I think FFN's finally sending out email notifications again. I was waiting to post this until the site got fixed.
I'm not as into Disney as I was at the start of this story, except one of the first obsessions of my childhood resurfaced recently. I'm shocked Loki hasn't watched this movie yet, and had to fix it. So here's another Disney therapy chapter.
Midgard is much brighter than Jotunheim, even when it gets dark early. The penthouse of the tower has lights everywhere, almost as bright as the shining Bifrost rainbow that had surrounded them.
Sleipnir huffs, and Fenrir rumbles. Loki hugs them both. Bifrost travel isn't his favorite either, but it's fast. Thor's still with them, but Frigga's vanished.
"You're back!" Lila waves from where she and the rest of the Bartons are eating dinner. "And you have a whole zoo with you!"
Clint stands up and places himself between his family and Fenrir, eying him. Fenrir stops growling and sits with a thump.
"My Fen won'ts hurt you. He's a good wolf, like Mowgli's ohana wolves."
Clint sits back down.
"You look so pretty blue." Lila says, so simply, like his skin's nothing to be afraid of. Loki flaps his hands- he hadn't even realized they'd still be blue when he got back, and hadn't expected anyone else to see him like this.
Clint's nodding, saying he puts Avatar to shame, and Laura says his eyes look like rubies.
"Abu's got ruby eyes." Loki says. Abu's eyes had really been rubies in the Cave of Wonders, where he kept trying to take treasure. Fenrir's cave hadn't been nearly as nice, but it hadn't tried to eat them either. "We didn't get eaten! But Fen bits of Tyr's hand like a tick-tock croc. Only he won't bite you, 'cos we're family and you're alls good guys."
"Can I pet him?" Cooper asks, and Loki glances towards Fenrir. It's Fenrir's choice, and Fenrir slowly nods.
Sleipnir's eyes say be gentle, but Fenrir doesn't seem scared. He's tough and strong, but he looks like a gentle giant as Cooper runs a hand through his fur.
"Was he one of your toys?" Cooper asks. "Did you make him real? Can you make Lucky real too?"
"He's not a toy." Loki says. His monster family's better than any toy, even when Simba or Stitch come alive. "He's my son. Sleipnir too, and Jor."
Loki's glad to be home. Now that his Fenrir and Sleipnir are with him for real, he can take care of them like he never could before. Guilt starts to claw at his stomach, and he shakes his head. "Come on, Fen. Let's gets some food."
Fenrir wasn't starved like Sleipnir was, and was treated better in Jotunheim than Asgard would've, but Loki still wants to spoil him.
Fenrir pads after him to the icebox, but it's empty. Loki unintentionally makes some of his own ice as he stares into it, and Lila shrieks that he's like Elsa.
Loki laughs. Lila hadn't even seen his castle in the icy mountains of Jotunheim. Maybe he can show her sometime.
Loki frowns back in the fridge. He's supposed to be feeding Fenrir. He closes the ice box and turns to the wall. "Jarvis? Can we please get lots and lots of meatballs?"
"Of course, Mr. Loki." Jarvis says. "Enough to feed Mr. Fenrir, I presume?"
"Not just one." Loki says. Jarvis assures him he'll get more than one meatball, but that wasn't what Loki meant. He has to feed Fenrir more than once. It's his job to take care of his kids forever, and he isn't going to fail it anymore.
"Not just one." Loki says again. "Three meals a day. Only Sleipnir needs more little meals, 'cos he can't eats lots now. And he can't eat meatballs, 'cos he's a horse."
"Of course, Mr. Loki. I've ordered all the necessities for Sleipnir's diet, though I must say he's looking far healthier than before."
"Frigga healed him." Loki mumbles.
"He is a mighty steed." Thor says, and Loki scowls. Sleipnir's nobody's steed.
Sleipnir had been hidden behind Fenrir the whole time, but Cooper says "Wow, a spider-horse."
"Is he for my birthday?" Lila shrieks. "You said I wasn't going to get a pony, even though we live on a farm! But he's the best pony in the world! Can he climb up walls like a spider? I could ride him on the ceiling! Or we could run up the whole tower and-"
"Sleipy's not your pony!" Loki interrupts, almost as loud. Sure, Sleipnir will probably let Lila ride him, but Loki hates the thought of him being someone's steed. Odin had already tried to break him in, and Loki won't let anyone else try to break his baby.
Not that Loki really thinks Lila will try, but Sleipnir's free now. He doesn't have to give rides unless he wants to.
Sleipnir snorts and tosses his head, like the thought of climbing walls is silly, like he's not even scared of Lila trying to break him in.
"Sleipnir's his son." Tony repeats what Loki already said. "It's… a long story."
"Did you get turned into a horse?" Lila asks, and Tony mutters that maybe it's not a long story after all. Loki starts to say that he'd been chased by the stallion, but Clint quickly cuts in before he can say that the stallion put Sleipnir inside him.
"Did you adopt them?" Cooper asks. "You're like Tarzan but opposite, a human who adopted a bunch of animals."
"Who's Tarzan? I'm not human." Loki says. They aren't adopted either, but Tony's already speaking before Loki can add that.
"We seriously haven't watched that one yet?" Tony's brows are raised as he glances at one of Jarvis's cameras.
"Shockingly, you have not yet seen Disney's 1999 adaptation of Tarzan." Jarvis starts to warn about parental advisory, and how there may be triggering scenes. Loki glances at Sleipnir, but his eyes are determined as he tosses his head.
Tony grins and spreads his arms. "Well, Sleipnir, Fenrir, how'd you like to have your first family movie night?"
The meatballs arrive, practically a whole truckload that gets brought up in the cargo elevator. While everyone else munches popcorn, Loki tosses meatballs for Fenrir to fetch.
Fenrir bounds after them, joyfully snapping them up. It's probably not as good as hunting real prey, but it's the closest he's gotten in ages. He can't exactly go hunting in the city, but maybe once they go to 'Fessor X's place again, he can hunt in the woods.
Thor has more snacks than anyone besides Fenrir. Loki can't say he's entirely comfortable with Thor staying for movie night, but he did save Sleipnir.
The lights dim, and there's an immediate flash of thunder onscreen. Loki doesn't panic, but Jor gives him a tight squeeze anyway. Loki refuses to look at Thor, eyes glued on the screen as an intense drum beat fills the theater. Loki bounces to the beat, and Sleipnir starts stomping his hooves in rhythm with the drums.
The scene switches to a ship on fire, and at first, Loki thinks it's a funeral. Thor comments the same, and Loki feels strange to be thinking the same thing as Thor, when it seems nobody else is. Loki wasn't even invited to funerals in Asgard, but he still knows they involve setting ships on fire.
Only, not everyone on this ship's dead. A woman clutches a baby as a man lowers their lifeboat. It plummets into the crashing waves, and for a second, it's maybe a funeral boat after all.
Then the man dives into the waves, swimming to his wife and baby. As she pulls him aboard the boat, a disembodied man's voice starts singing about Two Worlds, One Family.
The scene switches between the human parents and gorillas. Both throw their babies and catch them. The human parents build a house in the trees out of logs and debris, and it looks like a much more laborious process than when Loki and Elsa made their ice castles.
Lila warns them that a scary bit's coming up, as an image of the sun in the moon morphs into jaguar eyes and the singer warns about danger.
One night the baby gorilla chases after a toad as the leopard stalks nearer. The baby gorilla tries to run away, but the leopard pounces and carries it away as the parents watch helplessly.
Loki shoots out of his seat, dashing back and forth across the theater. He can't sit still, he wants to chase after the leopard. He knows what it's like, watching babies be snatched away.
Not even Jormungand's tight hugs are helping right now. Loki runs so fast he nearly crashes into the walls before hurtling himself at the other wall. Back and forth.
Fenrir eventually lopes near him, a huge, steady presence as Loki gasps.
His kids are alive. They were horribly mistreated, like him, but they're alive.
Tony's talking to him, and Loki realizes the music and the movie's stopped.
"We should have listened to Jarvis." Tony says.
"As always, sir. " Jarvis says. "I tried to warn you about the triggering content, Mr. Loki."
"I should've thought of that." Clint mutters. "It's been a while since we watched this. That part scared Cooper so much, we had to fast-forward past it."
Loki frowns. He's not a kid like Cooper, who only looks a little shaken.
Loki has kids of his own, but Sleipnir's not scared. Loki's the only one freaking out about it.
Tony tells him it's perfectly fine, that, of course that scene would hit close to home. Loki shudders, leaning into Fenrir's warm, comforting fur. If only Fenrir could have been there, he could have stopped the leopard and saved the baby.
"We can watch something else." Tony offers.
Loki shakes his head. Maybe the gorillas will find out their baby survived, like Sleipnir did. Maybe they'll save him.
Thor starts to say Loki is very brave, but Fenrir growls at him. Thor's half the reason Loki's so scared to begin with.
The music starts again, and the mother gorilla hears a baby crying. Maybe it's in her head, like Loki's kids were for ages, except they were really real all that time too.
The mother gorilla follows the sound toward the treehouse, and cautiously makes her way inside. There are bloody leopard footprints on the rough floorboards, and she steps on a picture of the family. She stares at the image of the baby as a faint cry comes from elsewhere.
The gorilla sees something wriggling under a blanket, and pulls it off to reveal the human baby. They stare at each other, even more different than the Aesir and Jotun, but the baby quickly reaches up for her. Rather than disgust, the gorilla examines the baby curiously before cradling it tenderly.
The leopard tail flicks into view, and Loki shouts.
The gorilla fights the leopard over the baby, who bounces and rolls across a net under the treehouse. For a moment, Loki fears another baby will be lost, but the gorilla saves him and brings him into the jungle.
The other gorillas eye the baby dubiously, and one kid says it's freaky looking.
Kala doesn't seem to care. She's determined to care for the baby, even when the leader, Kerchak, tries to convince her otherwise. Kala remains firm that she's keeping the baby, and decides to name him Tarzan.
Loki's heart has stopped racing, but it feels heavy now, his stomach is an aching pit. Why couldn't Frigga have been like that? Maybe in a cartoon world, Frigga loved him like Kala loves Tarzan, despite their differences.
Kala even sings for Tarzan to stop crying, and that she'll protect him from everything. The man's voice sings again, that Tarzan's small but strong, and "You'll be in my heart."
Loki cuddles his own kids as Kala cuddles baby Tarzan. It's no use thinking what Frigga should have been, or how he couldn't cuddle his own children as babies. He's going to give them all the hugs they missed over the years.
Kala wakes up to find Tarzan missing. He's older now, about Lila's age, with hair a little longer than Loki's, only brown and more tangled.
Tarzan runs into Kerchak, who stares down in disapproval, but he doesn't beat Tarzan. The ape who'd called him freaky-looking slams him into a tree, but it's not even punishment like when Jumba captured Stitch and slammed his head into a tree.
Terk tells Tarzan that if he wants Kerchak to like him, he has to stay out of his way. If only it'd been that easy for Loki. Loki tried to stay out of Thor's way, and Thor still sought him out to torment him.
Loki can still hardly believe they're watching a movie together now.
Tarzan longs to play with the other apes, but is left behind. One of the gorillas makes his brother hit himself. "Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!"
Loki starts repeating it too. Thor never made Loki hit himself like that. Loki starts lightly whacking his own head, Not his furious pounding where he's punishing himself- this hardly even hurts, but the kids still look scared, and Sleipnir shoves his head near Loki's, eyes begging for him to stop.
Jormungand tightens around him, but doesn't restrain his arm, just offers a comforting squeeze.
The other apes clearly don't want to play with Tarzan, calling him the hairless wonder. He's not as strong as them, and Loki knows what that's like.
Rather than pummeling Tarzan, Terk tries to scare him away with a challenge to get an elephant hair, but Tarzan dives off a cliff to get one from the elephants in the water below. He scares a baby elephant, and soon there's a whole stampede towards the rest of the gorilla family.
Kerchak's furious, of course, but he still doesn't beat Tarzan, even when Tarzan takes the blame. Kala tries to defend him, and Kerchak says that Tarzan will never be one of them. Tarzan pushes out of Kala's embrace and runs off.
Beside Loki, his Stitch backpack sticks out his tongue.
Onscreen, Tarzan gazes sadly at his reflection, seeming to hate it almost as much as everyone used to hate Loki's true, blue form. Tarzan angrily pounds the water, then covers himself in mud.
"What are you doing?" Kala asks gently behind him.
"Why am I so different?" Tarzan demands, and Loki knows that question all too well. Not that he didn't know the answer- he knew all too well. His brain was different even before Odin rampaged it to try to get him to shut up about his kids. He would have looked as different as Tarzan looks from the gorillas, but even disguised, he'd been treated as if he were blue.
Kala jokes that Tarzan's different because he's covered in mud, but Tarzan isn't playing.
"Kerchak said I don't belong in the family." Tarzan mutters as Kala wipes the mud off him.
"Never mind what Kerchak says." Kala says. Loki had to wait until Midgard until someone told him his tormentors were wrong, but Tarzan has had Kala defending him since babyhood. Loki wishes he could have done the same for Sleipnir and Fenrir.
Tarzan furiously demands for Kala to look at him. Kala tells him she sees two eyes, like hers, and a nose and ears. Tarzan laughs, but sombers when he holds their hands together. Their hands are noticeably different.
Kala tells him to forget what he sees, and places Tarzan's hand over his heart. Then she hugs him close, so Tarzan can hear her heartbeat.
"They're exactly the same." she tells him.
Loki grins, drumming his fingers on his chest. He rests his head up against Fenrir's heart, hearing the steady ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum, and matches his finger drumming to the beat.
Sleipnir presses his head into Loki's chest, tapping his hooves to the rhythm of Loki's heart. Jormungand squeezes along, and they're all connected.
Loki pulls Tony into the embrace, squinting at the faint glow of his arc reactor under his shirt. Under the glowing contraption, Tony's heart beats the same.
Onscreen, Kala says that Kerchak just can't see they're the same, and Tarzan decides to make Kerchak see it, proclaiming he'll be the best ape ever.
There's another montage of how Tarzan's the son of man. He struggles to keep up with the apes, and makes mistake after mistake, like throwing a spear at fruit and almost hitting Kerchak, or splattering bananas everywhere after trying to be a chameleon. He's clearly not magical, since he can't simply turn into the animals he's imitating.
But as Tarzan grows into a man during the song, his skills grow too. He uses a branch to protect Kala from the rain. He outwits a snake that's almost as big as Jormungand, letting it chase him around trees until it's all tangled up as he squats, smirking, just out of reach. Loki already knows he's going to play that game with Jormungand.
Tarzan climbs a waterfall, swings from vines, and surfs through the treetops as gracefully as Nani and David surf on the waves.
Tarzan's the son of man, and he's a man now.
Loki's a man now, too, even if he still feels like a kid. But he's grown too, even if he's stayed an adult the whole time. He's not as scared now, even if he still panics. He's stood up to Thor, and helped save Fenrir, and he knows he'll be a better dad than Odin. Not that Odin was ever his dad, in the same way Kerchak refuses to be Tarzan's.
Loki just has to act like Tony, and he'll give the best help ever.
Still hugging his family, Loki settles back to watch the rest of the film.
I carried a Wolverine figure around for the past thirteen months or so, but about a week ago, I switched to carrying Tarzan (only at home though).
I have vivid memories of listening to Tarzan music as a kid while climbing on a hammock, like the net under Tarzan's treehouse, and it was one of my favorites. I had a Tarzan placemat and everything. I don't even remember watching The Lion King as a kid, though I'm sure I did, but it clearly didn't grab my interest like it did Loki's.
Basically, Tarzan was to me what Simba was to Loki, even if I didn't have a Tarzan figure until a few weeks ago (as a kid, I carried Stitch around home, then carried Pooh around the during a hospital program when I was nine, etc).
So, yeah, I'm shocked Loki didn't watch Tarzan before now, but I searched the whole fic and there were zero results for Tarzan.
I'm not sure if I'll write out the rest of the movie next chapter or not.