Loki: Science

[moonshadows]

As Fury left the room, the Avengers tossed uncertain looks at each other.

“Okay,” said Tony, “what now?”

“Clint and I were in the middle of a patrol.” Natasha stood up, clapped Hawkeye on the shoulder, and headed for the other door. Hawkeye stood, gave Stark a nod, and followed.

“Right. Bruce, science?”

The smaller man grinned. “Science.”

“Okay. We’re going to go do science. Loki, you’re with us.”

Startled, Loki unfolded himself from the couch and followed the two scientists warily. It wasn’t that he expected to be hurt, of course, but having lived the lie for so long and having it shattered left him a bit…exposed. He trusted Banner. Stark owned his allegiance. He liked both men, and they liked him. But all he had to do was glance at Thor to be reminded of how the deepest wounds could be inflicted by someone who would never knowingly cause them.

Behind him, he could hear Steve distract Thor by suggesting they spar, and then the door closed and he was following the other two through a hallway, and elevator, another hallway, and then into an enormous room that he recognized from scrying on Banner through his own reflection. Instead of heading to a piece of equipment or a workstation, however, Banner and Stark were weaving their way over to a collection of battered armchairs clustered around a small, round table and waving at him to come over and have a seat.

“I thought we were doing science,” he said warily as he lowered himself into a frayed chair upholstered in a dark, tacky orange.

“Well, we are. Later.” Tony made a see-sawing gesture.

Banner grinned from his aqua perch. “First we have to gather data.”

Loki’s eyebrows climbed. “From me.”

“Well, you’ve been hiding your party trick from us, so naturally we’re curious.” Tony lounged unrepentantly in a lurid purple chair, arc reactor glowing through his tee-shirt.

“I understand that you’re not very comfortable with it yet,” Banner said soothingly, “and I know why. But it’s okay. We’re not from Asgard. We don’t care about what Asgardians might think. We want to know more about you, because I consider you a friend and Tony’s, well, Tony. You’re one of the few people who’s not afraid of The Other Guy, and he considers you a friend, too. Let me repay some of that debt by returning the favor and accepting you for who and what you are.”

Stark stared at the smaller man in awe. “Have you been practicing that? That was amazing. Yeah. What he said. I don’t give a damn what your people think, I wouldn’t have hauled your ass all the way back here if I didn’t think who you were was more important than what you’d done.” He snapped his fingers. “So make with the blue, okay? Okay.”

The flippant comment startled Loki into laughing and, somehow, reinforced everything Banner had said. Tony was Tony; he didn’t sugar-coat the truth and he didn’t bother with subtlety all the time, and he certainly didn’t take the effort to lie when he could feint with his charm instead. He closed his eyes, focusing on the cold, the frost, remembering the Jotun who’d grabbed him and stripped the veil of ignorance from his eyes. When he felt the crystalline perfection of harmony with the Casket, he opened his blood-red eyes and looked at Banner and Stark. They were staring at him, but with the hungry curiosity of inquisitive minds presented with something new.

“Look at his eyes-”

“-no iris-”

“-dilate at all?”

“I have a light.”

Amused despite himself at the surreality of the stuation, Loki stared at the tiny flashlight as it went back and forth, up and down, testing how his eyes worked. He submitted to having his hands and nails examined, skin pricked and prodded. Blood was drawn, his temperature taken, teeth examined as if he had been a horse they were inspecting. That thought made him smile, bringing memories of being pregnant with Sleipnir. Slowly, his apprehension eased as their scientific enthusiasm infected him. Did he weigh more as a Jotun? Did minor injuries carry over? Was his hair the same, did samples revert when he did? Heart rate. Blood pressure. Everything that could empirically be learned about his two forms through simple experiments, was. Finally, Loki called a halt.

“No more,” he said wearily, holding one hand up in a warding gesture.

Stark froze. “Too much?”

“It’s hard for me to hold that if I’m not surrounded by ice.”

“Yeah, what do we call that, anyway?” Tony laid down the piece of equipment he’d been holding. “Jotun form? Jotun state? If we need you to get blue, what should we say?”

Loki closed his eyes for a long moment, wrestling with strange acceptance. “I don’t want to separate it from my normal state,” he said quietly. “It’s a part of me; of what I am. I don’t cease to be Loki when I embrace the other part of my heritage, I just…” One hand flailed vaguely as he opened his eyes, looking back and forth between the calm Stark and the sympathetic Banner. “Laufeyson,” he said, tasting the word. “I am Loki Odinson, but I am also Loki Laufeyson.”

The smaller man nodded, eyes warm with support and understanding. Stark crossed his arms and regarded the Asgardian thoughtfully.

“So, ‘we need Laufeyson’, ‘Laufeyson, get up here’…actually, I’m trying to think of a situation where we’d need you to be Loki Laufeyson. Help me out?”

Loki took a deep breath, reaching for the Casket, feeling its perfect chill fill him. With one hand he tossed a screwdriver in the air; with the other, he shot a bolt of magic that encased it in ice. It dropped to the floor, still firmly covered in the magically hard substance, and Loki released his hold on the Casket, breathing heavily.

Tony Stark stared at him. “Okay, ice. Yeah. I can see where that could be useful. Assuming it doesn’t wipe you out to use.”

“Are you okay?” Banner asked, but the hesitant tone of his words suggested it wasn’t Loki’s physical health he was worried about.

“I will need to practice if I am to be of any use in this regard.”

“Hey, hey, hey.” Tony frowned. “Who said anything about you needing to be useful? Right, I did. Sorry. I just don’t want you, y’know, trying to pin your sense of self-worth on how useful you are, okay?”

Loki waved the concern away with a tired smile. “I have shunned my other side for too long, out of shame and the fear of discovery. Now that my secret has been laid bare for all to see, it behooves me to master it as I would any other skill. To do any less would bring dishonor upon your name, and mine, and the House of Odin.”

“Clever,” Bruce murmured. He knelt to pick up the screwdriver, hissing at the cold and setting it swiftly on the counter behind him. “Tony, hand me those tongs? I want to see how hard this is. It doesn’t seem to be melting.”

“The frostgiants use it to make their hands into weapons,” offered Loki. “They were a significant threat despite Asgardian armor. A solid strike will shatter it, but…” He shrugged. “I only ever saw them in action after the Casket was taken from them. I do not know if being denied the source of their power weakened them at all. I did perform a few experiments, and the ice seems to last a limited amount of time before the magic fades and it shatters of its own accord.”

“Casket?” Bruce looked up from his examination of the ice. “What Casket?”

“The Casket of Ancient Winters. It is the source of the frostgiants’ power, and without it, they are a race with no hope.”

“Right, because they imprint on it, and your imprinting was interrupted.” Stark paused. “Do you resent that?”

“No,” said Loki, startled. “Why would I? Because it hampered my Jotun powers, and I cannot freeze your flesh with a touch? I have been to Jotunheim, and I have seen into Laufey’s heart. I will not deny that my childhood had its bad moments, or claim that the Allfather was a perfect parent to me, but my upbringing was full of life, and warmth, and happiness, and I would not trade that for all the power in the nine realms.” His voice trembled with conviction, and Tony’s eyebrows shot up.

“Easy there, Bluebell. I can see you love your dad, and a part of me’s kinda envious. It was just a question. Back to the Casket. You use that to create your ice, or can you do it on your own?”

“I do not know if I will ever be able to create ice without calling on the Casket.”

“That means you have it.”

Loki tilted his head to one side and flashed Stark a smile. “Surely you don’t think I did all of that by myself, during our fight.”

“No, no I really didn’t. So you’ve got the Casket stashed somewhere.”

“I do.”

“Can I see it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“For the same reasons that Thor does not allow you to examine Mjolnir,” Loki said calmly.

Stark thought about that. “Fair enough.”