him but also, Thor now had to admit, because they were useful to him. So long as he'd had Loki, Thor could have the confidence of Loki's cunning without actually having to commit any dishonorable acts himself. In the vague future he'd envisioned for himself as Asgard's king - always with Loki by his side - he had imagined that it would continue to be so, that Loki would give him advice and - and aid, aid in his own unique, underhanded way -

And Thor would get all the glory, while Loki remained in the background. Scorn and mockery.

For the first time, Thor thought he got a glimpse of what Loki had meant when he spoke of living in Thor's shadow. It was like a flash of vision in a mirror, familiar sights thrown backwards and distorted. Thor's friends had always described Loki as jealous, and even Loki himself had spoken of envy. Yet both jealousy and envy implied that the jealous one coveted something that rightfully belonged to another, something that they did not inherently have.

How different from jealousy and envy did it make it, if what was coveted was not something merely lacking, but stolen? Taken from one and given to another, without even acknowledgement that any theft had been committed? Again and again, over the course of a lifetime; what would build and build was not merely petty jealousy, but unbridled rage…

They were both, Thor realized, shaped by the culture of Asgard they had grown up in. For Thor, the icon of prince and warrior was one that he fit easily and well. Not so for Loki, and the pressure of that stamping mold had left a deforming mark on in, pressing him all out of shape. Thor could see now that Loki's intention in wiping out the Jotun - shocking as it still seemed to Thor, or to Odin - was merely the logical extension of the warrior's training he had been taught all his life: Kill your enemies. Strike swift, strike sure, and leave none to rise again behind you. And yet when he had tried to apply this doctrine in the most efficient possible way, Asgard had rejected him. And so had Thor.

He felt sick. How much of Loki's strange rage had been fueled by Thor's own actions - and inactions - over years, decades, centuries together? How much of Loki's pain, deeply buried and never appeased, had been directly caused by Thor's carelessness? How much was he, himself, directly responsible for Loki's madness, for his destructive rampage?

And yet…

Thor kept remembering something: a thought from the other day that had intruded into his consciousness and would not leave. When Fury had been dressing him down for his attack on the mutant school, Thor had not tried to slide out of responsibility for his own actions, because he knew: even if I was baited, I chose to take the bait. Even if I was provoked, I should have been able to control my response.

"It is not the same," Thor said aloud, bringing his thoughts to life for the first time. "As my choices - and my mistakes - are my own, Loki's choices are still his own. Even if he was pushed, he still chose…" He trailed off there, and flinched from the image his words had shaped: he still chose to jump.

Loki's choices were still his own. But, as Darcy had said, Loki was not 'born in a vacuum.' Just as Asgard's legacy of war had left its mark on Thor - leaving him bloodthirsty, quick to rage, eager to battle - it had left its own marks on Loki. Perhaps Loki's acts were germinated of his upbringing, and not - as Thor had always supposed - of some inherently evil nature.

Thor's head ached. His mortal friends were right; nothing was that simple.

"I do not know what to think," he admitted, somewhat wretchedly. "I do not know what to do. I do not understand Loki at all any more." He wondered now if he ever had.

"No one else can tell you what you should think," Jane said, watching him with worry in her eyes. "But if you want my advice - I think you need to talk to your brother again. He's the only one who can tell you what he was thinking or feeling at the time."

Thor had to nod, knowing she was right even if the answer disappointed him. "But I know not what to say to him," he said plaintively. "He is ever skilled at twisting my words. Everything I say to him seems to go wrong, and we only goad each other's tempers to bursting."

"Have you thought maybe you could try an apology?" Darcy asked.

Thor frowned, temper flaring despite his struggles to stay calm. "I do not see why I should have to apologize," he growled. "He tried to kill me! Three times! If we are speaking of the need for apologies, I think I am due my own!"

Jane laid a hand on his upper arm, and rubbed the muscles up and down in a soothing way. "Look, Thor, you know I'm on your side," she said. "But this isn't a competition between you two to see who can rack up the most injuries. If you want to fix things between you and your brother, you may have to set your anger aside. Sometimes you need to take the first step to apologize, even if you know you're not the one in the wrong."

"That is…" Thor trailed off and turned towards her sharply, as a thought occurred to him. "Is that why you apologized to me this morning? Not because you felt you were in the wrong, but because you wanted to heal the rift between us?"

Jane blushed, but her chin rose defiantly. "Yes, well, maybe it was," she said defensively, "because our relationship matters to me, Thor. I thought it was more important for us to resolve our differences than for me to 'win.'

"Ultimately you've got to decide, Thor - do you want to be right, or do you want your brother back? Because if it's the latter, then you can't keep on keeping score. Somebody's got to make the first move towards peace, and knowing what I know of Loki, I don't think he will - or can."

Silence fell for a long moment, while Thor struggled with the notion - struggled with his pride, in truth. What Jane was suggesting sounded like a surrender, framed as a victory, and that was hard for Thor to accept. He would have to let go of fantasies - hardly fantasies, hardly acknowledged even in his own mind - of vindication. Half-imagined visions of Loki coming to him abashed and humbly apologizing for all his wrongs, admitting that Thor had been right about everything all along.

Loki had always been skilled at holding grudges. Thor had always been the opposite… or so he believed. Maybe the two brothers had more in common in that regard than Thor thought.

"I do," he said at last, and the answer almost surprised himself. The conviction in him grew, even as he spoke the words aloud. "I do wish to speak with him - to apologize - to do what it takes to make things right. But - how? He is at the school of mutants, where I may not go, and I know not how to make my words reach him."

He sank into silence, brooding on this dilemma, while Darcy and Jane exchanged a meaningful look across the coffee table.

"Well," Darcy said, "this is the twenty-first century, after all. Does he have an email address?"

~to be continued...

Author's Notes: Loki will return in the next chapter, promise!

Of all the things that annoyed me about Thor in The Avengers, his 'sorrow and remorse' speech to Coulson is possibly the most insidious (perhaps because I've seen his other failings addressed in fics, but rarely this one.) On the surface it sounds very noble and profound, apologizing for inflicting trouble on the Earthlings. But if you unravel his speech a little bit, you realize that what he is actually 'apologizing' for is that he just loves Earth too much. He can't help it, guys, he's just such a noble and generous person that his love for all these adorable midgardian critters just spills out. And of course Loki, because he's evil, just hates love, and that's why Loki is fucking shit up. Because Thor just loves Earth too much.

So that's Thor's idea of an apology. Not apologizing for treating Earth as his family's personal resort. Not apologizing for the myriad ways that his family fucked Loki up and then set him loose to wreak havoc on the universe. Not apologizing for his kingdom leaving their superpowered trash all over Europe for Hydra to find. Not apologizing for his own inability to control or connect with Loki in any meaningful fashion. No, what Thor is sorry for is just being too great of a guy.

Unfortunately, the only person who heard that little speech was Coulson, who is not around to deconstruct it for him any more. So I tried to have Thor realistically recreate the circumstances of a "I'm sorry I'm so great" apology for Darcy to call him on here.