The theme song for this chapter is "So Cold" by Breaking Benjamin


Chapter 78: A Solution

Outside the throne room, Frigga caught a passing page boy and began instructing him to have her horse prepared. Thor turned to Loki and put a hand on his shoulder.

"I wish you would have told me your plan. Father has already expressed his displeasure at my engagement to Jane, who is..." he trailed off, trying to think of a polite way to say it.

Loki rolled his eyes. "Perfectly angelic," he drawled in an irritated voice. Catching Thor's confused look, he cleared his throat. "Sorry, I'm still... adjusting." He reached up to touch the bare skin at the base of his throat, where the ruby had recently hung. The gesture reminded Thor very much of Loki's female form. "I will explain when there is more time."

Frigga sent off the page boy, and returned to the conversation. "Odin never recovered from the death of your mother, Thor," she reminded him. "He loved her dearly, and it broke his heart. I know, I was the one to put it back together - it took much love and patience."

Thor nodded, his lips pressed together. "I was very young when she died. I do not remember her."

Loki looked between them. He had known, had always known, that Thor's mother had been a mortal woman. But he had never really thought about it. All his life Frigga had been mother to both of them, and it had never occured to him, when he learned his true parentage, that Thor had no more claim to her love than he did.

Watching his face, Frigga seemed to read Loki's thoughts. She smiled warmly, and took each of their hands in her own, like she used to when they were little. "Baldur is the only son of my blood," she told Loki quietly, "but I love all my children equally."

Loki felt a tightness in his throat, and the sting of tears in his eyes. "Thank you, mother, brother," he whispered. For the first time in what felt like an age, he felt like he belonged, here, with these two people who had chosen to believe in him, had chosen to love him as family. He wished with all his heart he could feel the same way about Odin, but for now, it was enough.

"Odin loves you too, Loki," his mother reassured him. "Otherwise he would not be so angry. You have suffered so much lately, it pains him to think of you suffering more. That both his sons would fall in love with mortal women at the same time... imagine what he thinks is coming in half a century or so, both of you in mourning at once?"

He clenched his jaw. "So he would prefer me to mourn now? When it's more convenient for him?"

She put a hand to his cheek, soothing the tightened muscles there. "No, he thinks if you lose her now you will suffer far less than if you lose her later. He does not understand how much you love her. He doesn't want to see it, so he chooses not to. Your father is a good man and a good king, Loki, but he has never been particularly adept at matters of the heart. That does not mean he does not possess one." She gave him a sad, secretive smile. "In this, I think you rather take after him."

Loki felt something within him twist - not painful, exactly, but strange. He had spent many hours thinking how unalike he and Odin were, how very little of him seemed to have been passed on, but had never thought to compare their faults. He saw them now, perfectly aligned: the manipulation, the temper, the way they clung to grudges. And more, the ability to say precisely the wrong thing to destroy a person, the ease with which they ignored the feelings of others. It was a strange resemblance, but it was there.

The page boy returned before he could say more, and they followed him to where their horses were waiting. As they rode down the rainbow bridge, Loki turned his mind to the task at hand. Now that he had succeeded in convincing someone to help, he could only hope they would make it in time.


The Bifrost set them down on the hospital roof, and Loki led them quickly to the elevator. As they descended, Loki cast an illusion so they all wore Midgardian clothing. Frigga was made to look like a doctor, and Loki did his best to explain how medicine worked on this world in the short time they had. When they finally reached Natasha's room, they found her unconscious, now with more wires and tubes and monitors. Bruce was sitting in the chair next to Natasha's bed.

He stood when they entered. "Loki! We wondered where you had gone," he closed the book and set it on the chair.

"To get help," he explained. "This is my mother, Frigga, she is very skilled in healing magic. Mother, this is Dr. Banner, one of the Avengers."

"Very pleased to meet you, Dr. Banner. Perhaps you can explain a little better what ails Lady Natasha?" she asked as she walked to stand beside the bed.

"We're not sure, really. She took a hit to the jaw and another to the ribs, but she isn't healing as we would expect her to. The surgeons who repaired her broken ribs said they had not pierced the lungs, but then three hours later she started showing symptoms of just that. Her left lung nearly collapsed, and we had to intubate her," he gestured to the thick tube that protruded from her mouth. "That machine over there is breathing for her right now," he explained.

"I see. Let me take a deeper look." She held her hands out over Natasha's body, and they glowed faintly as she passed them over the injuries. Bruce glanced nervously at the door, but no one disturbed them. Frigga's face darkened, and she took in a deep breath. "It is as I feared. This sorcerer you fought, he cast a spell of unmaking upon her."

Loki gripped the railing of the bed so hard it creaked. Behind him, Thor sat heavily in a chair.

Bruce looked between them, clearly understanding the gravity of the situation, if not the details. "A spell of unmaking?" he asked.

"It slowly tears her apart, bit by bit. Any place she has flaws - wounds, scars, defects - will begin to degrade first," Loki recited mechanically as he stared down at Natasha's unconscious form. "In a matter of a few days, there will be nothing left of her, not even molecules."

Bruce's eyes widened. 'Well, can you undo the spell?!"

Frigga shook her head. "Only the one who cast the spell can recant it. Almost any other spell cast on her would just be undone with the rest of her."

Loki's head shot up. "Almost?" he breathed, afraid to hope.

Pressing her lips together in an expression of thought that reminded Bruce very much of Loki, Frigga thought. "There is one chance. We could cast a temporal spell, together, and take her back in time to before the spell was cast."

His adam's apple bobbed as she swallowed thickly. "I've never worked a temporal spell."

Frigga sighed. "I have. It was many centuries ago, but I remember. It is a dangerous spell, though, it will need to be done somewhere shielded, where it will not affect others."

"What kind of shielding?" Bruce asked.

She thought a moment. "Ideally magic, but gypsum, cold iron, or lead would work as well."

"Radiology," Bruce answered immediately. "It's all lead-lined. Give me a second and I'll get it cleared out." He pulled out his cell phone, and stepped past the curtain to make a call to SHIELD.

Meanwhile, Frigga ran over the spell in her mind. "The opening and closing are very complicated. The middle part is simple, but it requires extensive energy."

"All right," Loki switched to his female form. At Frigga's raised eyebrows, she shrugged. "I still find it easier to do magic in this form. I may need to switch, midway, to have adequate resources, but I don't know yet."

Her mother nodded. "That makes sense to me. You were always exceptional at magic, for a boy, but..." she shrugged elegantly. "Women are and always will be better at that."

Loki tilted her head inquisitively, as her hand unconsciously found Natasha's beneath the blankets. "Why?"

Frigga smiled enigmatically. "Even the simplest mortal girl can take a tiny, insignificant thing and make new life from it. If that's not magic, I don't know what is."

Bruce came into the room, cell phone still in hand. "Ok, they can clear it for 15 minutes," he said breathlessly.

"That will suffice," Frigga agreed.

"Ok," he rushed forward and started disconnecting wires and tubes, silencing the machines when they protested. He unhooked the breathing tube last, unscrewing the part that connected to the machine and attaching a plastic balloon instead, which he squeezed manually. "Loki, squeeze this gently every three seconds," he instructed, moving out of her way and not letting go of the bulb until she had a hold of it. He knocked the brakes loose on the wheels with his foot, and Thor moved behind the bed to push it

"Follow me," Bruce threw back the curtain, and led the way to radiology. They encountered very little resistance, most of the hospital well trained to get out of the way of anyone who looked like they were in a hurry. When they reached the radiology department, they found a muscular male orderly blocking the doorway. Once he caught sight of Bruce, though, he stepped away with a nod.

When they had Natasha placed in the room, Frigga shooed Thor and Bruce out of the room and then closed the heavy door. "There is one catch," she said, a little breathless. "I've never heard of this kind of spell being used on a mortal."

"Why not?" Loki asked, still squeezing the device that breathed for Natasha.

"It's not terribly exact, and it's difficult to control. If we overdo it, she could easily return to her childhood, or to a time before she existed," she warned.

"Will her memory be affected?" Loki asked, horrified.

"No. Who she is stays the same, it's only her physical form that's affected."

She relaxed visibly. "We have some room for error, then," she laughed.

"How much room?"

"About six decades," Loki guessed.

Frigga glanced down at Natasha's pale body, surprised and a little impressed. "That will do nicely," she agreed. "Let's get started." She began the spell, a chant which Loki repeated afterwards.

Time seemed to slow and coagulate around the sound of their voices, and they became aware of its passage as one becomes aware of a white noise when it stops. Sound and light were distorted slightly, causing flickers of shadows across Natasha's form.

The spell was far more complicated than Loki could have imagined. It required every ounce of her concentration, so much so that she could no longer to manage the breathing device. She figured it wouldn't matter, once they were done, one way or the other. Before long, she had lost herself in it, trusting that her mother would carry them through.

As they took up a simple mantra, she watched as the bruise on Natasha's face began to fade and recede. Her legs went weak as it drained her, the pull of the spell was incredible, and she was relieved to discover that her reservoirs had returned to normal. Otherwise she would have been finished in a moment, and she wasn't sure she could change, she was so involved.

The end came quickly, Frigga closing the forms down with a complicated gesture and returning time to it's proper path. Glancing up, Loki saw that her mother appeared to have aged a century. She knew it was only fatigue, but it was alarming all the same. At last it was finished.

Natasha, although still unconscious, seemed to be choking. Frigga turned to throw the door open, and Bruce rushed in, removing the tube that led to her lungs. It was far longer than Loki had pictured, and made her shudder. As soon as it was out, Natasha relaxed, sleeping peacefully.

As they wheeled her back to her room, Loki was more leaning on the bed than pushing it. When they had the bed back in position, Bruce hooked up some of the wires again, and checked out the resulting information on the monitors.

"Looks good," he said, sounding dumbfounded. He pulled back the sheet and carefully removed the bandage from her side. Not only was the injury gone, even the stitches from the surgery had disappeared. "Looks very good." He removed the bandage entirely, and resettled her clothes and blankets. Pushing his glasses up his nose, he looked up to see Loki wavering on her feet in fatigue. Thor had come to stand behind her, a hand behind her back as if he wanted to offer her support but didn't want to insult her in the process.

Bruce was more practical. "You don't look so good, though. Why don't you lay down? There's plenty of room, and it won't harm her." He cleared a side of the bed of wires, and Loki hauled herself up gratefully, curling against Natasha's still form.

Frigga came to stand beside the bed. "I must go, and face your father's anger," she said with some humor.

"I'm sorry," Loki said quietly.

"Do not be," Frigga reached out and pushed some of Loki's long hair behind her ear. "He will have calmed by now, and realized I was right. The trick now is just to let him back down gracefully. He wants you to be happy, Loki, he really does. He's more angry at himself for the mistakes he made with you than he is at you."

Tears shone in Loki's eyes. "Thank you so much, Mother."

"Anything for you," she whispered, and leaned down to kiss her forehead. She put a hand to Natasha's cheek. "And I hope very much to meet you soon, Lady Natasha. You must be a resourceful woman indeed to have caught Loki's heart. It can be hard to find, sometimes, but I always knew it was there."

Loki smiled a little, her eyes drifting shut.

Frigga pulled away, and Bruce and Thor followed.

"I shall go tell Heimdal to prepare the Bifrost," Thor offered, and jogged ahead.

Frigga and Bruce stood, looking at the two sleeping girls.

"Forgive me for asking," Bruce said quietly, "but which one is the real Loki?" He was still confused how she could switch, much less exist without the ruby.

"Oh, neither," Frigga said lightly.

"What?" Bruce turned to face her.

"Neither Loki you know is the real Loki. She is not human, and He is not Aesir. Not even I have seen his true form, his Jotunn form. I think perhaps only Odin has." She let the implications of that hang in the air. "Thank you so much for your assistance, Dr. Banner. I'm sorry we did not meet under better circumstances."

Bruce smiled. "We do what we can."

She returned the smile. "That we do. You, and all of your friends, are welcome in Asgard any time you like. You have more than earned it."

"Thank you, your... highness," he said a little awkwardly.

She dipped her head in acknowledgement, and took her leave.

Bruce let out a long breath, and pulled out his cell phone. The last twenty four hours had been some of the strangest in his life, and that was saying something.


A/N: YAY Conflict resolution! Expect much smooshiness in the next chapter. Which, since I've already written the following one, will go up on Wednesday. I knew if I could just get past the big parts I could write the ending pretty quickly, and I'm coming up on the last handful of chapters here.

But no! you say? I don't want this BlackFrost fabulousness to end! Well hey, if you follow my tumblr, TheHappyMediumsTeapot, you will get to see inside sneak peeks at my next BlackFrost project. I'll be posting stuff over on deviantArt, too, but there will probably be more on tumblr.

All of the comments I've been getting lately make me so happy! You are all just the best fans a girl could ever wish for. :hugs: