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1.
If Loki had still been in the business of giving good advice to Thor, he would have suggested that it was a bad idea to take him back to Midgard without warning the humans first.
The All-Father had sentenced him to an exile almost identical to the one Thor had served not long ago, complete with a nebulous requirement to prove himself ‘worthy.’ Even after the events of the past few years, the only differences the All-Father was willing or able to see between his two supposed sons were the ways in which Loki fell short.
When Loki had finally accepted that, he found himself no longer particularly interested in trying to prove himself to Asgard or the All-Father. The loss of his magic and his ill-gotten Asgardian strength was a harsh blow, but he had decided that it was better to accept his current capabilities than to try to win a rigged game. If he had to live as a mortal on Midgard, then he would make the best of it.
Unfortunately, he suspected that he was the only person who felt that way.
Odin hadn’t bothered to consider how the humans might react to Loki’s presence, of course. He had no interest in the sensibilities of mortals. The line ‘An ant has no quarrel with a boot’ had not been original to Loki, even if he had been happy to take credit for it.
Thor, however, might have been expected to feel differently. The outcome of his first little Midgardian adventure had theoretically been that he had learned compassion, or empathy, or something like that, from his human friends. Naively, one might expect that to extend to considering how they might react to his bringing their would-be conqueror into their midst.
But Loki knew better than to bet on Thor’s consideration for others. After all, a lesson that could be learned in a few days could also be forgotten in a few days. Or maybe the lesson only counted when it was to Loki’s detriment. Thor still had the self-centered tendency to overlook the fact that not everyone knew what he knew—one of the many traits that, in Loki’s opinion, made him utterly unsuitable to be king. So it hadn’t occurred to him that the humans were unlikely to welcome Loki with open arms.
Thor’s plan was simply for the two of them to go directly to Stark Tower, where his newest group of friends was now all staying. Loki expected to be targeted and threatened on arrival, and he feared he would have to rely on Thor to save him from serious injury or death. He didn’t like that idea at all, even if he was fairly certain that if Thor wanted him dead, he would be dead by now. His not-brother wasn’t one to leave the killing to others or pretend it was an accident, but he also couldn’t be trusted to remember that Loki didn’t have his usual strength and endurance. Loki had to hope that his training and reflexes would be enough to save him even in his newly weakened state.
At least the situation had the potential to be amusingly chaotic.
In the best-case scenario, Loki might actually have the opportunity to stay for a little while with his erstwhile enemies in order to get his bearings before striking out on his own. He wouldn’t have considered that a possibility at all if the building didn’t belong to Stark, who had proven himself unpredictable and willing to meet Loki on something almost approaching his level. Loki knew better than to be too optimistic, but he couldn’t help but feel a small sliver of hope.
All those thoughts were going through Loki’s head as the Bifrost deposited him and Thor on the rooftop landing pad. The scene played out more or less as Loki had been expecting. The humans, to their credit, armed themselves and gathered quickly.
All but one.
Banner was in the room when they arrived, chatting with Romanoff, but he didn’t stay for what followed. Instead, he blanched and left the room quickly, almost colliding with Barton in the doorway.
It didn’t make sense, Loki thought as he tuned out Thor’s booming “Hello, my friends!” and the subsequent explanations, threats, recriminations, and eventual grudging invitation to stay. Why should Banner, of all people, be afraid of Loki? Stark faced him with only his small gauntlet weapon and showed no fear. Barton held his bow ready to shoot, and his hands didn’t shake. Romanoff regarded Loki coolly, and he wasn’t entirely sure where all her weapons were stashed. But Banner, the one human who had managed to do significant damage to him, the one who had ultimately defeated him, had seen him and fled.
2.
“Oh. Hi, Loki.”
Loki turned, carefully not showing any sign that he was startled, to see Banner standing in the doorway of the kitchen. He was shuffling nervously but not fleeing, so he must have remembered belatedly who had gotten the upper hand in their last encounter.
“Um. Can I help you find anything?” Banner continued.
Loki was not in need of help and in no mood to socialize, but he for one had never forgotten how their last encounter had ended, and that was before most of his powers had been taken away. His best move was to bite his tongue and play along. “Stark’s artificial servant said I could find materials to make tea here.”
“You can just call him JARVIS, you know.” Banner stepped further into the kitchen, blocking Loki into a corner between the counter and the appliances. “I didn’t think we had any tea things here in the main kitchen.”
Loki reached into the cupboard and brought out the faded yellow box that he’d found just before Banner interrupted him. “JARVIS assured me this would be acceptable.”
“Oh.” Banner took a step back. “Okay, I don’t even know why Tony has that. It is tea, technically, but—what kind of tea do you like, Loki?”
“I haven’t had a chance to try any of the tea on this—” He swallowed the insults that came naturally to his tongue. He really, really didn’t want another encounter with the beast. “—on Earth.”
“Sure, but—do you want caffeine? What kinds of flavors do you like? Fruity? Floral? Malty?”
The other Avengers must have sent Banner to keep an eye on him, Loki realized. It made sense, especially if they were worried that Loki might not truly have lost his strength, or that he might find a way to regain it. If he had his strength and his magic back, then Banner and Thor were the only ones who could possibly stand up to him, and the Avengers were surely intelligent enough to understand that Thor couldn’t be trusted with the task. The All-Father’s bindings were more than enough to ensure that he couldn’t regain his powers, but Loki was hardly going to point that out.
Banner had chosen a friendly approach to get close to him, and since Loki much preferred that to the alternative, his best move was to go along with it. “My favorite tea comes from a plant that grows in a mountainous region of Alfheim. The flavors are subtle and difficult to describe, and vary depending on the specific area and conditions under which it’s grown. There are those who dedicate their entire lives to the subtleties of its cultivation and preparation—a bit like wine here on Earth, I believe.”
Banner seemed to relax a bit, leaning on the counter. Loki thought he could probably slip past him if he needed to. “You’ll want to look into actual tea then, Camellia sinensis. It has caffeine in it, so I don’t drink it anymore, but I think Natasha probably has some. If you’d like to try herbal tea, you’re welcome to check out what I’ve got. And I can show you some websites where you can order all kinds of tea online. There are also some good tea shops here in the city that you could check out.”
Loki held up the box that was still in his hand. “And this is—unacceptable?”
“It’s—well, if you’re used to a kind of tea that you could be a connoisseur of, like wine, then it won’t exactly give you a good impression of what we have here on Earth. I wouldn’t take JARVIS’s recommendations on things like this—he doesn’t have taste buds. Uh, sorry, JARVIS.”
“No offense taken; that is one of my limitations,” said the electronic voice.
Loki considered his options. He didn’t particularly want to submit to the mortals’ attempt at surveillance, but if he refused, they would come up with a less pleasant means than strained small talk over tea.
It was possible that Banner was planning to slip something into the tea, but poison would be a strange choice of weapon for someone who had, again, once smashed Loki through the floor of this very building. And after all Thor’s bombast about honor, for him to condone his allies poisoning Loki would be the rankest hypocrisy.
Not that Asgard had ever been short on hypocrisy when it came to Loki.
Still, if the mortals insisted on keeping an eye on him, then he may as well learn what he could from them in return.
He opened the top of the box he was still holding. It was about three-quarters full of little paper packets. When he brought the box up to his nose and gave it an experimental sniff, it smelled like dank soil with an unpleasant undertone of the fuels they used so ubiquitously here on Earth. He closed the box, put it back in the cupboard where he had found it, and gave Banner his best smile. “Lead on, then.”
3.
He should have known that the peaceful interlude couldn’t last.
He and Bruce had taken to having tea together almost every day. Midgardian tea was nothing like the elven brew he remembered, but it had its own charms that he was learning to appreciate. Bruce himself was a pleasant conversationalist, knowledgeable about numerous fields of interest to Loki and not too boisterous. Loki had gradually lost most of his fear that Bruce would lose control, although he still blunted his tongue and held back the sharpest of his jabs.
Natasha invited herself along sometimes. Loki might have resented that, but she too had surprised him. He knew better than to imagine that she liked or trusted him, but she was both adaptable and pragmatic, and seemed to be willing to accept his presence for the time being.
She was also the most likely of the Avengers to stab him in his sleep—a concerning prospect when he lacked magical means of defense—but if that was her plan, she was biding her time.
She was the one who had introduced him to the purely non-magical means of disguise that allowed him to walk the streets of New York without being recognized as their would-be conqueror. They had gone to tea shops together, as Bruce had promised, but also to other types of attractions available in New York. Loki was particularly fond of Broadway, and Natasha joined him there, since Bruce had begged off of attending any theatrical productions.
Natasha had also managed to convince them both to go to a Japanese tea ceremony. Bruce had tried to decline the invitation, pointing out that the tea would contain caffeine, but she leveled him with a stare and pointed out, “There is literally no calmer environment to drink green tea in,” and he had eventually caved.
Once he had experienced the ceremony for himself, Loki was not so sure he agreed with her. Perhaps it would be relaxing if one were used to the culture and its rules, but Loki felt his outsider status keenly, despite having read up on the ceremony beforehand. The regimented steps and firmly defined acceptable behavior reminded him of endless diplomatic ceremonies on Vanaheim. He could handle this sort of thing better than most Asgardians (and he was immensely glad that Thor hadn’t demanded to join them), but he didn’t enjoy it and wouldn’t be going back.
Bruce had looked like he felt similarly, but he hadn’t seemed to be in any danger of an incident. Natasha had followed the ceremony perfectly as far as Loki could tell, and he had no idea if she had enjoyed it.
That had been about a week ago. Now, this afternoon, Loki and Bruce were in the main gathering space of the tower, having a lazy conversation about the problem of antibiotic resistance. Bruce was drinking a strawberry-flavored rooibos, a favorite of his. He said it tasted exactly like real strawberries, although when they’d done a side-by-side taste test Loki had thought the tea lacked the complexity and astringency of the real fruit. Loki, meanwhile, was drinking a new-to-him white tea and trying to decide if the flavor tipped too far over the line from delicate to insipid.
Ever since he’d started having tea with the mortals, Loki had expected Thor to barge in. Thor who liked ale and Pepsi and didn’t appreciate the subtle flavors of tea; Thor who spent half of any conversation boasting of his prowess in battle. Thor who still, after everything, insisted on calling Loki ‘Brother’ and trying to reminisce about the joys of their childhood.
Loki had been so focused on bracing himself for an intrusion from Thor that he hadn’t considered the possibility of the other mortals intruding first. That was a mistake, he realized when Stark sauntered into the room and threw himself onto the sofa next to Loki, jostling him and causing him to splash a bit of his tea on his leg.
Loki hadn’t had much interaction with Stark since his arrival. He was aware, of course, that the tower belonged to him and that he was here on his sufferance. But providing him with comfortable housing was already quite a lot to ask of someone he had once defenestrated. He had assumed that, like Barton, Stark was avoiding him for good reason.
He had been wrong.
“Hey, Sparkles! I’ve got a question for you. Thor said your dad—”
“His father,” spat Loki reflexively, setting down the teacup and splashing a bit more on the table. Insipid, he decided. Definitely not the right tea for this situation.
“Thor said his dad locked down most of your ‘magic powers’” —he made air quotes with his fingers— “but not all of them. I gave you some time to settle in and make friends with Brucie-Bear here, so now I want to know: is that true? What can you still do, and can I see it? I want a piece of your sufficiently advanced technology.”
Bruce, thankfully, gave Loki some time to think about his response by saying, with clear exasperation that was mildly alarming given his unique situation, “Tony, I told you not to pry.”
Loki used the time to pick his cup back up and take a sip. He could at least tell them the part that might impress them and make them think him a formidable opponent. It wouldn’t matter to Bruce, of course, but if it made Stark less likely to attack him it was all for the better. And if Bruce was any example, the humans might be more open-minded about his talents than Asgard generally was.
Thus decided, he set his cup back down. “I’m a shapeshifter,” he admitted. “It’s an inborn ability, and not one that the All-Father can take away entirely.” This latter part was a lie; in fact, Odin could have removed Loki’s shapeshifting ability, but only at the cost of locking him into his birth form. Loki counted himself fortunate that his false father hadn’t decided to make that part of his punishment.
Stark leaned forward. “Can you show us?”
With Bruce in the room, the safest move would be to shift into some docile house pet. But that was hardly an image he was willing to project. Meeting Bruce’s eye, he said, “Yes, but it might be startling.”
“Okay,” said Bruce. He took a deep breath, then another sip of tea. “Thanks for the warning.” He stood up and placed himself behind the couch, with a clear path to the door, but then he looked back steadily at Loki.
Loki stood up, grinning broadly to hide his unease. Fortunately, the largest open space in the room was next to the windows, and he knew from experience that the glass wasn’t terribly difficult to break. Stark wouldn’t thank him for it, but Stark was inciting this scene so Loki didn’t bother wasting sympathy on him.
He took a breath, grounding himself in his body, and shifted.
It took him a moment to adjust to the new form’s senses, especially without the rest of his magic to help him, so he wasn’t able to see their facial expressions. Bruce didn’t leave the room or start making any alarming noises, though, so Loki hoped he wouldn’t need his escape route.
“Whoa!” said Stark. “Now I know who to call if I need to bring the hobbits back from Mordor. What are you?”
Loki let out a raspy shriek to clear his throat before croaking, “Vanir War Eagle.” Long utterances weren’t pleasant in this form, so he didn’t elaborate.
Stark bounced on the balls of his feet. “You’re a giant talking eagle?”
“Earth birds talk,” Loki pointed out. He was fairly certain of that fact.
“Wait,” said Bruce. He stepped around the couch to approach Loki, and Loki held his ground, reminding himself that he could break the window for a quick escape if he needed to. The eagle’s color vision wasn’t good, so he couldn’t tell if there was any green to Bruce’s skin tone, but his body language looked relaxed. He had seemed angrier when he was explaining the misuse of antibiotics in factory farming. “Look at that hip structure, Tony. That’s not like any bird on Earth. And those are compound eyes, aren’t they? Like an insect’s! Loki, can you spread your wings? I want to see them.”
That didn’t sound as if Loki was about to have another encounter with the monster. The space was cramped, but he spread his wings as best he could.
While Bruce was examining Loki’s wings and exclaiming over his bone structure, Stark asked, “You said ‘war eagle.’ Do people ride these things?”
“No.” Loki briefly considered the prospect of explaining further using the eagle’s vocal cords and then shifted back into his customary form, to Bruce’s visible disappointment. “They’re trained to dive down and attack from above with claws and venom. Very effective at flushing enemies out of a fortified position.”
“You’re venomous?” asked Bruce.
Loki smirked. “Not currently.”
Stark was looking at him with narrowed eyes. “Okay, I bet you actually want to spread your wings without knocking your precious teacups off the coffee table. What do you say to going for a fly? Don’t worry, Big Guy, I’ll get JARVIS to record everything so you can get a good look at the biomechanics of the weird bug-eagle.”
Loki found he did rather like the idea of going for a fly, and the three of them made their way up to Stark’s landing pad on the roof. As they entered the elevator, JARVIS asked, “Shall I provide the usual warning to air traffic control, Sir?”
“Sure, thanks JARV. Loki, there are a couple of flight paths we need to stay out of—I’ll point them out to you. Oh, and don’t dive-bomb the civilians.” As an afterthought, he added, “Unless it would be really funny. And don’t hurt anyone.”
Once on the roof, Loki found himself having second thoughts; the airflow patterns were unpredictable, surrounded as they were by tall buildings, and once Stark had his suit on Loki realized that his thrusters would cause further turbulence.
He couldn’t back down now, so he shifted, took a brief moment to find a good updraft, and threw himself off the edge.
There may have been a few awkward moments, but Stark gave him time to adjust to his wings and didn’t even comment very unkindly. Soon enough they were doing barrel rolls and chasing each other through the air. With a little experimentation, Loki worked out how to use the perturbation in the air currents caused by Stark’s thrusters to his advantage.
He didn’t dive-bomb anyone, but he did fly as close as he could to the windows of a few occupied buildings, relishing in the shocked expressions of the people who were in what Loki suspected had been, until now, extremely boring meetings.
All the while, he couldn’t stop thinking about Stark’s words. ‘Unless it would be really funny.’ In Loki’s mind, the Avengers, even Bruce, were fundamentally Thor’s friends, his new Midgardian version of the Warriors Three and Sif. But the Asgardians would never have been willing to see the potential for humor inherent in dive-bombing the innocent people of New York. The mere suggestion would have been more proof of Loki’s treachery.
It was a cruel irony that he’d met someone who seemed to appreciate his sense of humor when he’d been stripped of his magic, the source of his best tricks. But anyway, he couldn’t get his hopes up. He didn’t dare think that his life could be different now than it had always been.
When they came in for a landing, Loki was surprised to see that Bruce was no longer alone on the roof. Thor, Natasha, and Captain Rogers had all joined him.
He considered the air currents, judged his angles, and came in for a landing a little too close to Thor, bowling him over. He smoothly shifted back to his customary appearance as Thor bellowed, “LOKI!”
“You see what I mean?” asked Bruce. He was looking at Captain Rogers.
“Hmm,” said Rogers. “Natasha?”
“I agree with Bruce,” she said. “I’ll handle Clint.”
“All right.” Rogers took a step toward Loki, and Loki resisted the urge to step back. “Loki, we’d like you to consider joining us in the field. We could use someone with your skills.”
Loki stared at him for a moment before he doubled over, laughing uncontrollably. When he straightened back up, only Stark looked remotely amused. Thor looked worried, Bruce was smiling awkwardly, Natasha had her usual blank mask on, and Rogers looked serious (and perhaps as though he needed more fiber in his diet). “You do recall the reason your team was formed in the first place?” Loki asked sardonically.
“Yes, of course,” said Rogers, “but you’ve been living peacefully with us for months now. You’re not trying to take over the world or kill anyone. You’ve stayed out of everyone’s hair except the people who talked to you first, and you’ve been friendly with them. And like I said, we could use your skills.”
Loki’s heart sunk as he realized he had been defeated by sentiment yet again. In the pleasure of tea and intelligent conversation, he’d forgotten his original impression that Bruce had been sent to keep an eye on him. When Loki had proven himself not to be a threat, the purpose of the surveillance had changed to determining his fitness to tag along with Thor’s new group of friends and get them out of tough spots.
Even if this group of friends was more tolerable than the last, Loki was no longer willing to settle for being a tagalong, only tolerated for his usefulness and never given the credit he was due. “No,” he said flatly. “Thank you for the offer, but I’m not interested.”
He stalked back into the building as fast as he could without looking like he was fleeing, ignoring Thor’s protests behind him.
4.
“Well, that explains why the price of liquid nitrogen has gone up and Pep has been on me about cutting down on my usage,” said Stark. “What kind of asshole puts the shutoff switch for his doomsday device in the middle of an Olympic-sized swimming pool full of liquid nitrogen?”
“Obviously not the kind of well-adjusted guy who builds a doomsday device for totally normal reasons,” said Barton.
“Why are you looking at me like—”
“What’s the play here, Tony?” Rogers interrupted. “Can you cut the wire?”
“I should never have said that to you. It’s not that simple, Cap.”
Loki was already regretting having let them talk him into coming. After the scene on the roof, he’d locked his door and ignored Thor’s and Bruce’s knocks. Eventually Stark had come by and Loki had let him in, primarily out of curiosity but also because unless it would be really funny had bought Stark some good will.
Stark had looked slightly surprised that Loki had opened the door, but he’d rallied quickly. “You know,” he’d said, leaning on the door frame, “that was actually a better recruitment pitch than the first one they tried on me.”
Loki had blinked at him. “What did they say to you, ‘join the Avengers or we’ll kill your loved ones’?”
“Not quite, but that’s actually not too far from the right ballpark.”
“And you joined them anyway?”
Stark had shrugged. “Not right away. The pitch that actually worked was more like ‘some weirdo in leather is trying to take over the world.’ Look, nobody’s saying you have to do anything, but we’d all appreciate it if you’d help out when we need it.”
After that conversation, Loki still hadn’t forgiven Bruce or gone back to their tea routine, but he’d been willing to listen when Stark told him some mortal had created a device to suck New York into a black hole. Under those circumstances, Loki had a personal interest in helping, not least because he was currently in New York and not capable of traveling fast enough to avoid the calamity. He doubted Odin or Heimdall could be prevailed upon to save his life, except possibly as an unavoidable side effect of saving Thor’s.
What he didn’t want to admit, though, was that he was willing to save New York on its own merits. Loki, rather against his will, liked New York. He liked the tea shops and the theater and the chaos of the streets and the people in board rooms who were so surprised to see a Vanir war eagle directly outside their windows.
But now, as Stark continued to explain what had to be done, Loki was regretting every single one of the decisions that had brought him to this point.
“This thing is rigged to blow if we do anything to shut it down without a physical hand on the kill switch. Which, I remind you, is in the middle of an Olympic-sized swimming pool full of liquid nitrogen. I got the suit to where it wouldn’t ice up in the upper atmosphere, but it still can’t take being submerged in liquid nitrogen.”
“Can we drain the pool?” asked Rogers.
“Drain it where? Into the sewer system? Do I need to explain—”
“I can do it,” interrupted Loki before he could think better of it. It was fitting, in its way, for this to be the inevitable end to his time in New York. He would save the city, but at the cost of revealing his true monstrous form to the mortals, and so he would no longer have access to what he’d liked about it.
“You have a form that can survive immersion in liquid nitrogen?” asked Bruce, perking up as he had when he’d seen the Vanir war eagle.
“Yes.” So Thor hadn’t revealed to the mortals yet what Loki truly was. That was good; it would buy him some time if they thought his Jotun form was no more true than any other. He had no doubt the secret would come out, but perhaps he could even go back with them to the Tower to pack up his things.
“What about a low-oxygen atmosphere?” asked Stark. “All that liquid nitrogen surface area is going to be evaporating like you wouldn’t believe.”
“It won’t be a problem.” Loki wasn’t actually certain that was true, but he knew the Aesir could survive in space for a time, and everything he had heard suggested that the Jotuns were similarly hardy. If he died in there, it might be fitting, as long as he could finish the mission first.
In the end, it wasn’t even difficult. Loki changed into his Jotun form as he stepped through the door, closing it as quickly as possible and deliberately not looking back at any of his companions’ faces. Stark’s voice through the communication unit seemed as steady as always as he talked Loki through what to do. Soon enough, the device was disarmed and Natasha and Barton were off with a team from SHIELD to arrest its creator.
Loki kept his head down and didn’t meet any of their eyes as he came out of the room and shifted back into his accustomed shape. Thor slipped into step beside him and said, “Brother…” but subsided when Loki glared at him. Thor stuck to his side for the short ride back to the tower, doubtless protecting the mortals from the monster he’d just been reminded lived under Loki’s skin.
Loki returned to his room and packed quickly. His plan was simple. He had enough cash—not even technically stolen, although Stark would probably think it best to be more judicious in the future about who he provided credit cards to—to buy a ticket out of New York on one of the less reputable modes of transport. He had clothing that would fit in well enough in such a place, thanks to Natasha’s lessons on non-magical disguise. He had the wits to get by, and access to bodies that would be reasonably inconspicuous but that could survive outdoors during a Midgardian winter, if need be. He wouldn’t be doing anything to break the terms of his exile, and if Asgard disagreed they could find him and tell him so. It wasn’t as though he could hide himself from Heimdall any longer.
It was sentiment that foiled his plans.
He’d thought he had time before he had to leave New York for good. Thor was long-winded at the best of times, and the mortals hadn’t seemed to immediately recognize what a Jotun was, so the explanation for why and how a disguised frost giant had been allowed to live among them for so long was unlikely to be short. He’d thought he had time to sit on a bench in a park across the street from his favorite tea shop and look out at the city he’d tried to destroy, and then lived in, and then saved, and was now planning to leave forever.
He looked up involuntarily when he heard his name. Bruce was approaching his bench, holding two cardboard take-out cups from the tea shop. He held one out to Loki. “Lychee rose.”
It was one of the flavors that Loki hadn’t tried yet. He generally preferred the subtler notes of unflavored tea, but he didn’t like how they lost some of their character in a cardboard cup. He’d said all that to Bruce at various points in their acquaintance. Loki took the cup.
“I owe you an apology,” said Bruce. “On the roof, I wasn’t thinking about how Steve would react and what you’d do. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“Water under the bridge.” That all seemed meaningless now. Loki took a sip of the tea; not bad.
“Yeah.” Bruce sipped his own tea. Loki wondered what he was having. After a few moments of what might have passed for companionable silence, he said, “Thor tried to explain what happened.”
“I’m sure he did.”
“I’d rather hear it from you.”
“Why?” It came out rudely, perhaps, but Loki wasn’t interested in recounting his greatest shame when Thor would be perfectly happy to do it for him.
“Thor said some things that—well, I can’t blame you for not wanting to be around for that. But JARVIS implied that you might be thinking of leaving more permanently.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t owe us anything. But, as a friend, I’d like to hear it from you.”
“Sentiment.”
“Sure, if that’s what you want to call it.” They drank their tea in silence, side by side, for a few minutes. Finally, Bruce added, “Thor said that was the species you were born as? A Jotun?”
“Yes.”
“You know, when he said you were adopted, I think we all assumed you were still, uh, whatever Thor is.”
“Aesir. As did we all.”
“Right.” Bruce crossed and then uncrossed his legs, turned slightly toward Loki and then looked away. “Thor said some…pretty unkind things about Jotuns.”
“Did he say again that he was going to kill them all?”
“What?” Now Bruce turned to face Loki. “No. Jesus.” He took a deep breath over his cup of tea, inhaling the scent, then another. “He’s said that before.”
It wasn’t really a question, but Loki answered anyway. “Yes. Frequently, during our childhood.”
“And…neither of you knew you were…”
“No.”
Bruce took another deep breath and then a sip of tea. He seemed to fix his eyes on a man jogging past with a dog as he asked, “When did you find out?”
Loki took his own deep breath and sip of tea, wondering how much to share. He decided on simply saying, “Just a few years ago.”
“Hmm.” There was another long pause before Bruce tipped his head at the bag sitting at Loki’s feet. “So why leave?”
Loki turned his head to look at him, startled. “You’re willing to live with a frost giant?”
Bruce huffed out a humorless laugh. “Loki. Take a minute and think about who you just said that to.” He took another sip of tea before adding, “Thor used the word ‘monster’ when he was explaining what the Jotuns were. And that was when I had to leave the room, because every single person in that tower agreed to live with a monster before you ever came back to Earth. And let me tell you, that monster isn’t helping disarm any bombs.”
Loki stared at the ground. It wasn’t as if he’d forgotten what Bruce was, but he’d never thought to put the Hulk in the same mental category as his own inner monster. And yet, Loki could hardly deny that Bruce’s inner monster was more immediately, obviously dangerous and destructive than his own. “What does Stark think?” he asked almost desperately. “It’s his hospitality I’m imposing upon.”
Bruce laughed. “I’m pretty sure Tony wants to go up to Asgard and give Thor’s dad a piece of his mind. With repulsors.” Loki looked at him, startled. Bruce added, “Natasha and Steve and I would back him up.”
“That would be incredibly foolish of all of you.”
Bruce smiled. “And we won’t do it, if you don’t want us to. But we would.”
Loki took a deep breath. His decision to flee suddenly seemed poorly thought out. “And Thor?”
“Well, I don’t think he’s going to beat up his dad for you. And I’m pretty sure I heard Tony talking about sending him to Stark Industries’ sensitivity training. Not that he couldn’t use it, but Tony isn’t the one who has to care if Thor distracts everyone else. But if Thor’s got a problem with you, then he is going to have to answer to the rest of us.”
Loki had no idea what to say to that. Thor’s new mortal friends had less in common with the Warriors Three and Lady Sif than he could possibly have imagined.
“Ready to go home?” asked Bruce. And Loki found that he was.
5.
The electric tea kettle was broken.
If Loki had still had his magic, he wouldn’t have needed a kettle. He ought to have been able to heat up water with barely a thought. But as it was, his best option was to take it down to Tony’s workshop and ask him politely to fix it.
Tony was less than accommodating. “Where did you get this piece of shit, the dollar store? Why do you even need a tea kettle? There’s at least one coffee machine on every floor of this building, and they all have a hot water setting.”
Loki wrinkled his nose. “I thought JARVIS was the one with no taste buds. The coffee machines run the hot water through the same nozzle as the coffee, and I don’t find that a hint of stale coffee improves the flavor of a delicate tea.”
“Ugh, fine, Princess and the Tea. Look, I can replace the loose wire, but it’s not worth it. This design is crap and it’ll be falling apart again before you know it. I’ll build you a better one, I just need...hmm…” He started rummaging around in some scraps in a drawer.
“If I may,” said JARVIS, “there is a highly-rated electric kettle with precise temperature control available for purchase online. I can arrange for delivery tomorrow, if you’d like.”
“Yes, good idea, JARV. May as well have a decent base to improve on instead of starting from scratch. Or worse,” he added, glaring at the old kettle. “Get two, one for each of the tea kids. No, three; they’ll want one in the common kitchen too.”
“Five,” suggested Loki. “Natasha will want one too, and you should get one extra for you to tinker with, so you don’t have to do it on one of ours.”
“No faith. Make it six, JARVIS, just in case.”
With that settled, Loki went to inform Bruce of the situation. Since their chance of an ideal cup of tea was shot for the day anyway, he suggested going out to a nearby bookstore with an attached coffee shop. He knew by now that the tea selection there was likely to be execrable, and anything they sold would be coffee-flavored anyway, but he and Bruce had been discussing literature recently and he was curious to see for himself. JARVIS reciting—or worse, summarizing—classic Midgardian literature was not the same at all.
Bruce tried to beg off at first, saying that he was feeling on edge because it was the anniversary of something or other in his past, but eventually the lure of showing Loki the bookstore and discussing his favorite books overcame his reluctance.
The trouble started on the way there, when someone Loki didn’t recognize met Bruce’s eyes and stopped short. The two of them had a brief and tense conversation, in which Loki wasn’t introduced, before they parted ways.
“Eight million people in this city and I had to run into that guy, really?” Bruce grumbled.
“Who is he?” Loki asked, after a glance at Bruce to ensure the question would be welcome.
“Someone I knew back in my academic days. We used to go to the same conferences, and he was the kind of guy who would make an excuse at least once per session to say ‘this is more of a comment than a question’ and then ramble about his own research for ten minutes. And afterward, during the social hours, everyone had to make sure to warn our female grad students away from him.”
The cultural specifics were unfamiliar to Loki, but he thought he got the general idea. “Are you well? Should we go back?”
Bruce took a deep breath and glanced back toward the tower. “No, it’s fine. I’m not going to let him get to me. The bookstore’s just around the corner now, and it should be quiet in there.”
Loki, slightly alarmed but doing his best not to show it, left Bruce at a table by the window while he went to the coffee counter to order the most calming herbal tea blend available, along with what would surely be a mediocre and oversteeped cup of Earl Grey for himself. Bruce clutched his cup like a lifeline, breathing the steam off the chamomile blend, while Loki launched into a description of the allegorical nature poetry tradition of Alfheim, which was the most calming topic he could think of that was also sufficiently interesting to maintain a conversation. Eventually, Bruce was calm enough to compare it to haiku, and they agreed to peruse the poetry section first after they finished their tea.
Loki was starting to think he had salvaged the evening, even though the tea was just as bad as he’d feared and he wasn’t sure it was worth finishing, when Bruce waved at someone outside the window. Loki turned to look and locked eyes with Clint Barton, who was standing on the sidewalk outside the store with Natasha. To his surprise, Barton cocked his head at him and tugged Natasha toward the door. Soon enough, Barton was throwing himself down heavily onto the chair next to Loki, while Natasha perched on the edge of the chair next to Bruce.
Loki and Barton had been operating under a tacit agreement to ignore one another as much as possible, and Loki had no idea why Barton had decided to break that agreement tonight.
“Loki,” said Barton.
“Barton.”
Barton picked up a napkin and started shredding it idly in his hands. “You’re not my boss anymore.”
“No.”
“But in a weird way, you kinda weren’t the worst boss I’ve ever had.”
“That is more an indictment of your other bosses than any credit to me.”
Barton huffed out a small laugh and started balling up the shreds of the napkin between his fingers. “So. Everybody says you’re a good guy now. You saved us from that megalomaniac with the liquid nitrogen. Tasha likes you.” Loki met Natasha’s eyes and thought he read an apology in her expression, but no disavowal of Barton’s statement. He’d had no idea she would go so far as to say she liked him. Barton continued, “So something doesn’t add up. What happened to you?”
Loki froze. If anyone on Earth had enough information to come to the correct conclusion, it was Barton. “Nothing,” he started automatically, uncertain of what else he could say. “I—”
“Cut the crap. I saw you when you came out of that portal. You were barely able to stand upright. Thor says you didn’t know the Chitauri and you didn’t have that fucking scepter when you fell off his bridge. Somebody picked you up out of space and made you invade the Earth, didn’t they? Tortured you into compliance? Is that about the shape of it?”
“Clint,” said Natasha, no doubt trying to spare Loki’s feelings.
He gave her a nod and braced himself to reveal his shame. If Barton had worked out that much, then there was no sense trying to hide it from the Avengers. “Yes,” he said, admitting the truth out loud for the first time. “That is essentially the shape of it.”
“Does—do they still want the Earth? Are we in danger?”
“Denying him the Tesseract should delay him for some time, but yes. It’s not over.”
“Clint,” said Natasha, more urgently. “Loki!”
In retrospect, their mistake was obvious. They were so engrossed in the conversation—so personal to both of them—that they neglected to take into account its effect on Bruce. Loki wasn’t entirely certain why this conversation would particularly arouse Bruce’s anger, except that he had already been on edge today. Surely he couldn’t have forgotten what Loki had done, even if they’d never talked about it before. It must be the revelation of Loki’s weakness and failure, or perhaps his deception of the mortals.
But his motivations didn’t matter, because his cup had cracked in his fist, spilling his remaining tea over his hand and the table, and he was groaning and rapidly turning green.
Loki assessed the situation. Natasha and Barton were both capable fighters, but neither of them had any enhancements beyond the other mortals around them. He made a split-second decision. Making sure not to word it as an order, considering the conversation that had just been interrupted, he pointed toward the rear of the store and said, “I can try to lure him back there. Can you evacuate the building?” It would cause considerable damage to the bookstore, but it would be better that than releasing the Hulk on the crowded street outside.
Natasha was on her phone calling for backup before Loki had finished his question. Barton yelled for the people in their immediate surroundings to get out, and then approached the register to organize the employees.
Soon enough, Loki was alone in the coffee shop area with a nearly completely transformed Hulk and a partial, imperfect plan. His current body didn’t have the resilience that had allowed him to survive his first encounter, but he was still nimble, and he wouldn’t underestimate the Hulk this time. “Over here,” he called to catch his attention.
“Puny god!”
For once, Loki had been hoping not to be remembered, but of course he had no such luck. He gave a little wave. “Yes, hello.”
The Hulk roared wordlessly and took a lumbering step toward Loki. Loki ran out of the coffee shop section of the store and toward the maze of shelves. “Over here, you big lug!” He darted around a set of shelves toward the back of the store.
The Hulk smashed directly through the shelves, scattering books everywhere, and threw part of a bookcase in Loki’s direction. When Bruce had told Loki that he wanted to introduce him to Shakespeare, Loki didn’t think he had meant to fling several copies of the man’s complete works, and a sizable chunk of the shelf they had been sitting on, at Loki’s head. At least this wasn’t the sort of store that sold rare or valuable books.
Barton’s voice came from somewhere toward the back left side of the store, rising in agitation. “Ma’am, I’m sure your book club will appreciate your dedication, but right now you need to get out!”
Loki headed in the opposite direction to buy Barton some time. That led him to the children’s section, which wasn’t ideal for cover, but fortunately appeared to be empty. He stayed just ahead of the Hulk, taunting him to keep his attention, darting about erratically and retracing his steps when necessary, until he heard a door slam at the back of the store, cutting off Barton’s voice. Now he could move with more purpose in that direction, though still trying to give the others as much time as possible to get clear.
He shoved the emergency exit door open and ducked through into an alleyway. It ended in a brick wall to his left, but in the other direction he could see Barton escorting a woman—presumably the overly dedicated book club member—who was leaning on a cane and limping toward the outlet. Loki would have to let himself be cornered in order to give them enough time to escape.
The Hulk smashed through the wall. “Hello again,” said Loki. “Might I introduce you to the concept of doors?”
The Hulk roared and took one enormous step toward him. Loki tried to duck around him but misjudged the distance and stumbled on a big chunk of debris that had been knocked out of the wall. The Hulk swung a hand around and grabbed Loki by the shoulder, lifting him up off the ground.
In his mortal form, Loki couldn’t survive being smashed again. Puny indeed. Barton and the woman were still in sight at the other end of the alley, so he still had to hold the Hulk’s attention. He couldn’t risk changing into a smaller form and trying to slip out of his grasp. There was only one thing for it. He focused through the pain of the Hulk’s bone-crushing grip and changed into a hardier form.
He was hoping the shock of the cold might cause the Hulk to drop him, but of course he couldn’t be so lucky. Still, some of his frenetic energy stilled, and the Hulk peered at him, lowering heavy brows. “Blue!”
The Hulk wasn’t proving to be a scintillating conversationalist, but every minute spent talking was a minute not spent smashing. “Yes, I am rather blue at the moment,” Loki agreed. “And you yourself are a rather fetching shade of—”
“Blue help.”
The next time someone (Thor) told Loki that his thought processes were hard to follow, he was going to direct him to try talking to the Hulk. “Is there something you would like my help with?” he asked cautiously.
“Banner puny.”
‘Puny’ wasn’t a word Loki would have thought to apply to Bruce, but he wasn’t disposed to argue under the circumstances. “He is considerably less strong than you and me, you’re right.”
“Blue strong?”
“I am stronger than the average human, yes. Not as strong as you, certainly.”
“Blue help Banner.”
“I try to help him when I can, yes.”
“Blue help Banner before!”
The Hulk was starting to sound frustrated, but suddenly the pieces fell into place and Loki realized what he was talking about. He must retain some of Bruce’s memories, and the only time Bruce had ever seen a Jotun had been when Loki had waded into a pool of liquid nitrogen to stop a horrible crackpot from destroying the Earth. Helping. “Yes, I did,” he agreed.
“Blue help Banner later!”
“I promise I’ll do my best to help him with anything he needs.”
The Hulk nodded solemnly and gave Loki a bone-rattling shake before dropping him on the ground. It wasn’t gentle, and probably would have caused him serious injury if he hadn’t been in Jotun form. He might have kept his balance, though, if he hadn’t also suddenly felt his magic rushing back into him. As it was, he stumbled and landed on his backside in the alleyway.
Was that really all it took, he asked himself, simultaneously annoyed and relieved. It hadn’t been an act of heroic self-sacrifice; he’d just been the only person who could lure the Hulk away from vulnerable mortals—at the risk of his own safety…
Well, damn.
So his exile was theoretically over, then. Unlike Thor, he wouldn’t be going back to Asgard, heroic and triumphant, ready to save the day (by casting Loki down). He had obligations here on Earth, to people who had been kinder and more understanding toward him than anyone on Asgard had ever been.
In fact, one of them was in front of him now. The Hulk had sat down, almost mirroring Loki’s posture, and was close to the end of his transformation back into Bruce. He toppled onto his side as Loki looked up at him.
Loki changed back into his Asgardian form, visually indistinguishable from the mortal form he’d been relegated to until recently, and flexed his muscles to revel in his returned strength. Bruce was unconscious, so Loki checked his breathing and moved him into a better position. Then he reached into his dimensional storage pocket—the one bit of magic that he had missed the most in his everyday life—and pulled out a large, thin traveling cloak to spread over Bruce’s mostly-naked form.
He sat down next to Bruce to wait for someone to realize the crisis was over and come find them. He could send an illusory double to find Barton or Natasha, but he knew they’d find him soon enough, and he could use a little time alone to take a breath. Anyway, he liked the idea of concealing his newly regained powers until it was necessary—or at least amusing—to reveal them.
In the end, it was Tony who found them first. He flew down from above in full armor and retracted his faceplate when he landed. “Hey, you okay?” he asked Loki. “He didn’t…”
“No, I’m well, thank you.” Better than he had been in some time, in truth.
Tony looked around, assessing the damages. “Looks like you’ll need to find a new place to buy your books, though.”
“That’s all right. Their tea was terrible.”
Tony grinned at him. “You know, this never happens with ebooks.”
Loki didn’t bother answering; they’d had that argument before. “What do we need to do for the clean-up?”
“Throw some money at it and get PR involved, probably. Depends on what the owners want. They might ask us to make an appearance helping out, maybe moving some of this debris around, if you’re up for that.”
“That’s fine.”
Tony turned his attention to Bruce. “How’s the big guy?”
“As you see. Is this normal, in the aftermath?”
“Looks about right. Nice blanket. Did the shorts rip or something?” Tony had made several pairs of what he termed ‘extra-stretchy’ shorts out of high-tech fabric for Bruce’s comfort in these situations.
“No, they worked as intended, but I thought he might like to be covered anyway.” He supposed that the traveling cloak was a hint that he had his powers back, but if Tony realized that, or wondered why Loki had had a ‘blanket’ to hand, he didn’t call him on it.
Bruce let out a soft moan, and Loki moved quickly to kneel by him. “Bruce?”
Bruce’s eyes blinked open. “Oh. Oh god.”
“Are you well? What do you need?”
“Nat’ll be here with a car in just a minute,” added Tony.
That small interruption was enough to bring Loki back to himself. He took a step back, realizing that as the person whose dishonor and treachery had brought the Hulk out, he was the last person who ought to be fussing over Bruce like a nursemaid.
Bruce lifted his head, groaning, and met Loki’s eyes. “Loki? Are you all right? Did I—did I hurt you?”
Loki smirked. “No, it seems the Hulk is favorably disposed toward me.”
“Really? Huh. That’s—” He was cut off by the sound of a car pulling into the alleyway, and pulled himself up to a seated position as Natasha and Barton got out. He frowned, plucking at Loki’s traveling cloak. “Is this silk? Where did you get this?”
“Ah yes, about that.” It wasn’t an ideal situation, but at least he had an audience. He conjured two illusory doubles, one on each side of himself. “It seems I completed the conditions of my exile.”
Tony, of course, immediately poked the double nearest him. Loki let it disappear under the pressure of reality, but he created another on Tony’s other side and expended the energy to let it tap him on the shoulder. “Okay, that is really cool,” said Tony, as if Loki had needed more incentive to stay on Earth rather than returning to Asgard.
“You put yourself in danger to protect other people,” said Barton slowly. “Same thing Thor had to do when he was in your shoes, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, the All-Father wasn’t inclined to try anything new after it worked for Thor,” agreed Loki. “I would be willing to bet quite a lot that I’m still unable to wield Mjolnir, though.”
“Yeah, well, join the club,” said Tony.
“So that’s it? You’re going back to Asgard now?” asked Bruce, still idly rubbing the cloak between his fingers.
“No, as long as I’m welcome here I would prefer to stay.” He looked to Tony, who was, after all, the one whose hospitality he was imposing upon. Tony, who had called his magic ‘cool,’ who seemed genuinely excited for him to have it back.
Tony shrugged. “The more the merrier, as far as I’m concerned. As long as you’re not going to go all Dr. Evil on us again, I’m not kicking you out just because you got your groove back.”
“He’s not,” said Barton, making Loki realize that he ought to have looked to him as well.
“Thank you. In that case, shall we return to the Tower?” Loki took the handle of one of the back car doors.
“Catch you there!” said Tony with a smirk, taking off vertically into the sky.
In the car, Bruce sagged against the door. “I have some turmeric ginger tea that I like after—you know,” he said to Loki. “If you’d like. It’s a nice pick-me-up. We’d have to microwave the water, but it’s not so bad.”
Was it possible that Bruce didn’t remember what had set off his transformation? Loki supposed he would lose the friendship eventually, but for now, he was willing to put up with the lie for the sake of the calming ritual of tea.
+1.
When Thanos came to Earth and the heroes lined up to meet him, Loki and the Hulk stood side-by-side.
Loki knew and trusted both Bruce and the Hulk now. Bruce had never feared Loki more than he feared his own inner monster, and he had been the first person to offer Loki genuine friendship with no ulterior motives. Although Loki would never divulge all the details of his time with Thanos, Bruce knew enough that his transformation was fueled with rage not at Loki, but on his behalf. Loki had belatedly realized that that had been the case as soon as Bruce had heard hints of what had happened to him.
The Hulk trusted Loki to make plans and help him smash their enemies. In turn, Loki knew he could trust the Hulk to smash through the Outriders, opening up an area of the battlefield where the more strategic minds could work.
Loki also knew that he could trust the other Avengers to look out for him. They were all aware that he had more than enough reason to seek vengeance against Thanos and the Black Order, but also that their opponents were all too familiar with Loki’s weaknesses.
When he was younger, he might have rebelled against that thought, but now he found it comforting. He had found a camaraderie here that had never been available to him on Asgard, despite all the warriors’ boasts about the true friendship that they believed could only be found on Asgardian training grounds and battlefields (and certainly not by weak, womanly magic users).
Loki saw the Hulk charging at Corvus Glaive and fought his way to his side to keep Proxima Midnight distracted. He had more than enough grievances to take out on her specifically, and it was cathartic to taunt her as he proved once and for all that the children of Thanos had not broken his spirit permanently.
Not long after she was defeated, Loki caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of Thor facing Thanos himself. He realized with a sudden, crushing fear that Thor’s stance portended an ineffectual blow. Without pausing his own fight with some inconsequential Outriders, he projected an image of himself close enough to whisper, “Go for the head, you idiot!” in his brother’s ear.
He hadn’t done that in battle since before his fall, and it had always been a toss-up as to whether Thor would take his advice or resent him for it. Now, with the stakes the highest they had ever been, Loki was pleased to see Thor catch himself, change his stance, and end it once and for all. Loki couldn’t stop staring as the enemy he had feared for so long collapsed to the ground, defeated for good. He was fortunate that the Hulk was in position to bat away a new Outrider who chose that moment to charge toward him.
After that, Loki composed himself enough to help the Hulk mop up the last of the Outriders. When he could finally catch a breath and see that no more opponents were forthcoming, the two of them exchanged tired but relieved smiles. Although Loki wasn’t in Jotun form, the Hulk concluded “Blue help” with a final, contented nod before beginning his transformation. Loki pulled his traveling cloak out of his dimensional storage space and wrapped it around Bruce’s shoulders before he was entirely back to his own form. When Bruce awoke again, Loki had a full set of his most comfortable clothes waiting for him.
All the Avengers gathered in the nearest kitchen, where before the battle Loki had helped Bruce place everything he needed to make turmeric ginger tea. It had felt uncomfortably sentimental and optimistic, but Loki had seen that Bruce had needed it, needed the promise of normal life after the battle. Now, Loki felt immense gratitude for Bruce’s foresight and the fact that they were all there to profit from it. They were beaten down and exhausted, and most of them were in need of an infirmary to one degree or another, but they were alive, and the rest of the universe was alive with them. The other Avengers sat down with Loki and Bruce, and the monsters served their friends tea.