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

Chapter 27

Pepper walked into the room. "Someone told me," she said with a quick nod up, "that Loki got some words back." And then she processed what was going on. "Okay, what happened and who do I need to find?"

"We accidentally formed the patronymic form of his name, and he reacted," Frigga said with no small amount of regret.

"I checked by miming myself holding a babe, using the name any son I might have would bear," Thor continued. "He prevented me from repeating the pattern with his name."

"So he thinks children are out of the question now." Pepper felt like cursing. Of all the things he could have realized before he can communicate effectively... even if Tony had that board ready he couldn't.

"Biologically, it was likely already so," Frigga said softly as she ran a hand through Loki's hair and mournfully looked down at him. "We never knew whether his size was from genetics or something acquired developmentally. Even if he was attracted to others of his own species, and I've never seen a sign he might be, the risks would be too high. If we had told him of his ancestry in a controlled manner, I would have explained it too him when he learned the rest. As it was, he was too off-balance for any more shocks until... until everything went wrong for our family."

Pepper could see Loki reacting a little to the tone in her voice. Something about the way his shoulders tensed and untensed, visible enough through his shirt to matter.

When was everyone else - anyone else - going to notice that talking about him as if in his absence was not a good thing for him?

She put a hand on one of said shoulders and gave it a squeeze. "You're safe, Loki. That's what matters right now. And I've got a treat waiting for you, down in the freezer, once you're up to it, all right?"

He didn't respond to the question, and she knew he couldn't have understood it yet, but she did feel him relax a little under her hand.

Thor met her eyes for a second and gave her a slightly apologetic look.

At least now he remembers what I already told him.

Loki looked up at her eventually.

She pointed at him. "Loki."

He gave a little nod, enough for her to be absolutely sure of the response.

And the wonderful fact he was functionally capable of forming answers to yes/no questions.

She pointed at herself. "Pepper."

After a moment of concentration, he nodded.

"We've got takeout in," she told them all. "Pizza this time. It's usually not a bite-size food, but enough of the humans here prefer using knives and forks to eat it that Loki shouldn't feel too out of place."

Thor grumbled. "That, Brother, is the skill I wish you could get back next."

The world should not be this way, it should never be this way.

There shouldn't be lurking dangers and remembered dangers and people destroyed even after their enemies were long gone from them.

He rubbed at the band on his wrist with a mix of gladness that it felt just like any other watch and distress that it didn't feel any different.

It would have been good to have a physical focus again, Bruce reflected as he stood just outside the door. He'd used the early monitors that way enough, when he was first figuring out control.

Of course, now he was fairly sure he didn't need the focus anymore.

The world was wrong. There were many bad things that very much needed a good firm smashing. Sometimes repeatedly. But none of them were here now, and when the time came, well...

There was something precious in feeling safe enough often enough to just offer the Other Guy the promise that Bruce would let him take over when he was actually needed. In the fact there was An Agreement of sorts now, an understanding.

A trust.

Bruce could be angry all the time. He had enough reasons for it. But the Other Guy would only come out when Bruce knew he could be useful. Or could have time smashing things no one cared about anymore.

He stepped inside the room with an anxious smile, trying not to be afraid of what Thor's reaction might be.

Fear was a different story than anger, and a more dangerous one.

"Am I interrupting anything?"

"No, you're fine," Pepper assured him. "I was just telling them I brought dinner."

He took in the tear tracks on Loki's face, along with the usual visual spike in anxious caution.

Bruce wished for the thousandth time that he had a way to just tell Loki that freezing around the Other Guy was better than running, because there was no way Loki wouldn't instantly bolt unless he knew. Maybe even if he knew.

Maybe I can add that to the list, too.

"Not been a good day?" he asked him, privately adding this to the list of universal unfairness.

Pepper walked over to him. "He realized he is not going to have children of his own," he whispered in his ear.

Now that was an ache Bruce was familiar with.

He walked the rest of the way over. "Hey, Loki. I know you've had a bad afternoon, but I've got something to show you that you'll like. I promise."

Loki tilted his head quizzically.

"He cannot have possibly understood that," Frigga reminded him.

Fragmentary memories of the Other Guy, being treated as if he didn't have a third of the mind he actually did. The thing Loki had called him that finally and completely set him off... Loki lying on the ground afterward...

Bruce didn't have a choice but to treat Loki as another thinking creature.

He showed Loki the watch.

Thor only took a few seconds to react. "Banner, there is no need of such precautions..."

"It's not a precaution, Thor. He has no way of knowing when I cross the line from safe to dangerous. He doesn't know I have the transformations under control most of the time, now. It's so he will know when he may be in danger from me... and relax the rest of the time."

Meanwhile, Loki was staring at it, even squinting a few times, clearly trying to figure out the puzzle of what could be important about it.

Bruce reached for one of Loki's hands, waited long enough for Loki to let him guide it, and held Loki's fingers to the pulse point at his temple.

And thought about all the horrible horrible things he and the Other Guy both wanted to do to whoever had done this to Loki. Preferably slowly.

Loki tried to pull away as his pulse rose, and then...

Beep... Beep... Beep...

Bruce let the focus of his thoughts go elsewhere, on the fact none of that could happen because they had no clue who had done this or where they were. Yet.

The beeping went away.

Loki stared at the watch in confusion.

And then his eyes grew wide and he gave an open-mouthed grin like Bruce hadn't seen on him before.

And then he realized: ever since his arrival, Loki had intimately remembered that anything that could get Bruce's heart rate up was a bad idea. Loki knew how the Other Guy showed up, and he'd been doing whatever prevention he thought he could.

Even things like playing comatose. Like not being the first to touch. Like not making fast movements.

It hadn't been fear, it had been extreme caution.

"Don't worry unless it starts beeping, Loki," he instructed carefully. "That's when you have something to worry about."

Loki couldn't understand the words yet, but Bruce was sure he'd understood the answering smile.

Pizza was the furthest thing from Tony's mind the moment Pepper, Bruce, and the two Asgardians walked into the dining room.

"No. You aren't. No."

"Tony, he had to," Pepper told him. "There wasn't another way."

Phil was there already, and there was no way SHIELD was sending him away on any duty until Frigga left. Tony was glad of the potential backup. "Had to do what?"

"He's wearing a pulse monitor," Natasha told him.

"Um, Bruce? If there's been a change in your control of..."

"Loki had no other means of knowing when there is a danger," Thor interrupted. "Nor do we have a way to tell him the depth of control that has been achieved until he regains more language."

"It was the easiest way to get him to calm down around me," Bruce offered. "And I won't wear it out of the tower. And it worked, so at least for now it's worth it."

No one argued.

Tony still hated it.

"Wait, 'more language'?" Clint asked.

"He understands a few names and some family relationship words now," Frigga announced proudly.

That shifted attention onto Loki and off of Bruce, and the conversation the rest of the evening revolved around repeating names and praising him for the improvements he'd managed.

Loki was exhausted - emotionally, physically, and mentally - by the time Thor and Frigga finished feeding him. He thought they must have noticed, because Pepper clearly nearly went to go get something, looked at Loki's face, and then sat back down.

Bruce followed Loki and his family back to their bedroom.

Loki didn't mind much - it wasn't his place, and he knew he was safe now unless he heard the warning beeps - but he hoped they would let him sleep soon.

It had been a long day, he missed Odin already, and just lying still in the dark with Thor's familiar breathing in the room seemed like it would be a wonderful thing to do.

Bruce sat next to him on the bed and said something he didn't understand at all, not a single word.

It was frustrating.

Bruce seemed to recognize that. He paused for a moment in thought, then quietly stated, "No sons of Loki?" He figured out the 'of' meaning from context, even if the word itself didn't seem right, and any other time he would have been quite proud of himself for managing that much.

Now, it just brought the pain of the recent realization back in near-full force.

Even if he wasn't biologically Jotun, even if he wasn't so wrecked psychologically... what woman would want a man who couldn't keep the meaning of 'of' in his head?

Bruce wrapped an arm around his shoulders and told him, "No sons of Bruce."

And after a moment of thought, Loki realized that had to be true. And that he must have figured out early on, had time to react, had time to adjust his concept of his own future.

That meant Bruce knew what this was like, for Asgardians and humans had similar family structures. And, from what Loki knew, the Jotun on Jotunheim had a stranger but still relatively similar system themselves. And...

And thinking was only making him more tired.

He leaned towards Bruce, accepting the sympathetic embrace for what it was.

When Bruce left and they had settled in for the night, Loki and Thor were each nestled under one of Frigga's arms the way she used to keep them for the night when they were small and had nightmares or believed monsters were lurking in their rooms.

Thor even held his hand, the way he used to when they were all three lying like this, the way he had for so long Loki couldn't even remember when he had started.

And he knew, somehow, that even before them, he hadn't been able to remember.

It was reassuring.

Tomorrow, he promised himself with a thrill of worry. Tomorrow I'll swap his fork and his spoon. While Mother is still here. While he still feels this protective.

While it might be safe.

Thor could almost hear his mother's contented smile in the dark as Loki's breathing slowed into deep sleep.

He certainly heard the contented sigh a moment later.

"It is good to be back together, even for so short a time," Thor whispered.

"Mmm." The slightest chuckle. "You held his hand like that the first time you met."

"Really?" he asked.

"He was maybe two days old, if that, and you were far too young to be weaned yourself. You were having your dinner when Odin brought him in and... you just sort of flailed a hand out to his when he was put beside you."

Thor chuckled lightly at the mental image. That had been them ever since, side by side. Brothers. Until everything fell apart.

"It was the first safe moment in his life, Thor." A pause. "I'm glad my boys have each other now." She kissed the top of his head. "Now go to sleep, my little prince, while I keep this watch. I promise if there is a bilgesnipe under the bed, I will wake you and help you defend us all."

Loki snorted a laugh in his sleep. No need to wonder why - it was an old joke and the pattern would be as familiar to him as the creases in Thor's palm.

Thor yawned and stilled, and soon knew nothing until morning.