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Chapter 28

It was a comfortable day, as such things went for him, even with the growing anxiety about his plan for that night. For the most part, his mother and brother chatted with each other, and occasionally said something directed at him that he simply couldn't make sense of, and Loki simply listened to the sound of their voices and was glad he had both of them there right now.

She will defend me, if he reacts badly, he thought. She never liked disciplining either of us, when we did things wrong. That he remembered very clearly.

And this was doing something very wrong.

Putting the utensils out was his duty here, it seemed. A small, simple, easy thing. Making an error, much less an intentional one...

They are not them, not in the least, he reminded himself. And they would not punish you for disobeying those who foiled the invasion.

That was a very freeing thought indeed. So long as he followed the greater rules...

There was unease at that thought.

He was still cautiously working through what he actually thought of them.

Pepper left Loki mainly to his own devices as he set the table.

In fact, she spent much of her time 'observing him' covering her face with her hand and wishing she could just spend all her time dealing with him instead of these few moments in the evenings.

It was much easier and more fun than being a CEO and managing Tony's unique ideas of how things should be run. She had the rank, he had the antics and the scientific genius.

And right now, Loki was acting as suspicious as she had ever seen him. Not so much by making it obvious exactly what he was up to, and more by looking guilty as sin and then adding even more guilt on top of it.

Which meant he was doing something that was incredibly wrong in whatever concept of good and bad behavior he was currently using.

Given who had 'taught' him proper behavior most recently, that was likely a very good thing.

But what was he up to...?

She casually walked around the table, just looking.

And then, so carefully done she almost didn't notice... Thor had a spoon for a fork. And a fork for a spoon.

Ah, a prank.

A prank that was going to be more impressive than whatever Loki had intended, given dinner was going to be soup tonight and if Thor just grabbed for his 'spoon' without looking...

She realized Loki was looking right at her, frozen still with whatever anxiety and fear the little bit of rebellion had generated.

Pepper beckoned him to follow her and set out for the kitchen.

Loki didn't know where she was leading him.

She had seen what he'd done. She'd looked right at it.

He didn't know what willful disobedience meant here, and there was an odd sort of satisfaction behind the thought that he was finally going to find out.

He didn't think they had doing anything like what happened to Failures to anyone in them, ever. So he was safe from that. But there was so much less than that.

It was said Failures begged for the same punishments the rest of them got, even the ones that left the punished being in agony, in the brief times they had a chance to dare speak.

That was the horror of it. Failures were kept under complete physical control, where they couldn't get into more trouble. And then eventually, they were given over to...

He stopped, quickly enough that Pepper must have heard the difference.

She looked at him oddly, but he didn't care.

They were given over to Lady Death. Killed, he'd have called it if the religious connotations of service to her weren't involved.

And he'd met her, now. For only a little, but that was enough.

Enough to know she'd showed compassion toward him, let him see his blood-family in the lands beyond this life.

If she knew those things were being done in her name, she would not be happy.

Which meant...

He shook his head. Too much thinking.

Pepper gave him a little sympathetic smile.

They stayed on the same floor, and quickly entered another room.

Loki had never been in a proper Midgardian kitchen. They had fed him and the others out of raided vending machines here and there, never enough to be comfortable in his case but that hadn't been his to question.

He wondered for a moment just what menial task she was going to set him as punishment.

Only there was no punishment. She opened a refrigerated cabinet - incredibly primitive, compared to Asgardian technology - rummaged a moment, and pulled a small package out and opened it.

And then she walked over to him, gently pinned his head the way they did at meals, and let him taste whatever it was.

It was freezing cold, as cold as ice, and the first thing he actually processed about it was that it actually was ice.

He was still thinking in terms of punishments, and thought immediately that Pepper must not know or must have forgotten what he was. Frost giants had no fear of ice, unless it was sharp enough to cut or heavy enough to crush. This small thing was neither.

And it wasn't even proper solid ice, it was...

That was when the taste hit him, nearly the same as those little red Midgardian fruit she had introduced him to and that he liked so much.

This wasn't a punishment. This was a... treat? A reward?

For doing something wrong?

He whined a question, completely confused. She'd been so careful to show him exactly what he should do. And table settings were very important. Anyone who had ever spent time around Thor's friends knew it dearly, and the fragments of memory made that very clear. There was a science to dining utensils.

And that was when she gave him a gentle squeeze, a kind word, and another bite of the treat.

He was being rewarded...

She saw which place setting I did that to, he realized. She knew he was pranking Thor. And she was praising him for it.

And through all the bewilderment, one thought rose to the top:

It wasn't even a particularly good prank!

Thor sat down at the dining room table.

He had felt a big odd with Loki returning to his one chore - he hadn't done a thing but stay with his family yesterday - but Frigga had mentioned how much having that little something to do reliably often seemed to mean to Loki and Thor had observed the same, so it really had to be allowed.

"You use soup as a main course, even when not off questing?" Frigga asked them.

"Often," Bruce explained to her. "It's fast, it's easy, it stores well premade. Stew is less common here now, but there are countries where various soups and stews are the dominant foods. I'm not pleased to admit it, but potable water is still an issue elsewhere on this planet, and anything that provides boiled safe water in a diet is very valuable in those regions."

Frigga looked shocked. Thor was a bit as well, even though he had seen a great deal of what the less-settled regions of this continent looked like when on the road with Loki.

But drinking water had never been an issue, unless it was the issue of getting it into him.

"Bruce used to do medical work in one of those areas," Natasha explained in the uneasy stillness that followed.

Thor reached for his spoon as his mother began asking questions about modern Midgard. He absent-mindedly raised it to his mouth for the first bite...

And looked down in confusion as his tongue hit tines.

He looked around at the others' plates.

Everyone else had their fork exactly where he'd expected his own to be. All the spoons seemed to have come from where he'd grabbed his fork.

Obviously his place had been accidentally set differently.

His mother chuckled.

He looked around again, this time at faces, and found Pepper trying to stifle laughter behind a hand.

The joke was cruel, and nothing like what he knew of her. Utensil setting was Loki's business at dinner, surely he would blame himself for the intentional error, and he was just dangerous enough to himself in such a state for Thor to grow fearful.

Pepper would have known that outcome was certain.

Thor wondered suddenly if it had really been safe to leave Loki with her alone so often and for so long, if she was so careless and carefree now.

And then he looked at Loki, who was anxious and nervous and fearful... and more than a little amused.

Frigga let out a proper laugh and wrapped an arm around Loki. "Oh, that was good to see."

"What just happened?" Tony asked.

"Loki pranked Thor. Intentionally," Pepper reported. "Although I don't think he had any idea we were going to have soup when he did it.

"He pranked Thor," Bruce repeated. "As in, intentionally broke a rule just to get on his brother's nerves."

Pepper nodded. "He intentionally broke a rule."

Applause broke out and Loki looked ready to dive under the table.

Loki was still dazed and confused when they were settling in to sleep that night.

Thor hadn't harmed him. He hadn't even threatened it.

Thor hadn't even seemed angry, except maybe at the very first. And Loki still wasn't sure if that anger had been at him. It had seemed like he was angry with Pepper, which didn't make sense at all.

Pepper hadn't done anything but give him a treat and not fix the intentional error. It wasn't her fault. Thor should have known Loki was the one to blame. He still didn't entirely understand the treat, either, because being rewarded for what he had done didn't make any sense.

And their mother had even found it funny to start with.

But it was wrong. It didn't matter who found it funny or who didn't care, it was wrong.

Thor must have noticed his unease, because he poked Loki and simply said "Brothers."

But Thor was allowed to bother him. Thor had always been allowed to bother him. He remembered that. Time and time again, Thor was allowed. He was oldest. What Thor did to him, with very few limits generally involving bloodstains, was allowed.

Loki hadn't been allowed that. He could remember unhappy looks at best. A laugh, here and there, for something particularly well done.

And 'particularly well done' was realms away from what he had a hope of doing now.

Whatever the 'place' Thor had kept remind him of was, what he'd done tonight was not it.

But as he settled down beside his mother again, happy for the contact and the fact they had not exiled him to the other bed in the room, he couldn't help but hold on to the thought, even as he drifted into sleep:

He hadn't been punished for the little error. Maybe he was actually safe here, unless he did something absolutely unthinkable.

He didn't have to worry about what simple mistakes, misunderstandings, and errors could lead to.

And that was a comforting thought.