Chapter Text
Voices carried in the palace.
Especially when they were shouting.
“He tried to destroy Jotunheimm!”
“So did Thor! Do you mean to punish Loki for being more successful?”
Loki sighed, staring up at the ceiling of the antechamber as he listened to the King and Queen of Asgard argue in the throne room beyond. It seemed absurd to him that they were still fighting over it now, they’d had months to decide his fate after all. Months he’d spent caged up in the dungeons, alone with nothing but his torturous mind and the burden of the truth.
He was a monster.
A wolf who had not known he wore the skin of a lamb until it had been stripped from him, leaving him bare and bleeding. A snarling, rabid creature without compassion. It all made sense now. Why he had never been worthy, why he had never been enough. Every dark instinct and selfish impulse neatly explained away by his own biology.
Odin should have let him die on the Bifröst.
He was a Jötunn, and worse the son of Asgard’s worst enemy. He was everything wrong and yet still he had fought for his father’s approval, betrayed and betraying in turn until everything was lies and pain and it was easy to release his hold on life.
It had been an unburdening to let go after that last, worst battle. His world had been taken from him so it seemed only right to take himself from the world. For a moment he’d felt weightless, free, a millennia of disappointment and lies far behind him as he gave himself to the cold, cold stars.
But it hadn’t lasted. He’d never been that lucky.
“Husband, listen-”
The voices got fainter and louder in turn, he could picture them pacing. His father’s face set in stone, his mother’s hands twisting together in anguish. Only Odin wasn’t his father, and Frigga…
Well, he had no family anymore.
Loki bit his tongue, tasting copper as his hand rose on instinct to the inside of his arm where fate’s ink had marked him. He wrenched it away immediately, fists clenched so tight his nails scored into the soft flesh of his palms. There was no comfort to be found there either.
Not anymore.
The words written on his arm were a falsehood, one he’d scratched his skin bloody in darkest hours of his cell in an attempt to remove. He had been determined to carve them out, the lies that had teased at him for centuries.
The soul mark.
He saw it at last for what it was, another clever ploy from Odin to keep him in line, a glamour to distract him from questioning his reality.
After all, surely you needed a soul to have a soul mate?
“Perhaps you should knock,” Loki spat at the head of the guard, something between his ribs twisting tighter and tighter with every passing moment, “I would hate to die of old age and deny Odin his fun.”
“Silence, prisoner,” the man snapped back.
Bjorn Brantson, that was his name. Once Loki would have made the effort to remember him for later retribution but it all seemed a little pointless now.
“As you wish,” he sighed, turning away instead, “I look forward to seeing how your King reacts when he discovers you eavesdropped for so long at his door.”
He saw the indecision play out over Brantson’s face from the corner of his eye. Counting down in his head from three until the guard raised his gauntleted hand and hammered at the door. A petty victory but a victory nevertheless. Perhaps even his last.
“Your Majesties,” Brantson called, just a sliver of insecurity in the hardness of his voice, “we have brought the prisoner.”
“Enter,” Odin roared, the door swinging open at last with a thunderous boom that shook dust from the ceiling.
What a merry party they made as they entered. Four guards holding his chains as Loki was marched into the room. It wasn’t even the main throne room, but a smaller affair designed for more intimate meetings.
Loki obviously didn’t deserve the full pomp and ceremony his title might once have allowed him.
Still, something’s didn’t change no matter the location, Odin was still sat high on his throne. His face set in stone as he waited. Frigga was less stoic, looking paler than he remembered. Her face drawn even as she smiled at him, stepping forward to greet him with her usual quiet steadiness.
“Mother, what a delightful surprise,” he covered his bitterness in honey, acidic sweetness dripping off every word, “come to see me off?”
“Loki, please,” Frigga murmured, squeezing his hands tightly, “don’t make this worse than it is.”
“Come, you wouldn’t deny me a little gallows humour would you?” He asked, steeling himself against the weakness the sight of her awoke in him. The desperate urge even now to cling to her skirts and beg her to tell him this was all a lie, a nightmare he would soon wake up from. The time for that had long since passed. “But where is my golden brother? Did Thor not wish to say his fond farewells?”
He made a show of peering around the empty room, heart thundering uncomfortably in his throat even as he strove to appear utterly unaffected.
“Thor is fixing the damage you have wrought,” Odin rumbled, “You have treated the realms as insects to be crushed, your treasonous lies exposing us to war. You have abused your abilities and position against those who have less than yourself.”
Less than himself.
He couldn’t help but scoff. As if there were any creature on any planet in any universe who had less than him. Wretched beast that he was. He had nothing anymore. No name, no family, no hope.
If Odin thought to cow him with the fear of death he was sorely mistaken. Loki welcomed it now.
Odin rose in all his stately grandeur, Loki’s head held high as he awaited the final proclamation.
“Guards, bring him, it is time we test the new Bifröst.”
The words hit him between the ribs, momentarily off balance as he stared up at the man he’d once called father. He’d heard rumours they’d repaired it after his little… incident but he had never expected to see it again himself.
“Banishment? ” He asked, keeping his tongue sharp even as he reeled, “surely you jest? I think I’d prefer execution.”
“I know you would,” Odin’s mouth was a thin line, his expression carved in granite as he rose to his feet, “death is easy, Loki, living will be your punishment. Stripped of all your titles and powers, you will live your life as one of those you would have so easily destroyed. I cannot send you to Jotunnheim but perhaps Midgard will serve you just as well” Titles that weren’t his. Powers that festered from an icy source. Loki bit his teeth together as the guards began to pull at his chains, “Loki Laufeyson, I hearby banish you from the realm of Asgard, until such time, if ever, that you are worthy to return.”
He could taste ashes on his tongue, cold fury in his veins as he was pulled away.
That was the ultimate punishment was it not? The final cruelty? Surely Odin knew just as well as he did, Loki could never be worthy…
—-
Everything was bleeping.
Everything.
Darcy flailed, nearly knocking her coffee smack off the side as all the machinery in the lab started going off at once, drowning out her music in a screeching mess of sounds.
“Jane!” She shouted, pushing her chair back across the room and looking for the scatterbrained scientist, “Jane!”
Nothing.
Of course there was nothing, Jane wasn’t even there. She was in London looking after her mom, Eric was off being a super secret squirrel with Shield, and Darcy was alone with a gazillion dollars worth of weird equipment in the middle of the desert and it was all freaking bleeping.
“Shit.” She swore, head ringing as she flipped open the three inch thick binder Jane had left her, “shit.”
As far as she was concerned it was all in French, only not because Darcy understood French, this was in Klingon. Flicking the pages back and forth she cringed as the sounds got louder, “atmo-rig, locator point, pressure sensors, coffee machine, ughhhh what the hell!”
Grabbing her phone she hit speed dial.
“Come on, come on,” she muttered, hopping from foot to foot as it rang and rang, “answer your phone, Jane! Answer your damn phone!”
“The user you’re calling cannot be reached right now, please lea-”
“Damn!” She yelled, hanging up and whirling on the room again. The machines stared back at her defiantly, despite not having eyes, knowing very well that their existence was worth more to science than hers was.
If they blew up now they’d get lovingly repaired by Jane, she’d probably just get fired and flunk her college degree. She’d probably wind up living in a cardboard box in an alleyway somewhere begging strangers for their WiFi passwords.
Nope. It couldn’t happen. Darcy wouldn’t let it happen.
“Okay, you’ve been trained for this,” she murmured to herself, eyeing them up warily from her position, “you can’t let the robots win. You can never let the robots win.”
Sucking in a deep breath she launched herself forward, darting from one frankensteined monstrosity to next and flicking switches like an underpaid extra in a sci-fi series. She was three down before she started making sense of what she was seeing, scribbling down the results as she went.
The atmospheric pressure was going crazy, a series of anomalous results swirling around a familiar set of coordinates in the middle of the desert.
“Oh double shit.”
She’d been around astrophysicists long enough to recognise what it meant. Leaving the machines to scream she grabbed the keys from the side and ran for the door.
If they blew up she might get fired, if Jane found out she’d left her Viking god boy-toy in the middle of the desert all night she would definitely get fired.
Grumbling to herself Darcy threw the van into gear. Clouds had gathered, an ominous whirl of atmospheric fuckery that only got worse the further she drove. She gritted her teeth against it as, defying all evolutionary imperatives to the contrary, she drove directly into the storm.
A funnel was gathering, a tornado of energy plummeting into the sand and tossing a figure with it like a rag doll. Screeching to a halt she ducked out of the car, squinting her eyes against the sand being kicked up as she fought her way towards the source. Trust Thor to finally show up again the one time Jane wasn’t in the country.
That was… if it was Thor.
Oh no. She didn’t like that thought. She didn’t like that thought at all.
It barged in completely uninvited and kicked her in the metaphorical balls. It had to be Thor, right? He’d promised to come back after all, and this was exactly where he’d left them.
But then… but then what if it wasn’t?
What if she’d just gone rushing out into the desert like a crazy person after some new Asgardian weirdo? Or worse, another killer robot?
The memory choked her, the sand becoming smoke in her throat as she was forced to confront a super-evil that shouldn’t even have existed. Watching it toy with Thor and his buds like a cat with a mouse, burning down buildings like they were nothing.
And then when it had slapped Thor down…
She swallowed down bile, forcing herself to cage the memory even as her hand tightened on the taser she kept strapped to her side ever since The Asgardian Incident 1.0. She should have called Shield, that would have been the responsible, sensible, not-completely-idiotic thing to do, but it was too late now.
She was alone in the middle of the desert with something and she’d just have to woman up and face it.
Hey, she tried to console herself as she edged forward again, at least being murdered by aliens would make for a fun obituary.
“Please be Thor,” she whispered setting one foot in front of the other as her heart threatened to beat straight out of her chest, “please…”
The wind died down all at once. The clouds rumbling as they drew away, leaving a prone figure lying in the centre of a familiar crop circle. Sand circle. Whatever.
Long, pale fingered hands braced against the ground, a sharp planed face turning upwards as green eyes met hers.
Not Thor.
Definitely not Thor.
Not a giant robot though either, which was a comfort but yaknow, not much of one.
“Oh no.” She muttered as she held her taser even harder, embedding the grooves of the plastic into her skin like a scar, “who exactly are you meant to be?”
He blinked at her, holding her gaze for an endless unreadable moment before he sighed, “You really shouldn’t be here.”
His voice was lyrical and smooth, ringing in her ears as she stared at the stranger with absolute disbelief.
It couldn’t be.
Her wrist stung, the words she’d kept hidden there for as long as she remembered burning into her as her fingers clenched on instinct. Electricity crackled through the air, bright in the darkness as she tasered him.