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Beneath

Chapter One Hundred Seventy-Five – Consideration

Thor stared at Loki with a mixture of excitement – for with the change in circumstance Loki's words seemed to presage a secret adventure, absent the great stakes of yesterday morning – and dread. Because…Loki. "Are you going to trick me now?"

"I don't know, would you consider this private?"

Thor frowned his discontent.

"No. No tricks. Are you going to try to lie to me?"

The frown slowly turned into a something closer to a smile. "What have I to lie to you about?"

"Nothing, I suppose. Though you did say you'd been challenged. But neither do I have anything to trick you about. Not now."

"I need to know everything, Loki. What you want me to do and why. I apologize, I don't like it either."

"But you don't trust me. Yes, I know." Loki paused, then made a conscious effort to change his tone. "I understand," he added. "It's a reasonable reaction in this case. I need to be a part of the ambassadors' meeting."

"Only Bragi can-"

"Yes, I know. But Bragi is a patient old man. What difference does it make to him if a treaty is formally signed next week or next year? As long as everyone has agreed to return to a state of peace in the meantime, he'll feel no sense of urgency. I feel a sense of urgency. It matters to me."

Thor nodded; he hadn't thought of this before, but he knew immediately where it was coming from. "What did Father say?"

"He said you are king," Loki said, then pressed his lips tightly together afterward as a dam against the "for now" that wanted badly to burst forth.

"If it was my decision, of course I would let you join them. I would be glad of it. I know you have no reason to see negotiations fail or face unnecessary delay, and every reason to see them succeed and succeed with all haste. But I don't command the ambassadors of the other realms. Let us talk to Bragi and see-"

"Finnulfur, too. Questions of law and diplomacy both are at issue," Loki said, falling in beside Thor as they returned to the central area of the hall where everyone had again broken into multiple small groups.

Bragi and Finnulfur were quickly located and pulled aside.

"No," Finnulfur said once Thor explained that he wanted Loki to be part of the discussions. "We have treaties with each of the other realms, as well as an overarching one we're all obligated to, which set forth how violent conflict must be resolved. That includes who can be present and participate in active negotiations."

"Could we not say that the other realms voided those treaties when they attacked us?" Thor asked.

Loki closed his mouth when he realized Thor was asking what he had been about to.

"Yes, but that is precisely why we also have the treaty signed by each… Hm. That treaty was crafted early in King Odin's reign, so that if ever it was argued that the treaty between two was invalid, then the treaty between all would remain. But…technically…yes. Every one of those treaties is now invalid, including the overarching one, since we were all at war."

"Good," Thor said with a nod. "You can include Loki, then."

"It's not that simple, Your Majesty," Bragi put in. "If we add a second, they will each want to add a second as well. And if our second is a prince of Asgard, they'll similarly want to include a member of their royal family. Svartalfheim has four royal families, and Muspelheim has had two different ones at different times during the war. If we pursue this path, it will bring chaos."

"And delay," Loki said. "We could be mired in discussions of who may participate in discussions for weeks, even months. We can't allow them to even begin to consider sending others." Loki paused, thinking. "Bragi…what if I'm not a second?"

Bragi looked from Loki to Thor and back again. "You wish to replace me? I'm not sure that's wise."

"No. It would indeed be unwise. But I need not be there as a second, or as a son of Odin." Loki ignored the instant glower on Thor's face. "I am unique on all of Asgard. Among all the Nine Realms, in fact. I am a separate aggrieved party. I have not even participated in this war, a few minutes yesterday notwithstanding, yet I was named a prize to be surrendered, no different from an object. I believe that I have a separate, unique right to be in attendance, to speak for myself rather than for Asgard."

"It is…an original argument," Bragi said after some hesitation, all eyes on him.

"My specialty," Loki said with a sharp smile. "Can you make it?"

Silence fell again before Bragi continued. "I think I can… Yes. Yes, I can make it. I will make it. My argument will be my sword and I will make it."

"Finnulfur?" Thor asked, the matter settled; if Bragi said he could successfully make the argument, Thor trusted that he could.

"This is not a matter of law. No law, no treaty ever foresaw such circumstances."

"Make your preparations, then," Thor said.

"And urge them to move quickly, Bragi. To meet today. Uncertainty and instability do not benefit any of us," Loki added.

Finnulfur and Bragi both saluted, and Loki noticed that both men's eyes fell on him as well as on Thor. He nodded back perfunctorily. Being acknowledged in that way, free of any pretense, felt good, but came with a renewed need for resistance to getting drawn into palace life at Thor's side.

Thor turned back to Loki. "Any more doors you need unlocked?" he asked with a smile, solemn but with a hint of teasing.

"Perhaps the one to the kitchens. I missed breakfast and had next to nothing yesterday."

"I missed you at breakfast! You don't need a key for that, of course. Go and help yourself. The fare is still not quite what it was before, but it's improved, if for nothing but who's preparing it. But tell me, Loki, who broke the news to you, that the other realms had reached out to us seeking peace? I wanted to tell you myself."

"An Einherjar who's clearly not from the Palace Guard. If he is, I'm not sure how he passed his protocol training," Loki said, attention drifting across the throne room, taking note of who was present, who was talking with whom, and whether there was anything else he needed to do here that would keep him from leaving to get a meal.

"Eldjarn? Blond hair, injured hand?"

Loki nodded absently.

Thor sighed. "He wasn't supposed to tell you. And he hasn't finished his training yet. He's not officially an Einherjar at all. Training was suspended; those with at least five years of it were outfitted and sent into battle as Einherjar. Eldjarn lost a few fingers yesterday morning so he was given duty here in the palace."

Loki started to nod again, but then Thor's words caught up to him. "How do you know all of that?"

"I spoke to him earlier today, when I sent him after you."

"You clearly said more than 'go wake up Loki.'"

"Yes, I did. Is there something wrong with that?" Thor asked, bracing for an argument.

Loki gave Thor an annoyed look. "I just don't recall you ever asking personal questions of random palace guards and other strangers like that before. Or, more generally speaking, being interested in others."

Thor's face slowly fell. He thought first of palace guards; he certainly hadn't made a habit of engaging them in conversation, not the ones he didn't already personally know. He thought next of people he met on the street, or in a tavern, or at a market; he'd spoken with them, at times, though as he thought about it, he supposed he'd far more often told his own tales than indulged others in asking after theirs. He thought then of Loki. He wondered how long it had been since he'd shown interest in his own brother. Not about being Jotun, or being brothers, or Loki's actions of late, but about Loki himself, before Jotuns and brothers and attacks across the realms became an issue. "I remember a shadow, living in the shade of your greatness." I let you become a shadow. I made you into a shadow. Why didn't you stop me? Did you try, did I not notice?

"Stop," Loki said. "You're thinking so hard you're making my head hurt. I wouldn't want you to break anything."

"Loki, I have realized…that…" That it's much easier to write such things onto a silent page than to say them to the brother who will immediately ridicule you for them.

"Why don't we save both ourselves the trouble? An excellent realization, Thor, good for you. I'm proud of you, in fact. Now, I think I will indeed head to the kitchens for-"

"Your Majesty," called a voice from behind Thor and Loki, catching them both by surprise; they turned to see Jolgeir approaching. "I apologize for interrupting."

"You weren't really interrupting," Thor said, lifting an eyebrow as he glanced toward Loki. "What is it?"

"Geirmund and Krusa will be departing for Midgard soon. Geirmund asked me to deliver this notebook to you," he said, gesturing downward with his chin at the notebook grasped between his chest and the stump at his shoulder, "for final approval."

"Midgard?" Loki asked, lingering at the word instead of excusing himself as he'd intended to do.

"Yes," Thor said, taking the notebook. "Regarding our arrangement with Tony Stark. Our needs will be changing soon, and we have to inform him." The war might be over, but Thor was determined that the other realms would never know that Midgard had kept their people fed, or had any involvement in the war at all. He opened the notebook and skimmed its contents – lists of food items with amounts, a series of projected time tables including one for initiation and finalization of discussions of Asgard's payment to Midgard, a few other minor things. "I'm sure this is fine. You and Geirmund and Krusa have all done good work. It's approved." Thor placed the notebook back where Jolgeir could hold it in place.

"Thank you. And I'll tell them you said so."

"Where is Geirmund? Loki hasn't met him; I'd like to introduce them."

"That's quite unnecessary," Loki cut in as the itch to leave the throne room grew again.

"He went to say a quick goodbye to his family. I'll just give this to Krusa, and then Geirmund's meeting him at the current Tesseract site," Jolgeir said with another nod to the notebook.

Thor nodded and stole a glance at Loki, who looked ever more anxious to go eat, but was apparently less willing to be so ill-mannered in front of Jolgeir. He blinked, slowly, and behind his eyelids he saw Loki bursting up from the rubble of the tower, but this time without his arms. He had to swallow back his emotion. He'd begun to grow accustomed to Jolgeir's missing arms, as had, it seemed, Jolgeir. Gone was his unsteady gait and lack of balance. He'd found ways around some of his difficulties, and he seemed as strong as ever. But Thor remembered how hampered he had been when just one of his arms had been non-functional. "Jolgeir," he began, remembering something the former Chief Palace Einherjar had told him while he'd been stuck in the Healing Room with that arm injury, "if you are willing…"

"You are my king, Thor," Jolgeir said with a chuckle. "I'm willing."

"But you must decline if you don't wish to do it. Do you recall what you heard from Tony Stark? About artificial limbs?"

"I do."

Lunch grew more distant in Loki's mind as he listened with surprise. He remembered Jane mentioning these false arm "prosthetic limbs," after he'd told her about Jolgeir. He remembered how shocked she had been that Asgard did not attempt to erase such marks of battle, how she'd first assumed they could simply grow new arms and legs. Jolgeir, too, had obviously come home with such a tale, and shared it with Thor, who was now deep in thought about it.

"I think…there would be no harm in learning more about that. I had thought that I should ask Tony for his thoughts, perhaps also Steve Rogers, and each of those I've become acquainted with there. And as you have given both of your arms…and you have already been to Midgard and know Tony, perhaps you could go once more, and inquire about the artificial limbs."

Loki did not quite manage to keep his jaw from momentarily falling slack as Thor spoke, but then got his reaction under control and waited for Jolgeir's response.

"If you wanted to ask…would you rather not go and ask yourself?"

"We are still in a state of war. And I would rather not wait, I think. Tony is already meeting with Krusa and Geirmund; perhaps he could meet with you after them."

"Today?" Jolgeir asked, eyebrows going up.

"Unless you prefer not to do it. I can ask someone else."

"No, I…I am still willing. I…well, I can tell Krusa to ask Tony if it can be arranged. But…perhaps someone could accompany me? I appreciate your continued trust in me, my lord, but my only qualification for this is my poor luck in having been near the site of a magic-fueled explosion."

"All right. Perhaps Finnulfur? We'll need him on hand once the ambassadors arrive, but in the meantime, I'm sure he could provide a seasoned perspective and complement your questions with his own."

"I would welcome that," Jolgeir said; Loki thought he still sounded a bit dazed.

"Good. And Jolgeir, it might be better to explain the meeting you seek to Geirmund. The young are…less set in their ways than the old."

"As you will, my king," Jolgeir said with a nod and quirked-up lips.

Thor dismissed him and turned to Loki. "What?" he asked at Loki's raised brow. "You disapprove?"

"Noooo," Loki said, hesitating before continuing. "Merely shocked, I suppose." It wasn't the first time Thor had surprised him in the last two days, but he thought it was the first time he would call it "shock."

"We have many who've lost limbs. I don't know the numbers, but from what I have personally observed, it's happened mostly with hands and arms. The battles have all been here, and some who may have bled to death from their injury have been saved. Even I nearly lost an arm. Jolgeir may be the only one who's lost both, I'm not certain. Others have lost fingers, like Eldjarn." Thor paused; Loki was giving him no particular reaction now, or at least none Thor could interpret. "What do you think about it, Loki?"

"About Eldjarn's fingers?" he asked, just to be obstinate.

"No, about artificial limbs."

"I don't think anything about it. It's no business of mine." Loki remembered his initial reaction, when Jane told him that the Midgardians used such things – disgust. But the shock of the idea had worn off, and while he still found it unsettling, he saw no reason to share that with Thor. It really was no business of his.

"But it could have been. Loki…you were right next to that tower. It could have easily blown your arms off, just as the explosion right here in the throne room took Jolgeir's."

"Highly unlikely. You know how those gel packs work. Their energy is tightly focused. Perhaps if I'd had my hand on one…," Loki said, trailing off. He had been seconds from having his hand on one. He could see it happening. He took a breath and shook it off. "But I didn't."

"I want you to go with Jolgeir and Finnulfur."

It took several seconds for Loki to be certain his understanding was correct. Even then, he thought, clarification was still necessary. "To New York? To meet with Tony Stark?"

"Yes. I can think of no one better qualified."

"Really," Loki deadpanned. If Thor was attempting to shock him to death, he was off to a good start. "Interesting. Now, Thor, listen carefully. Let me count the ways in which that is a terrible idea. One. I attacked New York mere months ago."

Thor waited as Loki stared, until finally he realized there was no "two." "You're only meeting Tony, not all of New York. And you've already proven you can work well together when you need to."

"If we had been in each other's presence five minutes more, I think you would reach a different conclusion."

"So go, focus on the task, and then depart. I'm not asking you to be friends."

"I don't even understand what you're asking me to do. If Jolgeir and Finnulfur need a nursemaid, choose any of these here milling about thinking themselves important and doing nothing. Send Father," he said with a snorted laugh that cut off in a choke, and then laughter so hard Loki's upper body shook with it.

"Don't be disrespectful, Loki," Thor said quietly, finding nothing funny in what Loki had said. "And you know that wouldn't go well."

"You ordering him to go receive a lecture from the mortals, or his reaction to false limbs?"

"Either. I don't know. You called him 'Father.'"

"So I did," Loki agreed. He'd realized it himself, but had chosen not to dwell on it. "It was a slip. It happens."

"You never slip and call me 'Brother.'"

If I stay here long enough I might, Loki thought. He'd begun to feel comfortable with Thor – arguing with him like this was very familiar – and had slipped back into old patterns, exactly what he'd been trying to avoid. Thor sending him to New York as some kind of informal emissary was still a preposterously bad idea. But it was starting to sound better than staying here. "Why do you want me to go?"

"You don't feel the same kind of…unquestioning adherence to custom as most of us. That's not quite what I mean to say, neither of you nor of everyone else. You aren't-"

"I'm not Aesir?" Loki asked, dropping his voice. "Therefore I'll happily turn my back on Asgard?"

Thor wrapped fingers around the edge of the armor that crept up over the lower part of Loki's neck and slapped a palm against his chest and pushed hard until Loki's back bumped into a column. He let go of Loki and glanced around; the few heads that had been looking their way quickly turned. "No. That isn't at all what I was thinking, or what I meant. You're as Aesir as I am. More, in some ways." Thor paused as laughter bubbled up. "When you finally told me what you really thought about me helping Sif train to become a warrior…do you remember what you said?"

Loki did. He rolled his eyes. "That was a thousand years ago."

"I can still picture the look on your face when you said it. You said my brain must have been sucked out by a needle-mouth crawler-vine."

I'm still not quite convinced it hasn't been, Loki thought but kept to himself, not wanting to get dragged further in.

"And do you remember how long it took before you would properly fight her?"

"I do remember that you were trying to convince me to go to New York, something I think you've already forgotten."

Thor scowled at Loki, who was right, of course. In the old days, he would be punching Loki right now, and Loki would punch him back, and they would emerge from it bruised and laughing. Probably laughing. "What I'm trying to say," he began slowly, still trying to piece it together, because fighting was so much easier than talking, "is that you're perfect for this, because you're very Aesir, and say what you will but I know that you still love this realm, else you wouldn't have bothered to take out those incendiaries, but at the same time, you don't feel like you must…be obedient to Asgard or Asgardian tradition. I mean no insult," Thor hastened to add.

"I believe you're overestimating my 'love' and basing it on a highly suspect piece of evidence, but I'm not insulted."

Thor breathed a quick sigh of relief. Loki, he thought, was perhaps being kind to him, in his own way. If he'd wanted to find more fault, he would have. "And you lived among the mortals for months. You have a better understanding of their ways than anyone else on Asgard."

Loki remained silent and affected an annoyed look. He'd already decided to agree, but that didn't mean he needed to make it too easy for Thor.

"It's not for me. It's for all those who've sacrificed so much in defense of their realm. For those who otherwise won't even consider this kind of change. You may not know any of the rest of them, but you know Jolgeir. Do it for him."

Do it for Jolgeir, Loki thought. His eyelids sank. "Loki Odinson, you must come with me. You are under arrest for the murder of Baldur Odinson." He easily imagined the words, though he didn't actually remember them. He remembered the look on Jolgeir's face, the pure unyielding resolve. He remembered the terror in his own heart because he knew what that look meant, without any words at all.

But that was a thousand years ago, and Jolgeir hadn't arrested him capriciously – he'd merely done his duty. Some thirty years before that, Jolgeir had saved his life. Neither childhood adulation nor Jolgeir's role in a period of his life best forgotten really should have any bearing on this. Jolgeir was a good man. That had always been true, and still was. Loki would do this for him. And for himself, to get away from Asgard and the constant pressure it placed him under. Mostly for himself. Jolgeir, he suspected, would do just fine on Midgard without him. Better, perhaps, since Tony Stark wasn't exactly going to be glad to see him again. That thought, of course, only made the journey sound better. "You realize that if I do this, and if I return here announcing that Midgardian false limbs are magnificent and every Aesir should have one, no one will heed anything I say at this point, even if you insist that I've won them their war."

"Whatever impressions you have of what you learn, you'll share them with me, as will Jolgeir and Finnulfur, and we'll proceed from there, if it's worth investigating further. There'll be no grand announcements. I just want your thoughts on whether this is something Asgard should consider pursuing. I may not have said so in the past, but I do value your opinions, Loki."

"You should have stopped while you were ahead," Loki said with a bitter smile. "I'll go, but leave it at that, if you please. I'm going to go see about a meal now, before you come up with any more dubious ideas."

"It's nearly midday, I'll go with you! We'll have a feast, such as it is these days," Thor finished with a laugh.

"That sounds lovely," Loki said, throwing in as much sarcasm as three words could bear. "But I'm going to take my meal in my chambers. Advise me when I am to drop in on my old friend Tony Stark."

/


/

Loki stomped into his chambers in a foul mood. He had just agreed to do Thor's bidding. To run Thor's errand. Yes, he would get to show up unannounced at Tony Stark's Manhattan tower, with Asgard's full backing, but at the moment that didn't even slightly improve his mood. No one was available to bring him his meal so he'd had to stand there and wait for it like a servant. Never mind that he'd served up his own meals of canned and frozen foods for months now at the South Pole, here he was supposed to be a prince. "All of this is still yours," he thought, sneering back Odin's words. They hadn't even had fresh fruit. He'd asked for oranges. "I'm sorry, my prince, we have none." He'd asked for peaches. "I'm sorry, we don't have any of those, either." He'd asked for any miserable piece of fruit they had on hand. The two other cooks present had studiously ignored him; the one he'd been speaking to quaked with fear. "I'm sorry, my prince."

He'd come away with fresh bread, cured pork, boiled potatoes, and a cup of preserved mixed stewed fruit. They were probably eating better at the South Pole than he was.

He sighed, and told himself to calm down. He was being unreasonable. He didn't actually mind this particular errand, and was even glad that it would take him away from Asgard. And the cook didn't deserve his anger. It wasn't her fault that any fresh fruit left in Asgard was outside the wall and rotting on tree and vine, any more than it was the South Pole cooks' fault that nothing grew there and the stores of fresh fruit were long exhausted.

One thing he did have here that they didn't, he realized with a brightening of his mood, was sunshine. And a large balcony to enjoy it from. He picked up his tray where he'd dropped it to clatter on a credenza, and made his way straight through his chambers, pausing at his bed, where Thor's journal still rested on the table beside it. Reading it might make him want to rain down his own destruction upon hard-hit Asgard, but he truly had nothing better to do right now, and it would at least give him something to focus on instead of the circles this place set his mind spinning in and the constant unease of it all. He grabbed it and went out to the balcony, setting himself up near the edge with a small table and comfortable angled chair with footrest, in full reach of the sun which was directly overhead.

It was reasonably pleasant. Peaceful. Calm. He hadn't actually spent that much time on the balcony before. He'd come out to appreciate the weather for a minute or two before heading out for the day, and on occasion he'd reclined with a book. He decided that was why he liked it here now. The furnishings were few and not as personal as most of his belongings, and ornamental trinkets were non-existent. He'd had a few plants out here, and a small tree with feathery leaves he'd been fond of, but they were gone; he supposed no one had bothered to care for them while he was away. Why keep a dead man's plants alive? he mused. He wasn't troubled by it. He thought he might even be glad that something of his chambers had changed. He had changed. The man he was now knew that he wasn't Odinson or even Aesir. He had let himself fall to his death and survived the abyss of Yggdrasil and Thanos's outstretched arms. He had cast his own shadows, and he could not return to Thor's. He didn't hate Thor. He didn't hate Asgard. But he hated being on Asgard right now. Impersonating Loki Odinson, in Loki Odinson's chambers, among Loki Odinson's family and associates.

Out here, though, it was bearable. And for once, in place of the desire that still washed over him at times to be at the South Pole instead of here, he wished Jane could be here instead of at the South Pole. It was earlier in the day there, by the artificial time they kept, and she might even be eating breakfast right now. He could almost picture her sitting here with him, a tray of her own squeezed onto the table next to his. She had come alive here earlier, under the warmth of Asgard's sun, bursting with even more excitement and energy than usual. Seeing her enthusiasm and joy, being part of it, over every new experience from sweet logs to the parade to the sky over the bifrost to simple equipment storage had been a delight. It was a foolish idea, though, of course. If Jane came to Asgard now, and enjoyed the sun on a balcony, it wouldn't be his.

His smile faded and he forgot his food, fork still in his hand. What was I thinking? he chided himself. When will I ever see her again? The hours upon hours he'd spent with her at the South Pole, working, laughing, arguing, simply talking, those were only because Thor wasn't there. Because Thor couldn't be there. The war was over. Not officially yet, but over just the same, and Loki was racing to make it official as soon as he possibly could. And once that happened, especially if Odin took back the throne, Thor could go to Midgard anytime he wanted, anywhere he wanted. The idea of spending any of that time with Jane and Thor was a non-starter, so untenable Loki couldn't even imagine it. Perhaps he would see her, in passing, on Thor's arm, laughing with him.

He reached to pick up the journal, fumbling with the fork he rediscovered in his hand and setting it down. He'd almost finished his meal anyway. He flipped through the pages, scanning for the sentence he remembered well: "Jane is a good woman." It didn't take long.

"I hope that someday it will be safe for you to meet her." So Thor saw himself as his personal gatekeeper, deciding when or even if Loki got to meet Jane. He couldn't blame him – he shouldn't blame him. The last time Thor had seen him, when he wrote that, he had been making thinly-veiled threats against Jane. Still it stung.

"There's only so much you can try to take from me while I still call you my brother." What did I ever take from you, Thor? He knew what Thor meant. Thor's banishment – which was his own fault – and Loki informing him that his father was dead and his mother never wanted to see him again and Loki wouldn't be seeing him anymore either. It was exactly what he'd wanted then, to take all of that, to take everything from Thor. But Thor had barely had time to blink before he'd regained everything he'd supposedly lost and then some. Betrayal, yes, it was that. Cruel, even. He'd been cruel and he'd enjoyed it. But he'd also known the truth, and while he hadn't expected Thor to find out so soon, he'd known Thor would find out eventually. Even if Odin hadn't awoken, Frigga wouldn't have let Thor be permanently abandoned on Midgard. Loki would have consolidated his power and silenced his detractors, and then he probably would have brought Thor back himself, sufficiently cowed and ready to accept his new place. It hadn't worked out that way. The idea that he had truly taken anything from Thor was laughable. Thor had everything, just as he always had. Everything. Jane.

Loki supposed that he had, for a time, taken Jane from Thor. He didn't really care about whatever feelings she had for him, or if she kept pictures of the two of them on her phone. Jane rarely mentioned him, much less sat around pining for him. At the South Pole, with Jane, it was almost as though Thor didn't exist. Sometimes it was almost as though no one else existed. All that was over now, and Thor would take her back, he thought with a heavy heart. His friend. "My dearest friend," Thor had called him; the phrase echoed through him. Jane had become not only his friend, but his dearest friend. He'd known it for a while now, at least since the journey to Alfheim, perhaps since the journey to Asgard's Harvest Day, perhaps even farther back than that, but he'd never consciously thought of her as such, and it came as something of a surprise. An ironic one, too. My dearest friend is a Midgardian, he thought, a hint of a smile appearing for a second before he remembered that Thor wouldn't have even wanted him to meet Jane yet, much less call her his dearest friend.

His eyes narrowed as he returned to the journal and continued reading. These words he'd only skimmed before, because he couldn't quite manage reading them fully. "…someday all will be well between us again, and on that day, I will gladly introduce you to her, because I would like for her to know you as well. To know you as I once knew you. Or better, since apparently I never knew you as well as I thought I did." Thor wanted Jane to meet his obedient younger brother Loki Odinson. Thor was convinced he would again be as he was, and would simply know him "better," and only then would Thor permit him to meet Jane. As he was now, Loki was apparently not even worthy of being in her presence. And you aren't, are you? His jaw tightened. "Don't talk about my friend like that," he heard Jane saying. "You have value. Your life is worth something." Jane thought he was worthy. Of what, exactly, he didn't know, he thought with a laugh. But he wanted to believe her. Sometimes. Right now, he wanted to believe her.

/


/

For several minutes, Loki's thoughts wandered, mostly through his last moments alone with Jane. They'd talked seriously, they'd fought, they'd laughed; in many ways, those few minutes were a compressed version of the entire time he'd known Jane. Some things had changed, of course – he didn't like thinking back on it, but manipulating her had once been a source of sheer joy. Partly, perhaps mostly, because she was Thor's. Partly because she was of Midgard. Partly just because he could.

Loki set down the journal, prodded at the leftovers of his lunch, drank the rest of his glass of water, now warm from the sun, and refilled it with cooler water from the pitcher. His thoughts shifted. He was returning to Midgard soon, probably in just a few hours. Not a part of it he particularly wanted to return to, but in addition to being not Asgard, New York was also much closer to Antarctica than Asgard. New York had satellite phones. The problem was, he couldn't borrow one – or even steal one, not easily anyway, since he didn't know where to find one – from New York. Tony Stark had satellite phones. Jolgeir and Geirmund had both used Tony's sat phone, most likely run through Jarvis, to speak with Jane. The Frost Giants would find a way to freeze Midgard from the inside out before he would request such a thing of Tony, though.

But afterward…he would return to Asgard. Bragi was doing his best to ensure the other realms' representatives arrived today. But even if they did, it probably wouldn't be before evening. There might be time. He could ask Heimdall to send him there, and Heimdall might agree. He would have an excuse ready, of course: Jane deserved to be updated on what was happening on Asgard, and Loki was the only one who could get away to handle that. If Jane was around others, he could arrive hidden, and find a way to inform her he was there and she should go somewhere they could talk without being seen.

It should work. He would steal whatever moments he could before Thor's presence made it impossible.

He looked back down at the journal, resting where he'd set it on the table next to his tray. He had the time, and it was easy to think more clearly about it when Thor wasn't sitting right there, staring at him while he read. The thought brought a bitter smile to his lips; it really was a good idea, Thor writing these things down instead of trying to say them. Perhaps he and Thor would make fantastic brothers, if they limited their interactions to written words they neither wrote nor read around each other.

Loki opened the journal to the second entry. Maeva's name jumped out at him and he looked away for a moment in dismay. So Thor had written about Frost Giants and women. Wonderful. Maeva had nothing to do with him now, though, or with Thor…except that she was part of his Assembly. Thor didn't fully explain the situation, but Loki gathered that Vigdis had been used to pass false information to Brokk, and Maeva had hidden Thor and unnamed others as they stood nearby to protect Vigdis in case Brokk recognized the deception. "I took care to ensure Father knew what Maeva had done. And I don't think I did the same for Loki. I don't know why. And I don't know who is different, Maeva or Loki. I think I expected Loki to speak for himself, but I suppose usually he didn't. Or maybe I didn't give him a chance to."

The latter, Thor, he thought immediately. It might not be completely fair. That was part of it. Not all of it.

"I wonder if that's what he meant when he said he wanted to be my equal. Recognition and praise."

Loki frowned at the words and flipped the page, unwilling to keep reading that entry. So that's where all of the 'Look at what amazing things my brother did!' started.

"I dreamed I killed you, Loki."

"Well," Loki said to himself, "this should be interesting."

"It was awful. But I thought I was killing Laufey, not you."

That was a strange and unpleasant idea, Thor conflating him with the Frost Giant king in his dreams.

"And in reality, I didn't even do that. You killed Laufey. You risked mother's life to do it. You knew she would be with him."

Loki paused. He was grateful he hadn't read this in front of Thor. He had nothing to defend himself with on that point. He'd acted recklessly. He'd trusted in his ability to be where he needed to be when he needed to be there, and in his mother's ability to stand up to the invaders. But he'd taken an enormous risk. It wasn't easy, but he kept reading.

"And you let those Frost Giants in there anyway. How could you do that? And what if you had come too late? You could have gotten Father killed, too. Why would you do something so reckless? Sometimes I do hate you, Loki. You put us all at risk. You brought destruction to Midgard. You threatened Jane, and you tried to seek her out. You try to hurt me at every turn. And perhaps I hurt you in the past but I never meant to. You are my brother. I don't care where you were born. I am trying not to care where you were born. You are my brother, no matter your birth."

Loki skimmed the rest, more of Thor's happy memories from their younger years that were somehow supposed to erase all of the less-than-happy ones, and musings about dream interpretations. He went back to the passage where Thor said he hated him. This, finally, was honesty. Thor apparently put a little more thought into what he wrote down than what he said. The things he'd marked out, those were the things he would say, and probably believe he meant them as he said them. The corrected version was the actual truth. "Sometimes I do hate you, Loki." He read that sentence over and over again.

The next page was nearly illegible, and Loki squinted over the text. "Loki, you probably saved my life today. Do you remember when you pestered me until I agreed to learn to use Mjolnir with my left hand?"

I remember. This was an intriguing entry; Loki knew what it was about, and when Thor must have written it. It couldn't have been long after he'd instinctively blamed Loki for the attempted assassination. Thor had told him later that he hadn't been thinking clearly, and Loki noted with interest that here Thor gave no sign of wrapping that incident around Loki's neck.

"It is only unfortunate that you didn't also pester me to learn to write with my left hand."

Loki's chest shook with a silent laugh. Yes, it is.

"I owe you much, Brother. And I wonder, have you ever felt the same? I tried to support you, I did support you, but perhaps I didn't do it enough, or publicly enough. When we were younger, perhaps I was not always brave enough, and when we were older, perhaps I had grown too selfish to see that you needed it."

It was more of the same…but not quite. The words managed to surprise him. Loki could tell it was something Thor had thought about more than once, and that he'd begun to think more deeply. Have I ever felt that I owed you? Yes, he answered himself after a few seconds. Thor had saved his life, more than once. But beyond that, yes, he had learned from Thor, too. Thor's interests had driven his for a long time; that combined with the constant competition, constantly pushing himself to be just as good as Thor, played a role in making him the warrior he was. And, perhaps, he owed some of his early mastery of the material in their lessons to beginning his education when Thor did, nearly a year early for him. There were other things as well, some painful, some joyful.

Still, the words grated, and he couldn't pinpoint why. He was glad he was reading it by himself, for if Thor sat out here with them he knew he would be mocking or berating him or both. "I tried to support you," he read again. No, you didn't. That was it, he thought. The words simply didn't ring true. Thor clearly believed them, but that didn't make them true.

Loki kept reading, occasionally lingering over a passage with laughter, or confusion, or anger, or incredulity, and often with some combination of reactions. In one particularly rambling and nonsensical passage, perhaps written when he was more asleep than awake, Thor wrote that "I am Asgard and Loki is Vanaheim and each of us is diminished without the other." No explanation, no context. You disown me from my realm and cast me off to the wrong one, Loki thought, shaking his head at the passage. He supposed Thor was thinking about the close relationship between Asgard's and Vanaheim's people, how they needed each other and the war was damaging them both, and likening it to himself and Loki. But Loki couldn't help noticing that Thor represented Asgard. And Loki, whatever he represented, it wasn't Asgard.

He continued on.

Thor asked why Loki hated Odin and not Frigga. Thor's suggested reason was Odin's busy schedule. Thor was right, they'd both lied. And Loki was angry about that, with both of them. But that was hardly the whole of it. "How was he any different from Mother?" Thor asked. When Loki read it a second time, the answer appeared in his mind bright as the sun above his head. She never made me feel like I had to prove myself worthy. She never made me feel second. Or last. He took a few slow breaths and concentrated on holding at bay the sudden press of tears. Getting emotional over this was useless.

"Did you truly feel so disfavored? Were you so disfavored? I never thought so."

That, too, Loki thought as he stared at the words, was true. What Thor believed to be true. Never mind that one would have had to be blind and deaf and probably lacking smell and taste as well to not notice; Thor had somehow managed this feat. Thor's beliefs were even more delusional than he'd thought, though, he saw as he continued reading the passage.

"Sometimes I thought you were more favored. Especially by Mother. I was envious of that at times. I can hear you laughing at me as I write this, but it's true. For all I teased you for it, you had a closeness that I never quite understood and never quite shared. Is that how you felt about me and Father? Yes, I was closer to him, it was easier between us somehow than between you and him, but it wasn't the same as the way you were with Mother."

Loki wasn't laughing. "More favored, especially by Mother," meaning that Thor had sometimes thought Loki more favored by Odin as well. Incredible, he thought. That Thor had been envious of his relationship with their mother, though, that was interesting in its own way. He hadn't known that. He tried to think about it from Thor's perspective, to really consider it, but he couldn't find in it the same parallel that Thor had. Thor was right; it wasn't the same. Yes, he had always been close to Frigga. He'd spent more time with her, confided in her more, probably took her words more to heart. But that was his choice, or, perhaps, his inclination. Thor could have done so, too, had he been so inclined; he hadn't, and had been inclined instead to tease Loki for it. It's not the same. Did Mother ever make you feel that you had to prove yourself to her? Did she ever make you feel second? Or that you weren't good enough? Did she ever not have time for you when she did have time for me?

This was a long one; Thor must have had more time than usual. And perhaps wasn't as tired as usual. Or perhaps it was the maturation kingship had forced on him. Whatever the reason, the next passage in this entry impressed him. He had a fleeting thought then that the fact that this one wasn't about him – and thus didn't get under his skin in quite the same way – might have something to do with it. Loki suspected Thor was writing about the incident in which he used Mjolnir to set a tower back on its base.

"I offended without intending to, I think – how many times have I done that in the past?"

Loki stared at that sentence for a long time. Countless, he thought. Others fell so easily under his influence, the draw of his magnetic personality and effortless charm, that usually they were quick to forgive any offense, if they noticed it in the first place. A dose of smiles and laughter helped. Loki could easily imagine that the circumstances Thor had encountered at the damaged tower were not conducive to ignoring an offense.

"This is how we fight," Fjolvar told me. I've been thinking about it off and on ever since. It reminded me that every man fights in his own way, and made me think of similar words I'd spoken to another recently, to encourage him, and I meant them, but I failed to take them to heart myself. Ignorance or arrogance, I don't know."

Both, Loki thought. Both in equal measure. But that he at least recognized the possibility of both… It was surprising.

"You always had your own way of fighting, and I know I sometimes made jests at your expense over it. I twisted knives in you with my words or my actions sometimes. And you twisted them right back. We played and we grew up and we fought and…is this not what brothers do? I think sometimes I didn't know I was wielding a knife. And sometimes perhaps I ignored how much the knife truly hurt. I teased, and I'm too tired to think through the reasons now, if there was more to it than simple teasing between brothers. But I valued you. Your opinions. Your skills. I didn't always show it. And I admit, sometimes I didn't value you as I should. Sometimes I ignored you. Sometimes I belittled you. But I didn't think I was truly hurting you in that. I didn't think it would make you hate me. Is that what made you hate me?"

It was a bit more eloquent, perhaps, than what Thor had told him aloud, but otherwise not so different. "I valued you. I didn't always show it. Sometimes I didn't value you as I should." Thor began from a premise that Loki couldn't agree with: "I valued you." Thor valued having an obedient shadow who did nothing to obscure his greatness. The rest then, it was something, Thor understood that something was lacking, but it missed the mark badly because of the false starting point.

"I wish I could go back and change it somehow. But perhaps we are where we are meant to be. Healing is painful. Perhaps what we've endured is necessary for healing, and if that is the case, then what has happened, has happened for a reason, and as I ask our people not to give up hope for Asgard, I will not give up hope for you. I swear it."

And there it was again, that stomach-churning mix of sentiment that tugged at him and the irresistible need to push back against Thor's pull. Thor had, by this point, obviously given many speeches exhorting his people, and not just rallying cries to his friends. It was hard not to be dragged in. But he'd ended with an oath to not give up hope…for who, exactly? Thor didn't specify here, but he had in other moments since. The return of the Loki of Before.

Loki set the journal aside. He couldn't take anymore, and he was near the end, anyway. Thor said he'd been thinking…and he had been. That was clear. And it was good, probably. More serious thinking than Thor had done in a long time. For a moment, he tried to be generous, that it was admirable of Thor, that he should be proud of him, pleased with how seriously he was considering what had gone wrong. He tried. For a moment. And that was enough.

He went back inside and dropped the journal beside his bed, then after a few seconds of standing there and looking at it, he picked it up again and sent it away. When bedtime came tonight, he didn't want to be faced with that book again.

Having little to do at the moment, he decided to go check on Nadrith's progress on the task Loki had assigned him and headed toward his front door. Before he got there, a chime sounded. He went to the door. It was Eldjarn again. It was time to return to Midgard.

/


"LegolasGreenleaf" asked how many chapters I plan on this being. My answer: 35. I'm bad at estimating quantity of any sort. I also want the FULL story here. Like those parts in the movies where you think, "What's he really thinking?" or "Why did she do that?" Everything Loki experiences and thinks, everything he goes through, what's going on with those most affected by him, too. I'm completely indulgent with that, so, it takes as long as it takes. Just know that there is an end, this isn't a "write 'til I get bored or run out of ideas" thing or whatever. There's a plan, there's an end, I know basically what it is and when it is (in calendar time), and it will come in approximately Chapter 35. LOL.

And that's all for now as this was a very long chapter! Thanks to all those who've reviewed, faved, followed, and so forth. So amazing to know people are reading and anticipating events to come.

Preview for Ch. 176: Loki heads back to Midgard. Tony isn't happy. He's not the only one.

Excerpt:

"Okay, it's just you and me now. No one for you to perform for. Why exactly did Thor want you here, if that's even true?"

"He believes we work well together."

Judging by the face he made, that wasn't the answer Tony was expecting.