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

Chapter 24

Frigga had to smile at the curious look on Loki's face after he had sniffed his tears dry.

He made a questioning noise that still had a tearful sound to it.

"I think he wants to know why we're here, Dear," she chuckled.

"How can we explain the concept of an anniversary to him?" Odin asked her.

"I wonder..." She raised her hands in a manner nod entirely unlike what Odin had just done, only without anything actually being lifted.

Loki's eyes brightened.

"No, my little Loki, we didn't travel all this way to reclaim you again." Frigga shook her head and kissed his forehead before trying to sign the concept of something moving backwards in even steps.

After a bit of thought that wrinkled his forehead up, Loki started looking intently all over the place, including trying to look behind them and at all the places they had pockets.

"What do you think he's doing?" Odin wondered out loud.

Frigga laughed. "Looking for his present, of course! We only gave both of them a Naming Day present every year even when it wasn't one of the years everyone usually celebrates."

Which was true. Most Asgardians didn't celebrate all their Naming Days, just decades on up. However, they were the royal family, after all, and they had figured out early on that their boys tended to be slightly less destructive of things they would have been given anyway if they were framed as Naming Day presents instead.

So even though this wasn't a round-number year (and Loki might not even remember exactly how old he was anyway, given the state of his mind and how long he'd been separated from anyone else who cared at all about the Asgardian calendar), Loki had a reason to look for a present.

Frigga mimed the sun overhead, then the progression of a day and a night and a day again to the same high noon. One day, my son. One day, with us, while you're here.

Loki looked for a moment like he didn't know what to think about that.

They both looked at him with concern.

He should have understood, shouldn't he? An anniversary was a harder concept than a simple noon-to-noon day, wasn't it?

And he gave a little absent-minded half nod and snuggled close against Odin again.

Odin laughed. A moment later, he commented seriously, "It never ceases to amaze me just how deeply he's always trusted me. From the moment I first picked him up."

Frigga sighed. "Maybe that's what made finding out about his parentage and watching you banish Thor so hard on him. You never let either of them know at the time that the banishment was temporary. He thought you would always act one way towards him, and suddenly..."

"That wasn't the world he was living in any more." He held Loki a little closer. "It can be different this time."

"I think it has to be," she told him before snuggling up to both of them.

Dinner was some sort of Midgardian 'fast food'.

It had been quite amusing to Frigga to watch the debate over it between their host and his obvious love interest. She insisted it wasn't good enough for royalty, much less off-realm royalty, and he heavily implied that this was what Loki had been fed during the long journey between the old Bifrost site and this city.

Once they'd overheard that argument, she and Odin had simply had to insist that if it had been good enough to feed their sons, they might as well try it too.

And Frigga had quietly reminded the Midgardian woman - Pepper, and with that fire in her eyes and voice and hair Frigga found it no surprise that she was named for a spice - that they were used to eating quite primitively while on Earth, so anything better than early Norse fire-pit cooking would be acceptable.

Frigga pitied her in a way - she'd rushed back to the tower on news of their arrival, only to find a situation she clearly viewed as unacceptable waiting on her with no time to 'fix' it.

Given the way Loki's face lit up when the smell wafted into the room, it was clearly a far better meal than Pepper thought. And he was, thank goodness, up to eating again.

It was messy food even when they were the ones eating - and it became even messier when Loki was the one being fed - but it was tasty and good to talk and laugh over.

And there was much talking that needed to be done, about both their boys.

"How has he been taking Thor's absence?" Frigga asked the humans.

"We think that's what caused it all," Natasha told her. "The first breakthrough hit the first night Thor was away."

"How could that be?" Odin asked with an air that hinted to Frigga that he knew their answer but thought it best she hear it from them.

It wasn't an unfamiliar ploy, not this close to the Odinsleep.

"While Thor was here, he was just another piece of the universe," Tony explained with a gesture of a 'French fry'. "No questions needed. He was just there, and he mattered. But once he went away..."

"... Loki may have started asking himself why being handed off to us bothered him." Bruce paused to drink before he continued. "And it did bother him - he was very uneasy that day, at least compared to how he had been."

"And then his subconscious mind got to work on it while he slept," Steve continued, "and the next thing I knew he was up in the middle of the night, sick."

"We won't know for sure until Dr. Strange visits again or Loki starts talking, but we think the things he was remembering made him sick to his stomach," Natasha explained. "Or recognizing how he'd been acting compared to who he used to be caused it. Either way, Steve and I stayed with him the rest of the night, trading off who was awake."

"He woke up a few more times, but he hasn't had another breakthrough hit him like the first one did," Steve told them.

"And there's a household AI he doesn't know about yet," Tony added. "If he gets in trouble or distress when one of us isn't around, one of us can 'happen' upon him within a few minutes, maximum. Given what he's been through, we all figured not letting him know he's being constantly observed was a good thing."

"And this includes observing us?" Odin asked.

"Not entirely," the man named Phil who seemed to be the highest-ranked of the humans present answered. "We've asked JARVIS - the AI - not to record audio while you are away from any of us, in recognition of your realm and family's security concerns. If you call for help he'll still summon us, and if Loki begins acting distressed we'll also be notified."

"We're used to not discussing sensitive matters out-of-realm," Frigga replied.

"And right now... if a few family secrets become known to the people who Loki is going to be living with for the foreseeable future..." Odin began.

"The worst of it was his genetic heritage and that's out in the open anyway," she finished for him. "Better if the people around him and Thor understand the family situation they grew up in."

Dessert after they had finished and Loki had been fed as well was cold, colder than anything Asgardian cooking ever favored. Tony called them 'milkshakes' and the look on Loki's face when they were brought out was... well, it seemed they ought to have kept cold treats around when he was younger.

Lesson learned.

That night was a breakthrough night.

Loki rarely slept longer than thirty minutes at a time before he woke, keening.

All Frigga could do was hold him close while Odin rubbed his back and hope he could calm down again soon.

The humans offered what support they could, but when his parents could do so little, what could people who until recently were strangers do?

Bruce Banner kept the drip going through the night so the crying wouldn't be a danger to Loki's health.

Sometime near dawn, when Phil Coulson and Tony Stark were taking a turn checking in on them, Frigga quietly told them and Odin, "I think I need to stay a few more days. Thor wouldn't be able to handle this. Not alone."

"Dr. Strange called an hour ago," Phil told her. "He'll come in the morning. We'll know more then. Hopefully he can tell us if this is going to happen again."

"I have nothing against you staying, Lady Frigga," Tony told her.

Phil's eyes flicked toward him in surprise.

"I would appreciate that," she told him.

Odin's hand rested on her shoulder. "I think I can keep Asgard from ripping itself apart for a few days without you," he told her lightly.

"I've missed having time with both my boys together," she admitted.

Loki made a little half-aware complaining noise between them.

They stopped talking so he could get what little sleep he was managing to get.

The night was miserable and by the time for breakfast - it had been a while since he had been in a room with windows and was beginning to wonder what he needed to do to have a hope of getting the privilege - Loki was a wreck.

He remembered it now, in larger pieces.

And with the separation from the events...

He remembered and understood what kind of people they were. And hewas, by extension.

And it was wrong, even though it was them.

And what he'd had to do and tried to do, just to survive.

But it was all a mixed-up snarl now, in his head. Was the system right but they were bad actors in it, or was the system wrong and they were just following it... or was he just so powerless that it didn't matter either way so long as he did his best to survive?

There was the horrified half-thrill of even questioning this.

And what about now? Everything seemed different here, but so far the things he had openly done wrong were purely accidents or unavoidable facts of biology.

Loki honestly didn't know what would happen if, say, he were to put the forks and spoons in each others' places tonight at dinner. It scared him that last night he would have never thought of doing such a thing intentionally and it scared him that right now he was thinking of the possibility and it terrified him that testing the situation like that seemed... right.

Like it was something worth doing. Just for the sake of putting the forks and spoons in the wrong places.

As if performing that little sliver of defiance mattered.

Odin took a turn feeding him, which was surprising and a little disconcerting because Loki couldn't remember a time since everything had happened when Odin had done so.

But with the way he was feeling and the available moments flowing by in ways he couldn't check, he'd take whatever time with and attention from his adoptive father he could get.