In a dark moment, he could recall lost snippets of childhood, resurfaced after so long, and he could squash them down and suppress them further, ignore them and go about his adopted life of mayhem.
This is what Loki usually did.
He managed to do it when Odin denied him, hanging over the precipice of certain death, the icy wind made by the plummeting Bifrost chilling the tears in his eyes. He did it when Thor gave him a way out of the situation in Manhattan, when he offered hope with such an eager smile, so ready to believe that one so fallen could be redeemed. He even pulled it off when Frigga gazed at him with that shredded gleam of what once was displayed so clearly in her eyes, the laugh lines around her mouth crinkled when she smiled at him, a tear strolling down her cheek at the burn of his words, spilt like acid on his tongue.
Loki could do it at the worst of times, or at the moments he needed to the most, and it barely ever fazed him.
Until Thor was involved, that is. The god had a way with things, had a personal relationship with the fine line between naivety and stupidity, dancing on its boundary at all times of his life. Thor was his one and only weakness, able to bring him low and make him humble, able to life him up and give him pride.
He was Loki's downfall, for certain, but he was his strength. There could never be Thor without the ever-lurking presence of Loki, and Loki could not survive without Thor. It was the simple way of things, one that no one but the two brothers had ever completely understood, and the growing rift dividing them only made the matter worse.
Loki couldn't even think of his brother without that revoltingly familiar sting of jealousy stabbing at his heart, or the annoying burn of tears in his eyes at the time gone by, and yet he longed for those lost pieces of his youth, when they were inseparable, when nothing could ever dream of coming between their friendship. But that was an entire lifetime ago, far too many years to count, and Thor had changed.
He'd grown, matured, his decisions less rash and his intent less cruel. Loki could think back and let his old perspective sink in, let the ignorant Loki take over and be proud of Thor for his metamorphosis, and that was all that would ever be accomplished.
The old Loki would never last long, and he'd disappear just as quickly as he surfaced, fading into the neglected images in Loki's mind, the moments better left alone. And then the true Loki was back, the changed, realized Loki, and his thoughts spiraled out of control as, perhaps, the faint sound of Thor's voice made it through the conflicted thoughts and background noise, almost pulling him from his sleep, but the concern dripping from his words made the trickster recoil, too afraid to wake and face his once-brother, too afraid to open his eyes and look in the mirror and find the old Loki gazing imploringly back at him, begging to be released, begging to make amends, begging and hoping and longing, and Loki lost himself again.
...
"What do you expect me to do, throw him on the street, leave him to his own devices?" Thor asked rhetorically, aiming for the sympathy card, and Tony slammed his scotch glass on the counter, brow furrowed.
"Yes!"
The sound of the glass shattering threw him into a slew of cuss words, and he scrambled for a towel, his fingers shaking, while Thor stood beside Jane, watching his comrade with sad eyes. In the living room, it looked as if a literal divide could be pinpointed, Steve and Natasha choosing to stand by the bar as Tony cleaned up the broken glass and amber liquid spilled onto the counter's smooth surface and Jane clinging to Thor's arm, her brown eyes bright with worry as she nonchalantly inspected Thor's bitten hand, the wound puffy and irritated and dark with dried blood. Thor closed his mouth in surprise, speechless.
"We should contact Fury, call in S.H.I.E.L.D. They'll take care of Loki," Natasha suggested smoothly, her fiery hair dimmed in the light, and Thor stepped forward angrily, clenching and unclenching his fists.
"To torture him! To treat him-"
"Like a prisoner?!" Natasha interjected, her own cool brand of anger sneaking into her voice as she stepped over to meet Thor's fuming gaze, and he sobered quickly, saddened by her sudden hostility.
"Loki will be treated like he should have been a year ago?! Is that what you mean, Thor? He'll be treated like the criminal, the murderer, he is, and that's how it should have always been." She turned away, dismissing the conversation, and sighed as Steve watched her tense movements, frowning.
"You can't protect him forever; he's not the same person you think you know. He tried to kill you-multiple times," the Captain murmured quietly, and flinched inwardly at Thor's attentive, dejected gaze, the look of a dying man captured in his bright eyes. The fresh cuts on his face were bright red against his skin, and Tony could still hear the sound of the porcelain breaking against the man's head, echoed in his thoughts after an hour of its silence. His hand needed to be bandaged, that much was apparent, and a few Band-Aids couldn't hurt, but he was stubborn, and had rejected both ideas without hesitation, shoulders slumped with the burdens of a future king of Asgard. Thor shook his head slowly, blinking away the burn in his eyes.
"I know him well, Captain. Loki has changed beyond my wildest imaginings, but he's not entirely beyond my reach, and I know my brother is in there, somewhere." Jane clutched at his uninjured hand reassuringly, her soothing touch immediately consoling to the former god.
"He was different, not long ago. When our mother died, he avenged her. I could see past his mask, to the grief he was going through. He wouldn't have felt saddened by her passing unless he cared, and if he cared, then he's in there. He just has to be given a chance," he explained slowly, remembering how unrelentingly hopeless he'd been before and after Frigga's murder, how he'd refused to believe Loki could be saved. He was still reeling from the news of Odin's demise, and he prayed that it was a lie, knowing that even as he spoke the words of Loki's potential redemption, that, too, was an unachievable dream.
Loki was past reason, past logic, past everything, but Thor had to offer forgiveness or nothing would ever be accomplished, and so he swallowed his sorrow and pretended like he didn't care about his brother's recent actions, choosing to deal with the lesser evil and start from there. Steve leaned against the bar and Tony, looking up from his vigorous scrubbing, frowned.
"So you want us to, what? Harbor a killer? And not to mention," he murmured sarcastically, gesturing to Thor's swollen hand, "a biter."
Thor sighed, looking down at Loki's teeth marks, deeply rooted in his skin at the back of his hand.
"Just…let me talk with him."
"We should call Barton and see if Banner can get over here. It seems like he can handle Loki pretty well," Steve suggested, ignoring Thor, and the spy beside him sat down on a bar stool, shaking her head with a distracted, absent look in her eyes.
"I can handle him!" Thor shouted indignantly, and Tony laughed mirthlessly.
"Yeah, you sure looked like you were handling him when he kicked your ass."
Thor took a breath to say something, but came up empty, sighing in defeat, nursing the wound on his hand as Jane released her hold on him to get bandages, despite his previous protests. Natasha watched her go and shook her head, gazing up at Steve.
"Clint is off on a mission; it'd be dangerous to interrupt him now. And Banner…doesn't exactly like Loki. Something traumatic as Loki's reappearance could still trigger an episode, no matter how in control he claims to be."
Thor paced in the wake of Jane's absence, restless, and he ran a hand through his hair anxiously, shrugging as thought after thought came to him, seemingly in an argument with himself. After a few minutes of this, Jane came back in with ointments and sprays and bandages alike, her arms full as she spread it all out on the coffee table, and Tony made a point to not think about the blood stains on the sofa, or the dent in the door, or the porcelain pieces scattered on the hardwood in the bedroom. He sighed, dreading the moment Pepper returned from her grocery trip, and Steve gave him a near-telepathic, sympathetic look, as if he could see into Tony's mind. Thor brushed Jane's touch away when she tried to wrap gauze around his hand, and she gave him a silent, aggravated look before reattempting it. He swatted her fingers away a second time and sighed stressfully.
"I just-I just need to calm him down, make him see reason."
He stood quickly, ignoring Jane's orders that he come back so she could help him, and she was left standing in the middle of the living room with the saddest look in her eyes, and Steve thought for a moment to ask if there was trouble in paradise, but the door opened creakily and every head turned to see Pepper, walking in with bags full of food cradled in her arms. She closed the door and looked up, but stopped dead when she saw everyone sitting around, medical supplies strewn on the table. Turning, she gazed at Tony, and the bright red blotch on the white sofa drew her wide-eyed glance away from him.
At the sight, she dropped the bags, and Stark had the sinking suspicion that the fallen groceries were the least of his worries.
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