DIDN'T REALIZE I SKIPPED POSTING CHAPTER THIRTY NINE LAST WEEK SO GO BACK AND READ THAT FIRST. MY APOLOGIES.
So it goes with saying that only things I own with any connection to MARVEL I bought on Ebay or Etsy. MARVEL COMICS & MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE are their own creatures and I have nothing to do with either of them aside from the fact I enjoy reading or watching them, and am grateful for the ability to play in their world. I claim nothing, and I receive nothing for this, expect the pleasure of putting something out into the world.
You can also find this story on ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN under the same title and pen name along with a place to post suggestions.
Don't forget to check out the Photobucket album listed on my profile page too.
DAY THREE
CHAPTER FORTY
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
0620 HOURS
SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER
LOCATION UNKNOWN
NORA
I'd been trying to figure out what Loki was, ever since he showed me his form beneath his 'form'. The blue was unsettling, but only because I didn't expect it and the only other person I've heard of who could change colors could also change their size. The Hulk however was an accident, not a race, and certainly not a Viking God.
So I was thinking of my time with Erik instead. He loved to tell me those stories, he loved that I was willing to listen. Rainbow bridges, and magical animals, and the dangers of mistletoe. I listened to all of them with genuine interest. The Gods were real. Clint saw them in New Mexico. He may have been rather blasé about it, as if it was just another assignment, and aiming an arrow AT A GOD wasn't the strangest thing anybody could do, EVER, but being a Level Seven it might have been just another thing.
However at the P.E.G.A.S.U.S base I was a minuscule Level One in a sea of PHDs and master combatants. The most exciting thing that ever happened to me there was that I got to see the Tesseract, from about 90 feet away.
So stories about gods, magical creatures, and cosmic trees were terribly interesting to me, even the stories like a squirrel who had nothing better to do every day then instigate fights were interesting to me, just because it might be real.
So I scoured the mental catalog in my head, weeding out the unnecessary details and small talk of those conversations and try to condense only the facts, and make the best guesses I could about the things that were clearly missing.
Those conversations led me to a few possibilities, and I went with the one that seemed most appropriate. A conclusion that was clearly wrong by the shocked expression and chuckle that followed.
"You think I'am Elf, is that what the tales have turned me into?"
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
0623 HOURS
SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER
LOCATION UNKNOWN
LOKI
That conclusion shocked me as much as it amused and intrigued me. If I had not been so thrown by it I may have even considered claiming it was true, it would be far more pleasing for her to think I was one of them, as a opposed to the Jotun I am. It would only take me a little effort to come up with a convincing tale to tell her, perhaps some exaggerated cruelty on Alfhiem under the rule of Frey. But that option has already passed me by, even before I ask the question.
"No." She admits with an embarrassed shake of her head. "That's not how story goes..." and I watch the embarrassment tinge with nervousness. "...That was just a guess."
Releasing a guilty sigh I offer her reassurance to drive away what I know has caused that nervousness.
"However distasteful I find my origin my love, uttering the word will not bring you harm."
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
0624 HOURS
SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER
LOCATION UNKNOWN
NORA
He's right. I knew what he might be. Some of it didn't seem right, Loki was tall but he wasn't that tall. However, in the stories there was one race that the Asgardians were at odds with more than any other. The giants. Its even what they called 'Loki' in half of his origin stories, but no one ever really seemed to agree on what he was.
"You're an ice giant."
"A frost giant." He corrects with a bit of a pained smile. "A Jotun."
A Jotun. Erik used that word before. He said it was the old Norse word for 'giants', all of them, not just a specific kind. He said they 'represented' the elemental forces of nature to the Vikings. It makes sense then that Loki is cold, and while he hasn't shown me, I know from my legs and his words that he can wield it even if he can't control it.
My hands had sort of drifted back to my lap after I freed the tea cup form their crushing hold, but now I lift one back into my view, slowing turning it over in examination.
"And can all Jotuns change their appearance? Like you do?"
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
0625 HOURS
SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER
LOCATION UNKNOWN
LOKI
Taking her hand in mine I take her chin in the other and make her eyes lift to meet my serious one.
"You are not a Jotun my love, you are not one of those monster." She closes her eyes to hide herself from me, with a false smile to act as another wall between us.
"No, I suppose not. You could touch me if I was like you." The smile tugs wider before shrinking back to its original size as she shakes with a weighted laugh. "I always liked blue too."
"Arnora." She hears the worry in my voice, but in her bravery she shakes her head, as if I would let her ignore me while she speaks in tones like that. "Look at me now." The stern note in the last word cracks her stubborn shell, and even as the muscles in her jaw twitch with tension her eyes open, glistening in the dim light, and letting a tear run down her cheek.
She volunteers the answer without me having to ask the question. What makes her cry.
"You say you're a monster, then you say I'm not like you. You're wrong on both Loki. I don't need to be blue to be a monster, and you're not one just because you are."
"Arnora." The gleam in her eyes changes with just her name, and that anger is enough to still my tongue.
"No, don't. Everyone always says I'm sweet and kind and innocent, but I think they are wrong, I think you're wrong. I think you know better."
Her eyes looses some of their fire, as if the intensity is being drowned by those tears that start to brim again. "Sweet and kind and innocent people don't have 'problems' like I do."
THURSDAY, MAY 3RD 2012
0627 HOURS
SUBTERRANEAN BUNKER
LOCATION UNKNOWN
NORA
I told myself I wouldn't cry, but I'm not really listening to myself right now. I don't have the energy to devote to that at the moment. Right now I seem to be on a steady streak and I think I need to keep that momentum before I loose it.
"They don't have days they just cry, with no reason at all." I've lost track of how many days I've had like that. Where I just wake up with heartbreaking sadness, and I have no conscious idea why, or how to stop it.
"They don't go shopping and end the day with torn up dresses." That dress was lovely. I know I scared the clerk who showed it to me, I was being brave, I was finally going to wear a dress but I had no idea what would look good on me. She said she had some thoughts but after she brought it out Agent Sitwell had to pay for that dress, and her silence.
"They don't wake up in a room with a glass wall." That hospital room, in the depths of the base called the Sandbox, where they kept me, in my coma, safe from the men who killed my parents, who 'killed' me.
"They don't have to be reevaluated EVERY MONTH just to prove they can handle being around OTHER HUMAN BEINGS." It took me so long to get out of that room. I had to prove I could manage the presence of other people without an episode. I spent three and a half months shut in that room with my only contact with the rest of the world being through a barrier of glass!
"They don't wake up talking like something out of a Shakespearean play, like you, and have to be taught how to talk modern person." The first words I spoke, other then screaming, were to Clint, it was "Good morrow sir". I always knew that was strange, that i was the only one who talked like that, like so many other things about me. But I trusted my friends when they said it was nothing because I had no one else.
"They don't dream of golden rooms with a man carrying a golden sword. They don't dream of children covered in blood and fire!" Those sometimes marvelous, and other times horrifying dreams all shared the common feature that they were impossible. Or I was sure that they were once.
They don't dream of someone..." I can actually feel it hurt as I lift my arm, just like it did when 'his' knife split my skin from my muscles. I can't even look at it right know because I'm certain if I do I'll see it all over again, like looking at it will throw me right back into that horrible place. A place I can't confirm if its real or not and I'm afraid to find out as desperate as I am to know. "...carving a chunk of their skin and feeling happy about it. I scare myself Loki, I really do."
He'd honored my wishes and let me get that out, but even he had his limits, and I don't test them anymore. His arms feel so safe and unusually warm I don't want to leave them at all. "I don't want to be a monster."
NOTES FOR THE READERS:
For those who may not know, when I mentioned "a squirrel who had nothing better to do every day then instigate fights" I am referring to Ratatoskr. He is a mythical red squirrel from Norse mythology who runs up and down branches of Yggdrasil. He tells slanderous gossip, provoking the eagle at the top and Nidhogg (a serpent that gnaws on the roots of Yggdrasil). I included that because while the MCU is a separate universe, its based on ours, and its been mildly implied that the MCU Vikings and our Vikings had the same myths, so Erik told Nora about an ancient shit talking squirrel.