Peter was a brilliant child.
Loki wasn't blind to the boy's nerves, to his caution, to the way his fingers wandered to those odd black bands encircling his wrists. He never thought the boy would equate Lora and Loren so quickly when there truly was nothing to equate, but the brain that ran behind wary doe eyes had puzzled out similarities and inconsistencies and—
He led his son out of the building and onto the sidewalk, his pride a swelling thing in his chest. "Are you hungry?"
Peter startled and glanced up. "Oh, uh, I could eat?"
"Come, then. There is a stall nearby that procures these exquisite 'rice bowls' that may curry your favor." Loki eyed the lingering doubt in that young face and sighed. "After then, I will tell you all you wish to know. But for now, will you lend your trust to me once more?"
Peter fiddled with his jacket sleeve as he glanced at the people that passed them by. There was something churning in that head, thinking, thinking—how much genius was hidden in that thinking, he wondered—before they locked eyes. "You'll tell me the truth? All of it?"
"So I shall swear."
"...Okay. Um, but can I pick where we talk?"
"Of course." It surprised Loki to no end that it was all the boy demanded, though the lack of anger and confusion had surprised him even more. "Wherever you so choose."
It was after they had acquired a brown paper bag of rice bowls did Peter pull out his cellular device. "There's this place in Manhattan that'll be good for us to talk and I don't think there's going to be anyone there to bother us." He tapped his screen a few times, presumably sending one of those 'texts' to someone in his contacts. "And—cool! Our ride'll be here in ten minutes." He shifted his arm around the bag, insistent of being the one to carry it if he wasn't allowed to pay for it, and glanced up nervously. "Um... Mr. Loren? Or should I call you Ms. Lora? Or, uh..."
Loki allowed him to flounder a bit longer before taking pity on the embarrassed flush on the boy's cheeks. "You may call me by the name of whom you perceive," he said, a slight quirk to his lips. "Though there is another name I go by that may be easier for you to use, but you may not choose to due to its... connotations."
"If you don't like the other name I won't use it."
"It is not that I dislike the name, it is that others simply would not react well to it. Though I could not care less of their reactions, it is easier to not deal with it at all."
Peter frowned. "That's kind of dumb. If it's your name and you like it, it doesn't matter what other people think, right?"
Loki couldn't stop the small smile that grew on his face. "Your words are kind, child. I am truly unfit for it."
Peter didn't know what to say to that. So, he returned that small smile with a shaky one of his own and glanced down at his device. The little screen lit up and a picture of him and another chubbier boy with a wide grin took up the space.
A translucent white box popped up.
trunk body: Here!! Your friend, Dopinder. [5:12 pm]
trunk body: I am the taxi parked in front of the Blue Honda. Your friend, Dopinder. [5:12 pm]
Trunk body? What an odd sense of humor.
He followed Peter to the bright yellow taxi a few steps away just as a cheery man leaned out the driver's window. The man was young, much older than Peter though perhaps around the same age as the barman at that run-down tavern.
"Hello! I am here to pick up a 'Mr. Ferret'?"
"That's me! Nice to finally meet you, Dopinder."
"The pleasure is all mine, my friend!" the man reached a hand out and Peter shook it enthusiastically. Loki eyed the interaction with more of a clinical interest than anything; this was one of Peter's friends, then. A transporter. It's a very handy sort of friend to make, he thought as he opened the back door and allowed his son to slide in first before he followed after. With a slight wrinkle of his nose, he noted the interior smelled of leather and ash. "Where will I be taking you and your friend this fine day, Mr. Ferret?"
"Wade's apartment, please."
"Right away!" Dopinder reached for a long black cord with a metal end and held it back to them. "AUX cord?"
"Aw man, nice!"
As the cord was handed off, the driver turned to the second passenger in his vehicle and gave a welcoming smile. "And what should I address you as, kind sir?"
Loki didn't so much shift a single line in his face as he sat straight-backed in his seat, one knee crossed over the other and his hands folded in his lap. His eyes, searing in their cool detachment, immediately dismissed the common mortal. "'Sir,' will suffice."
Dopinder bobbed his head and faced back forwards, unknowing of the silent judgment passed over his own head. "Sir it is, then!"
Peter attached the cord to his cellular device and started playing some song Loki was sure doesn't translate to any other style in the galaxies. The tune was much like what he'd heard others his age would listen to at the museum and the female vocalist was pleasant to listen to, he supposed—and as the vehicle smoothly merged back onto the street, he looked at the boy who looked so small as he clutched the paper bag to his chest and stared out of the window.
"Wade?" he prompted. Peter jumped slightly and turned his head.
"Oh yeah, he's a friend. He's out on a business trip right now but he told me that I can use his apartment if he's not there." He shrugged. "I figured it was one of the best places to talk."
"... I see."
Was this Wade the same Wade that barman had mentioned the night before? Red suit, loud, annoying...
Loki narrowed his eyes. Truly, he questioned the sort Peter was surrounding himself with.
"Did Mr. Pool say when he would get back?" Dopinder asked. He flipped a turn single for a moment and guided the wheel into a left turn, and Loki took in the people they passed and the building they'd wrapped. Mr. Pool? Wade? Wade Pool?
"Uhhh, sometime next week, I think? He was really excited for this job, but he said he wanted to be back in New York by Christmas Eve."
"You would think he would try to enjoy the holidays in Belarus."
"Right? I asked him to bring me back the weirdest souvenir he could find."
Loki spent most of the ride as a silent observer, watching the interaction between Peter and Dopinder and noting the snippets of information of this 'Wade' or 'Mr. Pool' or whoever this individual was. They talked about the newest movies and 'air pods' and something called a 'switch,' whatever the contraption may be. And all through the while, he was quiet, memorizing the way Peter's eyes lit up when he talked and the way he gestured wildly with his hands when he explained things.
So expressive. So young. So full of life.
"He would be happy if he grew up to be nothing like me."
The taxi pulled up to an older housing unit in the midst of Manhattan and Loki reached for his wallet to pay for the ride, but Dopinder quickly waved him off.
"No need for that, sir! Mr. Pool has declared that whatever fare is made from any of Mr. Ferret's trips will be paid in full through his account."
"What?!" Peter exclaimed. "Wade didn't tell me that!"
"He made it very clear; this is the text he sent me about it." Dopinder scrolled through his phone as Peter slid to the edge of his seat and pressed himself close to the back of the driver's seat. "Ahem. Quote: 'If you charge the baby-face anything for any of your rides I'll actually shove my arm up your ass and make you my personal Kermit the Frog.' End quote."
"Baby-face? Uggggh, Waaaade," Peter groaned. "I'll talk to him when he gets back. Thanks for the ride, Dopinder, and I'm super sorry about him."
"Not at all! It was nice meeting you, Mr. Ferret and Sir!"
"Nice to meet you too!" the boy chirped.
Loki did not acknowledge the driver, taking in their new surroundings as the taxi peeled away from the curb. Peter led him to one of the buildings, a rather dilapidated one with red brick exterior and a series of stairs that connected walkways under windows. They squeezed into an alleyway and pushed through a slightly rusted door.
"Sorry, we have to take the stairs," Peter apologized, trotting up the staircase opposite of their entrance. "Elevator's busted."
"Your friend certainly has a taste for domiciles," Loki noted as they passed a few knives embedded in the wall. It certainly held the appearance of a training arena Thor, Sif, and Volstagg had ruined many a time.
"Oh man, if you think this is bad you should see the actual apartment."
The door they stop at would have been normal if it hadn't been graced with three separate locks and looped with a chain. Loki opened his mouth to comment, perhaps even a snide one as he was feeling so gracious, but his attention was sidetracked by the sheer fact that Peter had all the keys to all the locks and never made an odd face as he looped the chain around his arm, pushed open the door, and set the chain into a bowl shaped like an aubergine.
Inside the apartment was simply that of belonging to a barbarian.
There was one large room that contained the kitchen and the area of living, a door to a bathroom cracked wide open to reveal a shower curtain that depicted a man yelling on a mountain, and a last door shut with another set of locks behind the couch. There were piles of magazines stacked next to bullet boxes stacked next to an enormous stuffed caricature of a... rainbow sea turtle? Three window panes took up the majority of one wall and had thick glass installed from where he could see.
Fortified. How peculiar. And all the other walls bore those poster things and were layered on so thickly that Loki couldn't see what color the wall was.
There were piles of everything, everywhere, and he could only thank the single star left shining for him that at least the mess wasn't garbage.
Peter set his backpack onto the couch—which was an abomination that held the appearance of draugr skin covered in mold—next to a set of sharpened swords. "We can, uh, eat at the table if you want," he offered shyly, gesturing to that garish red table with different chairs of different colors scattered all around its border. Truly, the interior design of this hovel was something left to be desired, but Loki wasn't here to offer the criticisms that this place so obviously deserved.
He nodded and took a delicate perch on the chair with lemon yellow cushions and fur lining the arm rests, taking care not to make contact with said arm rests. The boy, on the other hand, took his own seat on the wooden chair shaped like a hand and opened up the paper bag to take out the rice bowls and utensils and handed them out.
"So, um..." Peter fiddled with a plastic fork. "I don't... I don't really know where to start?"
Loki exhaled quietly through his nose and glanced to the side where a pin board was set up in the kitchen. Brown and tacky, it was littered with pictures connected with red thread. "I do not know where to begin either," he admitted. He watched Peter stuff a bite of rice and chicken into his mouth, those brown eyes wide and open and curious. Guilt clouded the inside of his chest, all-encompassing and choking. "Perhaps I should first reveal my true identity, then you may decide whether or not you would like to learn more. Or even if you would ever desire to see me again."
Peter blinked a few times, digesting those words. He unconsciously drew his fingers across one of the black bands upon his wrists.
"It's okay," he said sincerely. "Whatever you have to say, I'll listen."
A dull ache rattled Loki's heart. Why did this child have to be so good?
But no matter. He was due to accept the consequences of his actions.
Loki raised his chin, all of the image of the royal son he was supposed to be, and allowed a soft golden light to engulf his body. As quick as that light beamed it was gone, and he had returned to his most common form.
Black hair was slicked back, curled around the ears and still cut just as short as his male illusory self's, and his face was glasses-free, allowing his green eyes to glimmer under the pig-shaped paper lantern chandelier. The white-button up had morphed into a black leather tunic with a curved strip of gold plating on the chest; the coat draped over it was of the same material, lined with green as gold vambraces secured themselves over the material on his forearms. Designs were etched into the metal, as all vambraces in the royal family were, with runes and protections like Vegvisir and Ægishjálmr.
"Sometimes I am known as Lora Olstad, and sometimes I am known as Loren Fjeld," he said. "But all of the time I am Loki Friggason, a former Prince of Asgard."
Peter dropped his fork.
"I—" Loki grimaced, searching for a foothold in his explanation that cast him so far out of his comfort— "I used to come to Earth to take eases from Odin, my... father. It just so happened that one time when I had come as Lora, I had met Richard. He had not known of you and I wanted nothing more than to spirit you away, either here on Earth or to another world to raise you all on my own, but..." He sighed. Peter's hands were balled in his lap and his gaze was trained right in the center of his rice bowl. "I understand that saying this may not mean much to you, especially when I have not been in your life for most of it, but I cannot convey how sorry I am that I had left you. I beg for your forgiveness, though I accept if it is not something I may one day obtain."
Peter didn't say anything, and an overwhelming anguish that stemmed from the pit of his stomach clawed up to jar his ribs and dig its sharpened nails into his heart. He had prepared himself for this rejection. A possible wave of disgust and revulsion. He had been prepared for it ever since he was thrown into the cells of his once-home, realization dawning that under the stone's influence he could have very nearly murdered his own son.
But just because he had foreseen this didn't mean he had been fully prepared for the hurt that would inevitably tide with it.
And just as he readied himself for the onslaught of verbal abuse that he knew he deserved, the boy lifted his head.
"... Is it true that, uh, that O-Odin would have killed me if he ever found out about me?"
Loki thought about the Allfather—when he had stripped Thor of his power and cast him wayside into a world that could have killed him; when he had looked upon his youngest adopted son in chains and set him to the prisons to rot.
"Yes," he answered quietly. "I believe he would."
Peter pressed his lips together. "If I never put on this necklace, or if Aunt May never gave me that box you left, would you still have come to see me?"
Loki opened his mouth to give what should have been the most obvious answer, a yes or an of course or a why would I not. But then he remembered that everyone thought him dead, and for four whole years he had every opportunity to find his child again, to re-insert himself into his dear heart's life because there was nothing holding him back. But he didn't. He wasted those years absconding to different places before finally forcing himself to settle in Queens hoping that the proximity was enough.
(It wasn't.)
The Great Loki: A Coward. Afraid of his own son.
"I don't know," he said, because the truth was part of the everything that Peter deserved. "I left when you were young enough to not remember me that it would have been a presumption on my behalf if I had come back unannounced, so I had left that decision up to you with the box."
Peter visibly considered that, toying with his fingers as his eyes darted to different spots on the table. "What about when you attacked New York?" His voice hardened, eyes raising. "Why did you do it?"
Loki's face grew into that discomfort. The Chitauri and Tha—he pressed his fingers to his forehead, staving away the name and the memories that came with it. Drowning in that control still haunted him many nights when things were too serene and when things were going too smoothly, and still there were moments when he would think he saw a shadow in the crowd that would come to kill him, or worse—
"It was not my full intention to lay an invasion on Earth. Yes, I held my rage at happenings on Asgard and yes, I had made decisions that were of extremely poor taste, but not all of the blame falls onto myself."
One hand raised in a slight wave as he brought forth an illusion of the Mind Stone, floating with its smooth yellow cut and ethereal glow. Peter's face lit up in awe.
"When I had fallen off the Bifröst, a bridge between worlds, I thought it would have been my end. I am unsure how long I had floated in that darkness, but it was sometime then I was taken by a mad titan." He averted his gaze, unwilling to allow Peter to spy the fear he could not suppress. "There are many wrongs I have done in my life, but I would not have invaded had I not been under the Mind Stone's influence, and by that extension, the mad titan."
Flashes of blue sparked behind his eyes. He remembered the control, the pain, the surge of power and the burns it left.
"I was not of my right mind," he murmured. "I will admit I held no remorse for what I had done in the moment I had done it, but when the Mind Stone becomes the blood in your veins, there is no such thing as thinking for yourself, as yourself." He tilted his head. "I suppose you could make the argument that it was me, though it was not the me I chose to be."
He looked back at Peter, stunned to find him—horrified?
"Are—Are you okay?" he asked worriedly. "Are you still influenced? Is it—Can you still feel it?"
Loki surveyed him oddly. "No. No, I had been granted release from its control when the scepter and the tesseract had been removed from my possession." Peter slumped in relief, and his confusion mounted. "I must admit, I had not expected your concern."
"Why not?"
"Why not?" he repeated. "Do you not hate me?"
It was Peter's turn to look confused. "Why would I hate you?"
A disbelieving laugh escaped Loki's throat before he could stop himself. "After everything I've done?"
"I..."
Peter rubbed the back of his head.
(He thought of Wade and his hits, Mr. Weasel and Sister Margaret's, everyone that sat at those tables clinking glasses and dropping bullet casings. Loki might have killed eighty people before the invasion even began, but not everyone with a name on a Gold Card was like Ms. Watson-Price's husband. Wade killed, Mr. Weasel killed, Ms. Domino probably killed, and he was pretty sure Dopinder killed that guy that was in his trunk.
None of them were gods, yet weren't they just as bad as Loki, just in different ways?)
"I know you're not a good person for doing all those things. I know you weren't in full control when you brought the Chitauri and I know you were still responsible for all those things, and there's probably a lot of stuff I don't know you've done or if it's good or bad or if you even regretted what you did..." he trailed off. "But would you do it again if you had the chance?"
Well.
"I do regret my actions, if that is what you are asking, and I would not follow through with another attack of that magnitude in the future," Loki replied, choosing his words carefully. "I would never be the one to bring harm into your life. My absence from it was more than enough."
Peter's face went pink. "So you're really just here for...?"
"You, of course," the god answered simply. "You are my priority, and if I were here to wreak havoc on this Earth, I would have done it many moons ago."
"How do I know you're telling the truth?" Peter raised his hands in front of himself. "I-I mean, about the Earth thing and the, uh... havoc... thing?"
As The God of Mischief and Lies, Loki never held speaking the truth to the forefront of his mind. From a very young age he learned to weave his speech into pretty sentences and charming prose so that others were so enamored with his words that they wouldn't notice the underneath, the deception. It was his perfected craft to get what he wanted and to get others to play along in his little games—magic and mischief and lies and deceit; he would never be known for fighting prowess or swordsmanship or anything else Asgard deemed were more important, so why not embellish all the things he could already do so well?
Then he had come to find out that he was one of the monsters his—Odin had so fervently disparaged, that Asgard so blatantly saw as the enemy. He was a child when he learned the stories of the monstrous Jotunn, the beasts and savages held back by a flimsy slip of a treaty; he was a child when it was instilled in him to hate everything those Frost Giants had to offer. Over a thousand years of anger. Over a thousand years of disgust.
Over a thousand years to learn he was the very thing he himself grew to hate.
He held out both his hands over the table, Peter marveling at the sight of the golden threads that laced his palms and the spaces between his fingers.
"I, Loki Friggason, formerly of Asgard, will bring no purposeful harm to the home of Peter Benjamin Parker Lokison, and will offer my own life and seidr should I not mark my words true. It is to this promise that I shall swear this oath."
The threads sunk into his skin, the light whipping from his wrists to his arms and finally through his eyes before he re-adjusted himself on the gaudy yellow chair.
"I hope that has satisfied your concern."
Over a thousand years he lived the lies his father told him.
He would not follow in those footsteps.
"I—did you—" Peter's face scrunched. "You would put your life on the line? For me?"
"You are my son," Loki replied, the easiest truth in his world. "I would do anything for you."
Peter stared for a few long moments before his eyes grew damp and he swiped at them with the sleeve of his jacket.
(Only Aunt May had ever said things like that, especially when his parents died and she'd wrap him in blankets as she held him, murmuring how everything would be okay and that she would make him all his favorite mac and cheeses until the end of time. It made him a bit queasy how simply Loki had told him those words like they didn't weigh a million pounds. Swearing his life with his magic? Maybe he didn't know all the ins and outs of that kind of stuff, but it sounded serious.
With great power comes great responsibility, Ben had said over and over and over.
But what did that mean when someone else would hold that for his sake?)
His eyes flickered back down to the table. "You didn't have to."
"I wanted to. I know you do not trust me, but one day I hope to be worthy of it." Loki crossed his legs under the table, yearning to reach out and brush away his child's tears but held back by the valley between them. "If you want nothing to do with me, I understand completely."
Peter's head shot up. "Huh? N-No! Don't go! I just..." He bit his lip. "I don't want you to leave."
The god dared not raise his expectation, but he couldn't push away the inkling of hope nudging through his chest. "No?"
"I want to get to know you," the boy said with a determined look upon his brow. "You're my, er, mom, and if you're not going to bring another Chitauri Invasion or anything like it, I think you deserve another chance."
You deserve another chance.
Loki blinked.
One sentence, four words, so simple even a child still learning to properly walk could understand. Yet, those words were so foreign to his ears.
You deserve another chance.
And how could he deserve anything but the worst?
"I mean, if you're not hurting anyone anymore I really, really want to know more about you and your cool magic and—" He cut himself off abruptly. "Wait, are you the reason why I can turn blue?"
And just like that, any warmth Loki was basking in vanished.
His gaze sharpened, already out of his seat as he approached Peter's chair. "Explain."
"Oh, uh, I was walking back home after a shift when I touched a frozen pole by accident and my skin started turning blue? It was super weird because that's never happened to me before and I've been feeling less cold in winter, which is also super weird since I don't have to wear as many layers in the snow anymore—"
"Give me your hand."
Peter startled at the unsettled tone, but carefully held out his left hand. Loki reigned back his anxiety and fear just long enough to grip the smaller hand with the same care he used when sharpening his prized blades. At the very tip of one finger he allowed some of his true nature to flow, enough so that it would only cause a pinprick of pain if the boy wasn't receptive and enough to activate the blood if the boy truly carried that part of him.
The moment it touched Peter's skin, it didn't burn. Didn't leave him with the blackish bite of ice that even the most revered of healers couldn't reverse. Instead, his son's skin turned the exact shade of blue and traveled, traveled, traveled up his neck and to his face and though Peter was too enraptured with his own transformation to draw his gaze away, Loki knew his brown eyes had bled into a harrowing crimson.
He approaches the Casket of Ancient Winters, sweat on his brow and hands clasped behind his back so he does not see them quiver. It's stored in the vaults, locked and guarded away with the rest of the spoils of war Odin had championed in the years of his reign. Yet, it's the Casket that undulates and glows and beckons him forward as it whispers things he does not understand and spikes a cool streak of ice in his chest that he feels belongs there.
Loki grasps its carved silver handles and lifts.
"Stop!"
He stops, but he doesn't turn. He stops, and he's frozen; it's become so hard for him to breathe.
"Am I cursed?" he asks.
"... No."
A lie.
"Then what am I?"
Odin's voice fills the chamber with a calming baritone: important, grounding, everything a King should and ought to be. "You are my son."
Another lie.
Loki turns, the blue receding from his skin as the rush of cold siphons out of him, leaving behind a scorching anger that boils his blood red. "What more than that?"
Loki drew in a shaky breath and let go.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have done this to you, I..."
Peter's skin faded back to its usual hue at the break of contact. With that, his attention snapped back to his mother, both excited and confused. "It's okay! It's actually pretty cool, but, um, what was that?"
"That is..." Monstrous. Beastly. Savage. "... a story for another time, I believe. If that is alright with you."
"Yeah, no biggie. This must be a lot for you, so I don't mind." Peter picked up his rice bowl and smiled sheepishly, the heaviest brunt of the conversation past them. "We should eat, though. I think our food's gone cold. Do you want me to heat your's up too?"
Loki smiled slightly. "No thank you. Go ahead and heat up your meal."
As the boy wandered into the kitchen area, Loki allowed his mind to drift. Truthfully, if they had not shared the same Jotunn skin he might have shed his doubts on their relation because... well, because how could he, Fallen Prince, Traitor of the Peace Between the Realms, Dead God Walking, have been blessed with a bairn whose self shone brighter than the stars studded in the blanket of Yggdrasil?
He glanced out the window and down into the rush of the Manhattan night. Orange lights danced on the streets and people milled on the sidewalks like a colony of ants. He promised his son that he would not destroy his world and who was he if he would not keep his sworn promises?
No, whatever Peter asked of him he would do, because there was nothing that would ever matter more than to keep him safe and sound.
I would do anything for you, Peter.
Whether it be to die,
Loki looked up as Peter slid back into his seat with his steaming bowl, and smiled.
whether it be to kill.
"Tell me more about yourself," he said, taking the seat closest to the boy and folding his arms over the table. "I have already missed so much."
::
And we end with a fantastic cover by OhMyMarble!