A/N: 1. Yay! An actual update! Seriously though, I need help. Everyone thinks that everyone else is doing stuff and I have literally nothing. HELP!
2. I have a lot planned to come out after this, but expect updates on FDF, Fallen, and Trapped eventually.
3. The confusion on Loki's shape shifting. I apologize- I wasn't very clear on what I meant. Loki was a natural born shape-shifter. He went through different stages where he preferred to turn into different animals. His family (really just Thor) didn't know why he could naturally shape-shift until they discovered he was a frost giant. I have a theory that frost giants are shape-shifters and practice it in their culture, which is why they are technically neither gender and both at the same time.
4. The mythology. Look, I'm sorry. I don't exactly study Norse mythology, and I have basically no resources other than the Internet. (Which we all know is so reliable.) Also, this is fanfiction. I apologize if it offends some people about my use of mythology. I honestly believed it to be the real thing. If anyone feels the need to correct my mythology, message me.
5. Plot holes. I AM SO SOOOOORRRRY T^T I went back and re-read this to get inspiration for this chapter and I realized how many plot holes there are. Loki's character, the plot, everyone's roles... It's so inconsistent and I am so sorry. I will strive to be better in the future, but I don't have time to go back and fix this. Please, forgive me if you can find it in your hearts.
6. Loki's actions in the chapter. Everything Loki does in this is a conscious decision of mine. Loki is a blend of mature and childish for several reasons (one of them of course being child abuse), and I don't want to spoil anything explaining why I decided to make Loki act so grown up after all this time.
Is that it?
Steve: I think so. You covered everything...
I did? Okay. Fhew. Alright, ONWARD MY FELLOWS TO A GALLIANT REGAILING OF A MIGHTY TAIL.
[Chapter 12]
"I think it's time we finally started training you."
"What? Noooooooo!" Loki whined after looking up in shock from where he'd been playing with his new best friend, Merlin the Kitten.
"Yes, Loki," Tony sighed and shifted restlessly on the couch. He scratched uselessly at the cast and sling on his right arm. "After the break-in last week, I talked about it with Nat and Thor. Both of them agree that you need to be able to defend yourself. You also need to start exercising your magic more. Don't you want to be a big, strong sorcerer one day?"
"Yes..." The seven year old pouted. He quietly continued teasing the kitten with his fingers. "Who will I train with?"
"Nat was gonna teach you some self-defense moves, Thor will try to help you with your magic, and Clint was going to keep up the archery and knife-throwing lessons he's been giving you," the brunette explained wearily. "Thor knows of some books that will help you improve, I guess?"
"More books?" The green eyed child seemed to perk up at that.
"Yup."
"Well, if I have to," he shrugged. "When will I start my training?"
"Right now!" A female voice cried and Loki was subjected to a sudden tickle-attack. The boy squealed with laughter. "Lesson number one! Always be prepared!" The red headed woman pulled back from the seven year old. "Come, котенок. Let's start in the gym." The child nodded and let himself be escorted away.
"You okay, Tony?" Bruce questioned as he entered the room. He noticed the scratching and huffily swatted the billionaire's hands away. "This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't gone down there without the suit."
"Well I wasn't just gonna go running around in the suit in my own building unless I knew what the threat was! I might've freaked people out, and then Pepper would have gotten on my case about productivity-"
"I think she might have let it go. And you need to keep taking your pain medication," the smaller brunette lightly smacked the engineer upside the head and forced a few pills into his good hand.
"It's fine, really! It's just my elbow-"
"How fair thee?" Thor asked jovially as he strolled into the room. Tony sighed and swallowed his medication, knowing Bruce would be able to get Thor on his side easily.
"Great, now that Tony's taken his pills," Bruce laughed softly.
"You wound me," the other brunette huffed grumpily.
"And where is my brother?" Thor wondered. He looked at where Merlin had been left to play with Tony's shoelaces.
"Natasha just took him down to the gym to start their training," Tony informed, already starting to get sleepy from the pain medication.
"Here," Bruce sighed in fond exasperation. "Let's get you to bed. You know you shouldn't have been in the lab for so long..." His voice trailed off as he led the billionaire from the room.
Thor spent a moment to pet Merlin and check on his food and water dishes before he too stepped into the elevator. Moments later, he stepped out on the floor that held the gym and pool. Loki and Natasha were already focused on the lesson on the other side of the gym. The blonde casually made his way over, listening as the woman instructed how to form a fist and deliver a solid punch. Loki nodded along to the lesson, but he seemed a bit confused.
"I'm too short," he finally blurted out before dropping his defensive pose entirely. "I won't be able to strike any important areas. A full grown Midgardian is much larger than I am, and kicks won't do anything either. My training time is best spent practicing agility, magic, and weaponry."
Natasha considered him for a moment. Silently, she grabbed his shoulders and moved him so she could compare him to the practice dummy. After a moment's hesitation, she sighed and decided their lessons could be spent on the obstacle course.
"Thank you for your assistance in training my brother, Lady Natasha," Thor grinned. He clapped her on the shoulder, amused by Loki being correct.
"Let's just hit the obstacle course," the spy sighed and led the seven year old to the grey-scale training area. She went to a control panel and hit a few buttons so it became a decent, immobile course. "With Tony's equipment, the obstacle course can be still or it can move. We'll start off still and work our way from there." Loki nodded, and she guided him to the beginning of the area. She quickly walked around to the other side. "Your goal is to make it across the course in under a minute."
"Um, okay," Loki shifted nervously. He lightly moved into a ready position, already examining the area in front of him and figuring the best path. Thor quietly stood to the side and watched the proceedings carefully. Natasha started a timer on her wrist.
"GO!"
Loki took off like a rocket. His small, light body was perfect for leaping over barriers and ducking around obstacles. Unfortunately, he wasn't perfect, and a slightly miscalculated jump tripped him and sent him tumbling to the floor. Thor looked like he wanted to rush to his brother's side, but Natasha sent him a warning look.
The green eyed boy made a determined sound and shakily got back up. Weakly, he finished the obstacle course and stood panting before Natasha. She barely spared her watch a glance.
"A minute, thirty-eight seconds," she announced. Loki made a face. He marched around to the front of the obstacle course once more and got in a ready position.
"Again!" He called. He could do this. He could! He had been so close! Now he knew, he needed to estimate distances and time his jumps better.
"GO!"
Loki instantly darted back into the course, taking a different path. It wasn't easier, but it was definitely faster. Again, he didn't duck at the right time and knocked into a pole, sending himself sprawling. A growl escaped him, and he hurried through the rest of the course.
"One minute, six seconds."
"Again!"
-{[(•)]}-
"Alright, Loki," Natasha sighed and pulled the boy away from the course. "That's enough for the day. You're going to wear yourself out."
"I'm fine!" Loki protested. "I can't do i-" A small yawn slipped past his lips, and the boy glared down as though he were glaring at his lips for compromising him.
"Why don't you take a bath and Thor will help you with your magic training?" The woman suggested amusedly. Loki made a disbelieving sound.
"Thor is going to teach me magic?" He questioned. The redhead suppressed a grin and shrugged.
"He left this morning and said he was going to get some books about magic." Natasha didn't mention that some of the books were from adult-Loki's house and the others were from teen-Loki's room in Asgard.
"Okay," Loki agreed when he realized there would be books involved. He hurried off to take a bath and find his brother. Dressed in clothes that were designed to transfer magical energy efficiently- which was really just his Draco Malfoy costume, but no one needed to know that- Loki huddled down in the library with his big, blonde, older brother.
"I do not know how to teach you, Loki," Thor sighed regretfully. "I have gone over these books what feels like one hundred times, yet I still cannot understand. Perhaps you should train by yourself-"
"No," Loki said quietly. He eyes were scanning the books already. "Stay with me. I can show you." Thor watched in silence as the younger skimmed the first pages of the top journal, one from Loki's personal recordings. He already seemed to know the information, but on the seventh page, he stopped.
"This is the golden flower spell! The one I showed you when we first came here!" He read over the spell quickly, scanning the movement of energy and mental focus and other things Thor couldn't make sense of. "That's why I can't hold it for long! I'm doing it incorrectly!" The boy scowled and silently held out his hands. Instantly, the familiar golden flower appeared and stayed there. Loki didn't seem to exert quite as much energy or concentration as before.
"Here, Thor-" Loki released the flower and grabbed the thunderer's hands. He pushed them into a bowl shape. Then, he positioned his hands underneath and cast the spell again so it hovered on top of the blonde's hands.
Blue eyes widened.
"I can feel the energy," Thor whispered. "I had felt it before, but now... Now I can feel how it moves. It is very strange..."
"It's a different magic than your hammer, so you wouldn't feel the same type of connections. Our bodies are like magical conductors. As we practice magic, we can hold more energy in our bodies. Then, when we use that energy, it is transferred through different points." Loki stood and shifted his arms back and forth, showing how the magic danced through his arms to his fingertips. (It looks like water-bending.)
"Your connection with Miojnir is through soul bonding magic." The child skimmed through the book for a moment before conjuring a string. He tied one end of the string around Thor's pinky and the other around his own. "Pull on the string." Thor moved his hand and Loki was jerked towards him. "When you pull on your bond, it comes to you. Your energy is always there, shared between the two of you. A sorcerer's magic comes only from him."
"This is amazing!" Thor beamed and gently removed the string from them. "Why did we not study this on Asgard?"
"Asgard does not like change," Loki intoned wisely. "It feels it has already reached the top, and that there are no improvements to be made. But, Asgard stopped at fighting and training and war. There are levels above that. Just from a few months on Midgard and reading some of their books, I can see that in some way, the Midgardians are far more advanced than we ever were."
Thor shook his head, smiling softly but sadly. "Brother, sometimes I feel you should have come first, so you could have given me your wisdom. There are times I see you as a thousand years older than I."
"In our years, I'm still only a child," Loki grinned. Moving away from the short lesson, the boy began to read about new spells and types of magic. He demonstrated for Thor and gave explanations as he went along.
-{[(•)]}-
A week later, Clint finally got around to dragging Loki back down to the range. Tony had made a few practice throwing knives and a bow the right size for the seven year old. The arrows were also child-friendly, but Clint decided Loki could practice with the real ones and no one would have to know.
"You can see the target, right?" The archer finally demanded after the boy hit right next to the bullseye for the twentieth time.
"Of course I can!" The child snapped back, indignant. "This is a different bow than I'm used to!"
"And?" Clint questioned. The kid couldn't be serious. Did he really know the difference between bows?
"It's a completely different weight and length! Your stupid arrows are different too!" Loki pouted and stomped his foot angrily. "I'm not stupid or blind!" He threw the bow on the ground and retreated to the locker rooms.
"Loki!" Clint shouted. He took a step after the small boy. "Aw, Nat's gonna kill me... Hey! I didn't mean it!" He hurried to the locker rooms, hoping to find the child before he could tell Natasha or worse, Tony. "I'm sorry, Loki. Loki! This isn't funny! Come out! I said I didn't mean it!"
The faintest of sniffles came from one of the bathroom stalls nearby.
"Loki?"
The blonde gently pushed against the stall door, finding it locked. He knocked lightly.
"Hey, I really am sorry, okay? I didn't mean to say you were dumb or anything. I'm not very patient, yeah? It's a problem, and you gotta work with me on it." There was no response. "Come on, Lokes. Open the door. Can't we talk about this?"
"I don'wanna," Loki whispered, and Clint feared for his life once more as he realized the kid was crying. Cursing himself, he turned around and leaned against the door.
"Yeah? Why not?"
"'M not good at it anymore," was the sullen mumble.
"What? You were pretty good! You almost hit the bullseye for most of your shots!" Clint protested.
"Almost," the voice stressed sadly. It echoed softly in the nearly empty bathroom.
"Well, yeah," Clint scoffed. "I guess I didn't think about it, but you're using a completely different bow than you're used to. You know, I've never used any other bows than my one from the circus, the one from SHIELD, and the upgraded one from Stark? I can't just pick up any bow and use it, either."
Loki sniffled. "Yeah, but it's my thing."
"Your thing?" The grey eyed man chuckled.
"Thor's big and strong and he can use a hammer and a sword, but I'm small and light and smart and I can wield a bow and do magic and throw knives," Loki rambled his explanation, clearly upset that he wasn't as good as he thought. Clint felt a deep sympathy for the kid wash over him.
"I had an older brother," he admitted, tipping his head back to look up at the ceiling. Slowly, he slid down to the floor.
"Y-you did?" Loki's voice was much closer, and soon, a small warmth bloomed against the archer's back.
"Yeah. He was a jerk," the man laughed emptily. "He and his friends would bully me. And I was just this little kid, you know? I thought he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. We lived together at the circus; everyone liked him more than me. All I wanted was for someone to look at me, recognize what I could do." He shifted uncomfortably. These were things he had only ever told Coulson, but who was the kid gonna tell? "It's why I became an archer."
"Me too," Loki breathed into the quiet air. "Everyone likes Thor so much. They think he's so special and good because he's just like them. A god among fools." The boy practically spat the phrase, and Clint was reminded of his older self. Somehow, it seemed less disturbing, farther away now.
The green eyed child sighed, staring at the wall in front of him. "He was the worst warrior in our fighting class for a while, but everyone let him win because they were afraid to hurt the prince. No one was afraid to make me loose." The kid sounded so bitter, and Clint wanted to pull him into his arms, reassure him that there were people who loved him here. "He finally got better, and then the people really challenged him. He fought like a mighty king, with a big heavy sword and a crown of gold. But I... I was too little. I couldn't use the same weapons. And even though I knew how to beat Thor, I never could..."
"Loki, buddy, you're only seven," Clint interrupted jokingly. This conversation was depressing... "You can't say never quite yet."
"Hm? Oh, I suppose not," the boy was lost in thought now. If the archer found him behavior strange, he didn't mention it.
"You want to try again? I'll try to be more patient this time," Clint suggested.
"Sure..."
A/N: Finally, some bonding between Clint and Loki! There's a lot of character development in this chapter, but I won't apologize.
QUESTION OF THE UPDATE: IF YOU COULD WIELD ONE WEAPON, WHAT WOULD IT BE AND WHY? I choose archery, simply because I already have some practice, or swordsmanship, because I know how to use one and it would be AWESOME. *voices cracks like Rainbow Dash*