LXIII

In the handwriting of Prince Loki Odinsson, from the margins of a An Account of the Vanir in the Reign of Halstaff the Third, a text in the library of Asgard:

There is much information embedded in these pages. Therefore, I propose a summary -

Things change. Such is the nature of history.

LXIV

A shadow blots out the light.

"Are you gonna lay there all day?" Lukas peers upward and grunts, not caring enough to form an entire word. Caroline's mass of springy curls has taken the place of the sun in the sky. She purses her lips, juts one hip to the side, and places a hand on it. "Gramma says you're moping, but you won't tell her why."

"That is a false assessment," he murmurs, closing his eyes again.

"Okay… then what's with all the destruction?"

"Hmm?"

Caroline tsks her tongue against the roof of her mouth. Lukas calculates the likelihood that she will leave him be if he responds at least one more time. He sits up, and something falls into his lap. "Oh."

Shredded petals are scattered around the gap where he had lain his body, yellow and blue and purple, a rain of colors, ripped apart. He drops the bloom that he clutches in his palm. It has survived, but not without scars.

Roseanne's granddaughter raises an eyebrow at him. "My hands," Lukas says shortly. "They - have their own will, sometimes."

He'd always tried to suppress the habit. It appeared nervous, a symptom of anxiety, and it wouldn't do to project such a quality. Not among the court, not in a place like -

Asgard. Lukas lets himself think the word. He cannot avoid it any longer, not now that the son of Asgard has descended, and with his passage, resurrected every perfectly sharp spire, every gleaming golden surface, every star-bright jewel of the palace of Gladsheim and its true royal bloodline both.

Caroline is watching him, head tilted to the side, brown eyes shrewd and considering. He offers her the half-destroyed flower. She takes it, and places it behind her ear. With the motion, with that tiny, almost nonexistent show of acceptance, Lukas finds himself speaking to her.

"It is my - brother." The oversimplification, to speak this untruth of their relationship, is necessary. Otherwise, he will have to explain Jotunheim. An ancient winter war. The first abandonment, the one that marked him, the one that foreshadowed all the others, a lifetime of it. "My brother has come here, and I do not want him."

"Is your brother as dumb as Clayton?"

He laughs. "Yes."

"Is he as annoying as Connor?"

"Without a doubt."

Caroline nods sagely. "I get it." She pauses, biting her lower lip. "Is he as funny as Clay? As sweet as Connor?"

The reply is ripped from him, like a splinter from a wound. "Yes." Lukas turns his face to the pale blue sky. "He is arrogant, and impulsive, with little control over his anger. He is thoughtless. Ignorant, appallingly oblivious. He is led by his feelings. That heart of his is transparent. It makes him loyal, and honest. When he smiles, he seems to emit his own source of light. And I hate him for that. Are I not a jealous creature? All moth-like, forever circling in the dark, searching."

By Helheim, that had gotten maudlin. Perhaps he should stop reading poetry before sleep. That Lord Byron is a sap.

She rests one little hand on his shoulder. Then tugs at the sleeve of his shirt. "C'mon. This sounds pretty serious. We gotta talk to Gramma."

For a moment, he lets her tug at him, and does not shift his weight. A petty reminder that he will not be moved but under his own power.

He scrambles to his feet in the next moment, but only because Pickles has come bounding around the corner of the house, slobber flying in sticky ropes away from his open mouth. Lukas knows that he will run full-tilt until he collides with Lukas's chest and knocks them both to the ground. He still cannot decide if it is a hidden streak of deviousness or simple stupidity.

Roseanne stands in the honey-colored kitchen, surrounded by little green plants in spotted pots, the faded blue curtains framing both the window and her figure. She holds a chipped mug of coffee close to her chin.

Lukas sits heavily at the round table. Caroline plops into the seat across from him.

The old woman's expression is mild as milk. She waits. He and Caroline exchange a glance.

"Gramma, it's his b—"

"Hush now, child," Roseanne says, her voice soft. "I know you wanna help, but if it's something important, then it's just as important that Lukas be the one to say it."

That is exactly what Lukas has been avoiding. Admitting to Caroline was one thing - for all her posturing, she is a child, like her grandmother said. She is not old enough to grasp the depth of what he is, what he was. She knows what it is to have a brother, but she does not know what it is to lose one.

The minute hand on the ticking clock has never vibrated with such intensity. Each grind of the gears is louder than the roar of the Bifrost. He remembers the enormity of that great beast's mechanisms, copper and gold, shining bright metal, the way they spun and twirled around the dome, the eerie screaming sound that the bridge had made when it shattered, how it threw up a cloud of translucent dust that glittered and sparkled as it fell into the empty void.

"Lukas," Roseanne prompts gently.

"That isn't my name," he says.

Roseanne blinks. She reaches over, grabs a spoon, and stirs her coffee. Lukas watches every motion. Caroline has frozen in place. Then her mind catches up to her open mouth. "Not your - but I thought you said — "

"Caroline, why don't you go and make sure your brothers are washed up for lunch?"

They have a silent staring match. Caroline's jaw juts forward. Roseanne's eyebrow tilts, the corner of her lips turn down.

The younger girl bursts out in an explosive sigh. "Fine."

When she has gone, Roseanne takes her chair. "Do you want to tell me your name?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because that person does not exist. Or - he does. He does exist. And he is waiting, biding his time. Waiting to become me again. And I do not want it."

That thought cuts into him. There is a severing. Abrupt, yet painless.

The movement of something white and fleshy catches his eye, as it crumples the tablecloth. Like a spider, scuttling, grabbing. Then it stops. He follows the line of flesh and it is attached to his own forearm, but it doesn't feel like anything, it doesn't feel alive. He does not own it, in that moment. He is not sure what force is animating the muscle. Who does this hand belong to, truly? This is the creature that shredded a hundred flowers, and he didn't even realize. A will of its own, one that does not know peace, only violence. Only destruction.

This is the hand that turned blue.

Lukas stares down at the crooked pale digits. They remain still. He wants to move them. He wants to release the cotton tablecloth from his grip. He doesn't want to ruin that too.

At first, there is nothing, not a flicker of feeling, no observable motion, and his heart begins to race, a flare of some animal panic - but then the fingers twitch. He moves them, and a connection is reestablished. He breathes in like he took a blow to the gut. It is mine, he thinks. Isn't it?

And who are you? A voice comes. It is not his voice, like the hand is not his hand. He has been cracked apart and put back together, and he cannot recognize his own reflection.

Roseanne leans forward and touches that pale white creature-hand that he has claimed. "You don't have to be anyone other than Lukas."

"I do not have a choice. I will always be that person, in his eyes." He knows he is not making sense. This feels like a dream he had in the Void. When he could not remember the name of his brother, nor the outline of his face, but he knew the shape of Thor in his heart, a piece carved from flesh, bleeding freely.

"Tell me, hon. Who are you talking about?"

He repeats the lie that he told Caroline. "My brother. My brother has come to your home world, and destroyed any hope of finding my own home here."

"Your brother." Roseanne taps the metal spoon to the edge of her coffee cup. "Lukas, I - I remember when you first came here." She sighs, and he goes rigid in his chair. "You were running from someone."

He did run. He fled the moment he saw the look on his false father's face. And known the lie was spent, that there was no hope of remaining Odinsson. There was no path back to his family. To the person he was. That Loki was. He had seen the future in that moment, as Frigga must when she looks to the loom, woven and inevitable, his own life a missing stitch. Rather than remain and become a prophet, he fled over the edge.

"I ran from everyone. Everything. All the people that existed in that place. I was - I was afraid. Of the person I was. Had been. Was becoming." Lukas swallows. "But fear is a hunter, and it has tracked me here. There is nothing to do now except hide in the dark."

Roseanne leans forward. She puts her hand out on the table near to his own, but doesn't touch him, for which he is grateful. "You don't have to hide here," she says. "Not with me. I don't care what your name is."

There is pressure building behind his eyes. His throat is thick. He is weary of the dark. Yet something stops him from speaking to her, from revealing his name, his past. He wants this safe haven. Lukas could not bear it if she learns of Loki and turns him out. "Thank you," he rasps. It is all he can do.

She smiles. "What do you need?" she asks, setting the coffee cup down. "Do you want to stay busy? Head to the museum? Or do you want some peace and quiet? You could go out to the garden."

"Busy," he settles on. "I need to use my hands, or they will use themselves." They must be watched. His fingers still feel utterly foreign to him.

"Alrighty, then. Let's get the kiddos and head out."

It helps. He sorts and labels, cleans and polishes. Thinks about rearranging the front room. Remembers an old temple that he once spent the night in, the one with a statue of a one-eyed king. He examines the statue's face with a historian's perspective. Could it be replicated? Could he reconstruct that place of worship that had so bewildered him? If he did, no one would know its accuracy. None but he and Thor.

All for the better. He could be accused of willful, fanciful speculation. It has the potential for amusement. Where did that journal of his ever get to, anyway? If it is still on Midgard, he and Roseanne should acquire it for display. That would be just the sort of joke he likes. One where it's only funny if you have all the pieces, and the person who holds them all is usually him.

He is interrupted. The bell at the front door tinkles. "Uh, hey," Steve Rogers says, bracing himself on the floor, his feet angled and stance strong. "Look, I'm not here to - I don't know. Fight. Just here to talk."

Lukas turns away from the door. Licks the tip of one finger, and wipes at a smudge on the glass of a display case. "It's typically a five dollar entry fee, but I suppose I'll waive it, since you're only here to talk."

Steve's shoulders sink down away from his ears. "Oh. Thanks." Stepping cautiously, in a roundabout manner, he approaches Lukas from the side. They both stare into the glass case. The haft of a weapon sits upon a pedestal, the aged oak carved in a spiraling pattern.

"What is that?" Steve finally asks.

"A human artifact of some trifling few centuries' age."

The other man clears his throat. "Ah. Yeah. About that. You know, human thing."

Lukas ignores him. He bends down to examine the wooden handle more closely. "A fine carving, for what it is worth. I might have even met the man that wielded the axe to which it was bound. I came to your realm when I was a child, you know. Near a millennium past, by the way Midgard marks its years."

His honesty has caught the man off his guard. Lukas smiles, thinking of the little parasite that child had been, latched on and sucking. It is a story, a history, something distant and blurred in the mist of time, like all of the pieces in this museum. He stands at Steve Rogers' side like a guide, showing him everything that no longer exists.

"What did you think of it?"

Lukas finally meets Steve's eyes. That man is forever asking the oddest questions. Except - the questions are only odd, he suddenly realizes, because he's been unconsciously comparing the man against the archetype of Thor, the mold of the warrior that Thor had cast and he had picked up unthinking. Then he has to look away, sick in the pit of his stomach. A loss of equilibrium rings in his ears.

Roseanne enters the main room with a cheery smile. He stares at her, wills his eyes to focus on her form.

"Hello there, young man. I'm Roseanne Franklin, museum director. Are you here to visit?"

"I came to speak to Lukas, actually." Steve gives her a polite tip of his head. "Though I have to say this museum is very nice. I would like to come back to visit."

"You're a sweetheart," she croons. Then she looks at him. Steps closer, studies his face. Lukas frowns at her. He thinks he sees Steve pull in a deep breath, flex his fingers and straighten his posture. "Say, dear… what's your name? You look real familiar."

"I - I'm Captain Rogers, ma'am. Captain Steven Rogers." He sticks his hand out, and to Lukas's surprise, Roseanne freezes.

"You're not — you can't be?" She is almost stammering. "I mean. You were named after another Steven Rogers, yes? Your grandfather?"

Steve flushes pink. "Um. No. It's me. That's my real name. I'm - he's me."

Lukas almost chokes on a laugh. "You are you," he says. "And you are a brave man, Steve Rogers. To admit such a thing."

The captain stares at Lukas. His pupils dart back and forth across Lukas's expression. Then Roseanne latches onto his hand, pumping it up and down. "Captain America! I — it's an honor!"

"You know his title?" Lukas can't help but revel slightly in the man's discomfort.

"I was only a little girl, of course. During the war," Roseanne says. "But I remember. He's a hero!"

Steve defies the laws of human physiology by turning yet a deeper shade of red. Roseanne is still beaming at him. "Not a hero," he argues. "Just a soldier."

"My uncle served. In the Pacific. You might be able to deflect to all these young people, but not me. Not for those of us who remember. And some of us are still kicking."

The Captain's face loses some of its bashfulness. Suddenly serious, he asks, "Your uncle?"

Roseanne gives a short, sharp shake of her head. Steve sighs. Loki forgets that he is a mortal, for a moment. There is an eon in his gaze. "I'm sorry," the man says.

"So am I. He was the only one I ever missed, when I left home. The only one worth missing."

Lukas blinks at the harsh, clipped tone. Roseanne has never spoken of her family. Not any other family, only her daughter, her grandchildren. She had sat there and listened to his own pathetic story, asked about his father and mother and brother, and he did not think to question that she never once mentioned her own. He does not have time to ask, for she turns away from Steve and flutters her fingers. "Oh, but I'm interrupting! You came to speak to Lukas. I'll be in the office. Alright, dear?"

He nods, only half-aware. She leaves them alone. The silence is enveloping.

"I told you not to do anything crazy," Steve says weakly.

"I make it a point to never do as I am told. I might have warned you." Lukas rests a hand on the glass case between them.

"Yeah, it's been made pretty damn clear I don't know you very well at all."

"No one does." There. A truth, an offering. As one who has the respect of Roseanne, he deserves as much. And it is easy enough to give.

"Thor seems to. At least, he thinks he knows you."

"Thor does not often confront his own ignorance," he retorts, waspish even to his own ears.

Steve pauses before responding. "Loki. Right?"

Lukas speaks, or Loki does, he does not know. The guide, maybe. The narrator, the steward of his own wretched history. "Yes. The god of lies. Have you done some reading up?"

"No." At his look, Steve shakes his head. "The Loki of this world's mythology is a collection of myths and fables. Isn't that what you said about Thor? It's not who you are. Not really."

"And how would you know?"

"I don't. But I'm making an educated guess." Steve shrugs. "And I'd like to get to know the real you. If you'd let me."

"Perhaps the mortals in their savage wisdom saw something in me it took Asgard centuries to understand."

"Or maybe you're reading too much into it. Overthinking things." Steve cocks his head. "Why are you smiling?"

"You are doing that again."

"Doing what?"

"Reminding me of someone better left forgotten." As Roseanne is forever echoing Thor. He is beginning to think there are no real echoes - that he is creating them, that he is searching desperately for familiarity, screaming into the caves of his mind.

Steve chews on his lower lip. "You said that before. Can I ask - who?"

It would be easy to repeat that errant thought - of Thor. He is irritatingly present in this conversation, despite his lack of corporeality. Steve is even blond and blue-eyed and well muscled. The warrior's mold he is now coming to see only reflects his false brother's face. But it's not quite true. "Frigga," he finally admits. "My - the woman that I believed was my mother." Both of them ever persistent in their quest to gain knowledge of his mind. He could tell them it is not worth the journey.

And that is another truth. One not so easily given, this time. How can this man drag so many words from him? Is it simply the paltry resemblance to Frigga? An unforeseen compulsion lain in his tone? Whatever the reason, it puts him on edge.

"If you believed she was your mother, then she was."

"That would be a lie." Terse enough to be a warning.

"Does that matter? I thought you said you were the god of lies."

"Then that makes me an expert in defining them," he retorts.

"Family doesn't work like that." Steve shakes his head. "It's not something you define. It's something you feel.

He presses his lips together. "I try not to feel much of anything, anymore. That is a dangerous country. It is not worth treading upon."

Steve huffs. "You can't ignore the things you feel. You just shouldn't dwell on them."

"Must we always argue the finer points of philosophy?"

The words that come to his tongue next are poisonous, insidious, with a familiar bitterness. He does not hold them back. There is no need. Did Steve not name him as Loki? Isn't that what Loki is? A bitter lie?

Thor's arrival has resurrected something dead within him. The pale hand that tears into beauty. A body that casts such a dark shadow that none can see it is empty inside, hollow down to the bones. If Thor fills the mold of the warrior, then his own mold is just an empty cast. It has no face, the features constantly changing.

He has often been called a smith. If Steve's quest is knowledge, then he shall pass some on.

Truth is like gold. Only the boldest may wear it as an ornament. It can be shaped, if you strike hot at the malleable core of reality. Melted down into the liar's own creation, all intricate working. But unfinished, molten truth - that can burn the skin right off you.

It scalds his tongue coming out. "How sanctimonious of you. It is obvious that you can dole out such sage advice and yet not apply it to yourself. You, the lost Captain." He leans forward, across the glass case. Steve has met his eyes, and he holds them fast. "The man who carries ten thousand regrets upon strong shoulders that are still not wide enough to bear them. They could never be wide enough. The man who cannot stand to be called a hero because of the depths of his guilt. You dwell within a time long past, with the ghosts who live there. Never to touch them, only to long for what cannot be. Tell me, which one of those ghosts did you fail? I see that failure in your every action. Each word you speak. A man like you should not dare to speak to me in such a manner."

Steve purses his lips. Loki hopes he regrets all the thoughts that he so carelessly spilled out, the ones he gave to Lukas, the map he provided, of all the vulnerabilities of his body and his mind. That this serves as a reminder, not to trust anyone. Not to trust Loki. For it is Loki who spoke those words, Loki that sees the way the pain creeps into the edges of his expression, Loki that tries to teach him a lesson the people of Asgard learned quickly, the one that Thor never did.

Steve does not respond at first. When he does, his voice is raw. "I'm not here to tell you what to feel, or what to do. I only came to ask for your help."

Loki is a smith, and right now his mouth can only make weapons. "You seek a man that does not exist. I can be of no help to you."

"Will you come back?" Steve insists. "Will you help us? Please?"

He does not care for Midgard, not the way that Steve Rogers does. More an abstract gratitude, for providing an end to the long dark stretch of the Void. A place to land.

A selfish sort of fondness. Perhaps that is all he is capable of. This realm has served as his shelter, his mortal skin served as a shield. A barrier against the weeping sore at the heart of him, the soul of a lost prince, a foolish son.

It is not enough. Thor breached that barrier. Why is everyone so surprised at the knives he has laid out in his defense?

"No," he answers. It echoes like a door slamming shut.

Steve's jaw firms.

He remembers confronting Raina in the basement corridor, after she'd used the Ring to peer at the heart of him. I'll have S.H.I.E.L.D. begging for my expertise on bended knee. It does not feel as triumphant as he had imagined. Though perhaps it is just the person who is doing the begging. Steve Rogers does not need humbling, though Loki has sought to do so with every sentence of this conversation.

"I understand," is all Steve says. The bell at the door cries, high and mournful, when he leaves.

It is only after the door shuts that he thinks about whether or not Steve might truly understand the dilemma Lukas is faced with. To have another version of yourself, always just a step behind and off to the side. Lukas, or Loki. Steve Rogers, or Captain America.

Roseanne hears the bell and comes out of her office. "Has he left? Shame, I wanted to give him some free tickets."

"Captain America," Lukas repeats, not sure what he is asking. A name. It weighs heavy, the concept. Was it given, or created? Taken, or bestowed?

Roseanne nods. There is honest conviction in the motion. A certainty, a steady foundation that is he suddenly, genuinely envious of, something that would not crumble under his feet. "It has meaning," he says.

"It does. It meant everything, in the war. To us at home. We needed him to bring us together."

He turns to her and she goes on when she catches sight of his face. "It means you stand for something. For someone. For everyone. This ain't a place we were born to, it's a place we created for ourselves. And it's a place we took from people who were here a long time ago. Might mean something real different to them. But I think a person comes to America because they want a new life. Somewhere we're all on an equal footing. It's a place of hope, or it can be. It should be. Folks forget that. It takes someone like Captain America to remind us what we're fighting for. It means - it means this is a place you protect."

He landed in this place. He has refused to protect it. Lukas bites his cheek, thinking of the golden gift he gave Steve Rogers - that horrible burning truth. Perhaps he might have tempered it. But it is only another regret. Another person he has fallen away from.