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Loki steps away from where the Bifröst deposited him and turns slowly, taking in his surroundings.
Not much has changed on Jötunheim since his last visit: it is still cold, dark, miserable, and desolate.
An icy wind blows across this open area, whipping his emerald cape around him and lifting his long hair from his shoulders.
Despite the fact that his armor and helmet are his only protection from the freezing conditions, he barely feels the cold. He suspects that if he were to shift to his Jötun form, he wouldn’t feel it at all.
Truly, I belong here, he thinks, and his smile is as bitter as the cold.
Suddenly there’s a strange buzzing sound. It takes him a moment to place it, and then he reaches for the phone that Stark’s messenger had given him earlier.
Tony Stark would like FaceTime… Decline/Accept the small screen says, showing a picture of Stark’s face.
He touches “Accept” and the screen changes, the frozen picture of Stark coming to life.
“Hey, where are you? Shit, it’s dark there!”
“Welcome to Jötunheim, Stark. As you can see, it is not lovely here this time of year… or at all, really.”
Stark laughs. “So, you’re not gonna hit the beach later?”
Loki snorts. “No. And I believe I shall give the sightseeing a pass as well.”
“From what I can see, it doesn’t look like there’re many sights to see there.”
“None worth seeing,” Loki agrees. “Unless one has a fondness for snow and ruins.”
“Didja find the bitch yet?”
Loki sighs. “I’ve only just arrived, Stark.”
“Oh. Well… keep us posted, I guess. Hey, Pepper called and told me to remind you again not to insult anyone or lose your temper and kill people.” He shrugs. “But I say go for it, especially the insulting people part. That one’s kinda my personal favorite!”
Loki laughs. “I shall take that under advisement.”
As he puts the phone away, he sees two Jötunar approaching and moves forward to meet them.
“State your business, Asgardian,” one of them demands. The other is brandishing an ice spear menacingly.
“I would have words with Angrboða,” Loki replies.
The two giants exchange looks.
“Interesting,” the second Jötun – the one with the spear – says. “Who are you, Asgardian, to come here and make demands of us?”
“I am Loki, Prince of Asgard.”
The first Jötun laughs.
“What business have you with the Mother of Monsters, little halfling bastard?” the second giant smirks.
“That is none of your affair,” Loki replies coldly. “And you will keep a civil tongue in your head when you address me, you filthy creature, for I am both a Prince of Asgard and Laufey’s only heir – legitimate or otherwise – and I may just take it into my head to come back here and claim my throne one day.”
The two giants exchange another look.
“Very well. We will show you where Angrboða dwells, Your Little Halfling Majesty.”
“And whatever follows…” the second giant shrugs. “Know that you have brought it upon your own head.”
Loki nods once, curtly. “That is acceptable.”
“Then follow,” the first giant says, and begins to walk away without another word.
Tony’s in his workshop looking at specs for a new set of armor.
The Spencer Davis Group is blaring from the speakers and Stevie Winwood is wailing “You gotta gimme some-a-lovin’, gimme some-a-lovin’, gimme some-a-lovin’ every day!”.
“Fury’s right, this is an incredible song,” Tony mutters. And then, “JARVIS, let’s see about reinforcing the helmet without sacrificing aerodynamics or adding any extra weight.”
“Yes, sir.”
On the speakers, Stevie’s playing the shit out of that Hammond organ, totally making it his bitch and Tony studies the screen showing JARVIS’s analysis and he feels himself getting into the zone.
“Sir,” JARVIS interrupts. “Miss Lokidóttir is here.”
Tony looks up to see Hel standing by one of the other workbenches. She’s in her outfit from last night – the black jeans, black turtleneck, little black gloves, and black Iron Man shirt – and once again Tony has to remind himself not to stare at her legs.
And Stevie’s still wailing: “Well I feel so good, everything is kinda hot, you better take it easy ‘cause the place is on fire – ”
“Kill the music, JARVIS.”
“Am I intruding?” Hel asks quietly, biting her lip.
“No. God no. I’m just fu… playing with new armor designs.”
“Oh.”
“You… uh… want…”
No, wait, he thinks. Better not offer her a drink… not unless I want another impromptu Katy Perry concert in my lap.
Not that a lapful of Hel would be the worst thing ever…
Loki’s daughter! he reminds himself, and resolutely kills all thoughts of Hel in his lap before they can gain any traction.
“Do you want to go upstairs?” he blurts out. Jesus, that sounds really bad!
She comes over to his desk and looks down at him with hooded emerald eyes so much like her father’s.
“Whatever you desire, Tony,” she murmurs.
Oh, shit.
“Yeah, OK,” he says, and he’s suddenly talking way too fast. “We’ll go upstairs to the living room with everyone else and we’ll have some of that nice grape soda that Steve likes. Sound good?”
She smiles, and her whole face lights up.
“Yes, Tony. That sounds wonderful!”
Loki follows his two reluctant guides through the frozen ruins of Jötunheim.
As he walks, he thinks of home… Asgard.
At the Yule Dance, Loki stood against the wall watching Thor dance with Sif… or rather, trying not to tread on Sif’s feet too badly.
Loki encountered her in the hallway later, outside his quarters.
“I hope your feet aren’t injured too badly,” he said with a nasty little smile.
“My feet are fine. Thank you for your concern.”
She tried to move past him, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm.
She looked at his hand and then up at him.
“Keep your filthy hands off me, Liesmith,” she spat with utter contempt.
“As my lady desires,” he replied scornfully, releasing her arm and backing away.
And then she grabbed the front of his fancy robes and pulled him against her and he pushed her into his quarters and shut the door behind them and his hands were everywhere…
Two memories of Sigyn, like bookends.
One:
Alone together in their bedchamber.
Loki sat on their bed, weeping inconsolably as Sigyn cradled his head against her chest and whispered what comforting nonsense he knew not.
Odin had cast out his children, his triplets… had named them monsters and cast them out.
They were a Frost Giant’s get and not fit for the halls of Asgard.
At the time, Loki was unaware of his own origins.
Loki knows now that Thor could sire a hundred monsters on a hundred Frost Giants and Odin would welcome every single one of them to his loving bosom, for they would be his own flesh and blood.
The knowledge is bitter, bitter as the cold in this lonely, ruined, forsaken place.
Two:
Alone together, in their bedchamber.
Sigyn was sprawled face down on their bed, great wracking sobs shaking her body.
Loki stood over her, watching, unable to offer comfort.
He was the cause of her pain, after all.
The latest nightmare she had birthed had been a screaming, half-formed thing with too many limbs and no eyes… at least not where eyes should be.
Had it not died on its own… Loki still doesn’t want to think about that.
The next day, Sigyn was gone.
Loki continues following the giants through the cold.
For all that he doesn’t belong on Asgard, he knows that he doesn’t belong here, either.
Though he is the rightful king of this place, Jötunheim is no more his home than Midgard… perhaps even less so, for at least on Midgard he has Pepper, he has friends –
Friends?
He considers this for a moment, turning the thought over in his mind.
His “friends” on Asgard had been Thor’s friends: Sif and the Warriors Three, who had tolerated the strange, quiet, scholarly second Prince of Asgard for Thor’s sake rather than any great liking of Loki’s company.
Sif had scorned him publically while privately coming to him whenever desiring a certain sort of entertainment. Apparently, here at last was one area where Loki excelled over his golden but rather clumsy and often thoughtless older brother.
The Warriors Three… well, their “clever” teasing hid the truth of their feelings for him in jest. Or rather, did not hide them at all; Loki knew well they had nothing but contempt for the weakling who preferred books and knowledge to armor and weaponry.
But on Midgard…
The Black Widow is not his friend… that much is certain.
Still, she counts him as a worthy adversary and treats him with respect. She does not seek to “hide” her true feelings behind childish jibes. She is open and honest about her distrust, an honesty that the God of Lies finds strangely refreshing.
Captain America is an innocent from another age.
He believes that people will do the right thing if given the chance, and that – despite the horrors he has seen – true evil is a relatively rare thing. His naïveté is both touching and frustrating in turns… and it is the reason that despite all, he seems willing to accept Loki’s help at face value whenever it is offered.
The Hawk… well, Loki is still uncertain of the Hawk.
But he does treat Hel with the utmost kindness and courtesy, this despite the fact that her father once controlled his mind and forced him to acts that he counts as abominations. Surely that says something about the Hawk’s character.
The Bea… the Hulk.
Or rather, Bruce.
One of the two people who has ever tried to help any of his children. And despite everything, he seems to bear Loki no ill will. His intelligence, kindness, and compassion stand in stark contrast to the mindless beast trapped inside that he cannot control.
And speaking of Stark…
Hel’s words to Stark in his hospital room come back to Loki unbidden: You are his true and loyal friend, she had told him. At the time, it had not been so.
But now?
Perhaps Hel had been scrying, had seen what would come to pass.
Stark, the only other person who had ever tried to help one of Loki’s children… and who has done so much already that Loki feels he will never be able to repay this debt.
Not that Stark would ever ask.
Like the Warriors Three, Stark teases too.
But unlike the Warriors, Stark’s teasing has gone from vicious, pointed barbs to something that’s almost affectionate.
And Stark teases everyone: he teases Bruce about the Other Guy, he teases Captain America about his innocence, he teases the Hawk about his aim (“Just don’t shoot yourself in the foot… how embarrassing would that be?”) and he asks Thor, “How’s your hammer, big guy?” and laughs (but not unkindly) when the innuendo escapes the thunder god. He even teases the Widow, calling her “my most deadly love”.
So Loki was not surprised when he received the iPhone from Stark’s messenger earlier and found that the ringback tone for Jötunheim is a song called “Take Me Home”, the ringback tone for Asgard is a song called “The Bitch Is Back”, the ringback tone for Midgard is a song called “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”, and the web browser’s default page upon opening is an agency specializing in planning ski vacations.
And then there’s Pepper.
Pepper who went from fearing him to accepting him to loving him.
Pepper who doesn’t care about his true heritage except for how much it obviously eats at him, how much pain it causes him. She doesn’t care that he doesn’t have a throne he can offer her (aside from Jötunheim, of course – and that’s a throne that even he doesn’t want) or that he is only the second prince, and adopted at that.
None of that matters to her.
Pepper accepts him for who he is, and thus he finds himself striving to be the person that she knows he can be.
And last, Thor.
Hated. Adored.
The golden older brother Loki had worshipped in his youth, envied in his early adulthood, and later come to despise.
But you never really stop loving someone, not when it’s a bond like theirs.
Thor who loves him fiercely, unwaveringly, unconditionally, whether or not he deserves it, whether or not he wants it.
Loki sighs.
“Nearly there, Your Little Halfling Majesty,” one of the giants says. “Are you certain you will not turn back?”
“I will not.”
“You may regret that,” the second giant tells him.
“I shall add it to the list.”
They continue on in silence, and once again Loki loses himself in his own thoughts.
Tony and Hel find Bruce and Pepper in the Avengers’ living room, watching Food Network. Alton Brown is making some kind of sauce.
“That man is my hero,” Bruce says, pointing at the screen. “The best episode was where he used a fire extinguisher to make a frozen, carbonated fruit smoothie.”
“He did what?” Pepper asks, incredulous.
“Hey,” Tony greets them.
Pepper turns. “Hello, Tony. Hel, it’s so nice to see you!”
Hel smiles. “You too, Pepper.”
“C’mon, sit down,” Bruce invites. “I want to see if he builds anything in this episode.”
“He’s building a sauce,” Pepper points out.
“That wasn’t really what I meant.”
“Where’s everyone else?” Tony asks.
“Natasha and Clint took Steve to the Fighter Group for dinner, and Thor went back to Asgard,” Bruce says.
“I came over to bring him his phone before he left,” Pepper adds.
“Did he say what it was about?”
“Not a word,” Bruce says. “All mysterious, you know?”
Tony rolls his eyes and disappears into the kitchen. “Who wants grape soda?” he calls.
Bruce and Pepper exchange a look.
“Grape soda?” Pepper finally repeats, baffled.
“It’s delicious!” Tony yells much too brightly.
“O… kay,” Pepper says. “Sure, I’ll have one.”
“Me too,” Bruce calls. “Thanks, Tony!”
Tony returns with the grape sodas, hands them out, and sits next to Hel on the sofa.
“What’s this?” he asks, frowning at the television.
“Food Network,” Pepper replies. “Good Eats.”
“Oh, look at his silly costume!” Hel cries, clapping her hands delightedly at the television. “This is even better than scrying!”
Tony sips his grape soda and thinks, I can’t believe this is my Friday night.
The two Frost Giants lead Loki up a narrow path to a cave on the side of a cliff.
“This is as far as we go, Your Little Halfling Majesty,” the first giant says.
“May we take our leave of you?” the second asks sarcastically.
Loki’s hands twitch. He longs to raise them and bring down his magic on these two oafs, but…
“You may,” he grates out instead, and contents himself with the thought that while they live in this wretched wasteland, he never has to come back here again once his business with Angrboða is done.
He turns his back to them, dismissing them as though they don’t even exist. He walks to the entrance of the cave.
“Angrboða?” he calls.
There is no reply.
Cautiously, he steps inside. “Angrboða?” he calls, a little bit louder this time.
“I am here.”
It’s so dark that he can’t see anything, and he wonders why she doesn’t have a fire… and then he realizes that of course a Jötun wouldn’t have need of a fire, or probably even want one.
He holds up his hand and a green flame ignites there, giving light but no heat.
“It is I, Angrboða. Loki of Asgard.”
“I know.”
He sweeps his hand around the cave, looking for her in the shadows.
There. There she is, sitting on the ground in the very back of the cave.
She’s wrapped in the uncured skin of some beast, and she’s staring up at him with expressionless red eyes.
“Why do you disturb my solitude, Your Highness… or should I say, Your Majesty?”
Loki sighs. “So. I suppose everyone knows.”
She looks at him in a way that lets him know that she thinks he’s the biggest idiot ever.
“I have always known.”
Loki is stricken. “What?”
She gives him a malicious little smile.
“Why do you think I wished to bed you in the first place, Your Majesty? Even if you would not take me to wife, my children would be your heirs.”
“And look how well that worked out, Angrboða,” he says acidly. I am beginning to sound like Stark, he suddenly thinks.
She laughs bitterly.
“No, I will admit that the things I had planned did not come to pass. However, my sons are feared throughout the Nine Realms and my daughter reigns as Queen of the Dead.”
“Actually, it is our daughter that brings me here,” he says.
“Oh?”
“I have… friends on Midgard who may be able to heal her of her affliction.”
“You? You have friends?” she asks scornfully.
He frowns. “Yes.”
“And why come to me?”
“They need you. There are certain tests they wish to give you that may help them discover what ails Hel. They will not overly hurt or inconvenience you.”
“And why should I do this?”
“Because she is your daughter. I had thought the answer would be obvious.”
“Do you know what they call me, Your Majesty? They call me ‘Mother of Monsters’. Ironic, as I have been told that that is one of your titles in Midgardian tales.”
“That is not my fault.”
“Isn’t it?”
“You were the one who sought me,” he reminds her. “And you claim that you knew what I was all along.”
She laughs grimly. “That does not mean that I do not blame you.”
“Blame me as you wish,” he says with a sigh. “But do not blame our daughter.”
“I have no wish to involve myself with any of your monstrous bastard children or your foolish schemes. Go now, and leave me in peace.”
Suddenly, Loki is so angry he can barely even think.
“You listen to me, you uncaring monster,” he growls. “I came here requesting your help only as a courtesy. Do not think that I will not take you to Midgard by force if necessary… and while my friends do indeed require your presence, they do not actually require you to be living. Your body will do just as well for their purposes.”
She blinks up at him, assessing him.
Angrboða must see something in his eyes, for she rises to her feet.
“Very well, Your Majesty. I will accompany you to Midgard.”
By the time the third episode of Chopped is halfway over, Tony is ready to rip out his arc reactor and end it all.
“Why would they put rotten garlic in food?” Hel asks with a frown.
“It’s black garlic,” Pepper replies absently. “It’s not rotten, it’s fermented.”
“Same thing,” Tony says.
Suddenly, Robert Plant’s voice is heard:
“You stroll, you jump, you’re hot and you tease, 'cause I’m your tall cool one and I’m built to please. You stroll, you jump, you’re hot and you tease, 'cause I’m your tall cool one and I’m built to please – ”
Pepper has already found her phone and is raising to her ear.
“Loki?”
“Jesus, I need a drink!” Tony says without thinking.
Pepper sits forward on the sofa. “You did? Oh, I’m so glad!”
“Good news?” Bruce asks.
Pepper grins. “Yeah. Hel, your parents are on their way.”
Hel frowns. “Oh.” She rises to her feet. “I should go.”
And before anyone can protest, she’s just gone.
“Loki?” Pepper says into the phone. “Hel was here. But she left.” She listens for a moment. “All right. See you soon.”
She ends the call and sighs.
“Hel has some… ah, issues with her mom.”
“Yeah, I caught that,” Tony agrees.
And suddenly Loki is there, accompanied by a slim, petite woman with lustrous brown hair and deep blue eyes.
“Loki!” Tony exclaims. “Holy shit, is this the bi – ”
“Everyone… this is Angrboða,” Loki announces.
FINIS.