Folly
On a private jet bound for New York, Alex clutched the smurf to her chest. It still smelled like her childhood home.
She'd barely spoken to Romanoff for the ten days of the trip, though she knew the woman had been lurking around, ever watchful. Too watchful, perhaps.
"You've made a decision," the agent said. She didn't even look up from the magazine in her lap.
"How can you tell?"
"I can always tell."
"Then, yeah, I've made a decision. Not that I think it'll be easy to implement. I know how he'll react, and I'm still not convinced I can stay strong enough to keep my distance. Despite everything, I do still feel…something for him."
"Maybe that's his doing. With time,it will fade and you'll be able to disconnect from him. He's been there your whole life, manipulating you into being what he wanted you to be. That has to come right down to how you feel about him."
"I don't think so. Don't give me that look—it was never anything sinister. He didn't come looking for a child bride. It was just circumstance that we met, and I think for a while I was the only pure thing in his life. I was in awe of him, and he didn't get that anywhere else. I was the perfect audience—I never judged him, I never tried to outdo him, I always praised him. I think he always believed we'd have that dynamic."
"But you've decided to walk away from him."
"Yes."
"For what it's worth, I think it's the right choice. No one should be tying themselves to someone like that. You'll only end up hurt, whether the damage is emotional or physical."
"I know. It's not just about Loki, it's about this whole immortality deal. I don't want it. Just a few days ago I held my niece in my arms—someone twenty years younger than me, whose life has only just begun, but as of now, I'm going to stay frozen like this. She'll grow up so quickly, and then she'll pass me by, until not only is she older than me, she's old. One day I'll be burying her. That's not how it's meant to go—and that will happen to every single member of my family. I can't live through that."
"I understand. I wouldn't choose immortality either. So what are you going to do?"
"When I've spoken to Idun, I want to go home. For good."
Natasha made a noncommittal noise. "I'll speak to Director Fury." Alex knew that meant the issue had already been discussed and finalised without her input. They wouldn't be letting her return to England. Not anytime soon. That was going to be a difficult thing to work around, but she'd been schooled by Loki. If anyone knew how to manipulate a situation to his advantage, he did. She had to have learned enough from him that she could convince them to let her go.
She cuddled the smurf tighter and stared through the window as England disappeared underneath the clouds.
The atmosphere in Stark Tower was thick enough to burst with a pin. That was the first thing Alex noticed when the elevator doors opened onto the room SHIELD had commandeered as their HQ. The floor in here had been relaid, but Manhattan beyond the window looked as smashed up as it had two weeks ago. The only difference now where the numerous cranes sprouting up across the skyline.
Thor was pacing in front of the window, and he hurried over to Alex before she'd been able to take three steps. Romanoff, who'd been behind her, was suddenly absent.
"I've been entrusted with delivering this to you," he said, pressing something into her hand. She glanced down to find a pink-hued apple in her palm, barely bigger than a plum. "Lady Idun departed for Asgard this morning. She will inform my father that we will soon follow; Loki and I travel this eve."
"Oh." She rolled the apple between her fingers.
"She stated there is enough magic in only a few bites to undo the previous spell."
"But it won't affect my memories?"
"No. This is just to return your mortality."
It didn't feel like much of anything, this tiny little thing, but right now it was as precious to her as that smurf.
"Lady Alex…" Thor paused. "I understand you have made your decision. I would just ask that you bid goodbye to my brother before we depart. He likely faces imprisonment in Asgard, and with you a mortal again, I don't believe he would be able to return to Midgard in your lifetime."
"So when you leave tonight, it'll be the last time I ever see him."
"Yes."
That was simpler than she expected. With him in prison on another planet, billions of miles away, the decision would be made for her. And she knew she needed to have that goodbye, to attempt to make peace with her oldest friend.
"Is he still locked in that room?"
Thor's brow furrowed, his gaze avoiding hers. "I have had to leave him pinned under Mjolnir in your absence. He has become convinced that you had left this place and would not be returning—he hasn't eaten, I don't believe he's slept…and though his magic is supposed to be frozen by the muzzle, at his most frenzied it has leaked. It's affecting the electricity in this place, which is frustrating the man of iron and the man of fury no end. It's preventing their recording devices from working, but I believe Loki is too far gone to have much control anymore."
A spark of an idea flickered into being when he mentioned the recording devices being affected. That meant, right now, SHIELD couldn't monitor their conversation. "Okay, I'll see him. I have one thing to ask in return." She doubted he'd be capable of helping her, not if he were leaving tonight, but it was worth a try.
"Anything, my lady."
She dropped her voice to a whisper, avoiding the urge to stand on tiptoe to make it look too obviously like they were discussing a secret. "Can you persuade SHIELD to let me go? I mean for good. I want to go home, but I know they have no intention of letting me leave all this behind."
"I will do what I can, but I fear my brother may have poisoned what favours I could have called on. The agents were also unhappy that I allowed Idun to take the sceptre with her, but I couldn't allow it to remain on Midgard knowing the power it possesses. Nevertheless, I will speak with the man of fury on your behalf. Perhaps when Loki is away from this planet he will be more forgiving of those with links to him."
That gave her plenty to worry about on the ride down to that floor. She tucked the apple away in her pocket, and noted the number of guards around the door had doubled.
"I will wait outside the door," Thor said. "But I cannot leave it unlocked while you are in there."
"I get it. Especially not with the magic leakage." The thought that even Odin's magic couldn't fully bind Loki was more than a little concerning, but soon he'd be on the other side of the universe, and it would be up to the Allfather to deal with him.
The room was dark when she entered, the smell of sweaty leather and unwashed Loki so thick she gagged. When her eyes adjusted to the dark, she could see him slumped in that same chair she'd left him, and it appeared he was asleep. She took a few steps forward, then one back as the scent got even worse, and his eyes cracked open at the sound. Above, the strip light flickered back on with a sound like a mosquito getting zapped against a neon trap. He really was frying the electrics.
"You came back." The crappy lighting didn't help, but he looked like roadkill. His wounds had barely healed, his always sharp cheekbones now like knife blades and his skin an ashen grey. His hair was on the way to forming dreadlocks, and his eyes were crimson from all the broken blood vessels. "I thought you were gone for good."
"No. But you will be soon."
He managed half a smile, which carried absolutely no humour. "I'm not leaving you here."
"It's not your decision. Thor's taking you home, and then I'm going home myself. For good."
He forced himself upright, gaunt fingers clutching at the armrests on the chair. "Your home is with me. You once promised me that."
"I made that promise to a different man."
His wheezy laugh made the hairs stand up on end all down her spine. "It was me. Whether you want to admit that or not, you promised yourself to me."
To steady herself, she slipped a hand into the pocket with the apple, fingers curling around it. She'd eat it as soon as she left this room, a ceremonial cutting of all ties with him. His gaze tracked the movement, eyebrows folding together as he worked it out.
She tensed, realising too late she'd given the game away. She expected fireworks—probably literally—but instead he collapsed in on himself, head lolling back and arms falling to his sides. His face contorted, grief welding itself to his features.
"I could feel her magic, you know," he muttered, "all this time I could feel what she was doing, but I didn't know what she was creating, but of course, of course, you asked her to take it back, and she's given you what you need, and you're really leaving me—"
Tears glistened on his cheeks, and in her shock she took another few steps forward before clamping down on the urge to brush them away.
"Please," he said, the word barely a ghost on his breath, "please…" She expected him to beg her not to eat it. She knew what would come know: emotional blackmail, the threat to harm himself if she rejected him, the probable threat to harm everyone else too. "Please share it with me."
"What?"
"If you must take it, if you really don't want eternity, then let me share it too. Just one mortal life. I can't make you so unhappy in that, can I?"
"You don't mean that."
"I do."
"No." He had to have an ulterior motive. He always did. "You just want to avoid going back to Asgard. You know you're going to be punished, and this is the only way you can see to escape it."
"There was a time you never once looked at me with judgement, or shame, or fear. Having that change is punishment enough."
"You're lying." But even as she made the accusation, she didn't believe it. She'd never seen him wear such raw emotion—she'd certainly never seen him cry. She wanted to escape it, like someone had cut him open and turned him inside out, and was making her stare at the result. "You couldn't give up your immortality. Not your strength or your magic."
"I could. They can take me to Asgard. They can lock me into the darkest dungeon for centuries, but I could survive that if I knew you were still out there, alive. Yet to know that you had such a brief life, and you would be dust before my sentence even really began…I would destroy everything. Asgard, Midgard, the very fabric of existence itself. I will not be without you."
Giving humanity to Loki would not automatically make him the perfect man. Even without the ability to wage war, he could be cruel, and he'd carry a thousand years of issues within him that therapy would never be able to cure. Besides which, SHIELD would immediately lock him away for the rest of his life. But that Loki, the Loki who could learn, who could have his arrogance torn away when the reasons for it were removed, a Loki with no more power than she held—she could accept that. It was a compromise between the two warring factions inside her.
She retrieved the apple and took a bite, stepping close enough to Loki that she could hold it up to his lips. She met his bloodshot eyes, still holding tears waiting to fall.
Pain lanced through her jaw, and it took a moment to process why. Pressure, sliding down to her throat, and she was gasping for air, Loki's hand gripping tight. The apple tumbled from her grasp into his lap. While her mouth gaped open and she struggled to scream, his fingers slid into her mouth. Out came the pieces of apple she'd bitten off, and only then he let go. She staggered to her knees and choked, retching up the apple he'd missed, while he tossed the rest into the air and burned it up into flame with a flick of his wrist.
"That's quite enough of that folly."
I didn't want to post this chapter on Christmas Day since it's pretty un-Christmassy...but it's Boxing Day here so here you go!
Usual rule - you review, you get a teaser, unless you tell me not to send one :).