I figured you guys would want a shorter chapter sooner than a longer chapter later :)
I went back over the last few chapters and tweaked a couple things about Sleipnir's medical info. Early I said Sleipnir didn't have Thrush, but that's really unrealistic considering how filthy the dungeons were, so I changed it so he does.
I also added Loki briefly glimpsing the stables Sleipnir is in when Lila and Cooper were playing Mario Kart last chapter.
Hopefully, you guys like the Loki-Sleipnir reunion!
Once upon a time, there was The Dark.
It was all encompassing, full of gnawing hunger and creeping terrors that were always out of sight because there's nothing to see in The Dark.
The Dark clutched him in its black fist and squeezed him tightly, because horses aren't supposed to fit in brains.
Sleipnir's stomach cried until he was so desperate he ate his own poop. It didn't do much, his stomach begged for more that Loki tried to give him but couldn't. The hunger tore him apart in his stomach, the Darkness smothered him in its clutches.
And, oh, how it made him want to scream.
But Loki shone high, like a beacon of blue-green light, a calming presence that chased all the hurt from The Dark in his own mind away, like their soothing melody, their special song.
Loki showed Sleipnir what was beyond The Darkness, whispered secrets in his mind as he took him places, so that sometimes Sleipnir almost believed he left The Dark for good.
Most of the places outside hurt, full of horrors that hurt his Loki. Leering faces and harsh hands that flew out to strike at any moment, bringing storms that left ruin and destruction.
When Loki woke up scared, or when he was hurt after yet another beating and waiting for his body to mend, Sleipnir was there for him. Don't be scared, Loki. Sleipnir would say before he sang their song to him. Their song about their field, their happy place.
Don't cry, Loki. Sleipnir's here.
Some places didn't hurt quite as much. The stables felt familiar the first time Loki took him there, as if Sleipnir had been there before, though all he remembers is The Dark.
Loki liked the library, but he usually got chased out. The field by the stables was better when the stars shone bright in the sky, because it was quiet at night, no mean people to chase them away like there often were when it was day and the stars slept.
Don't be scared, Sleipnir, Loki would tell him in return, when Sleipnir had bad dreams about Odin trying to ride him in the stables, or being dragged by the guards.
Loki apparently dreams about being a horse, and he was still living in the nightmare of Asgard with Odin, Thor, warriors and guards. So it's clear it's Loki's dream, even if Loki says he didn't remember and never really was a horse outside of his dreams. Sometimes, he'd said, he dreamed that Sleipnir came out of him as a baby.
All the same, Loki would be the one to comfort Sleipnir after his nightmares, singing, letting the familiar, soothing melody drift between them and wishing they could hug.
Don't cry, Sleipnir... Loki's here.
Loki even tried to help Sleipnir's hunger. I swear I'll find out how to get you food. He'd promise, and sometimes- rarely- food did appear, but it never fared well in the trip to The Dark in Loki's brain. I'm sorry.
We'll go to our field tonight.
The best place was their special field, in Loki's mind, with their horses and their stars, even better than the one outside. It was pretend, just like Sleipnir, but there were never any mean people to send them away, just Loki and the horses.
There, they'd play their games, for fun and for keeps, to chase away the pain like they chased each other around the field. Sometimes, they'd fly up to the stars, where there was nobody to hurt them because Loki was the only person left in all the Nine Realms.
Then they'd travel through the realms, laughing and romping until Sleipnir was back in The Dark, surrounded by echos of laughter that would surely return with his Loki.
Fenrir was in The Dark, too, once, Sleipnir is sure. Sleipnir couldn't see Fenrir, couldn't see anything, but he knew the wolf was there, because he heard him, even if he was out of reach.
Loki hadn't been able to talk to them without getting hurt, because Odin became furious whenever he found out. Furious for talking to Sleipnir or Fenrir, because they aren't real.
The wolf often got really mad in The Dark, when their Loki got hit and neither of them could do anything to stop it, to protect him. Sleipnir was always just as furious and sad as Fenrir, who would snarl and growl with rage as their Loki got another beating and stones from the wall tumbled down.
Fenrir was the angriest when the few times the Bad Men visited The Dark, completely unwelcome in Loki's head but there anyways, making things worse as they always do.
One time, Sleipnir heard an anguished scream from one of the Bad Men and the smell of blood.
Fenrir had disappeared from The Dark not long after that, leaving Sleipnir alone. He only heard from Fenrir when Loki did.
The Dark squeezed harder, making Sleipnir stay silent longer.
Sleipnir saw when Jormungand found Loki, and helped him stay out of trouble, followed later by Hel, who scared Loki and Sleipnir at first. But they were all monsters, so they became a Monster family, and Loki was Sleipnir's mother but the others' father.
Jormungand and Hel were never in The Dark with Sleipnir, like Fenrir was once. When they started talking to Loki, Sleipnir began to again too.
For as long as Sleipnir can remember, that was his world. His one and his only, his everything and anything. Loki chasing away the darkness in his own mind as it tried to pull Sleipnir back.
But Odin got mad, and the ravens cawed, burning like fire, like monsters coming from the sun. The storm raged harder, burning, ripping, tearing. Knocking the wall down more than the warriors ever did.
The wall fell down, and they had to go.
He became a silent observer of Loki's world, alone in The Dark without Fenrir or the others. He hated not even being able to sing their song to comfort his Loki, who was hurt again and again. So much hurt, it never ends.
But then Loki's world changed, and there was Tony. Tony, with his hugs and kindness, casting a calming, blue-white light, like the moon, over their world. Making it safe, for the first time ever.
Finally, Sleipnir could talk to Loki again instead of just watching, they could sing their song together. When Sleipnir talked to Loki, he could even see Fenrir again, and Hel and Jormungand, although he never saw them in The Dark.
Tony and Bruce see Sleipnir unlike anyone else but Loki. They talk to him like only Loki did. They're family, like his Loki and his Fenrir.
They help make The Darkness brighter, like Loki.
Then Thor came in green light and took The Dark away, making Sleipnir's world bright and deafening and overwhelming, but the noise and light all around him are oddly familiar, as if he'd had them in a past life that some back part of his brain has only barely not forgotten.
Now, his world has Logan and food and skies and stars. Logan reminds Sleipnir so much of Tony that sometimes he has to wonder if the man really is Tony after all, except he casts a glow like light reflecting off metal, and it takes away some of the storm raging around Sleipnir, raging inside him because he can't find his Loki.
Logan says he's not Tony as he helps Sleipnir walk, but Sleipnir only knows who Loki knows, and Loki doesn't know Logan. When Sleipnir's eight legs shake so hard he thinks he'll collapse, Logan will let Sleipnir lean on him, two of his front legs over the man's shoulders, the man's hands wrapped around them. They don't have claws, but they only did that one time with Thor, and Sleipnir's starting to think maybe he'd imagined them.
Once, when Sleipnir wakes up scared in the night, Logan comes to calm him down. Just like Tony. Like Loki, but he can really feel Logan's hands.
Don't be scared. It's not The Dark. He can see the stars, and Sleipnir sings the lullaby to himself, but he wishes his Loki could sing it to him. He cuddles his can opener, wondering when Loki will come. He gazes at the stars, and they twinkle and laugh and comfort until it's day again.
It's not the same as Loki singing to him, and Logan doesn't sing at all, just strokes him. But for the moment, it's enough.
His food is still here, and his water, and Sleipnir can hardly believe they haven't gone away yet. When he drinks the water, it makes him have to pee, and peeing really hurts, so it's good and bad and he can't decide which.
He still gets the itchy scratchy tube put in his nose and down his throat, but Hank says he's getting better and they might be able to move to a bottle soon. He has hay, too, but he can't eat much without his stomach revolting.
He doesn't throw up as much as when he first got here.
Hank asks why he needs his can opener, but Sleipnir can't explain that surely it'll turn into Loki or bring him one day. Professor X seems to know, but he doesn't say anything, just says that Loki will come soon.
Logan has a thing sticking out of his mouth that smokes and smells, and Sleipnir sees Logan with one of the smoking sticks in his mouth more often than not. Logan says the smoke blocks out all the other smells around him, as if the world is too bright for his nose instead of his eyes.
There she is, my baby. She's a beaut, isn't she? Logan introduces Sleipnir to his two-wheeled thing, that's apparently a baby and a 'motorcycle' on their next walk. Sleipnir remembers seeing things like this driving on the Bifrost.
Sleipnir's not sure how this motorcycle thing could really be Logan's baby, but then again, he can't really be Loki's baby like they like to pretend because Loki's not a horse, and neither can Jormungand or Fenrir because he's not a snake or a wolf.
When Sleipnir asks about the motorcycle with his eyes, Logan says it's not really his baby, with a smirk on his face like Tony. People can't give birth to bikes, he says, and bikes aren't real. So Logan just likes to pretend the motorcycle is his baby, like how Sleipnir, Fenrir, Hel and Jormungand pretend they're Loki's Monster Family, where Sleipnir is Loki's baby even though Loki's not a horse
Professor X still reminds Sleipnir of Loki. He can talk in Sleipnir's head like only Loki can, and sometimes Sleipnir wonders if Professor X really is Loki, just different-looking like when he's Tony. But Professor X says he's not Loki and maybe he's really not. Loki actually knows Professor X, though, unlike Logan or Hank or Jean.
Sometimes, when Sleipnir imagines Logan as Tony and Professor X as Loki. Hank is like Bruce, calm and kind and big, but blue instead of green. Jean could be Pepper, and Rogue is Hel, because Hel never touches anyone either.
Sleipnir's new world is better than The Dark, even with Thor showing up, but Thor took the Dark away. Sleipnir's mostly grateful- he hadn't liked it.
In The Dark, even when he couldn't talk to Loki without Loki getting hurt, Sleipnir had seen Thor do countless cruel things to Loki. Sleipnir always expects Thor to hit someone, probably him, especially when Sleipnir kicked Thor in his really tender areas. But Thor just grimaced and backed away, hands over his crotch.
It wasn't the first time Sleipnir kicked him either, but Thor never hits, like he hit Loki. Sleipnir was positive Thor would hate him, but he doesn't seem to.
Thor doesn't seem quite as mean as he used to be.
Sleipnir's eight legs tremble terribly on his walk with Logan after the man shows him the baby motorcycle. Sleipnir's really little again now, so when he almost collapses, Logan just scoops him up onto his back, like he's the horse and Sleipnir's the rider, but Logan's still on just two legs.
It's really funny, Sleipnir thinks from Logan's back, and he's glad nobody's riding him. Logan even picks up Sleipnir's can opener from the ground, and says Sleipnir is doing better, which makes Sleipnir proud. He'd managed to walk just a bit longer before his legs gave out.
Even though his stomach doesn't beg for food anymore and he has Logan and Professor X, Hank and Jean, Sleipnir sometimes wishes Thor hadn't taken away The Dark.
He hadn't liked it there at all, and being back there would mean he wouldn't have Logan. But at least he had Loki, whereas the chaos in this new world makes him lose his Loki.
He doesn't know how long Loki's been gone, only that it's been too long.
"You're beautiful." Loki coos at the mare whose nose he's currently petting. He's in the stables, where the familiar scents of horses, leather and manure greet his nose like an old friend. The smell of manure never really bothered him, and this all smells so much more real than the city, or even their tower.
Oddly enough, he's pretty sure he'd seen these stables briefly, when Lila and Cooper were playing that weird car and bike game on the screen a few days ago, when the Avengers were fighting Doom. And again in his dream about the clawed man. Loki doesn't mention this, though. They'd think he was crazy. Does Professor X know Loki somehow saw these stables? He said he knows the claw man, Logan.
Loki's head still feels... weird, from when Professor X went into it.
The professor had said he can help rebuild the wall to fix what's wrong with Loki in general, although he'd also told Loki not to say it like that, because he said Loki isn't wrong for being how he is. That it's not his fault for getting hurt, even though Loki knows it is.
Professor X never even used the word broken either, or stupid, pathetic, worthless or any of the other countless words they used in Asgard. Loki never liked those words, even though they're right.
The professor had said that you don't refer to people as broken- or rather, that some people do, but they really shouldn't, and that includes the Asgardians. Loki's pretty sure even Professor X can't do anything to fix stupidity. Tony says Loki isn't even stupid, though. It's a really hard concept to grasp, but Loki knows Tony doesn't say that to many people.
Loki briefly plops onto the ground, and Tony sends him a look. "I hope that outer space coat is machine washable, buddy. If someone's doing it by hand, it's certainly not me."
Loki's pretty sure he could just get dirt off with magic, though. He accidentally did that once when the servants were making him clean, and even though it made things faster, they still acted like he did something wrong, even though they seemed to like that there was less to clean.
There were young people cleaning bits of this barn earlier until Professor X told them to let Loki and the others have a little privacy. Loki wondered if they were servants, but Professor X said they were students and that part of having horses is caring for them.
Thor never cleaned out the palace stables. Loki wouldn't have minded much, since it'd mean he'd get to be with horses more. He'd started to clean up here, but Tony and Professor X said he doesn't have to, that he can greet the horses instead.
The mare Loki's petting right now strongly resembles Rain, the mare in Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron that's Spirit's friend and Little Creek's horse. She's a medium shade of brown, with white patches in almost the exact same places as Rain, and a white mane.
Lilo had started naming all the horses, like she does with all of Jumba's experiments that she and Stitch turn good and find a one true place for, but Hank and Professor X say these horses already have names. The mare he's petting right now isn't named Rain, she's named Melody. The black mare in the stall next to Melody is actually named Baccara, not Inky, like Lilo decided.
Melody, and most of the other horses, seem scared of Jormungand, though, so he's necklace-size again, hidden under Loki's shirt with his head right against Loki's heart.
Loki relishes the feel of petting Melody, the warmth, the feeling of her fur under his fingers. Horses are soft, but strong at the same time. Loki hums slightly under his breath.
He hasn't seen any real horses since being in Midgard, and he'd almost decided maybe he never would, because he lives in a tower and that doesn't seem like a great horse place. Even Tony's other house, with the awesome yard and the beach, didn't have horses.
The one thing Loki misses from Asgard is the horses, and the field, but of course he never would have wanted to go back just for those.
This place, Professor X's school, has both horses and a field. There's real grass like in Tony's other house. Loki had made a hula skirt with his magic when he was outside, which he's still wearing, along with the leaf bands around his ankles, wrists and head. Lilo and Stitch are wearing hula stuff as well, obviously, and so are Loki's little Timon and Pumbaa figurines, because they danced the hula to distract hyenas.
Loki and his toys had danced outside before coming here, although Loki doesn't actually know how to hula.
He'd also climbed one of the awesome trees, almost as awesome as Willow-Willowy at Tony's other house with the great yard, beach and sea. He'd nestled his Tinker Bell figurine in the branches. She looked a lot more at home in nature than in the tower, and she has a leaf dress that's more like a hula skirt than a lot of clothes, but not quite the same.
Loki had watched two of Tinker Bell's movies with Lila yesterday, but Cooper said they were for girls and didn't watch it with them, although apparently both he and Clint have watched them with Lila before, so they can't only be for girls.
Tink looked 3D in that, like Rapunzel and Elsa, though she looked like a drawing in Peter Pan. She actually talked instead of just chiming, although Loki actually liked the tinkling bell sound more. Peter and Wendy weren't around, and Tink was a lot nicer.
In those movies, Tinker Bell was a Tinker Talent fairy, which is definitely what Tony would be if he was a fairy There are a lot of other fairies aside from just Tink and Periwinkle, who Loki only saw through a hologram through Jarvis.
Loki would really like to be an Animal Talent, but he's almost positive he'd be a Frost Talent, because they do stuff with ice. Tink's twin, Periwinkle, is a Frost Talent and looks like Elsa, at least with the colors, but she hadn't been in the movie at all. Lila said Periwinkle doesn't show up until the fourth movie, Secret of the Wings.
Tink didn't like being a Tinker Talent, though, because they didn't get to go to the mainland, so she'd tried to change her talent. Tink had failed at every other talent, including Light, Water, Garden, and Fast-flying (but she didn't even try being a Frost Talent). She failed at teaching a baby bird how to fly when trying to learn to be an Animal-Talent from Fawn (who's Lila's favorite fairy), but the bird was stupid because he was scared of flying. He wasn't even a flightless bird like a penguin, so how could he be scared of flying?
Loki would love it if Tink had taught him how to fly. His Tink figurine had actually sprinkled him with Pixie Dust in the tree, and it hadn't been Jarvis because he's not here.
When Loki jumped from the tree he'd climbed out in the yard, though, he hadn't flown and instead crashed to the ground like when Buzz tried to fly over the stairs at Sid's house.
His arm hadn't fallen off like Buzz's, but it had definitely broken. Broken bones are nothing new to Loki, and it's healed already, but he'd still gotten scolded by a concerned Bruce and an incredulous Tony who said he knew Loki knows he can't fly.
Maybe the Pixie Dust had been one of Loki's own illusions, because it sure hadn't done what it was supposed to (but Tink probably wouldn't have been the best teacher anyways.)
Tony and Bruce shouldn't have been so concerned. Bruce had insisted on looking over Loki's arm in every possible way even as he told Loki not to jump out of trees. But Loki had healed Tony's leg before, so they surely knew he'd get better quickly, but he secretly kind of liked that they showed concern.
Tony had seemed impatient about something, and after they'd finished telling Loki not to jump from trees, Tony had said Loki was going to love what was coming. Instead of leaving to go back to the tower, they came to this barn with stables, instead.
Tony was right, as he almost always is. Loki does love this, a lot, but Tony still seems impatient about something.
Because there's a field and stables with horses here, Loki doesn't even have to miss the field in Asgard anymore, which had real horses he could actually feel (unlike pretend horses like Sleipnir that he can't touch).
This place is a million times better than Asgard. There are blue people here, like Kurt and Hank, and people with things that are sort of magic, like him.
But still no Sleipnir.
Professor X said Loki could meet Sleipnir again, but Loki still hasn't found Sleipnir in his head. He misses Sleipnir a ton, and Sleipnir's the best, smartest horse ever, but these other horses are still great. Before Sleipnir, he had the horses in the Asgardian royal stables as friends. They didn't hate him, even if their owners did. The palace horses had been even nicer once he had Sleipnir as a friend, treating them both as if they were their own, and they had stayed his friends after his Monster Family had to go away in Asgard.
These Midgardian horses aren't quite like Loki's horse friends in the Asgardian royal stables, though. The Asgardian horses were like Maximus and Bullseye- they could clearly understand everything he said, and could reply with body language, but couldn't actually tell him stuff like his Sleipnir can because they didn't use any words.
Neither the Asgardian horses nor these Midgardian horses are as good at talking as Sleipnir. He can't actually hear Melody's thoughts in words like with Sleipnir or Fenrir, or how he reads Snoopy's thoughts (but he doesn't hear Snoopy's thoughts in the movies with the beagle, which is odd). Spirit actually narrated his own story, but was also silent a lot of the time. But he had thought stuff back to Little Creek sometimes, except Little Creek didn't seem to hear.
Still, Loki's absolutely loving seeing these horses, even if he probably won't be allowed to ride them. He never was allowed to in Asgard, but sometimes he'd climb on their backs at night. They didn't mind, but they couldn't leave the stables, so he only ever got to ride when they were in the field, except usually they were sleeping.
He dashes up and down the aisle, practically skipping. Some of the stalls are empty, and Loki isn't sure if they don't have as many horses as stalls, or if the horses normally in those stalls are outside.
Loki doesn't have any apples to feed them, but they all have hay, like they should. He wishes he could somehow get some to go to his brain, for Sleipnir. He'd tried eating it several times, but it hadn't worked. Oddly enough, the first time he'd eaten it, he almost felt like he'd eaten it before.
He's moved on to petting a white stallion, and holds up Maximus for them to meet each other. They don't look quite the same, but Maximus and the stallion look at each other, neither speaking or thinking in words, but the stallion seems curious about Maximus, who looks a little like him.
"Hey, Horse-whisperer, I know you love these horses, but c'mon over here for a sec." Tony says maybe to Loki, or maybe one of the horses is named Whisperer? Loki had almost forgotten it's not just him and the horses. Tony, Bruce, Hank and Professor X are here, too.
"Do we haves to go?" Loki asks sadly, giggling slightly as the stallion nibbles at the end of Loki's hair. After all, they live in the tower, not here, so they're obviously going to have to go sometime, probably soon. As much as Loki loves this, he'd rather be in the tower with his Tony than here without him. "Little bit mores, please, Tony?"
Loki's a little surprised he actually asked that. Surely he shouldn't get too greedy. But they hadn't even had horses in the zoo, just zebras, and he wasn't allowed to pet them.
"Loki, look." Tony just gently grabs Loki's shoulder and turns him around, so he's facing the rest of the stalls instead of the stallion that's now nibbling his hair.
Loki blinks and tilts his head, dropping Maximus as Simba tries to climb up his long coat. There's a figure standing in the barn doorway, almost silhouetted from the sunlight.
It's the claw man from his dream, Logan. Wait, hadn't Professor X said that Logan was that... Wolverine guy he mentioned a few times?
"You're Loki?" Logan asks, raising an eyebrow. "I've heard about you, from someone who's been missing you a lot. I wasn't expecting the coat, though. Or the hula stuff- you seem in touch with your feminine side." Tony gives Logan a look for that, although Logan reminds Loki a lot of Tony. "I did hear about the army of Disney character toys."
"Where's your claws?" Loki blurts out to Logan, folding in his thumbs pinky fingers so his three remaining fingers stick out like this man's claws in his dream. Loki can't even see Logan's hands, they're behind his back. "Are they re...re-trac... they go in, like cat claws? My Fenrir has claws, but they can't scratch. Stitch's neither, his are reals soft."
Fenrir appears by Loki's side, and Loki feels fur, as is usual lately, although his hand still goes through.
"Where'd you hear about that?" Logan asks him with narrowed eyes before looking at Professor X, who's in his chair. "Did you tell him, Chuck?"
Loki's doesn't hear Professor X's response, his attention drawn to the figure clinging to Logan's back, in the way Stitch does to Loki's, but without straps.
Logan's holding a tiny foal on his back. Loki can't see the whole foal, since Logan's body is in the way and the foal is so small, but he sees a small, gray horse head sticking over Logan's shoulder, cocked to the side. And there are definitely more than four legs poking out behind Logan's back. The legs look kind of skinny, even for a foal.
"...Sleipnir...?" Loki whispers in disbelief, eyes going wide, wondering if he's dreaming. When he rubs his eyes, Sleipnir's still there.
Loki would know his Sleipnir anywhere. He's the only eight-legged horse- the only one Loki knows of, anyways. All the other horses he's seen only have four legs. Even if there was another eight-legged grey horse, Loki would have been certain he'd be able to pick out his Sleipnir from that one. After all, he can tell all the four-legged horses apart from each other.
Sleipnir wasn't this small before. His mane, which is exactly the same color as Loki's own black hair, is a lot longer, too, longer than Loki's hair, maybe. Loki briefly wonders what horses would look like with lion manes and what lions would look like with horse manes. Or what he'd look like with either of those. He giggles slightly at the thought, and it turns into hysterical laughter at his happiness of finding Sleipnir again
Loki could never pick Sleipnir up, so why can this Logan guy do it? Then again, Logan had been in Loki's dream. But hadn't Professor X said he knows Logan?
If Logan is here, is this a dream? He's dreamt about Sleipnir since he left, but Sleipnir hasn't come back yet.
"Loki...?" Sleipnir sounds almost as disbelieving as Loki. He doesn't speak aloud, like he has since he started showing up visibly as an illusion, which really only happened since Loki came to Midgard. Instead, Loki just hears the voice in his head, and Sleipnir's mouth doesn't even move. Technically, even when Sleipnir speaks aloud to Tony or Bruce, he still speaks in Loki's head at the same time.
Loki wonders why Sleipnir's not actually talking like he always has in front of Tony and Bruce. And he's definitely in front of them now, so why's he just talking in Loki's head?
Loki bounces up and down, flapping and laughing excitedly as his heart soars. "Sleipnir, my Sleipnir. Sleip, Sleip Sleip-niiiiiir!"
"Sleipnir, you backs? How... you went, why?" Loki groans. It's hard to get words out right now.
"Are you here, really?" Sleipnir asks mentally, sounding confused. He glances to Logan and his eyes ask "Do you see my Loki, Logan?"
"Yeah, I see 'em. He's here. You're not hallucinating or anything." Logan answers, some weird smoking stick thing poking out between his teeth. Maybe it's a wand, like Harry uses?
"So you're really not Tony?" Sleipnir asks Logan with his gaze, but it seems like he already knew that.
"Uh, no, I'm right here..." Tony says, raising a hand. "How'd you think he was me? I'm much more handsome."
Logan scoffs at that, and Tony says. "It's good to have you back, Sleipnir."
"Really really really really really good!" Loki says. "I miss-ed you a whole lots, Sleipnir!"
Everyone else seems to see Logan and Sleipnir, too, so maybe they really are here, not only in Loki's head. Like illusions?
Sleipnir's an illusion, right, just like all the others. So maybe this Logan man's an illusion, so that's why he can pick Sleipnir up?
Loki blinks, still half convinced this is a dream. If it is, he wants to stay in it, and Sleipnir is still here. Wouldn't he have woken up by now?
He pinches himself and feels the sting, which means this can't be just a dream. It's not a dream, so it's real, right? He doesn't remember falling asleep anyways.
This is real!
Professor X really had helped open the door, it seems. Or is Professor X making him see Sleipnir? Could he do that? But Loki can feel Sleipnir in his mind again.
Loki smiles so wide his face hurts. "You are back! Can't leave never 'gain... why you back... Why 'd you left?" Loki's still stumbling over the words. His mouth isn't working right- not that it ever does, but it's worse now. "Why'd you shuts me out like Elsa? You're not gonna leave again, are you?" Loki asks anxiously, fiddling with his fingers as Simba crawls into his arms.
What if he disappears again? His friends used to disappear from sight like all his other illusions whenever anyone touched them.
Loki slowly draws his hand back, where it finds Fenrir's fur. Fenrir doesn't go away, but he hadn't gone away the past several days when Sleipnir was gone.
Loki really doesn't want that to lose his horse again, like when Sleipnir and the rest of his Monster Family had to go away for a long time when Loki was in Asgard because Odin was always enraged whenever he talked to or about them.
Sleipnir hadn't even been gone a week this time, and it's not just Loki and his pretend Monster Family against everyone else here on Midgard, since he has his Tony and his Bruce, and Jarvis, Pepper, Dum-E, Simba, Stitch. Clint was always nice, even after accidentally pointing an arrow at Loki, and now he lives with them. Laura, Cooper and Lila are all really nice, too.
So it hadn't been nearly as bad this time as in Asgard, but he'd still really missed his horse. Sleipnir was his first friend. Well, he had the Asgardian horses before and after Sleipnir, but Sleipnir was his first friend that could actually talk with him, even if it was in his head and made him stupid and crazy.
""Loki? You came?... I knew you'd come." Sleipnir's eyes are only on Loki as his voice echos Loki's mind. But he sounds like he'd been starting to worry he wouldn't see him again. Just like Loki was really scared that Sleipnir might have decided to go away for a really long time, maybe forever. "Professor X said you would. And I have a can opener."
Now Loki's confused. Sleipnir's the one who came back, not him. "...'m heres. Not a dream? I feel it." But Professor X told Loki he'd meet Sleipnir again, but since Sleipnir's in Loki's head, maybe he kind of told Sleipnir, too? Was the door open then?
"Tony an' Bruce saids maybe you'd come back. And 'Fessor X said I could meet you 'gain. Thoughts maybe I couldn't ever open your door... but 's open now!" Loki grins. They were right!
"You gotta stays nows, Sleipnir." Loki tells his horse. "You can't leave, never ever again! Can't, 'cause you're family, and ohana means family, family means nobody gets left behind, or forgotten. I didn't forgets you, but I thought you were gone for always!"
"You never heard me." Sleipnir's eyes say. But Loki almost never saw or heard Sleipnir, either, except in his dreams. "I couldn't find you."
"I found you nows! C'mon, let's play! Look, my Tony gots me Bullseye!" Loki says as Bullseye trots up next to him. Apparently they don't have to be in Toy Mode here. "He's Woody's horse, but kinda Jessie's too, and Lil-"
Loki cuts himself off. He almost mentioned Lila, and Tony said people weren't supposed to know that Laura and the kids are in the tower. He hopes Professor X hadn't found out in his brain. He said he wouldn't look into Loki's secrets.
"You have another horse?" Sleipnir looks a little jealous, like Woody when he thought Andy didn't love him anymore. Sleipnir never cared that Loki had Maximus, although Maximus didn't move before. Maybe it's because Loki got Bullseye after Sleipnir disappeared, so he thinks he got replaced?
Hopefully he doesn't turn evil like Lotso when Daisy replaced him.
"I didn't replace you!" Loki insists. "You're stills the best horse in all the Nine!"
Hopefully Bullseye, Maximus and all these horses aren't mad at Loki for saying that.
Sleipnir really needs to watch the Toy Story movies, Loki thinks as he sings part of the song that was in all three of them. It says what he wants to, anyways.
"Some other folks might be
A little bit smarter than I am,
Bigger and stronger too, maybe.
But none of them, will ever love you
The way I do, it's you and me, boy.
And as the years go by
Our friendship will never die."
Stitch spits out Loki's horse mask, and Loki pulls it over his head, holding Bullseye and Maximus, trotting around and neighing. "Look Sleipnir! I'm a horse!" Loki laughs.
Maybe he can grow horse legs again, like that time with Bruce! It would be really great, to be a horse with Sleipnir, like he sometimes is in his dreams. Loki lets out his best whinny, although there's a laugh mixed in.
Sleipnir isn't running, though, and Loki pauses, pulling off his mask. Sleipnir always loves playing with him, so why is he still on Logan's back instead of running around with Loki? Even though Loki had Lila and Cooper to play with ever since Sleipnir went away, he's still really missed playing with Sleipnir.
As Logan takes Sleipnir off from his back and carries him to a stall, Loki realizes that Sleipnir is really skinny, skinnier than any of the other horses both here or on Asgard. He's too thin.
"Sleipnir, why alls skinny? You looks like Hel, you do, you do... but all, not half, an'-" Loki asks worriedly as he follows Logan and Sleipnir into the stall, frowning. Sleipnir never looked like this, and he definitely didn't look this bad when he disappeared several days ago.
Sleipnir doesn't look quite as dead or skinny as Hel's dead half, but he looks like he was starving once. He lays tiredly on the ground, not even standing up like a lot of horses.
Logan mutters that this is nothing compared to before. Tony voices his agreement, telling Sleipnir he looks a lot better, and Loki's really confused. Sleipnir didn't look this bad before he went away.
Sleipnir sends an extremely relieved look over to the stack of hay and the water in the other corner of the stall. Sleipnir acts like he's guarding them, as he bites the side of the open stall door, arching his neck and grunting. Cribbing. Loki saw some of the horses in Asgard do it.
Even though none of the Asgardian horses were starving when they did it, and really just bored or nervous, he can't help but imagine it's because Sleipnir's so hungry he's trying to eat the door. But Sleipnir can never eat the food Loki offers him, so he can't actually eat the hay or drink the water here, and it makes Loki want to cry even more.
Loki can never feed Sleipnir.
Given how skinny he is, Sleipnir always being hungry makes even more sense. It's all Loki's fault. He tried to feed Sleipnir, but it never worked and now Sleipnir's like this! He didn't even think of water the last bunch of times he tried to feed him. Idiot!
Loki rocks back and forth anxiously, not even paying attention to Simba as the lion climbs around his lap.
He couldn't get it to work, but he should have tried harder instead of just being a useless idiot who dangled food in front of Sleipnir when he was starving! When he eats, he tries to get food to go to his head for Sleipnir and Fenrir, but it never really seemed to work and it's all his fault!
My fault my fault my fault my fault! Can't do anything right it's all my fault he's hungry and hurting... No wonder he wanted to leave me, all my fault... Stupid, worthless freak MONSTER! BAD MONSER BAD MONSTER! I HURT HIM! ALL MY FAULT!
A scream tears through Loki's throat as his hand flies through the air, smacking his cheek hard enough to make his head snap to the side and scratching deep enough to draw blood, again and again.
He only vaguely hears the faint sound of horses whinnying and pawing the ground with hoofs, and the voices of his Monster Family and Professor X echo through his head.
Someone grabs his arm, but then it's like Asgard and he screams even more because surely it's the guards grabbing him, but he deserves a beating anyways. He deserves to be punished, for what he did to Sleipnir.
He thinks he hears someone, Professor X, say you're making it worse, and he is, he made it horrible for Sleipnir and that means he's probably hurting Fenrir too and-
"No, stop." Sleipnir's mental voice says, breaking through all the other noise in Loki's brain and the screaming. "Don't hit yourself, please. It makes me sad."
Loki was only sort of aware of he was the one actually hitting himself, because at one point he thought it was the guards.
Great. He was already broken enough, and he just broke himself even more. No matter what Tony and the others say, Loki really is an idiot.
"Loki!" Professor X says, and Loki's pretty sure he's talking in his mind instead of out loud. "None of this had anything to do with you. You are not to give yourself any of the blame."
He should get all the blame, because he didn't feed Sleipnir, so it's all his fault.
"No. No Loki, it's not. You're the best pretend mother ever." Sleipnir says in Loki's head, referring to their little Monster Family game, and that stupid, crazy dream Loki has sometimes where he's a mare and Sleipnir comes out of him. It hurts in his dream, but at the same time there's an overwhelming joy at seeing Sleipnir emerge in the moonlight.
But that's pretend, like when Lila, after realizing Loki is a prince, pretended to be a princess and said they were going to get married (and what do rings have to do with anything?). Except Clint put a stop to their pretend wedding, saying that he doesn't even want Lila thinking about marrying someone even a hundreth of Loki's age. So someone who's only ten years old is too old in Clint's eyes, even though that's nothing.
Loki feels Jormungand grow and wrap himself around Loki's arms, pinning them to his sides, but hugging him at the same time.
A fuzzy head gently bumps itself against Loki's own head, and it takes Loki a second to realize it's outside him. It's bigger than Simba's head, and it feels different anyways. It feels like Melody's head, with warmth and a skull underneath, except it's smaller and the skull feels a little harder.
Loki opens his eyes and sees Sleipnir's face inches away from his own, concern filling his eyes. "Don't." Sleipnir's eyes say. "You're hurt." As if he's the one they should be worried about.
"You hurts more, Sleipnir!" Loki exclaims.
"You're healing already." Logan says in a tone Loki doesn't quite understand, but he does feel his skin knitting itself back together.
Fenrir is somewhat angrily demanding, in Loki's head, how he's supposed to protect Loki if he does that to himself, but the wolf gives a little whine in the back of his throat. He's never really furious at Loki, like so many people in Asgard were.
It's not like Loki can even hit himself now, when Jormungand's wrapped around his arms, but maybe that's why Jormungand's like this?
Tony and Logan are squatting near Loki, and it might have been their hands that grabbed his arms earlier, rather than guards.
"You really did a number on your face, Snoopy." Tony groans. "What did I say about hitting yourself? What did they just tell you with their super sentient animal gazes?" Tony nods at Sleipnir and Fenrir.
Loki tries to reach up to feel his face, but Jormungand's still wrapped around his arms.
"But 'tis-alls-m'fault." Loki sobs, out loud, he thinks. His cries muddle up the words even more than his mouth normally.
"No, it wasn't." Tony, Logan and Bruce all say at the same time. All three of them- especially Logan- practically growl the words, but Bruce's eyes aren't green. Loki wishes Hulk would come out.
"Don't think that for a second." Tony tells him.
"You tried to feed me." Sleipnir thinks. "You just couldn't when I was in The Dark. It's not your fault." There's no way he could actually think that. Loki failed him, he couldn't feed him, why in the Nine Realms doesn't Sleipnir hate him? Fenrir, too?
Sleipnir said Loki's head was dark, cold and squishy and that he never got enough food so it's still him that didn't feed him enough!
Like when Sleipnir was still gone, Fenrir tells Loki that they're not mad about the food, echoing what Sleipnir just said.
Sleipnir rubs his face against Loki's own, nickering softly as his voice repeats in Loki's mind. "It's not your fault. It's not your fault."
Loki stares in shock- not at the words, but at the fact he feels Sleipnir's head, and somehow, Sleipnir's head isn't going through Loki, like it always does!
It really feels like he's touching skin, more so than how he can feel Fenrir's fur even though his hand still passes through him. Fenrir's not solid, but Sleipnir is, although, Fenrir somehow managed to knock Stitch down when the alien backpack stole Bruce's snow globe.
This is like touching Jormungand. Jormungand is solid, too, the only solid one of his friends before now. And that had only been after Loki went to Midgard. It definitely feels like Sleipnir has a skeleton (which is really noticeable because he's really skinny), and skin and, but not many muscles.
"Sleipnir, you... gots a body of your own now, same as Jormungand. I feels it." Loki gasps, and his eyes grow wide with realization. "That why's Logan could hold you!" Loki glances at Logan, who he supposes is tangible, too, although he'd never actually touched Logan. Also, Sleipnir had just been biting the wooden stall door.
Logan had gotten to hold Sleipnir before even Loki had. He's jealous, because he always wished he could hold Sleipnir for real. He could never really hold Sleipnir before, and someone else had gotten to do it first!
Well, he can now. Loki gathers Sleipnir into his lap. Sleipnir's long mane feels really nice when Loki runs his hands through it. Sleipnir doesn't go away as Loki cards his fingers through Sleipnir's mane.
It's as if Sleipnir's really real...
So the Blue Fairy really had granted Loki's wish upon a star!
Maybe, if...
Loki reaches out for Fenrir again, but his fingers still pass through the wolf, much to his disappointment. He certainly hadn't found Genie or his lamp, so Genie hadn't helped Loki, because he hadn't gotten those wishes. He still had Asgard, and Fenrir and Hel don't have bodies, so they're not real.
Even if he had found Genie, Aladdin probably already freed him (unless he got stuck in a lamp again, but then Loki would free him again). But why in the Nine Realms would Genie grant Loki wishes unless he had to?
So it was the Blue Fairy, then. But the Blue Fairy made it seem like she granted Gepetto's wish because he brought happiness to others, even though the song says it doesn't matter who you are if you wish upon a star. Loki hasn't been kind- he's been starving his Sleipnir!
"Not your fault not your fault not your fault." Sleipnir chants in Loki's head, as Jormungand wraps himself around Loki's arms again, as if to ensure he won't hit himself, although he gives Loki enough maneuverability to still stroke Sleipnir. "I get food here."
"You eat?" Loki asks. Stitch has a tangible body, and he eats toys. And Loki's pretty sure Jormungand ate at the zoo. So, if Sleipnir's tangible, maybe he really can eat? He feels real.
Loki leans towards the hay, and Logan says Loki's the first person to do that without getting kicked.
Sleipnir's eyes glint mischievously as he says something about kicking Thor. Loki likes that mental image, of Sleipnir kicking Thor. Except Sleipnir's really small- but then again, Loki can be really small, and so can Jormungand.
Loki holds a couple strands of hay in his teeth, showing Sleipnir how to bite it. If the Blue Fairy just turned him real, maybe he doesn't know?
With the rest of the hay still sticking out of his mouth, Loki watches Sleipnir with bated breath. This never works and it's always heartbreaking.
But Sleipnir's teeth and mouth don't simply pass through the hay like they always did. Sleipnir's teeth close around the other end of the hay, so it's between their mouths like Lady and Tramp eating spaghetti, except Loki simply bites off the bit on his end so Sleipnir can have the rest, instead of meeting him in the middle, even though that would have been funny.
"Did you just eat hay?" Tony stares at Loki incredulously, but Loki doesn't answer, too busy beaming as Sleipnir chews it, petting Sleipnir's back. Sleipnir snuggles closer, letting out a happy sigh.
Eyeing the water next to the hay in the corner, Loki realizes he hadn't even thought about offering water recently.
"You haves thirst?" He asks, probably sounding even stupider than normal. "You thirsty, Sleipnir?" If Sleipnir can eat, he can drink too, right?
Sleipnir nods, but looks really scared too. "Gotta drink. Water's 'mportant." Loki tells him, and Bruce and Hank both nod in agreement. How could Loki have forgotten water before? Stupid!
"It hurts." Sleipnir buries his face against Loki's chest.
Loki freezes, horror struck. What did he do?! Something horrible, obviously, or Sleipnir wouldn't have said that. Maybe just holding Sleipnir hurts him? "Just leave me be. Just leave me be." Loki rocks back and forth, feeling like Elsa when she hurt Anna. "Just stay away and you'll be safe from me."
Half of Loki wants to hide like Elsa, to put the stall door in between himself and Sleipnir. He hurt his Sleipnir! Elsa had hurt Anna, but trying to hide just hurt Anna more. So would hiding hurt Sleipnir more? Loki would hate to have to hide when he just got Sleipnir back, and Sleipnir doesn't seems to have missed Loki too.
True love thaws. Love fixes, love is an open door. His door's open again.
He loves Sleipnir. Sleipnir's the first person... animal he ever remembers loving.
"You didn't hurt me." Sleipnir continues rubbing his face against Loki's chest.
"But you saids..." There's a can opener next to Sleipnir (Sleipnir said he had one) and Loki remembers the one he'd played with when he first was on Midgard, when he first met Tony. He liked it, but later, he'd turned it into his own action figure with his magic. Loki picks up this one and fiddles anxiously with the crank that spins the two little cutting wheels while he thinks.
"It hurts when I pee." Sleipnir explains. Except that doesn't make any sense and Loki's never seen Sleipnir pee before, ever. Then again, he'd never gotten Sleipnir to eat before now.
Loki hears Hank murmur something about a swollen sheath, which Loki knows is the tube of skin covering a male horse's penis. There's a lot about Midgard Loki doesn't know, but he definitely knows horses.
"Hank and Jean cleaned there. And put weird stuff on my feet. But it still hurts." Sleipnir says.
Loki peeks between Sleipnir's legs and is quickly horror-struck. His sheath is all swollen and a weird grey color. Not the beautiful grey of Sleipnir's coat, but a bad, sick-looking gray.
How did that happen? Was it him?
There's also smelly, gross black stuff on Sleipnir's hoofs, that Loki doesn't recognize but it looks bad and smells terrible.
Loki clutches his Sleipnir tight, rocking back and forth, head bent low so their faces are pressed together and his long hair brushes Sleipnir's mane, blurring together with his tears.
"Heal what has been hurt, change the fates' design, save what has been lost, bring back what once was mine, what once was mine." Loki sings, over and over, although he occasionally switches to singing their lullaby about their field.
He'd healed his arm without even really thinking about it, just as he'd healed countless times in Asgard. He'd fixed Tony's leg, and Loki really hopes he can fix Sleipnir's hurts right now. Sleipnir said he hurt, and Loki doesn't want Sleipnir to be hurt. Ever.
A soft glow emanates from Loki's chest and his hands (but not his hair, like Rapunzel). He doesn't need Rapunzel's song, he doesn't think, since he never used it in Asgard. But healing other people is different from healing himself. He still can't heal Professor X, which doesn't seem fair, since the man's going to help make Loki's mind better and Loki can't even help him walk again.
The glow wraps around Sleipnir's body, glowing brightest at his sheath and his feet.
When the glow fades, Loki carefully checks Sleipnir over. His sheath is no longer swollen or the sickly grey color, which is definitely a good sign. The black, smelly stuff on his hoofs is gone now.
Loki smiles slightly. "You feel better?"
Sleipnir sends him a grateful look. "Lots. Thank you, Loki."
"I made you betters?" Loki asks. It would make him feel a bit better himself, if he had. He's still not entirely sure he hadn't hurt Sleipnir in the first place (although Sleipnir insists he hadn't).
"You always make me better. You never, ever hurt me." Sleipnir gives Loki a very pointed look.
"But-"
"No. You always help, never hurt." Sleipnir emphasizes, and then sends a happy "Loki made me better!" to Logan, who Loki notices is watching them really closely.
"What, so you just sing, put on a little light show, and instantly everything's healed?" Logan asks Loki, arching an eyebrow. He seems interested in healing, even though he sort of acts indifferent now. "You're going to drive a lot of doctors out of business, kid."
Loki's not really sure what that means, but it kind of sounds bad for the doctors. Like Bruce. He glances at Bruce, who mumbles that he's not that kind of Doctor anyways, and briefly explains what driving out of business means.
"Can't make 'Fessor X walks, nope nope nope! Ands Dr. Doom an' Drakken shouldn't even be workings, 'cause they're bad doctors." So if Loki made the stop, that would be good, right? Tony says that Loki's help to get Doom to stop teleporting is good.
Loki frowns. There's one thing kind of dampening the moment of healing Sleipnir...
"You're still real real thin, Sleipnir." Loki tells his horse, who's still in his arms. That seems to be the worst part, worse than the stuff he'd just fixed. Sleipnir has to be really hungry. "Why couldn't I fix that?"
"That's not the kind of thing you can fix immediately." Professor X says gently. What if it's like the man's legs, and Loki can't fix it at all.
"Sleipnir will get better. It will just take time." Hank explains. Loki sighs in relief.
Sleipnir needs to eat.
Hank is saying something about it being time for another feeding. Which is obvious, because it's long overdue. Loki hasn't fed Sleipnir at all, he needs to feed Sleipnir.
Loki leans to grab more hay (in his hands this time, since Jormungand has loosened his hold around Loki's arms), wondering if maybe he could find an apple to give his Sleipnir. He could never give his Sleipnir apples before.
Does Sleipnir need Idunn's golden apples?
Loki's thoughts are interrupted when Hank approaches them, holding a long sort of tube. It's thick and clear, and Loki stares at it apprehensively.
"What's that?!" Loki doesn't take his eyes off the weird thing. Hank and Bruce are saying something about feeding, and noses, but Loki's not really listening.
Hank crouches down next to them, moving the tube towards Sleipnir's face. No! That could really hold someone's mouth shut, it looks a lot worse than a leather cord. It's thicker, for one.
Sleipnir's singing in his head. Their lullaby. "If you find the field where the horses roam, and you need a place to call your home..."
Loki sits there, curled up and clutching his Sleipnir tighter. His heart pounds in his chest as his ears roar, blocking out sound of Hank saying something.
"Don't be scared, Loki." Sleipnir tells him. "It doesn't hurt."
It can't not hurt, it's going to hold someone's mouth shut and that hurts more than anything!
Hank has backed up a bit, and he's no longer moving the thing towards them, but he had been before.
No, he's going to stitch Sleipnir's mouth shut! It hurts so much, more than anything, Loki is never going to let anybody hurt his Sleipnir like that! He already hurt Sleipnir enough.
Besides, Sleipnir can't eat if his mouth's stitched shut. Sleipnir needs to eat! He's too thin.
"Loki, it's okay. It makes me less hungry." Sleipnir tells him, lessening some of the panicked thoughts in Loki's mind.
How? It's not food.
"Loki, it's all right. It's a feeding tube. A nasogastric tube." Bruce quietly explains from outside the stall. For some reason, that makes Loki think of noses. Still speaking in his nice, quietly calm tone, Bruce starts explaining how the tube is going to feed Sleipnir.
But plastic tubes aren't edible! Especially not one this long.
"Sleipnir's not eating the tube." Bruce tells Loki gently. "It goes through his nose, all the way to his stomach to give him nutrients to help him get stronger."
"They feel weird as hell going in and out," Tony mutters, before quickly adding. "But they help. It'll help Sleipnir get strong. You want that, right?"
Loki vaguely recalls feeling an itchy, scratchy feeling in his nose and throat when Lila and Cooper were playing that driving game as the Avengers were out fighting Doom. It felt horrible.
"I've had it before. It's not that bad." Loki can tell Sleipnir doesn't really like it, despite what he just said, and he gives Sleipnir a disbelieving look. Sleipnir caves and admits. "It itches in my throat, but then I'm not hungry."
"It's gonna make him betters?" Loki asks quietly. He hates seeing Sleipnir look all weak like this.
Hank glances at him, before slowly moving the tube towards Sleipnir's face.
Even though they just told him what it was, Loki still freaks out, forgetting what they just said. Panic starts to fill him again, overwhelming the voices of his Monster Family in his mind, as well as Professor X's.
The tube's getting closer to Sleipnir's face and what if it closes his mouth up?! It's going to hurt so much more than a hundred beatings and-
"No! Get it away!" Loki shrieks at the top of his lungs, clutching Sleipnir protectively. He bares his teeth at Hank, but Fenrir doesn't and normally he's the one to do that.
Loki shoves the tube away, and magic bursts out of him, throwing Hank and the tube out of their stall and slamming the stall door shut behind him.
When Hank stands up, he's holding a long strand of spaghetti in his blue hand now, instead of a tube. Loki must have changed it with his magic. The spaghetti wriggles like a snake, and Loki thinks about how he made Jormungand's body out of a tube, except Jormungand's body feels different than it once did. Kind of like how Sleipnir's body feels.
What he just did slowly sinks in. He's pathetic, he'd been scared of something cord-like just going near his mouth even though it was actually going to Sleipnir's.
"That reminded you of something else, didn't it?" Professor X asks, as if that's not a problem and Loki isn't pathetic. Tony's giving Loki a look and crouches down to put an arm on his shoulder.
Surely Hank is going to be really mad at him now.
Hank doesn't look mad, but he says they need to get another tube to feed Sleipnir.
But why? Loki doesn't need a tube to eat- he hasn't heard of anyone using a tube to eat. Is this some crazy Midgardian thing? But Tony and Bruce don't use tubes. So Sleipnir shouldn't either.
"Was the tube really gonna feeds him?" Loki asks. It's a really bizarre idea, it doesn't make sense.
Bruce nods. "It would bring liquid directly to his stomach. It's going down his nose, not in his mouth."
So the tube really was going to feed Sleipnir, but Loki freaked out like with the turkey baster, even though this was less like that than the turkey baster.
Now there isn't a tube and Sleipnir can't eat, and it's all his fault because he ruined it! He doesn't deserve Sleipnir! Sleipnir butts him gently with his head again, and in his mind, he says "Stop, Loki. I love you. We're family."
"Can't he, like, drink something instead?" Tony asks. "Either way, it's liquid going to his stomach... or is there like a swallowing problem or something?"
Hank says something about giving it to Sleipnir orally, and the big blue man goes to somewhere Loki can't see him from the stall he's in with Sleipnir.
Loki reaches for the hay again, but Bruce stops him. He scowls slightly at Bruce. Why is Bruce stopping him from feeding Sleipnir? Sleipnir needs to eat, he didn't feed him enough before.
"His stomach can't handle much solid food." Bruce explains, sounding sad.
"It comes back up." Sleipnir's eyes are sad, which makes Loki want to cry. Tony winces as if he's remembering something painful.
"Why do you sicks up?" Loki asks, frowning. Sleipnir already looks like he hasn't gotten enough food. It coming back up is the last thing he needs.
"I don't as much now, as before." Sleipnir's eyes add. "Not like the apple Thor gave me."
Loki's face crumples in confusion. Thor? Surely he'd heard that wrong. Thor always said Sleipnir wasn't real, and how could Thor have fed Sleipnir when Loki couldn't? Maybe Loki's just being stupid again, he thinks as Jormungand wraps around him again, hissing that he shouldn't hit himself. Not like he can, right now.
Loki notices Hank is back. In Hank's large blue hand is a bottle with a long teat, like on actual horses, although thankfully it doesn't look like they chopped off a horse's teat to make it. That would be barbaric. Loki had a teat in his dream, but he doesn't have one now because he's male, which is why the mare dreams are so crazy.
Tony says something that makes Logan snort and Bruce put his face in his hands. Professor X and Hank just look at Tony, seeming unamused.
"Try this." Hank says, handing him the bottle. There's barely anything in it, though. Sleipnir needs more.
"He's small right now." Hank tells him. "So his stomach's small. It can't hold much."
Loki unscrews the cap and takes a sniff, immediately scrunching his nose and face and turning away in disgust.
It smells like something vomited and then died in there. He can't give his Sleipnir this. He puts the teat back on the bottle and is about to toss it aside when Sleipnir grabs the teat in his mouth.
Loki stares down at Sleipnir suckling the horrid stuff inside, like he doesn't even care about how it smells. It probably tastes just as bad.
"Here I am. This is me.
I come into this world so wild and free."
Sleipnir sings the song from Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron, in Loki's head. The same song that played when Spirit was born and drinking from his mother, when he first arrived in the world. Loki loves that scene.
Sleipnir changes the next set of lyrics.
"Here I am. Though I'm not strong.
But I'm with you now, where I belong."
"It's a new world, it's a new start..."
Sleipnir's world is no longer The Dark. His new world has Logan and food. Skies and stars and can openers. Professor X and Hank. It's loud and pounding all around him, especially when Thor comes.
Tony and Bruce are here now, but Logan and Hank still are, too, so they're really not them.
That's not important.
Loki's light is back, the blue-green warmth that sets Sleipnir immediately at ease, as it always has. As it always will, Sleipnir knows. He hopes.
His Loki is finally here, and everything is right in the world. More right than The Dark ever was. The can opener really had worked.
Loki calms the storm raging around Sleipnir and inside him, shuts out the noise, the light, so that Sleipnir's whole world is reduced to Loki. Just Loki.
Loki had always been Sleipnir's world, even in The Dark. Especially in The Dark.
This is better than it ever was before, Sleipnir decides.
Loki's arms are wrapped around him, all tight and loving, and the hugs are even better than Sleipnir ever imagined. He can feel them, now. His Loki is right here, where he's meant to be.
Loki holds the bottle for Sleipnir to drink from. The bottle is a lot better than the tube- it doesn't itch or scratch. It's infinitely better than eating his own poop.
Sleipnir wishes it could stay like this forever, just him in Loki's arms. Now that he knows what it's like, he doesn't think he could go back to The Dark, where he could never feel Loki.
Instead of talking, Loki sings their special song softly, because it always works, no matter which one of them is the hurt one.
Sleipnir doesn't think he's hurt so much, anymore, not when his Loki is here. But Loki hurt himself, and he hates it when Loki does that. Sleipnir hopes Loki won't hit himself about The Dark again. He's not sure how much Loki knows about The Dark, but Professor X has said, lots of times, that The Dark wasn't Loki's head.
"If you find the field where the horses roam,
and you need a place to call your home,
the moon and the stars will give you light,
to sleep in the grass in peace tonight."
As Sleipnir drinks from the bottle, he gazes up at Loki. Sleipnir really wishes they could go to the field. There's a field outside the stables, but Sleipnir can't run, he still has a hard time walking.
He finishes the rest of their lullaby. It's even better than Spirit's song, which they just sang.
"The silver stallion gallops away,
his herd follows him and they start to neigh.
Their hoofs beat to the stars and moon above,
Just follow them to find the one you love."
Loki was the first person to love Sleipnir, the first Sleipnir loved in return. Sleipnir loves the rest of their Monster Family, too, but only Fenrir was in The Dark with him.
When Sleipnir finishes the last drop from the bottle, he tells Loki "See? You can feed me."
Loki nods slightly, but says Sleipnir needs more, but Hank tells Loki they need to moderate it.
Loki doesn't look too thrilled with that, saying Sleipnir needs to be fattened up, but Sleipnir's pretty sure he'd throw up if he had any more.
Loki sighs at not being able to give Sleipnir more, but he seems happy that he could feed Sleipnir. Sleipnir really doesn't blame Loki for their not being much food in The Dark, but Loki didn't seem to get that. Hopefully he does, now.
"Wanna play?" Loki asks, green eyes dancing as he flaps his hands and bounces excitedly.
There's ever only one answer to that. Yes. But Sleipnir can't run, he's still weak, he can barely walk.
"Our field?" Sleipnir asks hopefully.
"Our field." Loki grins.
Sleipnir closes his eyes, because it's easier to find Loki when it's dark.
Oddly enough, it felt like he's going IN now, whereas in The Dark it felt like he was coming OUT. Like he really is outside Loki's head.
And then, there Sleipnir is in their field, and the stars shine bright and dance around the sky.
Sleipnir hasn't been to this part of Loki's mind in a long time. For a while, he just saw whatever Loki saw of the outside world.
The town around the field is in ruins, but the field is just as it always was. But there are fixed bits, buildings that hadn't been there when the wall fell.
Stark Tower is one of them. It glows nice and bright, and Sleipnir can't wait until he can join Loki there for real.
He'd helped rebuild some, before the huge storm when The Dark squeezed harder, dragging him back to its depths. There's even more rebuilding to be done now, there's wreckage all around them as they walk through the town.
Loki's head is hurt even more than it was before. Sleipnir had seen them hurt Loki and couldn't do anything about it. Was helpless when the storms and ravens raged around them, tearing everything to pieces, rivaling the storm inside Sleipnir and the storm Fenrir let out in The Dark.
The storms have died down, though. There hasn't been one since Loki's world became Midgard, since Tony's glow made Loki's world safe.
Loki tells Sleipnir how Professor X is going to help rebuild the wall.
Fenrir, Hel, and Jormungand join them, as well as Simba and Stitch, and they all walk with Loki.
One Loki. Singular. The only Loki there has ever been and will ever be, Sleipnir is sure. The only Loki Sleipnir needs.
They run for a long time in the field, and Sleipnir's legs don't tremble or give out like they do when he walks with Logan. He never even gets even close to being short on breath.
Sleipnir matches his stride, but then they start to race back and forth across the field. Loki's fast, but Sleipnir's faster. The fastest horse, Loki declares with a laugh.
Sleipnir always wins, until he lets Loki win, but Loki seems to know Sleipnir lost on purpose.
At one point, Loki grows legs like a horse. But only four, not eight, like Sleipnir. Loki says he only grew two horse legs last time. Sleipnir doesn't remember that, but apparently it when Loki hadn't found him yet, but when Loki was looking for him the first night they were apart.
Still, he's at least partly a horse. Like in his dreams, Loki says, galloping around on his four new hoofs.
Sleipnir wonders why Loki doesn't turn into a full horse, like the boys turning into donkeys, except for Pinocchio, who only grew ears and a tail. He'd liked watching that movie with Loki and Hulk, and he wonders if he's really real now.
A centaur, Loki tells him, is a person with four horse legs but a body and head of a person, Loki explains. Like Firenze. Sleipnir doesn't know who Firenze is, but Loki says he helped Harry later in the book they were reading.
Laughing, Loki says that he'd be a very good centaur. He already loves the stars, only Hagrid said they're "ruddy stargazers"
There's a centaur constellation, Centaurus, Loki says as the stars rearrange themselves. He hasn't seen it in the real sky, but Jarvis showed him.
As he tumbles around on the grass with Fenrir, Loki tells Sleipnir about what's happened to Harry in the book they were reading before The Dark became the new world.
Sleipnir only heard up to the zoo, when Harry was still getting locked in the cupboard, which Sleipnir hated hearing.
According to Loki, Harry made friends at school, Ron and Hermione, and flies on a broom. They play chess, which is like Hnefatafl but different. There's a stone, a Philosopher's Stone, that makes mortals immortal, like Idunn's Apples would. That it turns any metal into pure gold, too, except he's pretty sure Tony doesn't need any more money.
Loki pulls a red stone, the Philosopher's Stone, from his pocket, but says it's worthless in here, because it's not real.
At the edge of the field, Sleipnir sees other versions of himself. The other Sleipnir's aren't him, not really, just like the other Fenrir's aren't really Fenrir, who's padding along beside them, growling at the Asgardians lurking at the edge, like he used to growl in The Dark.
The Asgardians can't come on their field. They're not allowed.
Some of the other Sleipnir's are big, like he is sometimes, but right now, he's content to stay small and in Loki's arms. Unlike before, he can actually feel them, and it's glorious. Better than he ever imagined Loki's hugs to be. Better than even food, maybe.
There are cracks in the ground once the field ends and becomes the town. The big ones are yawning wide as if they'll swallow Sleipnir down into their back into The Dark at any moment.
Professor X says The Dark wasn't Loki's head, and Thor said he found Sleipnir in a dungeon. But The Dark seeps up from the cracks.
Don't be scared, Sleipnir. Loki whispers as his arms pull Sleipnir away, scoop him up because Sleipnir's decided to be small here, even though sometimes he's big. He's stronger right now, though.
Loki's arms keep him safe from The Dark and bounce him up and down as they go back to the center of the field.
Sleipnir wonders where Fenrir went after he left The Dark.
Tiny glowing lights fly around, like the stars, but near the ground.
They're fairies, Loki explains, like in the movies he'd watched recently with Lila. Fairies live in nature and bring the change of the seasons, which means that sometimes it snows here on Midgard. It never snowed on Asgard, snow was only on Jotunheim. But here on Midgard it gets hotter and colder throughout the year. (Except, Loki says, Tony, who hadn't even watched the movies, had gone on a long rant about how fairies don't actually change the seasons, and that it's really due to the earth rotating around the sun on its axis).
One goes to land on Loki's finger, and Sleipnir sees it's Tinker Bell. She's holding a tiny scepter, certainly smaller than Loki's outstretched finger, with even tinier shards of blue that twinkle like stars of their own.
Tink, Loki tells him, was in charge of making a scepter with the moonstone for the autumn revelry. It would make special blue Pixie Dust, a good blue just like the moonstone. Just like Tony's arc reactor, the glow he casts over their world.
But Tink broke the moonstone, accidentally smashed it into tiny pieces that she couldn't put back together again. So she'd gone to look for a mirror that granted three wishes, like a genie, but it was three total for everyone, not per person.
Tink had found it with only one wish left, and accidentally blown the last one up on getting Blaze the firefly to shut up instead of fixing the moonstone, so it was still broken.
So then, Loki goes on, Tink used the pieces of the broken moonstone on the scepter, and it shone brighter than all the others before it, making even more blue pixie dust.
On Loki's finger, Tink holds the scepter up, and the blue shards shine bright like the stars.
Sleipnir snuggles up next to Loki in the grass. Loki still has four horse legs, so Sleipnir pretends they're a horse family and he's really Loki's baby.
The stars shine bright, and Sleipnir thinks he might finally be out of The Dark for good.
Yay! No more Darkness :)
I know they didn't go into details about what really happened and that it wasn't really the Blue Fairy (originally they were going to in this chapter). But I wanted this to mostly focus on Loki and Sleipnir, and for it to end this on a happy note.
There's going to be more at Xavier's school next chapter, and things might not be nearly as fluffy. Uh, not that Loki hitting himself is very fluffy...
Hopefully this was good?