Disclaimer: I own no part of the Marvel movie universe.

Chapter 16

Thor found himself immediately thrown back into court life.

Odin was intent on seeing him in action prior to handing over power again, just in case dealing with the invasion of Midgard and Loki's current condition had made him temporarily unfit again.

"It's not that I don't trust you, Thor. Or that I think you've lost your perspective of what a good king is. I just want to make sure you're all right."

Which meant spending a few days acting as king from a chair set a bit down from Odin's throne, while Odin literally backed him up.

It was simple things, simple disputes, for the entire first day.

They had the midday meal with the rest of the court, which meant plenty of time to catch up with Sif and the Three.

"How is he doing?" Hogun finally asked when no one else did.

"Not well, but there's more hope than we had before. The Sorcerer Supreme of Midgard took an interest in the situation. He says Loki's got a long road ahead of him, but there's a lot of progress he can make."

"That's good to hear," Volstagg told him.

"Language is predicted to take the longest, his own speech likely the last thing he'll get back," Sif told them all, as Thor had already told her.

Apparently one of the side effects of her parents' betrayal was that she had become very protective of Loki.

The Three all cringed.

"I wish I had not said it," Volstagg said a moment later. "If he remembers, you tell him that."

"It might be better coming from you, if he remembers and is recovered enough for visitors," Thor told him.

"How far can he recover?" Fandral asked. "We only went to see him the once, when your mother was trying to find out how many 'safe' people he recognized, but..."

Thor remembered that day. Loki had barely paid their presence any mind at all, even though he was already very clear on who his family was by then.

Or, in light of what they now knew, he'd been clear that his family was supportive and meant no harm.

"There's quite a lot he can get back, but Dr. Strange thinks full recovery isn't possible. There was too much damage, and the coercion and mental conditioning they had him under was too extreme to begin with. He may get to the point where he can be mostly independent in day-to-day life, but he'll always need looking after when it comes to big decisions."

"Damn," Fandral cursed.

"At least second princes are never expected to be entirely independent," Hogun reminded them.

"This is a bit different than a king ordering his brother where to take the army and when," Volstagg replied. "A second prince may be dependent on the monarch, but he's supposed to be ready to take over if the need comes. Either as king in his own right, or as a temporary reigning regent."

"Yes, but it's a mental framework that may keep it from grating on him as badly as it could!" Sif shot back.

Thor knew better than to get involved, but it did make him feel better.

Loki still fit in the family the way he was supposed to. And the news of his heritage honestly would have disqualified him from the throne in the eyes of a lot of the people of Asgard anyway, so his little time ruling that had gone so wrong was probably the only time he would have ever sat on the throne even if everything else had gone right instead of happening the way it had.

And then one day, hopefully a long way off, it would be King Thor and his brother Loki, and whoever Thor married as queen - probably Sif, although that was going to take longer to happen now than he'd always thought, and her defensiveness of Loki boded very well in that regard given how much influence Frigga had over the day-to-day lives of the royal family now - and then little princes running around eventually. Different than it might have been, but still a good life.

Thor had been looking forward to being a reasonably indulgent uncle some day, but then Loki's true heritage had likely prevented that outcome in the first place and with Loki in this state adopting or fostering was probably unthinkable.

And Thor was probably never going to have a sister-in-law by marriage, either, because first there was the issue of what Asgardian woman would want to marry a mind-damaged biologically-Jotun prince for anything but the access to the throne he could provide even if he healed as much as he could and second there was the issue of if Loki was ever going to get to the point where he could consent - or not consent, which was the bigger issue as Thor saw it - to marriage at all. And that didn't even figure in the problem of finding a woman Loki would find attractive who fit the first criteria. Sure he'd stared at a girl across the room for ages according to Dr. Strange, but she hadn't made an effort back and for all anyone knew, she might have even been a conspirator.

And then the Three were on Loki's side, now that they understood why he'd always been different and just what had gotten into his head when everything happened, so that meant Loki had the support of Thor's questing companions.

A smaller family than he'd anticipated, but it could have been so had nothing ever happened to Loki so all was well in that sense at least.

And then it was time for an afternoon at court, and then dinner with his parents, and then he read himself to sleep with the old picture books and wondered as he drifted off if these were really the least Jotun-unfriendly books Asgard had for that reading level - or if they were simply books everyone their age had read and therefore unavoidable if Loki was to remain unsuspected - because quite a number of them were truly awful.

Or they seemed awful now.

When they were kids, they were just books.

No wonder Loki thought he was a monster.

Loki did a lot of thinking the first day he had his name back. It slowed him down some, but no one seemed to notice or mind and so it was, at least for now, something worth risking.

Odinson. What in the world could it mean?

That was most of the thinking he did. The rest was simple trying to put together the flashes of memory he'd gotten before he got sick into some sort of coherent structure. And that triggered a lot of other memories as well.

So by evening, while he didn't have a clear picture of who he was, he did have the general idea that the place he'd been before this was probably where he'd been before them. Which only increased the questions of why he was not there now.

And then he started wondering what they did to their own Failures. Except this was really too nice to be punishment. But then what happened to Failures really wasn't either - they just couldn't be trusted not to defy him or be of any use to him. So they were kept out of trouble, and then eventually sent to his lady with whatever messages he wanted to send her.

But the details of that were fuzzy, and he had the distinct idea that keeping them that way was a good thing.

There had been some people in and out of the place he had been. Vaguely familiar, but not enough he'd felt it worth trying to interact with them. Better to stay quiet and neutral and not risk anything.

But then there had been the three. The tall one who had brought him here and was now missing, possibly for good. The woman who had stayed with him most of the time and slept to one side of him at night. The silver-haired man who had slept to his other side and seemed to spend as little time around Loki as he could while being overly affectionate whenever he was around.

And they had been people he knew before them. But who were they?

He wracked his brain that night in the dark, as he lay in his own bed again with Steve - another name he knew now - in the other alone.

He finally dredged up a memory of the four of them together, along with a woman he hadn't seen since them who stood next to him. And the silver-haired one was calling the tall one "Thor Odin's son" quite clearly.

It was two words, run together normally for convenience of use. He'd been right about that.

So the tall one was Thor, and they were both of the surname Odinson.

Which implied some sort of a relationship, but then coming all the way here with him and staying so long and taking care of him so much of the time also implied that.

And then there was the question of who Odin was and what 'son' meant and why he felt like not knowing that made him more worthless than ever.

He yawned.

He couldn't stop trying to pull at the mental thread, not now that he was finally getting something from it.

Memories of doing things together. Studying books he couldn't begin to understand the meaning of now, even though he could nearly remember what they'd said. Sparring. Wrestling, at least as much as Loki could manage and it was always one-sided very quickly. Sprained ankles, bandaged knees, the woman looking down at them and telling them that... that... that...

That they were brothers and were supposed to be keeping each other out of trouble instead of goading each other into it.

Brothers.

That was a word with some clear associations. Enough associations that other words became clear soon after: father, son, mother, sister, parents, family.

So Thor was brother, and the silver-haired man was Odin and their father, and the woman was their mother and while he couldn't remember her name it was only a matter of time, and he knew the other woman was not his sister but there was some sort of a connection that mattered there, some reason she was standing with them.

But then, why hadn't she come to see him? Had something happened to her between that memory and now?

And why had he been sent here, when he clearly belonged there? And why had Thor, his brother, seemingly abandoned him here?

For the first time he could remember since he'd been damaged he felt like someone had active responsibilities toward him, instead of only the other way around.

It was a terrifying feeling, and the only way he calmed himself enough to settle down again was by reminding himself over and over that he wasn't ascribing such responsibilities to them - ascribing them to him was simply unthinkable - just someone who had never been in his service. And recognizing such relationships and responsibilities could even be useful in his service, if it let you do necessary things better or at all.

So even though he wasn't considering doing that, had no orders, had no contact, wasn't even sure if they could even find a way to give him orders right now damaged as he was, and had a feeling he knew what would happen if they found him now, that made it okay somewhat. Because he still technically could if ordered and wasn't showing signs he wouldn't.

He tried to get to sleep. This was more than enough for one day.

Tomorrow, he could try to figure out why Thor was gone. And why in so many of those memories, he seemed like he didn't quite fit where he was.