Chapter Text
His hand was blue.
Not black and brittle with frostbite as Volstagg’s had been. But the smooth, cool, cerulean blue of their enemies. Of the Frost Giants.
Thor and the Allfather were enraged with one another. Neither took any notice of the younger prince. Little Loki, always in the shadows. Always secondary to Thor’s thunderous glory. Perhaps now he knew why.
“You are a vain, greedy, cruel boy!”
He could feel it, now that he knew it was there. It was like the feeling of ice cold water pouring down his throat and flooding his chest on a hot summer day.
“And you are an old man and a fool!”
Loki opened himself to it. Allowed the coolness to creep up his forearm. Through his veins. Overtaking him entirely.
“Yes. I was a fool. To think you were ready.”
As the cold spread, so did fear. An anguished fear at what answer he may receive for the question he was terrified to ask.
“Am I cursed?” Loki’s voice was a weak, trembling whisper amidst the booming voices of his kin, but it cut through the chamber like daggers of ice. At last, Thor was shocked into silence as Odin finally looked upon his youngest son.
“Loki, what trickery is this?” Thor sputtered, desperate to deny any truth to Loki’s monstrous new form.
The Allfather took a step down from the dais, looking upon the young Jotun before him with more sadness and shame than Loki had ever beheld on the face of his father.
“I’m not your son, am I?” whispered Loki in a shocked monotone, “I’m…one of them. No more than another stolen relic.”
“You are my son, Loki,” insisted Odin, crossing the distance between them and gripping Loki’s forearm, “I wanted only to protect you from the truth.” The Allfather’s warmth seemed to melt Loki’s frozen exterior, fading away the blue to reveal the pale Aesir beneath. Or rather, it must be the other way around, Loki mused darkly.
“Because I’m the monster parents tell their children about at night?” Loki shouted, ripping his arm from his false father’s grip and turning to face Thor, desperate for an ally in his feelings of betrayal. The God of Thunder refused to meet his eye.
Oh .
A frigid fury began to build within Loki, and he found himself desiring nothing more than for the Allfather to hurt just as he did. And he had the perfect poison for the job.
“Thor is right. You are a fool. Who else would willingly let a beast such as I into their home? Who else could be so blind to the treachery within their very own household?”
Odin’s eyes shot to Loki’s with dismay as he realized the truth behind those words. Thor, never one for subtlety, demanded, “What lies do you spin now, brother? Speak plainly!”
“Very well, allow me to make it perfectly clear to you, brother ,” Loki didn’t miss how Thor winced at the vitriol in his voice, nor that his brother still couldn’t meet his eye, “It was I who ruined your precious coronation. I allowed the Frost Giants into Asgard. I stopped the Allfather from allowing this realm to be ruled by such a buffoon as you, and it was my silver tongue that manipulated you into seeking vengeance on Jotunheim. Irony certainly is a cruel mistress, isn’t she, Father ?”
Loki stopped short as he turned back to look at Odin and saw the change in the Allfather’s demeanor. Gone was the guilt. Gone was any hint of pain or sorrow. Gone was everything but the cold, distant gaze of a king preparing to deliver a sentence.
Loki had just confessed to treachery in the highest degree. Loki had gone too far.
“You have betrayed and endangered all of Asgard this day, Loki Odinson. Your mischief and lies have wreaked irreparable havoc on our people. You are unworthy of these realms you would claim to protect. You are unworthy of the loved ones you have betrayed. That which the Allmother nurtured in you has become a tool for destruction. I now take from you your power.”
At those words, Loki felt his seidr implode as if sucked into a black hole at his very core, locking away far from his reach and leaving him powerless. Mortal. Nothing . Discovering his true heritage had been horrifying. This was death itself.
“Until the day you can bear it with honor and purpose beyond yourself, you shall not have it again. In the name of my father and his father before, I - Odin Allfather - cast you out!”
The last thing Loki saw as he was flung into the Bifrost was the only father he ever knew, turning his back on him.
Parents sucked.
At least, Darcy’s did. Currently. Normally she was a big fan of the whole mom-and-dad-are-my-best-friends schtick, but right now she had them both thoroughly in the doghouse. Unfortunately, rebellion of the drinking and partying variety wasn’t Darcy’s thing either, giving her limited options for how to deal over summer vacation.
So, she ended up here somehow. Careening across the New Mexico desert with two astrophysicists from Culver University in what felt like a scene straight out of Storm Chasers. Or maybe, in this particular moment, Wizard of Oz. This storm was weird .
Darcy was good with weird.
What Darcy was decidedly not good with was finding out at 22 years old that she’s adopted . Not cool, parents. Hence the sucking.
“So why exactly are we off-roading in the middle of the trippiest desert storm ever?” Darcy shouted over the loud engine and crashing thunder.
“I thought you were a science major?” replied Dr. Selvig in a surprisingly level voice considering his associate’s reckless driving.
“Political science,” Darcy responded, popping her earbud back in her ear and cranking the volume on her ipod as Jane mumbled something about her being the only applicant. Nothing like a little Joan Jett to take the edge off, right?
A particularly blinding flash of lightning brought Darcy’s eyes back up to the dash just in time to see a man standing directly in the path of the speeding van.
“Jane! Look out!”
All three scientists—political and otherwise—shrieked as Jane ground her heel into the brake. The headlights illuminated a pair of haunted green eyes before colliding with the figure in a sickening thump . There was a brief moment of stunned silence before Darcy scrambled out of the car, followed by Jane and Erik in rapid succession.
The mysterious man was already pushing himself up to a seated position, looking irritated and impossibly uninjured. His ink black hair was for the most part slicked back with intention, though a few strands were hanging loose across his face. He wore green leather with golden metal accents—that wasn’t real gold, was it?—and looked like he’d just come from a really dedicated larping match. Or Comic Con or…something.
“Do you need CPR? Because I totally know CPR,” Darcy blurted without thinking. Internally, she was facepalming so hard her ego was thoroughly bruised. Who says that to a strange guy you just participated in hitting with a car? Smooth, Darce.
The man turned to look sharply at Darcy with a pretentious, irritated glare that instantly bristled any embarrassment Darcy had been feeling. Anyone who could emit so much distaste with a single look was clearly entitled.
Jane rushed over to the man’s side before the interaction could go any further, babbling, “Please do me a favor and don’t be seriously hurt! I’m so sorry!” Jane reached to grasp the stranger’s forearm and help him up, but before she could so much as touch him, the man leapt to his feet, arms outstretched in a decidedly aggressive gesture.
Seemingly realizing nothing was going to happen—what did he expect, lasers to shoot from his eyes?—the man instead warned, “You would do well to keep your distance, mortal .”
Of course Jane, assured that the man was at least physically okay, was already back in science-mode and studying the strange markings on the ground. “Erik, take a look at this! We have to move quickly before this all changes!”
“Shouldn’t we get this guy to a hospital first? I mean, he just called you a ‘mortal.’ Sounds like a concussion to me,” mumbled Darcy, watching the stranger warily.
As if sensing her attention on him, cosplay-guy demanded, “Tell me, female, what realm is this?”
“Uuuuh…New Mexico?” Darcy attempted to answer, fumbling to pull her taser from her pocket as he bore down on her.
With renewed disgust, the man snarled, “You dare to threaten Loki Odinson with so puny a weapon? You would dare —”
Darcy tased him.
“What?” she defended as Erik and Jane turned to her in shock, “He was freaking me out!”
Loki awoke to blindingly bright lights in an unnaturally white room. There was a man typing on a computer nearby garbed in a matching pale blue top and pants. He hadn’t noticed Loki’s stirring yet, giving the young god a chance to take in his surroundings uninterrupted.
He was lying on a bed as pure white as the walls and ceiling. His armor was gone, replaced by a paper-thin gown and a strange band around his wrist that was attached to a large beeping contraption. The far wall of the room was almost entirely made of glass, and he could see a number of other mortals dressed similar to his companion walking by without so much as glancing at him. Occasionally, one of these would be accompanied by another mortal in a paper gown similar to Loki’s—all of these evidently unwell or injured in some fashion.
A center of healing, then.
Based on the mortality so graciously thrust upon him by Odin—not to mention the aesir-like appearance of the other mortals—Loki conjectured he was on Midgard. Earth , as the locals liked to call it. Although prone to exploring the realms in his youth, Midgard was one he had never found particularly worth his time beyond some light reading when he was especially bored. The last time he was on Midgard was perhaps 40 years ago, and then only because he lost a bet to Thor.
Loki still felt the ice in his veins that spoke of his true heritage, but could draw upon it no more than he could his own seidr. It would seem Odin had permanently bound him in this now-mortal Aesir form. He could have been bound in his true form, he supposed. Small mercies.
“Hi there,” the mortal spoke kindly, finally realizing Loki was awake and approaching his bed with a small needle in hand, “Just going to take a little blood if that’s alright.”
The time of observation was over. Powers or not, Loki was still the god of mischief and lies. If anyone could manipulate these foolish mortals into doing his bidding, it was Loki.
“I am afraid that is not alright,” Loki responded stiffly, moving his arm away from the man’s reach.
“Oh, um, okay then,” the man stuttered, clearly not expecting Loki’s resistance, “I’ll just, uh, go get the doctor then.”
“That will not be necessary,” Loki stated with calm authority, “Simply retrieve my belongings and I will be on my way.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Mr. Odinson,” rambled the increasingly nervous healer, “You were in a serious accident and we’d like to run some tests before—”
“Is it common practice on your planet to hold your patients hostage when they refuse treatment?” questioned Loki, raising an eyebrow in apparent distaste.
“On my planet?” the man stared at Loki in bewilderment, but quickly schooled his features when he received only a cold glare in return, “I mean, no! No, of course not. If you’re sure…I’ll just, um…go find your things.”
“Yes, you shall,” declared Loki, glad at least one of his many talents wasn’t inextricably tied to his seidr. He watched as the healer stumbled out into the hallway, unfortunately taking the needle with him. Though meager, it would have been nice to have some sort of weapon in the event of resistance. For the first time since he learned the skill, Loki regretted keeping his daggers stored away in his now inaccessible pocket dimension.
Tentatively, Loki reached deep within his core to where he still felt the faint hum of his power. It was condensed and choked into a cage at his very center, flickering faintly and cowering like a wounded animal. Loki attempted to coax it out—and immediately felt such immense pain it was like standing in a pit of fire. He felt seared to the bone, and it took all his willpower not to cry out and draw undue attention to himself as he quickly pulled back from his seidr, abandoning it to the darkness once more.
To take a god’s immortality was one thing. But to bind the power of a sorcerer—to seal away such an integral part of one’s self…Loki had never known Odin to be cruel, but in this he believed he understood a glimpse of the God of War the Allfather had once been.
Eventually, the healer returned, awkwardly carrying Loki’s Asgardian leathers and followed by a woman in a long white coat. “Good afternoon, Mr. Odinson,” said the woman, flipping through the papers in her hand and not so much as glancing at him, “My name is Dr. Shafer. Your nurse tells me you would like to refuse treatment, is that correct?”
“As you can see, Healer, I am perfectly well. I would appreciate the swift return of my belongings so I may dress and be on my way.”
“Yes, well, your vitals appear strong—those we were able to check, anyway. Your heart rate appears a bit slow, but considering you were recently through a rather traumatic event it’s not entirely surprising. You’ll just need to sign this release, agreeing to follow up with your primary care physician within a week, and you’re free to go.”
Loki snatched the writing implement from her outstretched hand and scrawled his name on the paper she indicated. He thought briefly about using a pseudonym, but decided it would cause more harm than good. Clearly, his attackers had already identified him to the healers, so lying would only lead to further confusion and explanations.
Sometimes the best lie was the truth.
At long last, Loki found himself dressed in his armor and standing under the blazing Midgardian sun outside of the healing facility. Now what? Robbed of his seidr, Loki did the only thing his newly-mortal body could. He walked.