Thor and Loki talk time Who: Thor and Loki What: Thor has to make sure that Loki eats. Where: Loki's cage, Stark Tower, New York, Midgard, Marvel Door When: Before Loki escaped and after Loki met with Tony Warnings/Rating: Norse bros. Mythology references galore.
Hearing that Loki wasn't eating came as no surprise to Thor. His brother was notorious for it and Thor had often suspected that his brother was so slim because he was too busy with his dusty old books to bother with such things like eating. No matter how much they had tried to stuff him full of food, Loki did not grow wider, only taller. He ate when he wanted and it had taken years for Thor to stop trying to get Loki to eat at every turn.
However, there were some things that no Asgardian ever turned down, his brother included. Few foods traveled well from Asgard to Midgard, but Idunn's apples could go to frosty Jotunheim or the pits of Hel and still be just as good. He carried two of them to Midgard. If his brother ate nothing else, they would at least sustain him until he was brought to Asgard.
That time was nearing. Thor had already called in the law sayers and those men that would make up the kvidr -- the panel that would present the truth of Loki's crimes -- and all that remained was for them to arrive. If Odin had been there, he would have been the one to pass judgment, but would not be a part of the kvidr. Thor could have taken a spot there, but instead, the duty of judgment and of finding an adequate compensation fell to him.
It was not something he was looking forward to, but he would not shirk his duty. It was not duty that drove him now though as he entered Stark Tower and took the elevator to the basement, the apples in a worn, leather satchel at his side.
Loki was laying on his thin cot inside his cage, and he listened to the elevator as it descended. His fingers were locked behind his head, and he was staring up through the transparent ceiling at the place where he knew the cameras all hid, watching him. He’d come up with a dozen or so different plans for escape, and one or two seemed more than viable. He wouldn’t be here much longer. The real challenge would lie in dealing with the manacles - good craftsmanship, as little as he wished to admit it. He would try the other worlds, first, see if there was not someone with power he could bribe. He could go to Pym, but he had no interest in owing someone from his own universe a debt, nor did he think the man’s electric toys could grapple with the sort of old magic that was currently binding his power. He would find someone. He had, after all, always had a knack for convincing people to help him on promises he had no intention keeping.
When the doors slid open, he did not sit up. He was dressed as he had been when Thor last saw him, just the pants from beneath his armor, no shoes, nothing more. But he was no longer blue - though it drained him to keep it up for long periods, his glamor was back, after much work to keep it there. It still slipped on occasion, but it did give him a little cold comfort.
Loki knew Thor’s footfalls like he knew the sound of the wind whistling through Asgard’s golden spires, or the crackle of green fire over his palms. “And what have I done to deserve a royal visit?” he asked the ceiling, blinking, but not sitting up. “Is it time to humiliate the prisoner again, or is it time for me to be taken away?” He pretended he was not thinking of their last conversation - that he had not thought of it. He had, but only a bit. There wasn’t much else to do but think, in this place.
It was a surprise to see the glamor back in place, pale white skin instead of blue. Thor, who had never been good at lying, had also never been quite adept with hiding his expressions either and the surprise was evident across his features as he caught sight of his brother. Were the manacles starting to fail already? Eitri had warned him that they would not hold Loki's magic in forever. He didn't know and wouldn't ask Loki if he'd managed to do anything more. There'd be no way to hide his concern and he hadn't learned the fine art of crouching his questions to mask what he truly wanted to know.
If they were failing, Loki would need to be moved sooner, rather than later. Even with the staff locked in the weapons vault on Asgard, his brother was capable of plenty of destruction without it. His steps paused for only a moment, surely noticeable by his brother before he continued walking in and towards the cage that held him.
As much as he couldn't deny that the change in Loki's appearance concerned him, he couldn't deny that it brought some relief too. This was how he had always known Loki, though he wondered if Loki wouldn't have preferred to be wearing more. "They told me you were not eating." And whatever else could be said about being a prisoner of Asgard, they at least did not starve. Reaching into the satchel, he pulled one of the apples free, the surface still glittering as he showed it to Loki. "Freshly picked."
Loki sat up at last, smooth and quick, and looked at what Thor had brought for him. It was hardly the paltry gift he’d expected. Idunn’s apples. It had been some time since he’d last had one. He hadn’t expected ever to have another, unless he went to Asgard and stole them for himself, or took them as a prize when he was king again. They were more than just apples, of course. They were strength, immortality, some said, and they were home. The home he’d had, he reminded himself swiftly. The home he no longer needed, and would accept again only as its rightful ruler.
He regarded the fruit for a moment, then gestured to the drawer. “Fine,” he said, as if it did not matter to him one way or another. Most days, he would have rejected it, met it like every other gift from Thor with curses and spite, but this was different. Much as he disliked revealing weakness, he was hungry. He could go a very long time being hungry. He had before. But one of the golden apples had the potential to offer him strength he couldn’t afford to waste. One never knew what might help him break his chains, after all.
Loki’s bent his knees in and let them fall to the side, the soles of his feet settled together and his knees butterflied out, waiting for Thor to put the apple in the drawer and activate the mechanism that closed it to the outside and opened it on Loki’s. He saw the glitter of something unnerved in his eye, and he smirked. “Surprised I am no longer blue as the dead plains of Jotunheim?” he asked, head cocked to the side, green eyes sharp as ever. The smirk turned wicked. “Have I made you nervous?”
It was Thor's turn to smile as he put the apple in the drawer and activated the mechanism that would put it into Loki's side of the cage. Besides the obvious benefits of the apples, they were delicious and could sustain life for years, but in them was also an apology. Though he'd thought he had no other choice when they left the observation deck of the building, it hadn't come without pain to either of them.
There had been no healing rocks for Loki, nor the healing chambers of Asgard. The apples would return his physical strength and that was enough for Thor to bring them. Despite the chasm that grew daily between them, Thor had no desire to see his brother weakened. Loki may never have been the ideal strength of Asgard, but he had his own strength, and anyone that thought otherwise was truly the fool.
Just as they would have to be if they believed the disaffected air Loki put on to receive them. Thor knew better, even as he listened to his brother pounce on the idea that his appearance disturbed him. "I suffer not from nerves, brother," Thor said, affection heavy in his voice. "Merely glad to see you back."
Loki slid carefully off the edge of the bed. He was still a touch sore around the ribs, but he’d been given adequate time to heal. He suspected the manacles were somehow slowing that as well, as they drew the magic from his very being. He stepped across the cool glass floor, reaching in and picking up the apple, turning it under the light, pale skin showing in sharp contrast to that unbelievably rich, russet gold. He didn’t look up at Thor when he spoke to him with such obvious affection, sitting down on the floor instead, separated from Thor by only a few feet and a pane of nigh-unbreakable glass.
Loki took a bite of the apple, sinking his teeth in deep. He had marveled since he was a boy at how the fruit could taste both cool and warm at once, its juices and soft white flesh carrying a burst of flavor something like what life must taste like, condensed down. The apple carried memories with it, fresh as the dew that still clung to the stem - running through the orchards, playing in the palace with his brother, warm nights leaning into the folds of his mother’s skirts, listening as she told the princes stories of the great warriors of Asgard, and dark, quiet evenings on the balcony outside his room, curled on a cushion, reading a musty book, the pages ruffled by the breeze skirting the edge of the towers, one of Idunn’s apples cored and quartered in a dish at his feet. All things he would never have again, all easy love and affection and freedom from worry he would never again feel, all crumbled to ash and rot. The apple in his hand, however, was eternal, never browning or aging, perfect to eternity.
He swallowed, and licked juice from his lips. Already most of his aches and pains had disappeared, and while his chains were no looser, his wrists no longer chafed so much beneath them. “Glad to see me back,” Loki echoed, glancing up at him, giving him a look. Of course, it was easier for both of them if Loki remained tailored to the narrative they’d been told all their lives about being brothers, that lie. “What news?” he asked, lifting the apple and twisting it. “You were back, after all. What is the wive’s gossip about the rotten fruit hanging from your father’s tree?”
In another place, they'd spent countless afternoons much like this. There had been no glass between them then, nor much else save for the afternoon sunshine and childhood dreams. Thor's stories had been full of how he was going to kill the monsters while he sucked the juice from his own apple, the battles he and Loki would fight together, inseparable as he believed they would always be. He hadn't understood the stories then, hadn't realized what part Loki would play in Ragnarok, and now that he could look back on those days, he wondered if that was when the bitterness started.
Or later, when there was less time to spend playing in the palace and the orchards, when he'd been discovering maidens and befriended the Warriors Three. Thor didn't know and he wasn't sure it would help if he did. If the stories were to be believed, it had started from the moment Loki was brought screaming into the world and there had been naught that Thor could do to change it.
Obedience had never been one of Thor's strong points. Not to Fate, not to his father, and certainly not to any will other than his own.
He sat down across from Loki, cross legged but comfortable. "They talk of your trial," Thor said evenly, as if they were discussing things as they always had when he'd believed there was nothing more than brotherhood between them. "The law-sayers have already arrived, we're only waiting for two more to complete the kvidr. Bronn, son of Hralf, from the North. The one with the scar that runs from," Thor gestured from the corner of his eye to his jaw. "And Snorri, the bard from the east." Neither of them were particular friends of Loki's, as far as Thor knew, yet to his knowledge his brother had not slighted either one. If he had, at least they had not sought recompense at his father's court.
Loki listened, still regarding the apple, absorbing this information. The kvidr would be the next best thing to the Allfather's ruling in his absence. Of course, he could decide to overturn whatever punishment they dictated when he returned, and Loki still had no doubts that he would. If only to spite him. At least Loki would do everything in his power to give him a memorable homecoming.
"If I remember correctly, Snorri was the one I convinced to fall passionately and deeply in love with his neighbor's cow," Loki said, thoughtfully. He took another bite of the apple, raising a brow at his brother. Was that right? It was sometimes difficult to keep one trick straight from another - there had been so many. "He wrote an incredibly rude ballad about me afterward, but never told a soul about it. Too ashamed. That ballad - excellent melody, though, I almost had to admire it. And Bronn." He huffed. "He claims to everyone that he received that scar in battle, but his son told me he received it for being found in bed with someone else's wife, while still clad in nothing but the skin he was born in." He dug the edge of a nail into the shining gold skin of the apple, chuckling a little. "Noble souls."
"I think that was Snorri's son of the same name," Thor said dryly, regarding his brother. He'd never heard the ballad, but that wasn't unusual. It was well known that ballads sung within his earshot needed to portray Loki favorably. The one time that he'd caught the few stanzas mentioning Loki with Svaðilfari had ended badly enough that Odin had to get involved. It wasn't something Thor liked to remember, nor was it something that had ever been mentioned again in his presence. Few were willing to risk his ire just to sing a song, regardless of the way they felt towards his brother.
The comment about Bronn made him smile though and had there not been the glass separating them, he would have nudged his brother. "I heard it was not the wife but the husband he was a-bed with and he received the cut from the wife." Such things were not completely unheard of, but rarely talked about.
"It was Bronn or Sif's father," Thor pointed out and Sif's father was out of the question. Given the feelings between Sif and Loki... No, Thor knew that would only bring old feelings into the mix and help Loki not at all.
"My mistake," Loki said, with a sharp smile. As for Bronn, Loki did not avert his gaze from his brother. "I think you are right. Perhaps your memory exceeds mine after all." He rolled his shoulders back. "Personally, I would have no interest in attracting the ire of an Asgardian wife. Not for Bronn, at any rate."
Loki's personal predilections had been an occasional subject of talk at court, generally once safely out of Thor's earshot. "Did you ever hear the rumors?" he asked, green eyes fixed on Thor's blue. Every question seemed a mire with Loki - one misstep, and one would be irreparably off the path and sinking. "Wives' talk, they were. But people did speak of it, when they thought no one in our family heard. The perverse interests of a wayward princeling." He lifted his head, thinking. "But...likely not. You had other concerns to tend to."
A prince was insulated from a great deal of the usual shunning and social punishment that would have followed such rumors in a regular citizen, but it had never given anyone reason to like Loki better, and it had only made him like the lot of them less. He was only lucky he had never fallen prey to love, that no one had been willing to linger in his bed long enough for such feelings to develop. That might have proved a liability, and could only have taken him down a road to yet more heartbreak. He had suffered his fill of such things, and now he was roundly despised enough that it no longer mattered. Even those he was fond of, like Dorian, fair and corrupt, would never love. The only person he might worry about his softness for had already made their utter distaste for him clear. No, he never need worry about love again.
Thor was worry enough, Thor and his constant, maddening insistence of affection. If he could only shake him free, then Loki could be done with it altogether, and await only the care due to a ruler when he earned his rightful place again. He laughed, dry, at the thought of Sif's father presiding over his trial. "How kind of you. It is almost a sadness that we will not all get the pleasure of seeing her crow over my downfall. Her father would have done much the same, I expect."
"If I had time to listen to all the rumors of Asgard, I'd scarcely have time to don my armor," Thor remarked. It took a moment for him to realize what Loki was referring to and another moment for the implication to slide home. And Thor, as was his nature, blundered straight into the mire without a single consideration otherwise.
"Half the noble warriors of Asgard have taken a warrior's comforts while on extended campaign, what of it?" Thor did not mention that he, too, had done so on occasion, but his exploits with the maidens of Asgard were well known and had gotten him in near as much trouble as Loki's tricks had gotten his brother. Concessions were made to those fathers who thought it slighted their honor, though most tried to arrange for their lovely daughters to catch his eye again. In some cases they were successful, but Thor was still of the age where battles mattered more than a family to grow. But there was also the crux of it -- the noble warriors of Asgard were not the common man and many things were forgiven on the battlefield.
"You know how tongues will wag," Thor said, frowning slightly at his brother before he cracked a wide grin. "I'm happier to know that you are no longer untouched. I had thought at one point that I would have to dress up a book as a maid -- or a warrior, if that's what you prefer -- before you ever found the pleasures of the flesh."
There were those that would condemn Loki for his choice of bed partners, but his brother had never been the brawny Asgardian ideal and he had heard the comments, half whispered and cut off as soon as he appeared about what such a fey creature Loki was. In truth, if the worst he had to worry about was his brother's bedroom proclivities, he would have taken that without hesitation and been glad of it if it meant that he would put aside far more poisonous dreams.
"As for Sif... You know neither of them have quite forgotten about you cutting her hair." Thor suspected that while Sif might not go to her grave muttering about it, her father very well might.
Thor's reaction was not wholly what Loki had expected. His blundering bluntness, yes, but not his easy dismissiveness. It made him suspicious, as easy acceptance always did - there must be some ulterior motive, some planned jab. But he should know better than that by now. There never was any such thing with Thor. No one would ever have called Loki a warrior, and no one did unless pressed. He'd heard sorcerer, of course, and a number of more derogatory monikers. He fought in his own way, but not in the warrior's way, so prized in Asgard. But a 'warrior's comforts' he'd taken, indeed.
More interesting was what followed. "You thought me untouched?" Loki asked, amused for once rather than slighted. "What an innocent you imagined me to be." Truthfully, he had lain with no one until long after his brother's exploits were already legendary, and his own forays had been of a different kind entirely - quiet, intensely private, and almost never spoken about, as most things were with him. It was true enough that he had often preferred the company of a book or his studies to the company of others, and so often it had been Thor who would drag him away and force him to become part of the world again after isolating himself in the library. "I would have taken a book, as a matter of fact," he said, with a sly smile. "Books can only give, after all. They ask for nothing, and provide everything. What excellent bedfellows they would be indeed. But no, I was not forever chaste, as you so charmingly expected, and the only creature I ever dressed as a maid was you, if you remember, when Thrym stole your precious hammer.” Ah, memories of Thor in a dress. That had been a good trick, satisfying as anything while still achieving all the righteous ends it was meant to. He spread a hand. “Just because I was never chased through the streets by angry fathers does not mean I had a cold bed each night. Well,” he admitted, “Not chased for that reason.” He smiled. “I was ‘un-chased’, if you like.”
The thought of Sif and her father glowering Loki’s way during his trial elicited a wicked grin. "And never shall they forget it so long as they live, I dearly hope." It had been one of his proudest tricks - even if all that had followed, tricking the svartálfar and receiving payment by stitches, had been one of the sharpest stings in his long memory.
Loki bit the apple down to the core. There was no longer much of his left. "What form of punishment do you expect the kvidr will recommend?" he asked. He looked across at Thor, eyes bright as the green flame he had conjured so many times in battle. "You claim to have learned so much in your short exile that you are a worthy, well-rounded king, so display for me your wisdom. You must have some inkling of their thoughts, their inclinations. What will it be? Imprisonment in a beautiful cage like this one, hanging over the edge of one of the falls in the icy water? Locked down with the relics where our father always thought I belonged, displayed as a badge of Asgardian justice and willingness even to punish those closest to the king?" His eyes widened. "Or will it be more severe? Lashes from morning to night so long as I live? Poison dripped into my eyes by a hanging serpent, like the stories have always insisted? I do look forward to hearing what their fertile imaginations suggest. I suppose it will be more fun, though, to see whether you accept their will and cement your reputation as a just and noble king, or water down their proposal. Just wine in the eyes, thank you, and a silver-threaded cushion to lay on." He leaned back against a hand. "But no, you would never risk such a thing. Because the people might turn on you then, for giving your brother pardon despite his crimes. You will never choose the road that angers them because you have never treaded it. Unlike me," he said, setting the core of the apple aside, "You never learned what it was to live without affection. You could never bear the shame.” He canted his head, thoughtfully. “The serpent, I think. You always did like those tales.”
"You always seemed to prefer your books." While he and the Warriors Three, even Sif, had pursued any available flesh like hunting dogs, Loki could always be found with his books. Perhaps it was testament to his ability to keep secrets that Thor knew of none of his intensely private affairs or yet another mark on how blind Thor could be when it came to his brother. Such was the way of things between them: what complimented one insulted the other and as much as Thor wanted it otherwise, there was little in the way for him to change it.
He would have let it drop there until he made the implication of books that gave, a word play that stuck like a burr in his thoughts. It had taken time to look deeper than the surface of Loki's words, to learn to look at the meaning dancing between the syllables, at the sly looks his brother lived behind. If Loki's lovers, whoever they were, did not give then they took and the thought that Loki had been taken, that he had been unwilling to give what they wanted -- Mjolnir spat sparks of lighting against the floor, his rage rose so fast. Everything else was forgotten, all the words, all the possible punishments, like slick ice over the oiled ridge of his attention span once Loki said that. "What? If they took more than you were willing to provide—" he started, already on his feet without realizing it. Loki's kvidr could wait if what his brother said was true. Thor would find them, all of them, hunt them to the very edges of space and beyond to make them pay for what they had done to his brother.
"Give me their names and they will pay for what they have done." Nevermind that his brother could defend himself, that he had trained alongside the best in Asgard for centuries. Thor knew his brother could be overpowered -- had he not done as much himself? -- but it was entirely different for Thor to do it than some random unknown, unnamed other.
Loki was more than a little surprised by Thor's sudden jump in logic, and by the strength of his reaction. He watched as Thor grabbed hold of Mjolnir and promised to harm anyone who had ever tried to hurt him, and even he could not lie well enough to cover his pleasure at the idea of his brother caring enough for him to wreak vengance on his behalf. It was moments like this one that reminded Loki why he still, impossibly, loved his brother, despite all that lay between them. It did needle him to think that Thor expected he could not defend himself from such attacks, but that he would be willing to punish with force if they had? That made him sit up a bit straighter, watching Thor, still poised to strike down whomever had taken advantage of Loki. Foolish, all-too caring brother. Yes, it would be harder than Loki had thought to completely eradicate his own twisted, bitter, warped feelings of affection for him, smothered under hate, but apparently still breathing.
"No one took advantage of me," Loki said, slowly, not standing, just watching. His eyes narrowed. "...But what would you do to them, if they had?"
Were there words for what he would have done if someone had taken advantage of his brother? The muscles along Thor's jaw tensed hard enough to be visible beneath the short bristles of his beard. Promises of pain and death were not Thor's way and threats were of little use here, before his brother. It wasn't Loki that he would harm, nay, for all that he might do to his brother, Thor would never do anything willingly that Loki could not heal from.
"Swear it," he said, his voice low and rough, forced out from between his teeth. "Swear that they took no advantage of you." Even with all the lies his brother had told and having full knowledge that Loki had lied to him in the past, Thor still believed his brother and would heed his words now. "Swear to me."
And if Loki could not swear it, then there would be no kvidr for the men that had used his brother. Loki was a Prince of Asgard, Thor's brother, Odin's son, and twice ruler of the realm eternal. He was not someone to be fucked and forgotten. And once Thor was done with them, if they had done such a base thing to his brother, they would no longer have names. They would be stricken from the histories, their bodies rent, and their souls given to the depths of Hel instead of the hallowed halls of Valhalla.
Loki watched Thor, listened to his voice grate roughly through his teeth. His face remained schooled and still, eyes bright, listening intently, marking every change in tone, every word.
“I swear,” he said, slowly, “That no one took advantage of me.” He smiled, just a little, a little amused, a little bitter, and something else as well, something slippery and uncommon on his face of late - fond. “They would not have dared. Not because of me - because they would never have risked your wrath in doing it, not even the ones who despised me most. There was a reason they tried never to let you hear them disparage me. They knew what you would do.” He straightened. “I may not have fully understood, but...they did.”
He had always known Thor was protective of him, but had attributed it to a worry about their family’s reputation, and the damage he was constantly doing to it, protecting him to try to maintain some sense of royal respect and order. That was not the sense he got from him now, and he was beginning to wonder if he hadn’t been mistaken for a very long time.
There was nothing in his brother's face, nor his tone to suggest that he was lying. On the other hand, Loki had been able to lie to Thor for so long that he was not the best judge of when Loki was or was not spinning falsehoods. But the look in his eyes, it was far too intent, too sharp for when Loki was lying.
He nodded, little more than a sharp jerk of his head as the sparks from Mjolnir faded, and with them, his anger. That did not stop him from reaching out to the surface of the Loki's cage. As a child, he'd been the physical one, quick to fight and always in motion. He'd also been the one that wanted hugs, and later, the one to tackle Loki in the gardens, forcing him to roll around on the grass to show his affection. Touch was as much a way to express anger as it was a source of comfort for him.
Thor could not reach through the glass that separated them, yet he craved that contact all the same, as if it could reassure him that his brother was still whole and unharmed. "They would not have lived," was all Thor could say to answer the question his brother had asked. Kneeling down slowly, he pressed his forehead to the glass as he reached inside the sack again and removed the second apple. "Another?" He asked, already knowing the answer, and pressed the button to summon the drawer to his side again.
Loki smiled, just a little, and there was the danger, the cunning that did not fade even in this prison. “You assume I would have let them leave the room alive.”
Loki watched as Thor pressed close to the glass. He did not get up, but he knew what Thor was thinking, what he was trying to do, and he resisted meeting it. It would be too much like conceding to do so. And yet, he felt it - the comfort, the intended relief. As usual, dual impulses warred within him: the smaller, quieter urge to accept the offer of kindness and affection, and his more vocal pride, that reminded him still of all the wrongs Thor had done him. Yet, he could not kill that smaller voice, and he found a middle ground, trailing his fingers over the glass separating him from Thor and his forehead pressed against it, reaching for the drawer. “Yes.”
"If they'd been able to do such to you," and there was that growl again, even as he placed the second apple into the drawer. If they had been able to weaken Loki to such a point that he couldn't have defended himself before it began --"I do not think you'd be in any condition to stop them." His fingers tightened, curling up against the glass for a moment before he forced them to relax. Loki was unharmed and while his brother wasn't the warrior that he was, or even a warrior like Sif was, Thor was not foolish enough to think that Loki could not fight.
His free hand pushed the button to send the drawer back to Loki's side. The comfort might not have been all he wanted, but it was enough to watch his brother's lean fingers trail across the glass that separated them. "There will be no snakes," Thor said quietly, finally referencing what his brother had said earlier. "No rocks, no binding torments." Such a thing would inevitably hurt the man that Loki was on the other side of the door, which meant that recompense would be the route they would have to take. As much as he wanted to hope that it would be enough to set his brother on a different path, he didn't know that it would. To others, being required to provide for damages was often enough to keep them from doing it again. In Loki, there was no guarantee.
“You are ever an optimist,” Loki said, dryly amused at the thought, and he bit into the second apple with relish. He felt almost himself again - or he would if the blasted manacles would come off. He shrugged a shoulder. “No matter. With these,” he said, lifting his bound wrists, “I need no torment to force me into remaining a shadow of myself.”
Loki knew that Thor understood what his magic meant to him. It was a rare enough gift to be marked, even if it had often been dismissed as paltry tricks. Most frost giants did not have the talent for sorcery, and on the Asgardian side, Odin was one of the few who knew more than a few simple tricks. It had made him all the more isolated when they were children, but it was and had remained the thing that bridged the gap between them. Without it, he was still a competent fighter, still a sharp mind, but there was no denying that his capabilities, for good or for ill, would be stunted until he had it back. “I wonder how you would feel if someone took your toy from you,” he mused, eyes resting on the hammer Thor had been ready to wield in anger. “As if someone had cut your arm from you, no doubt.”
Thor had known exactly how Loki would feel without his magic. Out of all the options he had, it was the one that wouldn't hurt who Loki was on the other side. It would stop him, enough so that he could be contained on Midgard without harming anyone, but it had been a difficult decision to make. All too well Thor knew what it was like to be without Mjolnir, to be without all his vaunted strength.
Only his banishment had taken much, much more. He had lost his friends, his brother, his home. He believed he'd never be able to return home after a visit from Loki and that his father had died, the lie delivered from his brother's lips to his ears.
Was it reason enough to take Loki's magic from him? Thor hadn't done it out of a desire to punish him, but in the hope of keeping others safe. Only Loki's pride would be injured by the manacles, not his brother. He met his gaze unflinchingly, his palm still against the glass that separated them. "Worse," he said quietly. "It was all I could think of." If he could never go home, it would have been enough to get Mjolnir back, but that too, had been denied him until he was willing to sacrifice his life to save the people of Midgard.
His fingertips pressed slowly on the glass, forcing the knuckles of his fingers to arch. "If you would come home peaceably, I would free you of them." He was not foolish enough to believe that Loki would, even if his mouth said otherwise, but could not kill the hope -- the optimism as Loki put it -- that his offer might be accepted.
Loki looked at Thor’s fingers, pressed against the glass. He had seen that hand raised in anger, in combat, more times than he could count. To him, it had raised in friendship more often than in rage, but given enough time that ratio might change. “And you would not believe me even if I claimed I would,” Loki said, smiling, rueful. “So it matters not.”
Loki bit viciously down on the apple, swallowed the bite, and stood at last. “You bring me gifts,” he said, “And yet I have nothing to give you in return. My means, as you can see, are meagre at the moment.”
Thor watched him for a moment, the words to tell his brother that he wanted nothing in return -- but that was a lie. There was one thing he did want and only Loki could give it. He did not bother to hide it, nor to couch it comfortably in a more formal request. "You alone can give me my brother back," he said quietly.
That was as likely to happen as Loki coming back to Asgard peacefully, but Thor would continue to ask until the answer was yes. Even if optimism failed him, his sheer stubbornness would not. "I would believe you if you meant it truly," he added, his hand falling away from the glass. His brother would not meet him.
Thor’s fingers falling away from the glass prickled him, though he wasn’t sure why. Loki idly tossed the apple in the air and caught it again. “And you alone can see him, anymore,” he replied. “You ask me for the gift I cannot give.” He spread his arms. “Here he stands before you. Perhaps when you begin to understand that, that I was never who you thought in the first place, we can see what we will see.”
Loki stepped away, moving toward his bed. He didn’t know what to feel, and that always put him off. “I sought acceptance in Asgard, once. I am no longer interested in such a gift.” He sat down at the edge of the cot, staring across at Thor. “Take that to the kvidr. I am sure they will be thrilled.”
Thor stood silently, watching, as immovable as stone as Loki gestured and moved around the cell. He would not take the message back to the kvidr -- even amongst their own people, it wasn't unknown for them to be petty and he would not have that weighing on Loki's sentencing.
"You are my brother," Thor finally said, his eyes never leaving Loki's. Not just the boy that he'd spent countless days playing with, nor countless nights sneaking into one another's rooms, nor the young man that fought at his side, the fresh warrior that was better at diplomatic matters than he was. All of those memories were Loki, his brother, but so were the more recent ones, the man who created an illusion that killed mortals in New York, who unleashed a lindworm in Las Vegas. "You are the same boy that I would sneak out of my bed to see at night. The man that allowed Jotunns into Asgard on the day of my coronation. You are both of these and you are my brother. You are the only one that can give me what I seek."
It was an old fight, one that they'd had once if they'd had it a thousand times, and the steps were all the same. Thor had changed once and captured his brother in doing so. It was time to do so again. The only question was how. His brother liked attention, if it appealed to his vain side, Thor could as well. "You are better than this, Loki. Odin once hung the realms on Yggdrasil and gave us all order. What would you give us?"
Loki's eyes turned sharply up when Thor mentioned the Jotunns. Thor must have assumed that Loki had let them in during the coronation once he saw him lead them into Asgard and after kill them at their father's bedside That, or someone had told him, but he hadn’t expected him to make that connection, and he wondered at it. Thor's words about who he was, though, jabbed deep, and pricked at his own assumptions of who he'd always been. "You are wrong," he said, leaning forward, eyes gone wide, sudden volatility where before there had been reserve. "I am not the same. Perhaps you are unchanging, but I am not what I was then. I am more." And, in some ways, less, after the terrible things he'd seen during his long fall. "I cannot give you what you seek, as you claim, because it has never existed. Your ‘brother’ was built on lies your father told us both. I am not that man. Or that ‘brother’." His eyes were wide, the words a whipcrack snap that faded back to simmering after the outburst. He lifted his head, voice quieting, dropping low. "I am not that. I can never be that again. I never really was." Thor didn't know. He would never understand what it had been like, having the very foundations of his identity pulled out from under him as sharply as if they had never been. Left with nothing to stand on, Loki had pulled himself together, crafted a new self out of the remains of the old. Now, the only lies he traded in came from his own lips, to his own ends.
Loki sat back, incredulous. "I would give you the end of all things," he said, flatly, with undisguised suspicion. He didn't know where Thor meant to go with this, but it smelled of manipulation, and he didn't like it one bit. "That is what the stories say, do they not? They say that Odin brought the realms into order, and that I will lead them into chaos and death. Whether I will still play that role remains to be seen." His gaze grew distant, hard, difficult to read. "I have never liked to be told what I will do, no matter its purpose.” He paused, then shook his head, snorted at the idea. “Better than this. Than what, exactly? Imprisonment? Rebellion? Good enough to stand at attention, am I?”
Thor had no skill at manipulation, nor any at lying. The only thing he was good at was the truth and absolute, brute strength. He watched, unafraid as the light flared in Loki's eyes, as reserve turned to volatility. "You are that. You have always been that. Your father could have whelped you on a dwarf and it would not change that you are my brother. Some bonds are more than blood, Loki." Some bonds were forged on the battlefield, amidst blood and sweat; some on the playground, between grains of sand and childhood games. Theirs had been forged with the same stories that promised that one day Loki would bear those that brought about their end.
But their bond had also been forged late at night, as they shared laughter and stories of the things they would do in Asgard's name. When they had dressed as Bride and Bridesmaid to retrieve Thor's hammer, when they'd fought and played and plotted together. If anyone was ever his brother, it was Loki.
"You could give more than that," he said, quietly. "You could do more than the stories say and you could have more than a cage if you wished." He stepped back, his hands outstretched to indicate the cage that was currently holding his brother hostage.
Loki turned his gaze away. Better to have been a dwarf's bastard than lied to and manipulated as a tool. "Some bonds are," he said. He lifted his manacled hands. “And some bonds confine us, and make us less.”
"I could," Loki said, "But will I? No. Not at your request, or that of the kvidr, in penance." He looked back to him. "I will give what I wish to give, and take what I wish to take, and no amount of promises of reward will ever convince me to bow. Not to you, not the kvidr, not to Odin. I am no one’s but my own, and I will never be any other’s again. I choose to have this realm for myself. If you refuse to see me rule it, we are enemies, for that is my aim. If I choose, one day, to do some of the good you covet so, I will choose to for my own reasons, not to appease anyone, or to ameliorate some foolish prison sentence. If you can learn to understand that, and let me do what I will, then we need not be enemies. But as long as you insist on obeyance or a cage, I will choose the cage. Every time.” He leaned back. “You ask me to abandon all that I have worked for and kiss the feet of men I despise in a realm I no longer wish to have anything to do with, all to earn the privilege of being your second-best, forever despised for all I have already done. You must see how it cannot happen.” He planted his hands against the edge of the cot, long back curved forward over a hollow stomach - thin, so thin.” I do not desire their forgiveness, or anyone’s, and I will not ask for it, or do some great work to earn it. My great work is in the making, and would be done, if you would stop standing in my way.”
Thor paused, and listened to his brother. He'd heard that tone once, the fragile edge of madness and it reminded him of his own return, when Loki had warned him away from Asgard. Still, he listened, watching his brother, the words twisting into his consciousness, but not before he noticed how very thin his brother was. Too thin. "I swore to protect this realm," he started slowly. "And I will do so. Against you, against any that would do harm to her people. There's no greatness in the murder of innocents." Once he had been the one calling for the blood of Jotunheim, but no longer. Peace was not an insult and the mass destruction of a realm was not worthy of a king.
And Thor wanted that for his brother. Loki had always been the sharp one, the diplomatic one. Loki Silvertongue. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that Loki could be the better king, but not as long as he held onto these dreams. Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply, focusing and centering the way that Ben sometimes did. "I swore to protect you, as well," he said, quietly, his eyes opening again. "I will always be your brother, Loki. And I will always look out for you." Even if Loki brought all he was supposed, even if he called Thor his enemy and brought war to Midgard, that would not change.
"You need to eat more," he said as he took another step back. They would get no further today. "I will bring another tomorrow."
Loki looked across at him, and felt a flicker of something like disappointment. He hadn't really thought that Thor would change his mind about his allegiance to his petty, warmongering, backbiting mortal throngs over him, but it had been a funny little dream, for a moment. "Then we have nothing more to discuss on the matter.”
"I don't need protection," he spat, low and angry at the very thought, hackles up. Loki protected himself, now. He was struck by a wave of hatred, vitriol and spite, and he bit down on it. No, there was no use in showing that sort of thing. His grudges, his disappointments, his betrayals, they ought to be his own. What did it matter that Thor would serve him up to the kvidr like a dog? After all, if Thor helped him in his bid to have Earth as his own, that would only rob him of the opportunity to prove himself better. He did not want, or need, Thor's help.
He glanced up again at the brief reminder, and picked up the apple again. The fruit was still white inside, pristine, and he bit down viciously hard, hand falling into his lap with what remained clasped in it. Loki swallowed, and bit his lip. "You will regret it," he said, with a touch of humor in the sharpness. When Loki used that strength in a bid to escape, Thor would regret aiding him, as he would always make him regret extending a hand.
"It is yours," Thor said. Whether Loki believed he needed it, or wanted it at all, it was still there. If he could do nothing to help his brother through this madness, then at least he could be the unchanging point that one used to travel by. It was the very least that he could do for the man that he still considered his kin.
"No," Thor said with absolute certainty. "I won't." It wasn't wrong to want to see him strong again. His brother had always tended towards being skinny, but now Thor found him far too thin for his liking. If he had to bring two apples every day to get him to put some weight back on, Thor would do so and count it as a relief to do so.
Turning slowly on his heel, his back to his brother, he strode to the elevator with Mjolnir hanging from his right hand. "See you tomorrow."