Loki: Blueberries and Stitch

[moonshadows]

It was well past midnight again, and Loki was giving the room he’d privately labeled ‘the Avengers lounge’ a more thorough inspection when Clint Barton stepped out of the second hallway and leaned against the doorframe. There he stood, in camouflage-patterned pants and a plain black sleeveless shirt, holding a small box or carton of something Loki couldn’t quite make out.

“So,” the archer said in a manner that was not so much easing his way into a sentence as it was firing a verbal warning shot across the metaphoric bow of Loki’s ship, “I hear you’ve got a party trick.”

The Asgardian paced closer as Barton opened the container and lifted something to his lips, pausing to admire it before popping it into his mouth and chewing with obvious pleasure. “You could say that. It might even be marginally useful at a party, I suppose.”

“Better than Banner’s, at least.” A handful of whatever-they-were met their fate.

Loki finally got close enough to see that it was a package of fresh blueberries that Barton was devouring with such relish. “Less property damage, at least, although I’m not sure which would be more socially acceptable.”

“Don’t touch my blueberries,” Hawkeye snapped, suddenly territorial and protective of his dwindling trove.

“Isn’t that my line?” Loki countered sweetly.

With a surprisingly feral snarl, the archer retreated to devour berries in private.

So, Barton liked blueberries? Loki could work with that.

Three days later, sixteen pint containers of fresh, chilled blueberries mysteriously appeared in a neatly-stacked pile outside Barton’s door.

 

“If you’re going to be my wingman,” Tony Stark had said as he handed Loki a DVD, “you’re going to learn where the term came from. Watch that. I’ll be testing you tomorrow.”

Pleased that Stark seemed to be coming to terms with owning his loyalty, Loki prepared for the ritual of movie-watching. This meant a trip to his penthouse to collect the pizza that would be delivered shortly, a frosted mug for his Pepsi, and the powder-blue pajamas Darcy had given him. They were of the kind called “footie”, she’d informed him, and encased him seamlessly from toe to neck with a single zipper going up the front. Loki found them to be warm and comforting. Fortified and wearing the proper attire, he returned to the Avengers lounge to discharge the command his Eternal Companion had given him.

Steve Rogers had passed through the lounge on his way from the gym to bed, collecting a lukewarm slice of pizza and a plastic cup of Pepsi and watching for a few minutes before departing. None of the other Avengers made an appearance until the movie had ended and Loki was searching the kitchen area for plastic wrap or tinfoil for the last three slices of pizza.

“Looking for something?” Barton asked from the door, a smirk clearly audible in his tone.

“I have been informed that it is improper for pizza to go unprotected into the fridge,” Loki responded. “However, were someone to consume the last pieces, that would also be an acceptable solution to the problem.” When Loki turned around, the archer had two slices in one hand and was chewing on the third.

“So what’s with the kid pajamas?” he asked, gesturing with the half-eaten pizza. “Aren’t you a little old for footie PJs?”

Loki glanced down at himself, unbothered. “They were a gift from Darcy. It has been many, many years since my childhood, and we never had anything like this on Asgard. Perhaps you had ample opportunity to indulge in such things as a child-”

Not really, Barton’s heart grumbled.

“-but I have not, so I am making up for lost time and putting a gift from a friend to good use.” He held out the nearly-empty plastic bottle. “Pepsi?”

“Nah. I’m good. Enjoy your, uh…” He gestured with the pizza, then stuffed half the slice into his mouth and beat a graceful retreat.

Two days after that, a two-foot plush toy of a cuddly, frosty-blue six-armed alien with a large mouth and larger ears appeared outside Loki’s door, an empty blueberry carton stuffed into its cuddly embrace. Fitting, he thought as he hefted the gift and found it remarkably comforting to hold. The confirmation that he’d won forgiveness for having violated Barton’s mind was another entry of red ink crossed out with black, an enemy of circumstance converted to an ally. Lighthearted, went back into his suite and sat the plush creature on the table where it could watch the cat-shaped chia pet sitting beneath a sun lamp, fur just starting to sprout.

 

Tony Stark sauntered into the lounge as if he owned the building. Before he could do more than look around, though, Loki stepped away from the wall where he’d been waiting.

“Hey, just the guy I wanted to see. Did you watch…?”

Loki stared silently, expression bordering on hostile, for just long enough that Tony began to wonder what was wrong. Suddenly, the grim expression thawed and the Asgardian smiled broadly before giving his Eternal Companion a manly, back-slapping hug.

Stark laughed as they stepped back. “Well, I guess that answers that. Now for your test.”

“You may not call me Iceman,” Loki declared.

“What? Why not?” He pulled his most successful pair of puppy eyes. “Aren’t you my wingman?”

“If course I am,” the taller man said with a grin, “but I already have a call sign, one you gave me upon our first meeting.”

“Reindeer Games?” Stark gestured in overdone disbelief. “You’re seriously going to let me keep calling you that?”

Loki’s expressive eyebrows arched in false surprise. “Yes.”

Tony gestured as he sat down in one of the chairs. “Okay, hold on, back that up. Why?”

“Because it symbolizes inclusion.” He shrugged, sinking down onto the arm of the couch. “It was because of me that the Avengers came to be a team, and now I am a member of that team. A team which accepts my abilities and values them, a team in which I am not merely tolerated as the tag-along.”

The billionaire genius stared at him for a long minute. “Your brother and his little friends only grudgingly let you play their reindeer games? Seriously?”

“Some do battle, others just do tricks,” Loki said in a mildly bitter sing-song.

“Yeah, you know what? They can go fuck themselves, because you’re mine now.” Stark’s mouth was a grim line. “And none of us would be here without your tricks, except maybe Banner, so tough shit for them. I’m going to live to a hundred and twenty just to rub it in that they have to do without your tricks until I finally kick it. Also, I reserve the right to call you Bluebell.”

The abrupt change of subject caught Loki off-guard, and he laughed. “Fair enough.”

“Great.” Tony clapped his hands and stood in the same motion. “Let’s get you over to Stark Tower, I want to talk with Pepper about getting you on the payroll in some capacity.”

Loki stood more slowly. “Why?”

“Because between your brain and my brain, we’re going to turn things upside-down and I don’t want there to be any messy patent squabbles. So. You’re going to work for me, officially, and that way it’ll be easier to draft press releases. ‘Tony Stark and Loki Odinson of Stark Industries’ has a nicer ring to it than ‘Tony Stark of Stark Industries and Loki Odinson’, don’t you think? Plus, it’ll be easier to explain your presence if you do the bodyguard thing for Pepper again. And also, you’ll be invited to the company Christmas party.”

“Well,” the Asgardian purred, “I would hate to miss out on the company Christmas party.”

“Glad that’s settled. Ready to go?”

“Your DVD-”

“Your DVD. Your copy. Bought it for you.”

Loki smiled. “I’m ready; let’s go.”

 

Two weeks after Loki’s redemption, a week and a half after Thor had been summoned back to Asgard again, the younger Son of Odin found himself with a problem that, to the best of his knowledge, was unique to him.

He was afraid to sleep.

Not that he slept, really. Not as others did. But two or three times per month, his body required the restorative peace of Jotunsleep. This would not be an issue if he had been raised with the knowledge of this physiological quirk, but his most vivid memory of childhood was feeling his own heart stop, his lungs compress, his vision go dark as frigid water closed over his head. Now, at least, he understood why his body did that – but it didn’t erase the primal, visceral childhood fear that he was dying. Normally, he would pick a fight somewhere, exhaust himself, and fall into near-death with relief. But not now, not since his honor had been cleansed and his life belonged to Tony Stark. So he gave up trying to sleep in his penthouse and followed the well-worn spellpath to SHIELD, but the bed set aside for his use felt even less like a place he could relax. He thought of the security of his deep containment cell, but the craving for companionship was too strong. In the end, he grabbed the blue plush toy that had mysteriously been left outside his door a few days ago and curled up on the couch with a random movie playing.

Ten hours later his lungs heaved, his heart raced, and he became aware that someone had draped a blanket over him. Reflexively, he pulled the warm cloth tighter before realizing that the cloth really was warm. Tiny wires ran through the fabric, generating heat that comforted him as nothing had save Thor’s bulk. As he sat slowly up and looked around, it occurred to him that Steve Rogers had likely been the one to drape the blanket on him, judging from how tired he looked as he sat on a nearby chair.

“Morning, Loki,” Rogers said with a friendly nod.

Loki frowned. “Are you well?”

I thought you were… Steve’s heart whispered.

“You were concerned for me.” Surely, the phenomenon of Jotunsleep had been on his medical record…? Ah, but the good Captain was not on the best of terms with technology, nor would he pry without cause into another man’s secrets. “I should have made sure everyone was aware of my…I’m sorry.”

Rogers waved the issue away. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” Loki said quietly. “I worried you. Let me make it up to you somehow.”

“It’s fine,” he repeated in a firm tone of voice. “You’re okay, I know now that you do that, it’s fine.”

“It’s red in my ledger, Steve. It will continue to bother me until I wipe it out. Let me make it up to you.”

Captain America stared at him for a long moment before nodding. “Alright. How about you start by telling me exactly what happened, and what needs to happen in the future.”

Loki’s pale eyes dropped to the warm cloth draped around him. “I don’t sleep. Not like you do. Every other week or so, I require rest, but the way I accomplish that… ‘The Jotuns do not sleep as we do. They sit, and they become as ice.’ That’s what I learned, as a child. But I didn’t know it applied to me. Somehow, I never made the connection between that, and the fact that I never dreamed as others do, that I always woke up cold no matter how many blankets or furs I bundled myself in. Thor and I shared a room until he was ten, and I was six. The winter that I was five, we went playing on a frozen pond, but the ice was thin. It broke, and I fell in. Thor dragged me out, but my skin was blue…my heart had all but stopped, and I wasn’t breathing. He was afraid he’d killed me, Mother and Father were frantic, and for months after I would have panic attacks in the night when I started to drift off. I know, now, that it was Jotunsleep. That my heartbeat slows to a dozen beats a minute or less, that my lungs compress and my temperature drops. But at the time, every night...” Slowly, he raised his eyes to Steve’s understanding blue ones. “When we were little, I would crawl into Thor’s bed. The heat of his body reassured me; as long as I could feel his warmth, I knew I wasn’t dying.”

Steve looked alarmed at that. “Keep the electric blanket, if you think it will help you sl- help you rest.”

“Thank you.” He huddled deeper into the folds of the blanket. “Even a thousand years later, it is a hard fear to shake. If my body shuts down before my mind does, I am aware of my heart stopping.”

“I wouldn’t be comfortable with that, either,” the Captain replied evenly. “That explains the movie, then, right? Distract your mind.”

Loki nodded.

“So, you a fan of Lilo and Stitch?” At the Asgardian’s confused look, Steve nodded at the plush toy. “That’s Stitch. Have you seen the movie he’s from?”

“I have not,” Loki said slowly.

Captain America stood and rubbed his hands briskly. “Okay. Unless you have something really pressing on your schedule…? No? Great. Get comfortable, because we’re watching a movie. I think you’ll really like it. Just hold on a minute…”

Bemused, Loki waited while Steve darted out of the room, then returned moments later with a DVD case. While the previews were playing, he popped popcorn and dumped it into a bowl and returned just in time to select ‘play’ from the menu. Comforted by the heat of the electric blanket and the soft shape of Stitch in his arms, the half-Jotun settled in for the sacred ritual of movie-watching, secretly thrilled to be bonding in this way with the man he would have been honored to call ‘brother’.