Chapter Seventeen
Falsehoods for a Purpose
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Loki held Thea close, bristling at the Chitauri drones jostling him down an unfamiliar, dimly-lit corridor. He didn’t care what they wanted. He would move at his own pace, curse them, to keep Thea steady in his arms.
She'd fallen unconscious a few moments after Loki's surrender. In a way, that was a comfort. Before that, her total lack of response had terrified him. Her shallow, rapid breathing; the waxen pallor of her skin; her blank, glassy eyes like a doll's…all of it had sent a terrible thrill of fear through him, slicing like a blade of ice. Now her color was starting to return somewhat to normal. She was still pale from months locked away from the sun, but she didn’t look like death anymore. Her breathing had evened out. Her dark lashes stood out starkly against her pale, pale cheeks as she lay in a swoon in Loki's arms.
The Chitauri continued to hiss and chitter at him, trying to make him move faster. The Other walked ahead, neither fast nor slow, and didn't seem to care at what pace the green-eyed prince moved. He didn't turn around to rebuke the Chitauri for their impatience, though Loki noticed the drones kept watchful eyes on Thanos' lieutenant.
It was all Loki could do to put his feet evenly. During the fight in his cell, he'd taken several blows to the ribs. The bones were broken again. Cracked, at least. Breathing sent a wash of red-hot agony blazing through his chest. White sparkles dazzled around the edges of his vision. His head swam with dizziness and adrenaline. His wrists, ankles, and neck burned where the poisoned manacles had touched his flesh. Only the need to make sure Thea was safe kept him on his feet. If he'd been alone, the Chitauri would've no doubt had to drag him to whatever new prison they had in store for them both.
At last they brought the prince and his wife to a door. The Other waved a negligent hand, and the door slid open. Turning to Loki, the eyeless monster made an elegant "after-you" gesture. One eye on his tormentor, Loki stepped through the door…and stopped short.
"These are quarters befitting a Chitauri general," the Other croaked. Loki barely heard him. "You will be summoned later, once you and your mate have rested." And the doors slid shut with a hiss. Loki stared at the room in front of him.
It had been a very long time since he'd seen a real bed. This one was built in the four-poster, curtained fashion of the beds of Asgard, of polished ebony with thick, emerald velvet drapes and emerald linens, heaped with pillows. It looked impossibly soft. Two black clothespresses sat on the floor at the foot of the bed. White candles burned gently in gold candleholders on an ebony table laden with…food.
Food.
Saliva flooded Loki's mouth and a cramp of hunger gripped his belly like a fist. He could smell the meal laid out on the tabletop: steamed vegetables, sweet fruits, savory meats, fresh-baked breads. Chitauri didn't eat like this…but perhaps Thanos and some of his commanding officers did.
But the meal wasn't the best part of the fare laid out. In the center of the table, amidst a variety of dishes, sat a basket of the Golden Apples of Iðunn. But how…?
Thea stirred in his arms, bringing him back to the present. With exquisite care, he laid his wife carefully on the bed, brushing the hair from her face. Her cheeks were clammy; the very beginnings of shock, he thought. Ribs still screaming, dread gnawing at him, Loki turned to the laden table. He had a thimbleful of magic left. Enough, he was certain, to test the Apples and see if they were what he thought they were. Because if they were, he needed to eat one immediately in order to restore more of his magic so that he might attend to Thea.
Drawing on his seiðr, Loki touched one faintly glowing Apple. Immediately a hum of familiar power flowed from his fingertip over his hand and up his arm. Green eyes widened in shock. With a muffled groan of relief, Loki snatched up one of the Apples and bit into it. Healing seiðr flooded his body as he devoured the fruit. He could feel his ribs knitting back together, feel the pain fading, the health slowly returning to him, and the power seeping into his body. Not much, but enough.
Cutting a slice from another of the powerful Apples, he went back to Thea. "Thea? Suetyng? Wake up, love." She moaned softly and her lashes fluttered. Her breathing deepened. Her eyes opened and she focused with difficulty on his face. How badly was she hurt? "You must eat, Thea. This will help you. Come on." With some difficulty, he managed to coax her into eating the Apple in small slices. She was worse off than he was, so the effects weren't as immediate, but he could see the pain fading from her body as her muscles relaxed and she closed her eyes. Slowly the bruises began to fade.
In order to do what he needed to do next, Loki had to use the magic of two more of the Apples. Drawing on just a touch of magic—he didn’t have much left at all, even with the help of the Asgardian fruit—he scanned her body for any serious injury, focusing most of his attention on searching for the small life they believed she carried.
And there it was. A tiny heartbeat. Emotion clogged Loki's throat and stung his eyes; he bowed his head and tried to keep from shaming himself with tears. A child. A baby, nestled deep within Thea's body. He had a child. It was so small, so fragile, and that tiny heartbeat fluttered like butterfly wings against Loki's sensing spell.
A child. He had a child.
Sweat dripped down his temples and forehead as he forced almost the very last of his magic to cocoon the unborn child in Thea's womb, to protect it. It was merely a precaution, on the off-chance the Chitauri decided torturing his pregnant wife and killing their baby would make good sport.
Black fire pulsed through him in time with his heartbeat as he thought of what the Other had done, what he'd tried to do. Loki gritted his teeth. His wife. His child. That monster had dared threaten his wife and child. No. He would never let anything happen to them. To either of them. Thanos and his Other could have Thea and the baby over Loki's dead body…and it would take a great deal to kill the son of Odin.
Swallowing back the rage, he shoved away from the bed and stalked to the table to grab another Apple. One Apple, or two, or even three wouldn’t heal the damage done over the last…how long had it been? He quickly counted up the months as best he could. A year. It had been nearly a year for him. He was in no shape to fight back yet. Neither of them were.
It would still take several weeks for his magic to return completely, and only then would he perhaps be able to get himself and Thea out of the Chitauri stronghold. He wondered if the Other knew that. Was that why he wasn’t afraid to give Loki the restorative Apples? Where had he even come by them?
But at least his body was mending now. It would be easier to protect and care for Thea.
As if thinking her name had reminded her of him, she half-sat up, moaning softly. "Loki," she whispered, wrenching his heart. Her arms trembled, unable to support her, and she fell back to the bed. "Loki, don't…don't…"
He was at her side in three swift paces. The impossibly soft mattress dipped beneath his weight as he seated himself next to her. Taking her hand, he pressed it to his lips. "I'm here, Thea," he murmured. "It's all right. We're all right for now." He allowed his fingers to trail along her other cheek, only to find it sticky with blood. Frowning, Loki peered at it. A long, jagged cut marred the delicate skin over one cheekbone. The Apple should have healed such a superficial wound already. So why...?
"Ow," Thea mumbled. She grimaced, then sorrow-gray eyes fixed on Loki's face. "My face kind of hurts. So does the rest of me. But my face really hurts…" Then her eyes snapped wide and she bolted upright. "Loki! Ow," she hissed, hunching and falling back to the mattress again. "Oh, ow. Ow. Oh, they really did a number on me this time. What happened? The baby!" She shifted, grasping his shirtsleeve with one shaking hand. "The baby, is she all right? Did…did I mis…" She couldn't go on as terror filled her face.
"Our child is fine," Loki soothed, cupping her uninjured cheek. Only the baby's Asgardian and Jötunn blood had protected it, but the baby was fine. "Don't worry, my love. Our little one is just fine." Then he frowned. "'She?' How do you know it is a girl?"
Thea blinked. "Um…I just…I don't know. I just feel like she's a girl. I was thinking about her, before…when the Chitauri…" Tears spilled down the freckled cheeks and Loki moved closer, sliding one arm under his wife to pull her against his chest. Thea's head fell heavily against his shoulder. "Loki," she whispered. "Loki, you can't do it. You can't."
He didn’t have to ask what she meant. He didn’t even attempt to feign ignorance. He knew what Thea was talking about. "Althea, our child—"
She shook her head, crying harder. Her tears soaked his shirt. "You can't do it, Loki. You can't. You can't let those things invade my planet. Your planet! They'll kill everyone. We can't let them. They're monsters, you can't—"
"Shhh," Loki whispered. Pressing his lips to her ear, stroking her hair with his free hand, he breathed, "I have no intention of allowing these demons to invade our Realms. But I had to stop them from hurting you. You would have lost the child. I would have lost both of you. I couldn’t bear that. I am sorry, my love, sorry I'm not stronger, I thought I was, but I had to make them stop. I couldn’t watch them hurt you like that. But I won't let them do what they plan. Keep crying, keep feigning upset. I believe we may be being watched. Continue to plead with me and listen. Once we are at full health, we are getting out of this place. We will escape and go to Midgard, we will warn Phil and his warriors of SHIELD what the Chitauri are planning, and we will be safe. I swear to you, suetyng, I will do whatever it takes to protect you and our…our daughter."
Thea looked at him for a long moment, wet-eyed, lips trembling, before burying her face in his chest. She didn't cry; merely clung to him with all the strength in her, as if she couldn’t bear to ever let him go. Loki pressed his cheek to her hair and rubbed her back. He could feel her ribs pressing against her skin and through her thin shirt. She was so thin. The first thing they needed to do was eat. It had been many hours since they'd been fed last, and both Thea and the child needed more nourishment than the Asgardian fruit could provide.
Suddenly Thea pulled back from him and looked around. Scrubbing at her uninjured cheek with one fist, she muttered, "Um…where are we? This ain't exactly Kansas, here, Toto."
"Our new quarters, apparently," Loki said. Thea raised her eyebrows and whistled.
"Pretty fancy digs. And…I smell food. Am I having a sensory hallucination, or is there food?" Her eyes widened when Loki gestured to the table. "Holy pineapple cheesecake. Is that safe to eat? Or is it poisoned? Do I care if it's poisoned? I'd have to think about that, I'm starving." Her stomach chose that moment to growl audibly. She glanced down and laid a hand against her lower belly, over the spot where their child grew. "Yes, I know you're hungry. Womb-service is running a little slow right now. Patience, young grasshopper." Loki realized she was talking to the baby. Looking back to him, Thea asked, "Do you know if it's poisoned?"
"Let me test it," Loki began, and Thea grabbed his sleeve again.
"No! I love you and all, and it's very flattering that you love me that much, but you're not eating poison for me. This isn't Peter Pan. So don't even think about eating anything poisonous for me, Tinkerbell."
"I meant with magic," Loki said dryly.
She blinked. "Oh. Right. Because that would make a crud-ton more sense than eating something that might be poisonous. Okay. Um, can you do that? I thought your magic…" She trailed off, staring at him, really seeing him for the first time. "Whoa. What happened to you? You look…you look different."
He knew he looked different. He felt different. Four infusions of healing magic had filled out some of the flesh and muscle he'd lost; his face was no longer so gaunt, his eyes no longer so sunken, his ribs and vertebrae no longer so prominent. His magic was still just a series of tiny sparks crackling in his veins, but it didn’t feel as if his very core were starving for seiðr. Loki smiled wanly at Thea.
"Let me test the food," he said, and she nodded, looking a bit dazed.
Using that much seiðr when his body didn't quite have it felt like shoving needles into his veins. It left him sweating, gasping, but Thea and the baby needed food. More food than they'd been getting. He would provide for them. If that meant tapping his well of magic dry, then so be it.
"It is safe," he murmured, wiping the sweat from his brow. "Come. We both need to eat."
Thea staggered a little as she got up from the bed, but Loki caught her. With one arm around her, he escorted her to a chair. Shoving strings of dirty hair from her face, Thea stared with wide-eyed hunger at the food in front of her, trembling. Loki could understand. Before he let her touch anything, however, he picked up another of the Golden Apples and handed it to her.
"Where did…didn't you just give me one of…"
"Eat that, and you'll feel a great deal better," Loki commanded gently. "It will heal your body as well as your heart and mind."
Thea looked at the Apple for a moment, then began taking hasty bites of the shining, golden fruit. Even as the prince watched, fresh color flooded Thea's face and the sparkle came back into her eyes.
Loki dragged the chair opposite her around the table so he could sit beside her, and after making her eat another of the Apples, together they dined on real food for the first time in months. They ate slowly, however. Iðunn's Apples wouldn't make them sick—such was their magic—but regular food would if they ate too much too quickly. Loki knew better than to gorge himself after being starved, and he made certain his wife ate slowly as well, though their child insisted on more than the prince would've thought Thea could eat.
Their child. Thea carried their child. It was an unlooked-for miracle, light in the darkness of all that had occurred in the last several moons. How could he, Loki, have a child?
If they made it out of this place—no, not if, but when—he would have to get word to his family somehow. Even if they wanted nothing to do with him after all that had happened, his parents deserved to know they had a grandchild. And his brothers…Tyr and Thor would be overjoyed. They both loved children; a strange thing for an Asgardian warrior, but something the two brothers had always had in common. And Balder loved children, as well. Surely his brothers, his parents, would want to be on good terms with Loki's daughter, at least.
"Are you feeling better?" He asked when Thea leaned back with a contented sigh. She nodded. "Shall we explore our quarters? Or do you need to rest?"
"Don't leave me," she said instantly. "A girl needs her stuffed animals. Or stuffed Lokis. Whichever. Stuffed Lokis are better. And pregnant chicks need their chocolate otter-penguins."
He forced a smile because anything else would make him fall to his knees before her, begging for forgiveness. He'd done this to her. He'd given the Chitauri a weakness to use against them both. How had they known when Thea had said she was with child? Were they watching him? Had they been watching him all this time? Then they'd known about the crack in the wall, known that Thea had widened it out, known that the two of them were spending time together, growing closer.
A sickening thought had icy rage crystallizing in his veins. If the Chitauri had been watching him, somehow, then they had seen when he'd comforted Thea in the darkness of his cell when the enemy had tortured her. They'd been watching the simple, impromptu wedding ceremony. And they'd been watching when Loki had made love to Thea for the first time. No, not just the first time. Every time. They'd been watching…
No. He couldn’t think about that. Couldn’t think about anything but taking care of his wife, or the fury would swamp him, drag him down, and he'd be no better than Thor, charging into a battle fueled by nothing but bloodlust and stupidity. If he did that, he wouldn’t make it out of this place alive.
But the sick sense of violation didn't fade simply because he willed it.
"If my guess is correct," Loki said, swallowing back fury, "there is a bathing room somewhere nearby. You might be able to have a bath."
Thea's eyes widened. Her expression reminded him of a kitten begging for a bowl of cream. "Bath?" Her arms crept around her torso and she hugged herself. "A bath is like happy-crack. Baths are like swimming in liquid bliss. I want a bath. With bubbles. Frothy pink bubbles that smell like strawberry shortcake. A plethora of bubbles. And hot water." Hope suffused her expression. "Bath. Oh-em-gee, I want. Like, desperately. I'd punch a shark to get a bath right now. Unless it was named Bruce. But I'd totally punch a shark if I could have a bath. I stink."
After a couple minutes of exploring, they were rewarded with the discovery of an Asgardian-style bathing room. An actual bathing room. Loki and Thea just stared at it for a long moment in shock. How long since they'd actually had actual baths, instead of the pitiful scrubbings the former mortal had insisted on to keep somewhat clean?
Towels had been laid out on the black marble counter beside the sinks. On top of the towels, Loki saw a clean black tunic, trousers, underthings, and socks for himself, and a smaller set of the same for Thea. Two pairs of boots sat on the floor just under where the clothes had been set. Loki glanced at Thea.
"They are trying to show us how we will be treated if we work with them," he told her softly. She nodded, chewing her bottom lip. Loki's eyes drifted to the still-unhealed cut on her cheek. It was deep, the surrounding flesh an angry red that was almost purple where it showed through the dried blood. He touched Thea's cheek, just under the cut. She flinched. "This needs to be cleansed." So did her other injuries, though for the most part the Chitauri had used their agonizing shock-staves to hurt her. Still, her shirt was sliced in places where they'd cut her, and the cuts hadn’t healed yet.
Without another moment's hesitation, Loki turned on the taps. Crystalline water gushed forth into the massive tub and Loki was reminded of how thirsty he still was. They'd drunk their fill at the table, he and Thea, but he was still so dehydrated, still so thirsty. His throat burned at the thought of cool, sweet water. But he forced himself to ignore it and focused on his wife.
The candlelight from the wall-sconces was a soft golden glow, but it was still a bit brighter than the dim beams of the flashlights in their prison cells. Loki was in the middle of removing his tunic when he glanced at Thea, who stared at the water with obvious longing, but didn’t move toward it. It was safe enough, so why did she hesitate?
She shot a shy glance at Loki, and he understood. He would see her more clearly in this moment than he ever had before, with the light so bright compared to what they were used to. She was afraid of his disgust.
Dropping his tunic to the floor, he reached out to her and drew her to him. She dropped her gaze to the floor.
"You're beautiful," he whispered.
Thea laughed softly. "Of course I am. I'm Aphrodite's cuter little sister that she's secretly jealous of. Duh. Even if I am skinny. I have the cutest rib-bones anyone's ever seen. You could make a xylophone out of me. I'd sell like hotcakes. And I finally have a twenty-inch waist. Wait…ew. I'll have to pig out on ice cream to get rid of that. I'm a skeleton." She batted her eyelashes at him. "You still think I'm cute, though, even though I'm all skele-bones."
"We will simply have to feed you up, then, to rid you of your…skele-bones."
She arched an eyebrow, trying not to laugh. "Do you have a thing for fat chicks? Because you're going to need it when I become a whale."
"You will not be a whale. You are with child. That is altogether different."
"So I'll be a pregnant whale. Moby Preggers. I can rock that. And now I want chocolate for some reason." She glanced down at her belly. "Hey, midget. I know you're the one doing this. If I get fat from thinking about all this chocolate you want, you better be sweet to make up for it." Thea looked back at Loki. "And she's probably rubbing her little hands together, chuckling malevolently about how her nefarious plot to make mommy huge is slowly coming to fruition. Yes," she added, "I can use the word 'fruition' in regular conversation. I'm epic. My mind is like a steel trap and…Loki, I can…I can…do that myself—ohmigawsh, that tickles!"
Loki's fingers had touched the hem of her shirt and slowly began to slide it higher. Her skin was cool and soft beneath his fingertips. Her eyes had begun to unfocus when she she'd started stammering. Now he saw gooseflesh rise up on Thea's arms when he deliberately tickled one of the shallow grooves between her ribs in an attempt to make her smile.
"Yes, you can…but I do it so much better," he murmured. Thea shivered. In a more serious tone, he added, "I need to look at your injuries, älskling."
Her smile held the faintest edge of mischief. "Will you be able to concentrate when I'm naked? I know I'm pretty hard to resist."
"That you are."
At first it was difficult for him to concentrate as he helped her remove her clothes, but the sight of the cuts and gashes still inexplicably covering her body, as well as the scars from past tortures, helped cool his ardor a little. She was so beautiful, but the sight of her filled him with half-mad rage. He helped her into the tub; she hissed when the steamy water made contact with her open wounds, then sighed and relaxed as the heat began loosening her tense muscles.
"Ohhh…oh, wow. Is there a washcloth? I need one. Like, for realsies. Oh, my gosh, I just said that. I sound like I'm ten. And is there soap? Oh, there is soap. Heaven has found me at last. Soap, soap, soap. Happy-happy soap-ness."
"Soap-ness?" Loki asked, seating himself tailor-fashion beside the tub and handing her the cloth and soap. It was large enough that they could both fit, but they were both so filthy that the water would be black as pitch if they shared a bath, and they wouldn’t get rid of all the grime. He would let her go first.
Thea stuck her nose in the air. "Soap-ness. It's like soap, except it comes from the Factory of Evil Products. Which is where this no doubt came from." She held up the bar of pale celadon soap. "Is it wrong to accept tributes from evil? Probably. But I want a bath. I'm disgusting. C'mere, soap. And even though this isn't the shower, I'm going to sing anyway, so I don't kill anyone. Violence in front of the baby is probably on the list of things not-to-do. Can you imagine, though?" Taking a breath, Thea ducked beneath the water and came up with her hair sopping wet. Using the soap—there was no shampoo, and her hair was filthy, so soap would have to do—she lathered her hair and began to scrub savagely. "We're on some mission of Goodness for the League of Rainbow Puppies and—"
"Rainbow puppies?" Loki choked out, laughing. Oh, here was his love, his brilliant and brave girl. Handing her a bone-white comb he'd found on the counter, he asked, "What in the Nine Realms is a rainbow puppy?"
She started tugging the comb through her wet hair. "They're like rainbow monkeys, except without the theme song."
"And what is a rainbow monkey?"
"You know. Like in the song. Let's see, how did that go?
"'Rainbow monkeys, rainbow monkeys!
Oh so very loud and super-chunky.
Spreading love wherever they go!
Everybody loves a big rainbow!
"With green and orange,
And pink and blue!
Rainbow monkeys, rainbow monkeys,
We love you!'"
Thea smiled at Loki, the sparkle of impish delight glinting in her silver-blue eyes. "Do you feel traumatized yet? Have I scarred your masculinity for life? Do you feel the sudden urge to go barf rainbow sprinkles shaped like daisies and hearts?"
Loki just looked at her for a long moment, then dropped his face into his hands and laughed helplessly. It should have been impossible to laugh after everything that had happened. With all the darkness looming in on every side, there should have been nothing to laugh at here. Yet Thea could still make him laugh when she tried. Was it any wonder he loved her? How did she do it?
There was a splash of water, and Loki looked up to see Thea, arms folded on the edge of the tub and her chin resting on her arms, watching him. He smiled at her. "Jag älskar dig." It was rare for him to use the language of the Asgardians, but sometimes he would. In the tongue of Asgard, he had said simply, "I love you."
She grinned. "Of course you do. I'm like a Christmas present, except with a mouth that spews itsy-witsy pink pearls of wisdom. I love you, too. I don't know what I'd do without you. Now, what was I saying? Oh, yeah. Can you imagine we're on a mission of Epical Goodness for the League of Rainbow Puppies and we can't get a sitter, so we take the baby with us? And we're kicking bad-guy butts like the gung-ho ninjas we are, and the whole time, the baby's just laughing her head off like it's some big, fun thing. That would be hilarious. And really, really scary and dumb of us. But still kind of funny. Now, I'm going to pretend the Chitauri are pigeons."
Loki blinked and frowned. "Why?"
"So I can sing 'Poisoning Pigeons in the Park' and pretend I'm singing about the Chitauri. I'd like to poison them. I would love it. Love. With-sprinkles-on-top love."
"Is that a lot of love?" He asked, smiling. Thea nodded.
"Heaps. It is a deep and abiding, fiery, passionate, half-insane love. I have a deep and abiding, fiery, passionate, half-insane but totally awesome-sauce love for poisoning the bucolic non-entities who kidnapped us because they suck. But 'Poisoning Chitauri in the Park' has too many syllables and doesn't rhyme with the other lines in the song."
"What song?"
"I have got to educate you. I've been neglecting your education. What's wrong with me? Oh, wait." She gave him a quick once-over. Though he'd shed his tunic, he still wore trousers and boots. "I forgot. It's not me, it's you, and your abs. Washboard." Her voice turned musing as she added, "Man, I like those."
"Washboards?"
"No, your abs," she said, laughing. "You are so ripped. Like, the perfect amount of ripped. I know I've mentioned this before."
He canted his head. "Yes, but generally it's when I'm otherwise engaged."
She narrowed her eyes. "So you're not paying attention when I tell you things?"
"You know very well that when I am otherwise occupied with having my incomparably beautiful wife in my arms and in my bed, my main focus is on making the woman I love very, very happy. And I always succeed."
Crimson spread across Thea's cheeks. "Yes," she squeaked, sinking up to her chin the water. She cleared her throat. "Yes, you do. Um. Is it hot in here? Yes, it is. I'm in the bathtub. Duh. I'm hot, of course, the water's hot. It's…stop looking at me like that."
"I can't," Loki replied, smiling. "You're beautiful."
"I'm covered in dirt, soap, dirty soap, and soapy dirt."
"Which is making it very difficult for me to remember why I should let you have the tub to yourself."
His fingers twitched as his gaze slid over her body. Thea flushed a deeper red and began scrubbing with the soaped-up washcloth, studiously avoiding his heated gaze, though a smile tugged at her lips. She was so lovely—what he could see of her: shoulders, part of her back, the slender column of her neck, her face, her long arms, and the very tops of her knees. Sudden wanting gripped him. He forced it down. They needed to clean up, both of them, and treat their wounds, before they did anything else.
"'Spring is here, spring is here!
Life is Skittles and life is beer!
I think the loveliest time of the year
Is the spring.'"
"Thea?" Loki asked, curious.
"Shhh. Singing about poisoning pigeons. Erm, Chitauri pigeons. Whatever. Just sit there and bask in my greatness.
"'But there's one thing that makes
Spring complete for me
And makes every Sunday
A treat for me.
"'All the world seems in tune
On a spring afternoon
When we're poisoning pigeons in the park.
"'Every Sunday you'll see
My sweetheart and me
As we're poisoning pigeons in the park.
"'When they see us coming,
The alien-birdies all try and hide,
But they still go for space-peanuts
When coated with cyanide…'"
He'd been right. By the time Thea had cleaned every part of her body and combed nearly six months of tangles from her hair—and sung a song about atomic warfare, whatever that was—the water was the thick, murky gray of heavy storm clouds.
When she'd finished drying off, Loki made sure to wash out the cuts on her back, arms, and legs one more time before she got dressed in the surprisingly comfortable black clothing. He paid extra attention to the deep cut on her cheek; it already seemed to be growing infected. Dragging at the very last drops of seiðr he possessed, Loki laid in a small healing spell on the deep laceration, which left him trembling with exertion and short of breath. Some of the angry redness around the wound faded.
After draining the tub and rinsing away the layer of grime, Loki filled it again for himself while Thea got another of the Golden Apples. She ate quietly while Loki stripped and bathed, washing off a year's worth of muck and filth. He gave his hair a thorough and savage scrubbing, grateful at last to be truly clean.
Once clean and combed and dressed, his wounds tended, he and Thea sat on the bed and simply breathed. For once, they had nothing to do, and no idea what would happen next. Loki could feel the tension thrumming through his wife, though she kept a smile on her face. Only when she leaned toward him and dropped her head to his shoulder with a sigh did he realize how tense Thea truly was. He watched her turn the gold-and-emerald ring around and around on her left heart-finger.
"Loki…are you mad?"
He frowned. "About what?" He was enraged about a good many things, all of them to do with the Chitauri, but he knew that wasn’t what Thea meant.
"About the baby." He turned to her, wide-eyed, and she added, "I know, I know the timing is bad. It's crazy-jacked-up terrible. I know. I'm sorry—"
"Thea," he whispered, and she fell silent. Framing her face between his hands, he whispered, "Thea…I'm not angry about the child. I love you more than the breath in my chest and the beat of my heart. And this child…our daughter, you think…how could I not love her, too? The timing is bad, yes, but that isn't your fault. And I promise you, suetyng, I will do whatever it takes to protect you both."
She nodded, wiping away a stray tear that slipped down her cheek. Swallowing hard, voice wavering, she whispered, "I'm scared. I'm trying really hard not to be scared, but I am. Loki…I don't know how much time we have until that…that freak comes back, and who knows if those sickos are spying on us, but…but I don't care, I…would you…I want…" Her fingers twisted into tight fists before she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his, desperate and trembling and sweet. Thea tangled her fingers in his hair as Loki wrapped himself around her. "Don't let go," she pleaded against his lips. "Please."
"Never," he whispered, letting her draw him down to the bed. "I will never let you go, my love."
.
"But I did," Loki whispered, staring into the dying flames on the hearth. "I promised her…and I failed her. I lost them both. I wasn't…" He pressed his lips so tight together they turned white and he squeezed his eyes shut, as if battling some savage, clawing emotion. Thor's throat tightened at the sight of his little brother's obvious pain. Loki drew a shuddering breath. "I wasn't strong enough to keep her safe. I loved her so much. I…I did, I loved her. And Sophie. But I…I just couldn't…I couldn't protect them." Loki shoved his hands through his hair with such viciousness, Thor winced. "Why didn't you kill me when I begged you to?" The prince demanded suddenly, electric blue gaze snapping to the Asgardian. "Why?"
Thor sighed. "I didn't understand the depths of…of your pain, Brother. And for that, I am truly sorry. That was when you knew, wasn't it? That was when they were killed."
"Yes," Loki rasped. "I made contact with the Other, to tell him I needed more time, and he…he said it was too late. They were already dead. I didn't believe him. I couldn't. They couldn’t be…I demanded to see proof, and he showed me Hobbes."
The crown prince frowned. "Thea's stuffed tiger?"
"It was brought to her a few days after I agreed to join the Chitauri. It had been cleaned. She was so glad to have it back. I knew she wouldn't have parted with it willingly and…and it was spattered with her blood." Loki's face paled as he recounted, "It was fresh. So red. Deep red, bright, as if from a fatal wound. It lay on the floor in a pool of even more blood. I used my seiðr to probe, to test, to see if it was hers. It was. Hers and Sophie's. There was so much of it, saturated with terrible pain and such terror…I heard her scream in my head…my fault. All my fault. And the Other knew about Coulson. He knew, and so I knew he was telling the truth about Thea."
Blue eyes widened. "Coulson? What about Coulson?"
"He knew that Coulson was supposed to…that he was my last resort. That if I feared I couldn't accomplish my task, I would need someone I could trust to...but we had to wait, we had to time it properly. I had the antidote; I just couldn’t give it to her yet. We had to wait, because of Sophie. We loved her. We couldn't sacrifice her. We…Thea begged me. Begged me not to even consider…and I promised her…"
"Loki, what are you talking about?"
His brother surged to his feet, paced the length of his cell in swift, jerking strides. "I didn't want this," he whispered. "Any of it." He grabbed at his hair with a shaking hand; he stumbled when he turned to make a second trip across the cell. Thor saw Loki's eyes were vivid, incandescent blue, too similar to the glassy color he'd seen in the Midgardian archer and in Erik Selvig.
"I couldn't lose them," Loki rasped, tugging at his hair again. "I had nothing else. No one else. And Sophie…my little girl…my child. I couldn't let the Chitauri hurt her, I had to…but they anticipated me. Every move I made, they were always three steps ahead. I don't know how, I don't know why I couldn't just think of something to save them…and now they're dead. Coulson failed, and I failed. The one person I could trust to ask for help and he failed, we both failed, and that sound!" Loki suddenly jerked to a halt, looking around wildly. His face was suffused with agony and terror. "No. No, not that sound. Please, I can't bear it any longer."
Thor pressed his palms to the ensorcelled glass, feeling the seiðr hum and prickle along his skin. The hair on his forearms stood on end. Striving for gentle firmness, he said, "Loki, there is no sound. It isn't real."
Loki opened his mouth, closed it. Squeezed his eyes shut. A violent shudder ripped through his body as he sank to the floor, back to the wall, and dropped his head back. "I know," he whispered. "I know, but it never stops. The crying. It won't stop. Thor, why won't you just end it? Why does Odin want me here?"
"Our father loves you," Thor said softly. Loki's entire body spasmed, as if it had tried to recoil from the words and he'd forced it abruptly to stillness. "He does not want to lose his son, my brother. Our mother does not wish to lose you, either. Not again. We mourned you once. Must we mourn you again?"
"None but you would mourn my loss," he whispered bitterly. Thor flinched. "And you wouldn't mourn for long. The one who would mourn me is long dead. I see her in my dreams, you know. Always. So pale…so deathly white. So cold. Yet still so beautiful. Almost as if all I need do is kiss her awake and she would draw breath. I walk through her tomb and always hear our daughter crying, my wife screaming, and see her corpse…Vengeance is no balm for that torment. That dream burns like black fire up and down my mind until I can't think or eat or breathe. I want her back, Thor. I just want her back."
Swallowing back pain and salt that had lodged like graveyard bones in his throat, Thor said, "I am so sorry, Brother. I'm sorry. I never wanted…" He had so many questions—about Coulson, mostly, and what Loki had meant, calling him the only person he could trust, and about Coulson's so called failure, and the Chitauri knowing about the SHIELD agent—but they were as nothing in the face of his brother's half-mad grief. "I'm sorry."
"Thor…do you believe me?" A taut, terrible expression crossed Loki's face as he stared at his brother with wide, too-intense eyes. "Do you believe me when I say I did not kill Coulson?"
Thor said nothing. There was nothing he could say. He had seen Loki stab him. If that blow hadn't been fatal, then mortals were even sturdier than Asgardians, and Thor knew that wasn't true. What could he say?
"I swear, Brother," the fostered prince whispered. "By the Norns themselves, and the Tapestry of Fate that they weave, I swear I did not kill the mortal known as Phillip Coulson. My strike did not kill him."
Wide-eyed, Thor swallowed. Loki couldn’t make that oath. Swearing a false vow by the Norns was death. Not a death-sentence by law, but a vow unbreakable by the bonds of the very universe itself. The Norns themselves would cut the lifeline of any Asgardian who made that oath and broke it.
Yet Loki remained, breathing and broken still, in the prison cell. Which meant…which meant he was telling the truth. His strike hadn’t killed the SHIELD agent.
But then…but then what had happened?
"Go, Thor," Loki murmured, bowing his head. "Leave me. Go to Midgard. Obtain your proof. Ask your questions. But I beg you, leave me in peace for now. I…I will sleep a little, I think."
And he knew that if he pushed Loki now, there would only be pain for both of them. So he simply asked, "Will you be able to sleep?"
Loki lifted exhausted, sunken eyes to Thor and scoffed. "Perhaps…if I get very, very drunk first. But Thea hated alcohol…and yet…I'm so tired, Thor. So tired. Would you be a decent man and have the guards bring me something I can use to make myself very unconscious? Ale, perhaps. Or your hammer. Or a knife to draw across my throat. I don't care. Simply give me oblivion for a time. I can bear no more dreams."
Thor nodded. He would make the arrangements to let his brother drink himself to sleep just this once. He'd seen what became of warriors who relied too much on spirits to find rest…but Loki's sunken, bloodshot eyes, haggard face, and haunted figure were too much for even Thor to bear.
"Do you want…" Thor hesitated. His father wouldn’t thank him for even offering. He didn’t know what Loki's reaction would be, but if ever there was a time to make this offer, it was now. "Do you want me to send Mother to you?"
"No," he whispered. "Have we not hurt her enough—you, me, and Tyr? Have we not broken our mother's heart enough?"
After a moment, Thor nodded. "Perhaps we have. Fare you well in my absence, little brother." Thor had turned away and walked nearly halfway down the corridor when he heard the soft blessing following after him, a whisper of shadow in the dungeon corridor.
"Fare you well in Midgard, Brother."
Thor closed his eyes against the sting of tears and kept walking.
.
"This is going to hurt you much worse than it will hurt me," Víðarr informed his brother the next morning as they approached the edge of the Bifröst. Thor raised an eyebrow and his younger brother grinned. "Well, Brother, the way it works is, the more seiðr you have, the easier it is to travel along those byways. You'll recall after Father sent you to Midgard this last time, it took you a few hours to finish retching, get off your knees, and go get Loki. That will probably happen this time because you have perhaps one magical bone in your entire body, whereas I—"
"Shut up," Thor said with a smile, jabbing his brother with an elbow. "I'll not be sick this time."
"Don't make promises you can't keep, Thor," Víðarr said loftily. "Now, brace yourself."
Thor focused on the shattered Bifröst beneath his feet—the crystal shards vivid with color, lighting up when one touched them, singing with innate power. He'd always found the Rainbow Bridge to be one of the most beautiful things in Asgard, though he'd never told anyone that. Warriors didn’t find beauty in such things. And he'd seen how Loki was mocked by their friends, and teased, for loving beautiful things.
He frowned. His brother had been teased often, now that he thought about it. Why hadn’t the prince ever paid any attention before? Perhaps because it took such a great deal to irritate his foster brother. He simply hadn’t given it any thought. Yet now Loki was claiming their friends had always hated him. Why did he think that? Thor wasn’t sure he could or should ask Loki; his brother was terribly fragile right now from lack of sleep and the strain of telling the tale of how he'd met, loved, and lost Thea. And if Thor did ask, what was to stop Loki from lashing out in fresh anger about Thor never listening, never seeing?
There were still so many unanswered questions. What was Loki's connection to Coulson? Why did he maintain that Coulson and Fury had both betrayed him? Why had Loki tried to kill Thor during the crown prince's exile by using the Destroyer to break his neck? And what had stopped Loki from escaping with Thea when he'd had the chance?
But then claws of swirling, kaleidoscopic colors—a violet, vibrant storm of seiðr—grabbed him, yanking him into the vortex between Realms and scattering his thoughts like ash on the whirlwind. Vicious wind snapped around his head, slapped his face and every inch of exposed skin. Bitter cold alternated so rapidly with blistering heat that it melted into one searing, mind-jarring sensation. He couldn’t breathe, no air, only emptiness and howling wind and explosions of color and magic, like the Bifröst but a thousand times worse.
Then Thor hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud that left his ears ringing. He took a step as spots danced across his vision. His legs wobbled, buckled, and he sank to his knees. Next to him, Víðarr coughed and spat. Thor smelled blood and wondered vaguely if his brother had bitten his tongue. Then Thor was too busy heaving up the contents of his stomach to wonder anything.
After his belly had finally stopped trying to crawl out of his mouth, he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and looked up to meet Víðarr's expression of sympathetic amusement.
"I warned you. Here." He offered Thor a waterskin.
"Shut up," Thor muttered, but took the water, squeezing the leather sack to squirt water past his lips so he could rinse his mouth thoroughly. When he got to his feet, his legs still trembled, but they would hold him well enough. A thought flitted through his mind, only to snag there—had Loki felt this sick, this disoriented, after coming through the Chitauri's tesseract-formed portal?
When Thor offered it back, Víðarr took the waterskin and enjoyed his own drink. Then the brothers looked around. Thor frowned. He didn't remember any places on Midgard that he'd been to that had so many trees. Dusted with snow as they were, still…if he'd been here before, he would have recognized it. Where had Víðarr's magic taken them?
"I know this place," Víðarr murmured. "It is a stretch of cultivated wilderness in the city of New York, the place where your Avengers battled our brother last year. This is the place where I met the mortal warrior, Fury."
"Does this place have a name?"
Víðarr nodded. "They call it 'Central Park.' Is not the stronghold of your friend, the Man of Iron, near here?"
Thor frowned and looked toward the sky to get his bearings. The sun was just beginning to set. Having found west, the crown prince drew up a mental map of the city he'd seen during the battle the year before. Pointing northward, he said, "We must journey that way."
"Walking or flying?"
"Walking," Thor replied. "We do not wish to frighten anyone."
Despite their best intentions, the pair of Asgardian warriors received countless odd or even worried looks as they strode down the hard, pale stone pathways the Midgardians referred to as "sidewalks." It was when the warriors attempted to cross the black, painted stone roads that they ran into trouble. Careful of the horseless chariots which blared strident cries of challenge, Thor and Víðarr managed to make it across one road, but they were followed by shouting and wild gestures from the drivers of the chariots.
Víðarr raised his eyebrow at one such chariot, a bright yellow with a checkered stripe running down its side and a word he didn’t recognize painted on it. The driver was yelling strange words in what he recognized to be heavily accented English and waving his fist, his middle finger extended.
The younger prince nudged his brother. "Does that mean something?"
"It is an insult, but that is all I know," Thor muttered. "Ignore them. We cannot afford to quarrel with anyone here. I wish to get to the Man of Iron without Fury learning of our arrival, if that is at all possible."
"You shouldn't do that," a cheerful little voice said from somewhere near the ground. Thor and Víðarr frowned, then looked down to see a little girl with bright red hair and blue eyes smiling at them. Her hands had been stuffed in the pockets of her fluffy yellow coat; she hardly seemed to notice the snow on the sidewalk. A pair of spectacles with black lenses, obviously too big for her, perched atop her hair. A cold taloned hand raked across Thor's heart when he thought of Loki's daughter, who would never live to see the same age as this mortal girl.
Thor knelt to put himself on level with the Midgardian child. "Good evening, young mistress," he said, smiling. "You must forgive my brother and I. We have only been to this place once before. We do not know all the rules. What is it we should not do?"
"You shouldn’t cross the street until the little white man pops up on the sign," she said. Pointing with one mitten, she indicated a small, orange and black box on one of the metal poles with lights attached. A red hand, made of light, had appeared on the black surface. "See? That means 'don't walk.' You could get hit by a car if you walk when it says that. You have to wait for that. See?" The red hand blinked a few times before disappearing. In its place was a man-shaped figure of white light. Thor's eyes widened. "That means you can walk and no cars will hit you. And you always have to use the crosswalk right there."
Víðarr whistled in admiration. "That is astonishing magic for Midgardians. Very clever."
The little girl laughed. "That's not magic, silly. That's a traffic light. It works with electricity. We learned about it in school." She studied the two men for a moment before holding out her hand. "I'm Rachel. What's your names?"
"I am called Thor," he told her.
"Thor from the Avengers? The guys who fought the aliens? Wow! Oh, my gosh! You're Thor!" The little girl bounced and looked around. "Aw, man. I don't have my autograph book. Shoot. Nobody'll believe me if I say I met you. This is so cool!"
Somewhat flattered by the child's obvious delight, Thor took her hand and dropped a kiss to the air just above her knuckles. She giggled. "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, my lady. And this is my brother, Víðarr." The younger prince bowed.
"Víðarr? Is your last name Odinson?" Rachel asked.
Both men frowned. "It is," Víðarr murmured. "Have we met, Lady Rachel?"
She shook her head. "Nuh-uh, but you met my daddy. Him and Uncle Logan told me all about you."
At the mention of the name "Logan," Víðarr's bafflement disappeared. "Ah! Rachel, daughter of Scott. Yes, I know your father. He is a good man."
The little girl shrugged. "I like him."
"Rachel!" The trio turned toward the call to see two people—a dark-skinned young man perhaps in his late twenties, and a girl whose features reminded the Asgardians of Hogun's Eastern look and who might have been eighteen—waving to the girl from the entrance of a store. "What did we tell you about talking to strangers? What are you doing?"
"Uh-oh. That's Mr. Munroe and Jubilee. I think I'm in trouble." When the pair drew abreast of the Asgardians and the mortal child, the Eastern-looking girl took Rachel's hand. Thor noticed she wore shiny black gloves that seemed to be made out of the Midgardian substance known as rubber. "Hi, Jubilee. Don't be mad."
"We apologize," Thor said quickly. He didn’t want the child to get into trouble. "Young Mistress Rachel was explaining the rules of your…traffic lights, is that right?" Rachel nodded, grinning and twisting back and forth as if she couldn’t bear to hold still. "We meant no offense. I am Thor Odinson and this is my brother, Víðarr. Perhaps you could give my brother and me directions. We are looking for the place known as Stark Tower."
The dark-skinned man, Mr. Munroe, nodded. "Of course," he said in a rich, accented voice. "You will want to go down Fifth Avenue, and then take a right…" After the mortal had given the proper directions, he said, "I hope you find your way."
Thor replied, "You have our thanks. May I ask your names?"
Looking somewhat uncomfortable, the girl with the gloves muttered, "Jubilation Lee. Nice outfits."
"We just call her Jubilee," Rachel added, but the older girl shushed her.
Mr. Munroe held out his hand and Thor shook it in the way of mortals. "I am Mij'nari Munroe. Thank you for being kind to Rachel. She is very friendly, and that often gets her into trouble."
"Mij'nari?" Thor said abruptly. The mortal man's eyes widened briefly before narrowing, and he inclined his head. "From Xavier's Institute for Gifted Youngsters?"
"How do you know this?"
"Mr. Víðarr was the guy who came to the school last month," Rachel said, bouncing on the balls of her feet. "Daddy and Uncle Logan and the professor talked to him. He's a good guy. They're nice. Don't worry, they won't do anything to us. They want to talk to Mr. Stark."
Thor raised an eyebrow. "You know the one called Anthony Stark?"
Rachel shook her head so that her dark-tinted glasses tumbled from the top of her head. Mij'nari caught them and set them back in place. "I see him on TV a lot. And he pays for our pizza parties at school sometimes. I love pizza. It's so good for you. Mommy and Daddy don't think so, but we know, huh, Jubilee? Pizza's da bomb."
Jubilee rolled her eyes, but she smiled. "Rach, nobody says that anymore. That happened before you were born. You can't say that."
"Can, too. Da bomb. See? I said it."
Ignoring the young woman and the girl, Thor focused on Mij'nari. Never looking away from the jet eyes that seemed to see a great deal more than most Midgardians, the crown prince asked softly, "Did you attend school with a woman named Althea Valerian?"
"I did," Mij'nari replied just as softly. "Why do you ask this?"
"Do you know where I might be able to find her mother?" If Thea's mother and Coulson had been all that Loki claimed, perhaps she would have some of the answers Thor sought so desperately.
Mij'nari took a step back and slid his hands into the pockets of his black coat. Thor could almost see the wall of reserve building between them. "I'm sorry, I do not have that information. Thea and I were friends in our childhood, many years ago. I wouldn't know how to contact her now, or her family. I have not heard from her in years. Now, if you will excuse us, we must be going. Come along, Rachel."
"Bye!" The girl said, waving cheerfully over her shoulder as the trio of mortals walked away, down the sidewalk. Thor and Víðarr waved back at her as she called, "Don't forget to look both ways before you cross the street! Watch out for cars!"
"See, Brother?" Víðarr murmured, glancing at Thor from the corner of his eye. "Even the child knows you need to fear the horseless chariots."
"Shut up."
They turned to go their own way when the crown prince suddenly paused, noticing something over his shoulder. He frowned and watched as Mij'nari pulled a small device from his pocket and held it to his ear. Thor recognized the Midgardian thing as what they called a "cellular phone," a device which could be used to communicate privately over long distances almost instantaneously. Looking around nervously, the mortal man spoke rapidly into the phone, nodded a few times, then put the phone back in his pocket. Lifting his arm, he flagged down one of the yellow cars that said "Taxi" on it. Ushering in Rachel and Jubilee, Mij'nari followed quickly after, and the taxi drove off.
"He lied to us," Víðarr said. Thor raised an eyebrow at his younger brother. Víðarr shrugged. "I sensed it when he said he didn't have information about Althea's mother. It's a small spell. Loki…Loki taught it to me centuries ago. Mij'nari was lying to us."
Thor nodded. "I suspected as much, but couldn’t be sure. Did you get the impression he was protecting someone?"
As they began walking, Víðarr nodded. "Yes, I did. The question is, who?"
"I don't know…but if the Man of Iron agrees to help us, we may soon find out."
