Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Saturday, July 16^th, 2022

“Ooookay, what’s wrong?” Thor prompts as soon as Loki excuses himself to use the bathroom, crossing his massive arms in front his muscular chest. They’re tucked into a comfortable, shaded booth in the outdoor seating area of her sons’ favorite Steakhouse where they’ve been enjoying a late Saturday lunch or early Saturday dinner together. The food was truly amazing and the atmosphere is very cozy but she and Loki have both been on edge ever since he met Robert on their Independence Day neighborhood BBQ a few weeks back and it probably shows. “Are you guys still fighting?”

Frigga sighs and shakes her head. “No.”

“Maybe you should,” Thor says, and she is certain he is only half-kidding. “At least that’d put things out in the open.”

Wouldn’t it just?

Except the last time they fought, Loki came uncomfortably close to relapsing on the Vicodin he’d been hiding in her scarf drawer for months, wrapped up in the ugly shawl she never wore but couldn’t find within herself to throw away for the longest time because it’d been a gift from Bestla shortly before her mother-in-law passed away. She sometimes wonders if the drugs would still be there now if she hadn’t decided to tidy out her entire wardrobe that day.

“Did he talk to you, about anything?” Frigga asks, very carefully.

“About Robert, you mean?” Thor asks back, sounding slightly accusatory. “Sorry, that sounded a little harsh,” he tacks on when she grimaces. “I just … Look, I have no problem with you getting back out there. That’s what people do after they got divorced. Dad’s seeing someone too even though”—And why does that have to sting even though she doesn’t love Odin anymore? Must relationships be so complicated even when they’re long over?—“that’s probably gonna go nowhere because he still asks about you every goddamn time we text. Anyway, I like the guy, Robert I mean, I really do, but it’s been really hard on Loki and I don’t think he’s been truthful about how much it’s stressing him out. To either of us and probably to himself even. I told him you should be scheduling a family therapy session to talk about this with Dr. van Dyne because it’s clearly coming between you two and that kinda scares me, to be honest.”

“I know,” sighs Frigga. “Robert asked about my birthday too.” He is one of the lucky ones who, by his own admission, has had no brush with a serious mental illness in his life prior to meeting her and understandably struggles sometimes to understand how much Loki’s disorders are impacting her life. “He wants to take me out to dinner.”

Thor’s eyebrows hike up. “And?”

“I said I’d think about it.” Frigga blows out a breath and feels utterly defeated from one moment to the next, asking herself not for the first time, and despite Dr. Fulla’s heartfelt claims to the contrary, if she is making a terrible mistake.

“Do you want to?” Thor asks then.

She does and tells him so. “But I also don’t want to upset your brother.”

“Jeez, Mom,” groans her eldest and Frigga doesn’t particularly enjoy how odd it feels to be parented by her own child. “I can see that you’re serious about this guy and no one expects you to put your life on hold for Loki forever, not even Loki, rationally at least, but this is a big change for him and I’m pretty sure it’ll all turn to shit if you don’t talk it out very soon. With both of them.”

“Talk what out?” Loki asks, sliding back onto the bench beside his brother.

“Mom’s relationship,” Thor replies, reaching for another chicken wing.

“We did talk it out,” Loki says, which isn’t exactly a lie but doesn’t come particularly close to the truth either and puts him in a defensive stance within seconds. “And I’m, well, trying to be okay with it. I told you that, both of you. What more is there to talk about?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Thor says around a mouthful of chicken. “What this actually means for upcoming birthdays or Christmas, for example?”

A big smile appears on Loki’s face and lights up his eyes. “Are we gonna go to Norway again for Christmas?” asks one of the children.

Frigga fights the sigh that builds up in her throat and forces herself to smile back. “I’m not sure, honey. Technically, it’s Odin’s turn this year, so we haven’t made any plans yet.”

“Told ya,” Thor mouthes.

As if she truly needed to be told.

~°~

“I simply don’t know what to do,” Frigga tells Dr. Fulla three days later. “Loki isn’t being truthful with me or his brother but Thor and I both know that he’s hiding how much it stresses him out that there is a new man in my life. I even called Dr. van Dyne but she said she can’t disclose any information to me anymore now that he’s eighteen. And he keeps insisting that it’s not necessary to schedule a family therapy session, keeps insisting that he’ll adjust given time.”

“And, let me guess,” says her therapist, “you don’t trust him and are considering to break up with Robert instead?”

“Of course I am,” Frigga says, thinking not for the first time that she doesn’t pay the other woman enough money to listen to her problems. “And it’s not that I don’t trust him. I do.” She does. “He’s been doing so, so well, adjusting to his job and meeting the family back in Norway. But I also know that he’s particularly hard on himself where our relationship is concerned and I made the mistake of implying that there had to be more to it than ‘just’ his abandonment issues; as if those weren’t justification enough for him to get upset no matter how many times I assure him that this relationship will not lead to me moving out or anything like that. He confirmed that and told me he simply doesn’t trust men and doesn’t want me to get hurt. Which I get. But he also told me that he still doesn’t handle change well and this is a big change.” She doesn’t know why it didn’t fully sink in until she repeats Thor’s words back to her therapist just how big of a change and a challenge this would be for Loki. Apparently, love does turn people into idiots. “He’s been abused by more than one father figure and I just don’t want to jeopardize his recovery. I couldn’t forgive myself if I did but I also don’t want to smother him or go back to … to the way things were between us before we got help. It’s complicated. I feel like either way my decision would be wrong, you know? All I know for certain is that, while I’m ‘just’ in love”—she still feels a little sheepish to admit as much out loud even if the butterflies in her stomach whenever she thinks of him pretty much betray any claim to the contrary and how embarrassing is that at her age given the short time she’s known him—“with Robert, I do love Loki. If I had to choose, I would choose him. Always, no questions asked.”

“Because you owe it to him?”

That sounds suspiciously like a trick question, so she opts for a shrug and a, “I suppose you will tell me that I don’t if I admitted as much?”

“Listen,” Dr. Fulla says on the heels of a poorly disguised sigh. “First of all, from where I’m standing, you don’t know exactly how much you’re actually jeopardizing Loki’s recovery because, as you said, he hasn’t been honest with you about his struggles. As I’ve told you many times, your son is a grown man, despite his dissociative disorder and the littles you’re interacting with regularly, and if he tells you that he’s working on something, you should trust his word that he is. And even if he isn’t, even if he were lying to you, it’d still be his responsibility to ask for what he needs.” She holds up a hand when Frigga is about to protest. “Of course he might not always know how to due to the nature of his illness but, at the end of the day, it’s still his responsibility to have his needs met, not yours. You can’t put your life on hold on the mere assumption that your dating life might cause Loki any discomfort.”

“But—”

“Which brings me to number second,” Dr. Fulla cuts her off again. “Based on everything you told me, this doesn’t strike me as a scenario where you’ll have to choose. Nobody asked you to after all and even if anyone had, let us not forget that there’s a huge difference between sacrifice and compromise.”

~°~

“Maybe next year,” Frigga tells Robert later that same evening because despite her therapist’s tireless encouragement she simply doesn’t have the heart to subject Loki to so big a disruption so soon after she started seeing someone given how tense her son always is around birthdays to begin with. “We can go out to dinner anytime. Besides, it’s not as though birthdays hold an awful lot of appeal on the wrong side of fifty to begin with, right?”

She chuckles and the sound hurts even her own ears, misplaced as it is.

“I understand,” Robert assures her even if he doesn’t quite manage to keep the disappointment out of his voice.

“But?” Frigga asks, bracing herself for the answer because she knows that none of this is fair to him; even if she tried to be as open as she could about her relationship with Loki from the get-go without revealing too much of his condition.

“Nothing,” says Robert. “I can wait. I told you that. I just hope that Loki can learn to accept me at some point and I’m worried what will happen to us if he doesn’t.”

“You and me both,” Frigga replies truthfully. “But I assure you, it has nothing to do with you as a person.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Robert asks, equally truthfully. “Because it really doesn’t.”

Of course it doesn’t.

How could it?

“I’m sorry.” Frigga exhales a breath she hasn’t noticed she’s been holding. This shouldn’t be so hard given the fact that she survived being married to Odin Borson for twenty years but here she is. Here they are. “How about I make dinner the weekend after my birthday? For you and my sons?”

Chapter Text

The night before the dinner, which he agreed to because he is so endlessly fucking tired of being this whiny grown ass baby, Loki’s subconscious takes him into the jungle to face a snickering Nikias calling him a coward and from there into the bathroom of their former Vegas residence in which he’s applying eyeliner when the door flies open and Odin barges in. He looks different, the way people sometimes look different in the hazy world of dream, but Loki recognizes him nonetheless and he flinches, leaving a huge smudge in the corner of his eye that makes him look like a horror clown. “What do you think you’re doing?” his adopter blares, his face twisted with disgust.

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Loki asks with all the confidence he could never muster in the waking world. “I’m putting on some make-up.”

“The hell you are.” Odin’s cheeks are flushed red by now. “Wipe it off.”

Loki sticks his chin out. “No.”

Odin takes a step forward and cuts into his personal space. “You’re not going to meet your grandfather looking like a goddamn faggot, you hear me? Wipe. It. Off.”

Loki shakes his head and his adopter crosses what little distance remains between them, lunging at him. Loki struggles against him and then he shrinks in size, shrinks shrinks shrinks, until he is a toddler on the bathroom floor and, suddenly, the walls of the room and the furniture disappear too, leaving only the marble floor tiles surrounded by utter darkness. He can’t see him anymore but Odin’s voice rings out from every corner of the dreamscape. “You’re disgusting.”

Loki crawls away and squeezes his eyes shut and commands himself to wake up but Odin picks him up and shakes him as if he was a broken toy. “Why can’t you be normal?”

Loki thrashes around in his father’s arms, pleading, crying. “I’m trying, daddy.”

“You’re not trying hard enough. And you’re wondering why I could never bring myself to love you.”

He shakes him until Loki is dizzy and gasping for air and then he throws him on the ground where he rolls over until he is a teenager again and lands on a kitchen floor that seems vaguely familiar. “There you are,” a disdainful Thanos murmurs. “I made you something to eat.”

Loki’s heart climbs into his throat and he shakes his head. He isn’t hungry. He feels sick. He needs to wake the fuck up. Thanos squats down with a plate filled with a huge pile of blood-oozing steaks stacked atop a bed of greens and mashed potatoes.

“No,” pleads Loki, tears in his eyes. His stomach churns. He turns away, tries to bury himself in the crooks of his arms and just disappear.

Why can’t I wake up?

Please, let me wake up, I’m begging you, brain!

“Yes,” the Titan rumbles in his deep voice. “Bony’s a good look on you but you’re starting to look anorexic. You’re gonna scare my customers away. Eat.”

Loki refuses and Thanos grabs him by the neck and shoves the plate into his face. Loki fights back or tries to—the man is a freaking mountain—and, from somewhere behind them, Odin laughs when he struggles to draw breath. “Eat,” roars Thanos.

How could he eat if he can’t even swallow?

“Disgusting,” Odin comments. “He’s always been weak.”

Loki chokes on the food and spits it out again.

“He is a lost cause,” Thanos hisses in agreement.

Loki rolls over and crawls until he is sure he put enough distance between him and the dreamscape LA kitchen. Then he pulls his trembling body off the floor and runs runs runs until his lungs protest and blood wells into his mouth.

“My, my, you’re awfully tense, aren’t you?” asks a guy that looks like Robert but sounds like Thanos.

Loki stumbles to a halt, almost tripping over his own feet.

What the …

He seriously needs to wake up. This is—

“I have something for you,” Robert-Thanos announces and Loki freezes.

No.

No, no, no.

“Just a little something to take the edge off,” Robert-Thanos sing-songs as he loops one huge arm around Loki and fishes a little plastic bag out of his pocket with the other.

A plastic bag filled to the brim with promise and ruin.

The kindest savior and cruelest torturer of them all.

“Noooooo,” Loki howls and jerks awake, his heart pounding against his ribs and filling his ears with a deafening whoooosh.

He gasps for breath so rapidly that it rips his chest apart.

He wants to scream but he can’t wake his mother. Frigga doesn’t need to know. She can’t fucking know. She … This is too important to her. He needs to get his shit together.

Loki rolls over and presses his face into George’s belly. He’s trembling all over and his eyes are stinging with tears. “It was just a dream,” he whispers to himself, his voice hoarse and brittle and shaking as much as the rest of him. “Just a dream. Just a fucking dream. Get it together.”

He can’t.

His thoughts are unraveling and fast.

He thinks of the trashcan into which he dumped the Vicodin and, in a brief moment of madness, considers to actually go out, as in leaving the apartment (!!), and look for the pills, which would be fucking stupid though because that was weeks ago and they won’t be there anymore.

Why did he have to get rid of them?

He kept them for emergencies and still threw them out.

Now he has to survive the night without them when there’s an actual frigging emergency.

No, no, no.

Wait.

You don’t even fucking want them, Nikias reminds him. This junk is the worst. Remember what it did to Hela?

Of course he does.

((You fucking brat.))

His alter is right.

He doesn’t want to end up like this and the pills, they wouldn’t even change anything.

Okay they’d help him forget about Robert or perhaps not care about the whole his-mother-having-fallen-in-love-again debacle … as much … anymore … but, in the long run, they’d only end up making him edgy and nasty and miserable again.

If he took them, he’d start pushing people away again sooner or later.

He’d end up alone, lost and aching and restless.

Lonely.

And yet …

I do want them, Loki whines.

He does.

Right this minute, he craves them, junk or not.

Craves that feeling when the pesky white little devils connect with the greedy receptors in the brain and unleash their magic; that feeling of bliss when the high hugs you and keeps you warm and safe and cozy and makes you forget all the fucking drama.

He could probably get some if he really wanted to and his heart beats so fast at the thought that it makes him giddy.

Cities at night, they all look the same.

Loki realized as much when Thor took a wrong turn one night shortly after he’d started taking him out to places in Phoenix after treatment and accidentally drove them right through one of the shadier areas. The people lurking on the sidewalks, the cars parked here and there, dealers selling their shit to the lost and the damned.

Loki figures the scene looks the same everywhere.

Vegas, LA, Phoenix; it doesn’t matter.

If you’re scum, you’re scum and the vultures will find you.

They found him, after all.

They found Hela too, all those years ago, in the dark, dark alleys behind The Strip.

He could get dressed and sneak out and he’d be found.

No …

This isn’t …

He can’t have that, not anymore.

He worked too hard, put too much effort into his recovery.

You don’t want them, Nikias insists. You can’t want them. You’d send us all straight back to fucking hell. Think about the littles.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Nikias is right but Loki is all over the fucking place and his meds aren’t helping at all, not anymore. They haven’t been for weeks. He feels almost as bad as he did before Dr. van Dyne got him onto a stable regimen. Everything is too intense and he is teetering on the warped, jagged edge of sanity, swaying and staring down into the abyss, asking himself how bad it could really be if he let go.

How did this happen?

This is so fucking stupid and exhausting.

Loki sinks his teeth into his thumb, biting down hard until he draws blood.

It’s not as satisfying as he thought it’d be.

Loki inhales a stuttering breath, rolls up his sleeve and traces his scars with the tip of his index finger. Funny how there was a time he was afraid that he’d lost this coping mechanism. Right now, he misses it like crazy but there are no razors in the apartment either.

He thinks about the block of knives on the kitchen counter for a very long time.

It wouldn’t be the same but … a few nice little cuts would still help.

Just to calm him down, of course.

Not to inflict carnage.

And Nikias doesn’t seem to mind a little self-harm, apparently.

Plus, it’s not as if anyone would have to know, right?

Loki is still wearing long sleeves all year long, the dry Arizona heat be damned.

No one would have to worry.

It’d be his little secret.

Loki swallows and braces himself but just as he is about to swing his legs out of bed, Lilah emerges from the shadows and mounts him with a chirpy little meow.

Loki exhales a breath, sinks back into the cushion and pets her head behind her ears as she tries to curl up into a comfortable position on top of him. “I’m okay,” he soothes his cat in a whisper whilst carding his fingers through her soft black fur because he can’t possibly spiral now. He just can’t. It’s not fucking allowed. “We’re okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

He repeats it, to himself and to Lilah, until the sharpest edges of the urges blunt and he sinks back into a fitful slumber.

Chapter Text

Sunday, 31^st of July, 2022

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Thor asks him for the millionth time. His brother has been hovering over him the whole afternoon and now he’s standing in the doorway of the bathroom, watching like a hawk as Loki applies his make-up. It’s almost like one of the recurring scenes that always features in his latest cluster of nightmares; except that Thor isn’t Odin and doesn’t call him out on his disgustingness. At least not using his external voice.

Will you stop it, he commands himself. Your brother loves you, goddammit.

Self-hatred is so out-of-vogue.

“Yes,” he hisses at Thor, careful not to ruin his eyelid line. It’s not easy—mainly because his mind is flying on at a million miles an hour (his self-hatred didn’t get the memo, apparently) and his hand is shaking and there’s a whole army of alters crowded together in the cave, most of them protectors hovering just like Thor, waiting to take over should things go awry but already demanding control of the front, although Loptr and Theo are never far these days either because of all the goddamn nightmares stitched together from all his fucking daddy issues—but he’ll be damned if he messes it up.

Odin would accuse him of trying to provoke Robert but this is not what this is. It’s a test, plain and simple. Loki needs to make sure the guy accepts him, his physical appearance at least, and doesn’t comment on it. Not even a compliment. It’s absolutely vital that he doesn’t; otherwise how could Loki be one-hundred percent sure that Robert doesn’t belong in that nightmare with his adopter and his … Well, that is stupid actually because Thanos liked his androgynous get-up well enough, he even capitalized on it, for fuck’s sake, but his pre-meds brain has never been particularly bothered by the illogical. It twists itself around anything, like a hungry snake.

“I’m just worried, you know,” Thor says, also for the millionth time. His overprotectiveness returned with full force right after Loki’d suffered the flashback in his brother’s kitchen when they’d been preparing steaks—shortly before he met Robert for the first time and everything went straight to hell. Maybe he shouldn’t have confided in Thor that this sick, disgusting, twisted little part of him still misses Thanos sometimes and that he misses having a father in general because his confessions highlighted what his brother seemed to have forgotten: That he’s a weak, fragile, broken little mess that needs constant fixing and constant supervision.

“I know,” Loki snaps. “But I’m fine.” If only he says it often enough, maybe it’ll come true in the next ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod fifteen minutes. “Stop babying me and give me some privacy.”

Oh, and the irony of that last statement is just chef’s kiss, isn’t it?

Thor complies with his directive and shuts the door behind him, leaving Loki alone in the bathroom just like Loki fucking asked.

He wants to cry because suddenly he feels entirely alone, even with a head full of people.

Jeez, what the fuck is wrong with his brain?!

Nerves, Nikias guesses just as Magnus says, Low blood sugar.

Yes okay, that might be it because Loki couldn’t fucking get any food past the lump in his throat around lunchtime.

Loki finishes his make-up and inspects himself in the mirror. Despite his trembling hands, he did a decent job. He washes his hands and dries them on the towel.

It’s done.

He is ready.

He can get out of the fucking bathroom now, vacating it so that his mother can freshen up last minute before her gentleman caller arrives.

He can do this.

Except that he can’t.

Loki stands by the sink, his heart hammering in his chest as he slowly sinks into an emotional quicksand of ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod ican’tdothisican’tdothisican’tdothis ineedsomethingtotaketheedgeoff whydidn’tipopintothedrugstoretobuyafuckingrazoratleast ifican’thaveanyvicodin heymaybehe’llbringbooze, sinking and sinking and sinking until the doorbell rings and the sound slingshots him out of his own head for a few seconds.

When he comes to again, he’s standing in the hallway, his consciousness scampering from the cave to the external world and back again. Magnus and Nikias are fighting for the steering wheel because Robert’s extended hand is right there, waiting for them to fucking shake it, and Nikias is still dead against Frigga dating again and would probably do anything to alienate Robert.

Loki reaches for it, his heart beating all the way into his throat. “Hi.”

Robert’s grip is very strong, just like Odin’s. That’s enough to send his thoughts onto another rollercoaster ride; even if that is pretty much where the similarities between them end. Robert is a good five inches taller, his hair is darker and streaked with a lot less silver and he doesn’t have an aura of anger and self-righteous arrogance thick as soup swirling around him.

((Stop crying or I swear to God I’ll lose my mind!))

No, Robert isn’t threatening at all. He’s smiling and his eyes look like he means it and that’s … what is so threatening?

((You know the rules!))

Loki isn’t sure.

((It drives people nuts if you cry for no reason at all!))

Okay, maybe he doesn’t feel threatened per se but it’s definitely a weird and unfamiliar sensation, and it makes him antsy to imagine that he might not have to be on his guard all the time. 

((You look like a goddamn faggot! What are people going to think of me if my own son dresses up like a girl, hm?))

“It’s nice to see you again, too,” Magnus adds because, apparently, Loki missed something.

Loki continues to drift in and out of reality as they all sit down and Robert and Thor start a conversation about … whatever manly men talk about when they slap each other’s backs and then he spaces out entirely when one crazy, deranged, nasty little thought takes hold that he can’t even comprehend let alone admit; not even to himself because what the fuck.

What the fuck.

Seriously Lokester, get a fucking grip, Nikias groans. Can you stop thinking about Odin for one goddamn second? You make me wanna set something on fire.

I can’t. He’s Robert’s predecessor.

Nope, he’s not, Nikias objects. He’s just a guy who has the hots for your momma.

Don’t talk like that, Loki grouses.

I like him, says Leah. He’s nice.

Which isn’t really saying much because she said that about Odin too that one time she spoke to him when he called them at the treatment center.

Loki is still thanking all his lucky stars that Leah doesn’t have any memories of him when the body was young.

“So, how does your workday look like?”

Loki forces himself to return to El Mundo Externo when he realizes that Robert has just addressed him and it’s still weird that he does have a job at all people can ask him about and why do adults always end up talking about work?

“I draw,” he grinds out.

“Frigga told me that, yes, but I still can’t imagine what a comic book publishing house looks like from the inside.”

Okay, that he can deal with.

Maybe.

He can feel his brother’s hand close around his thigh, squeezing gently. The fingers of Thor’s huge meaty hands almost enclose his leg entirely. He really needs to start paying attention to his diet again.

“I …” Loki’s voice catches in his throat.

“I don’t work in the publishing house itself,” Killian takes over because scaly old Jorgi apparently convened a fucking popular assembly in the cave. As always though, he’s impersonating him perfectly and Thor smiles at him as though he overcame his fucking anxieties. Boo-hoo. “The headquarters, I mean. There aren’t even any typical physical headquarters because many artists are working from home. The founder too. They have their own studio in their basement in Scottsdale. The ‘Phoenix Office’ is basically just a floor they rented in a building.”

Loki dutifully pulls out his phone to show Robert a few photos of the desks that really don’t look like much. His heart is this close to beating out of his chest when he forks it over, so loudly that he doesn’t even hear what Robert says in return but it doesn’t seem to matter because the conversation moves elsewhere soon enough.

Loki loses track of their words again.

It’s okay as long as he isn’t supposed to answer, he tells himself.

At least he’s sitting at the table with them.

At least he’s trying.

“Mom said you have a son, too?” Thor asks Robert at some point, reeling Loki’s mind back in. “What does he do?”

“Brian, yes. He’s a doctor,” Robert replies and then chuckles. “But he fled the country right after med school to help people all over the world. He’s currently in Myanmar. I really don’t see him much.”

((Why can’t you be more like your brother?))

“Is that tough?” Thor asks in a weird, choked-up voice. He’s still having difficulties too when he’s confronted with a father who’s genuinely proud of his child. It saddens Loki but it’s a relief all the same.

“Well, yes and no. I miss him, of course, but I’m incredibly proud of the work he does, especially since that wasn’t his original plan. He’s very athletic, just like you, and he’d been training to become a professional hockey player. But then my wife injured her spine in an accident when he was sixteen and …” Without warning, Loki’s ears start to ring and Robert’s words are fading in and out accompanied by a shrill, deafening whoosh. “Great care team ... we felt in such good hands … so patient and understanding … walked us through the pain management …”

Fuck, hisses Nikias and tries to push him away but it’s too late.

Loki hears Hela’s voice out of nowhere, flaming livid and guffaw-y at the same time.

((Those assholes prescribe you pills that sell for a hundred bucks a piece on the streets and call it medicine. They call you a fucking junkie while stuffing you full of opiates for treatment! Like, why don’t you just give me a bag of heroin and get it over with?))

It’s a memory or a shred of one but it’s from a conversation Loki knows he himself never had because they never talked about her cancer or her addiction or her … The cravings slam back into him with full force then and his brain goes straight back to ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod-ican’tdothisican’tdothis-ineedsomethingtotaketheedgeoff.

Shit, I’m sorry, Nikias mutters as if they could stop memories from bleeding through.

“Did I say something wrong?” asks Robert and Loki knows he just made a weird outside world sound trying to suppress a scream.

“Just don’t mention fucking painkillers next time, okay?” Nikias hisses and they all flinch from the protector’s tone.

Frigga says something too but Loki can’t hear her.

Her face is blurry.

“I’m sorry. I, uh, didn’t mean to be rude,” Loki grits out and stands.

The ground tilts.

He might as well be falling.

“And I’m sorry for your loss,” he tacks on because Robert is a widower. Loki didn’t hear him mention it just now but that’s what Frigga told him earlier, right?

At least he hopes so because otherwise this might get pretty fucking awkward.

“Thank you,” says Robert.

Thor’s hands land on the small of his back and his arm but Loki shakes them off. “No, it’s … I’m fine,” he tells his brother and himself and the rest of the table. “It’s okay. I just need a …moment. I’ll be … right back. Go back to your dinner, please. I’ll be okay.”

He will be, he tells himself.

Because his brother doesn’t even follow him.

He must look halfway okay then.

And he has therapy tomorrow.

He’ll be fine.

~°~

Frigga lasts all of seventeen minutes before the guilt she tried so hard to fight peaks. She clears her throat and excuses herself to check on Loki, and finds him sitting cross-legged at his desk. He’s dissociated and hyper-focused on the Lego model he just began to assemble, and doesn’t truly react to her presence except for the vaguest nod in response to the question if he is going to be okay. An ugly chorus of harsh voices pipes up in her brain uninvited then, calling her a bad mother because how dare she put her own well-being before that of her child. She hasn’t heard those voices in many months and is momentarily taken aback by the force of their hostility. It takes her a minute and every little drop of therapeutic wisdom she soaked up over the course of the past three years to silence them and remind herself that Loki himself is an adult who continuously insisted that he was fine for weeks and rebuffed every single one of her invitations to talk about the current situation.

Frigga closes her son’s door behind her and suppresses a sigh as she walks back.

“You two stay put,” Thor tells her when she returns to the table and reaches for their empty plates and Loki’s barely touched meal as he stands. “I’ll go get dessert.”

“I’m so sorry,” Frigga tells Robert in a low voice after she thanked Thor and her son disappeared into the kitchen.

“Don’t be,” Robert says over the clanking of cutlery and loops an arm around her, pulling her into a side-hug and brushing a soft kiss against her temple. Frigga can’t deny that it does feel incredibly nice to finally be seen and appreciated and, yes, looked after by a partner after managing everything by herself for so many years and asks herself for probably the thousandth time how on earth she even put up with Odin’s emotional iceberg-ery for over two decades when she could have experienced genuine compassion and support that much sooner instead. “He talked to me, didn’t he? I call that progress. In fact, I am sorry that I went there. I didn’t mean to upset him.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Frigga tells him then because she’s grown so, so tired of secrecy after all those years of lying and sugarcoating. She promised Loki she wouldn’t tell Robert the specifics of his condition until he gave her permission but she also swore to herself she wouldn’t build another relationship on subterfuges and it’s not as though she’ll be revealing any specifics. “His birthmother, she, uh, she had cancer and was heavily addicted to painkillers. She killed herself a few years ago.”

It might be even more than her being tired of lying. Sometimes, Frigga almost feels as if she has reached her lifelong limit of lies long ago and is now physically incapable of telling another one when it truly matters.

“The poor kid,” Robert murmurs against her scalp. “That must have been tough.”

“It was,” Frigga confirms.

Before she can elaborate, Thor returns with the mousse au chocolat she prepared this morning. “I hope you still got room for this,” her son tells Robert, “because I can tell you from experience that it’s simply amazing.”

Frigga can’t fully shake off the guilt as they dig in.

She can’t fully shake off the question how on earth Thor manages to appear so completely unbothered by what just happened either.

Chapter Text

The alarm bells in Janet van Dyne’s head start to ring the minute Loki enters her office the next day, even paler than usual with dark circles under his eyes. It happens sometimes that he returns to the center a little tense for his part-time out-patient afternoon treatment after work but his current level of agitation uncomfortably reminds her of the early days. She’s been watching him very closely for the past few weeks, of course, looking out for any signs of a relapse after Nikias told her about the drugs Loki had bought and almost taken but then thrown out. So far, he has not given her a reason to truly worry. Today, he gives her at least three.

“How are you today?” Janet begins.

“Okay-ish.”

His terseness is the first warning sign. She clears her throat. “How did the dinner go?”

“It went okay,” Loki tells her, without making eye contact.

His evasiveness is the second warning sign. Janet doesn’t know why he is having such tremendous difficulties to talk about this particular issue. Before his mother’s new partner entered the picture, their therapeutic relationship was one of deep, mutual trust but for a few weeks now, he’s been withdrawing further and further into himself, slipping away into mental places she cannot reach.

“Could you perhaps elaborate a little?” she tries.

It’s very obvious that he—and Nikias too—wouldn’t shed a single tear if they never had to talk about Robert Linton ever again but Loki humors her nonetheless. “I shook his hand, I talked to him, Nikias didn’t take over to antagonize him, there was no argument or fight; everything went okay, like I said.” His tone is clipped and he’s restless, barely able to stop bouncing his leg and wringing his fingers together.

His nervous energy is the third warning sign, and the most worrisome. Janet twirls her pen in her fingers. “Loki, I need to ask you a few questions, okay?”

Her patient shrugs.

“Have you been taking your medication as instructed?”

A nod.

“Are they still effective? Can you tell?”

A half-shrug.

“Have you been taking anything else?” Janet asks very carefully.

“What?” Loki’s head snaps up then. “No,” he protests indignantly and glares at her; as if his last near-miss with substance addiction wasn’t only a month ago. “Why?”

“What about alcohol?”

“Why are you asking me that? I’m a little tired but I’m fine, okay?” He gets up and starts pacing. “I’m fine!”

“No, Loki. You’re not fine. You’ve lost weight, you’re fidgety, you can barely look me in the eye, I think you’ve been dishonest with me for quite some time now and your BPD symptoms are intensifying; all of which tells me that your meds aren’t working properly. I do believe you when you tell me you’re clean,” she assures him when he is about to protest again, “but weight loss and stress alone can affect the potency of your medication. We’ll have to take your blood afterwards to determine whether we have to tweak your regimen a little.”

Loki slumps back down then and gives up with a deep sigh. “Okay, fine. I probably should’ve told you that they haven’t been working for a while.”

Janet scribbles that down. “For how long would you say?”

Loki shrugs. “A month?”

A month?

Seriously?

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Janet demands firmly.

“Because I thought it was gonna sort itself out,” Loki says after a pause. “I know, I know, I need to talk you about these things.” He makes a grimace, then breathes out and angrily slaps his thighs. “It’s just … I’m tired of being a nutjob, okay? I’m tired of having to deal with stuff like this when everyone else doesn’t fucking have to.”

Janet doesn’t bother to point out that many people struggle with mental illness. It wouldn’t reach him anyway if she did. “Loki, please. I know that it’s hard to take care of yourself at times, especially when you’re anxious and stressed, but I’m afraid you are one of those people who’ll always need the support of a medication regimen to stay functioning and stable. It’s a biochemical issue in your brain, not a sign of weakness or lack of discipline.”

“That doesn’t make it any less annoying,” Loki grumbles.

A small part of Janet wants to shake him, the rest of her just wants to wrap him up in a hug. “Have you been having nightmares?”

A reluctant nod.

“Have you been feeling suicidal?”

A headshake.

“Have you harmed yourself?”

Silence.

“Loki?” Janet prompts.

He lowers his gaze and starts picking at his nails. “I tried not to,” he tells her eventually. He is still fleeing her gaze and he looks so defeated and ashamed and yet so determined to hide his struggles from everyone. “I fought the urge, I swear. But then I spooked Fen last night and his claw got me good. The scratch wouldn’t stop bleeding and I … Well. I gave in. Nothing too deep though.” An angry little huff that serves the solitary function of keeping him from bursting into tears. “Are you satisfied now?”

“No,” Janet tells him, softly but firmly. “Not at all. I hate that you’re having such a hard time and I wish you would talk to me about your mother’s new partner. I know you’re trying to do right by her and don’t want to stand in the way of her happiness but it’s clearly been challenging for you and this here”—she makes a sweeping gesture indicating the room—“is supposed to be your safe space, Loki. This is the place where you can admit that you’re struggling and that you’re having difficulties to adjust.”

“I’m not ‘having difficulties to adjust’.” Loki’s teeth are clenched so hard that her own jaw begins to ache just from watching him.

“Then what? Talk to me, please. You don’t have to go through this alone.”

“I’m not alone. There’s seventeen of me, remember?” Loki jokes, desperately clinging to his composure even though his eyes are already glistening with the unshed tears he’s been trying to blink back.

“I do and they’re worried about you too. Nikias and Leah especially.”

He inhales shakily.

“Loki, this has been festering inside you for weeks and I can tell that you’re about to implode. It’s only a matter of time. You’re bursting at the seams and, based on your own experience, which scenario is more likely, hm? That whatever you’re feeling is going to magically resolve itself or that it’s going to blow up in your face and lead to a relapse? I, for one, I’m really worried about that”—and giving her concerns a voice does nothing whatsoever to diminish them—“because your mental resources are depleted right now and—”

“Okay, yes! Fine,” Loki shouts at her, his façade in shambles from one second to the next. He leaps from his chair and starts pacing again, his tears streaming down his cheeks in two shiny rivulets. “If I took a hit now, I wouldn’t be able to stop again because everything sucks and I’m tired of feeling like shit. I’m exhausted and I don’t want to think anymore and I don’t want to hold it together! Is that what you wanna hear?”

It isn’t.

Janet is on high alert by now.

“You were wrong, by the way! You were all wrong.” He stabs the air with his index finger. “You all tried to assure me of the opposite but you were wrong and I knew it. I always knew it. I’m a despicable, egotistical piece of shit. I don’t want to work this out. I hate this whole, entire situation! It’s too much and too overwhelming and I don’t want anything to change! I hate change! My life’s been as good as it can get with dissociative amnesia and flashbacks and all that shit and I …” He stumbles over a hiccup and his voice breaks a little. “I was doing okay. It didn’t take so much work anymore to just feel sane and stable and healthy and safe and now I … I have to put in so much effort every day just to stop myself from freaking out or drinking or worse. All that anxiety is back and I’ve been having nightmares of Thanos and Odin and … Robert, he … He’s been in every single one of them, right there with them. I know that’s stupid because he didn’t do anything to me but he’s a goddamn stranger and I don’t want him in my life or my mom’s life. I thought I could do it but I can’t. It’s too much fucking work and I’m too weak and I feel like I’m drowning and I don’t want my mom to be happy if her being happy means that she has a boyfriend or a lover or a partner or whatever people fucking call it these days! I want my life back the way it was before she met him! I want her to fucking break up with him, okay? But I can’t tell her that because I don’t manipulate her like that anymore and I can’t admit it to anyone because of how needy and pathetic and disgusting and selfish it sounds. So there, everything is just splendid!”

He turns away and walks over to the couch, collapses into it and curls himself into ball, dissolving into sobs and tremors. Janet stands as well, reaches for a box of tissues and sits down on the armrest beside him. “You’re neither of these things, Loki,” she assures him and tracks large circles between his shoulder blades with her palm. His bones feel sharp beneath her fingers. “Not pathetic, not weak, not disgusting. You’re overwhelmed and that’s perfectly understandable. You’re being so very, very hard on yourself when, in reality, your emotions just are. They don’t make you a horrible person.”

She doesn’t receive a verbal reply and waits. While he weeps himself out, Janet thinks back to the conversation they had after he relapsed in the aftermath of Theo’s mutism coming to light. I want the needy awful side of me that is responsible for so many people’s suffering and makes me so selfish and causes everyone so much pain dead, he told her then and she tenses a little. I wish I could just cut it out and whenever I learn something new about myself that makes me feel like an ugly parasite, that urge to kill this part of me comes back and then it’s almost eating me alive how much I hate myself.

“I’m selfish,” Loki snivels into his sleeves. “Everything about what I just said was I, I, I, me, me, me, and I hate that so much but I can’t … I can’t change it. I can’t step out of my fucking head.”

“Sometimes your illness won’t let you,” Janet soothes. “It’s going to happen from time to time and it’s not your fault, Loki. You didn’t abandon and neglect yourself.”

He snorts, which leads to a cough.

“I have a suggestion and I’d like you to hear me out, okay?” Janet asks into the ensuing silence and Loki nods. “After the session is over, we’re going to get a blood sample and then I’d like you to stay with us for a few days.”

Loki doesn’t hear her out. He sits up, his eyes puffy and swollen, his cheeks red, black mascara smears all over his face. “Back to in-patient treatment, you mean?”

Janet nods. “Just for a few days until the new regimen kicks in. I’d feel much better having you here for observation. If you walked out of here after what you confided in me today, I’d be tempted to get a court order to make sure you stay safe.”

“Great,” Loki snaps. “I’ve lost all my progress! I’m back at square fucking one.”

“Well, if my memory serves me right,” Janet replies softly, “at square one you tried to kill yourself and then threatened your mother you’d do it again if she didn’t take you home.”

That gets a little, choked-up laugh out of him, thank heavens. “Okay, maybe not all progress then,” he concedes in a small voice. “But still. I’m a mess.”

“Right now? Yes, but you have been doing well,” Janet assures him, “and you’ve adjusted to so many changes that seemed impossible to adjust to at the time—moving here, starting treatment, watching your mother go back to work, transitioning to out-patient treatment, pitching your comic to a publishing house, starting a job, going on vacation to Canada with your brother, facing your family in Norway. I have faith that you will adjust to this too. It’s simply a new situation, one you haven’t faced before and probably didn’t think you would face anytime soon, so you don’t yet have the tools to adapt to it. But that’s what I’m here for, to help you look at this new situation and figure out what you need in order to be able to handle it as well as you’ve handled everything else. And I really think it’d benefit you a lot if you could just take a break from all the stress for a few days, you know? Just to give yourself a chance to catch your breath and wind down.”

“It’s just … it feels like a defeat,” Loki whispers.

“It isn’t. It’s a bump in the road. Recovery isn’t a linear path. There can always be setbacks and we’ll always be here for you if you need us. Always.”

“Why can I not just stop wanting to get lit when shit gets rough?”

“Because opioid addiction is a disease that can make long-lasting changes to how your brain processes rewards, emotional pain and motivation.”

“Will I ever get rid of it?” Loki asks after a pause. “Or do I really have to live with this for the rest of my life because of one stupid decision?”

“It wasn’t your decision, Loki.”

“Of course it was.” His voice is shaking with anger and frustration. “Thanos gave me the pill and said, ‘Take it or leave it’. I took it. Who else can I blame for that?”

Sometimes, Janet wishes she could march into his head with a hose and extinguish the flames of his self-hatred. “Thanos preyed on you. He used and abused you. Besides, it wasn’t your first hit in LA, was it? Prenatal drug exposure made you extremely vulnerable to narcotics. Not to mention that up to sixty percent of the addiction risk stems from genetic factors to begin with. The way I see it, you never had much choice in the matter.”

It’s not fair, by any means, and Janet knows that but, at the same time, it’s the only life he has.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Loki grumbles, seeing right through her as he always does.

“No, I don’t think you’ll ever completely get rid of it,” Janet concedes after a moment of internal debate. “It’ll always be there, lurking in the back of your mind, half-asleep or dozing if you’re lucky, but in times of stress and/or emotional hardship it will wake up and let you know that it’s still there for you whenever you need it. In most cases, yes, it is a lifelong battle that requires consistent commitment, I’m afraid.”

“That figures.” Her patient releases a trembling breath, reaches for the box of tissues and blows his nose. “I uh ... I’ve been thinking about buying more Vicodin some almost all the time. I even considered hurting myself so badly that they’ll have to give me the good stuff in the ER,” Loki tells her once he’s done and Janet’s stomach gives another lurch. “I’ve been thinking about taking them and about the feeling I would get to experience and … It feels as if I actually relapsed, you know. Like it doesn’t even matter that I didn’t because I wanted it so much all the fucking time.”

“That’s not at all uncommon when something like this stays on the forefront of your mind,” Janet assures him. “Besides, many people expect too much of themselves and equal full recovery with the perpetual absence of urges or cravings when, in reality, recovery is about learning to cope with them once they ambush you or, even worse, sneak up on you. And you’ve been clean for how long now?”

“It’ll be two years on August 29^th.”

“See? You are doing great.”

Loki looks ten years younger when his shoulders slump. “Then why do I feel so miserable?”

“Because the expectations you have of yourself are way too high,” Janet replies. “So, what do you say? We get your bloodwork done and take a look at your cuts and then we get you a sick note and a room so that you can rest until dinner. And tomorrow we start figuring out how to sort through all of this?”

“I say it sounds pretty damn amazing,” Loki admits and bursts into tears again.

Janet clasps his shoulder. “But?”

“My mom’s gonna be so disappointed.”

That figures, too.

And the worst part? At this moment, Loki is firmly convinced that Frigga is going to hate him and Janet van Dyne wouldn’t be able to smash that conviction to pieces even if she possessed the largest jackhammer in the world.

Chapter Text

“Come on, brother!” shouts Thor and leaps from one crystal formation (?) to the next.

Maybe they’re rocks or shiny anthracite building blocks and not actual crystals but what does it matter because it’s a dream and the architecture is moving way too fast for Loki to think. He needs to focus because Frigga and Robert are sitting on comfortably-looking lounge chairs on the rooftop of a skyscraper half a city away and the buildings and the roads and the bridges that are supposed to get them there are constantly shifting as if he and Thor were trapped in a video game modeled after Inception or the freaking mirror dimension or—

“Loki!”

Thor is holding out his hand. “You gotta jump, brother! Quick!”

Loki gulps.

The chasm beneath him is way too large but if he doesn’t jump, he won’t catch up with Thor and he won’t ever reach his mom but still he … he can’t possibly jump that far. He just can’t.

“Fuck,” Thor hisses and takes another leap because the crystals-or-whatever-they-are beneath his feet have just begun to crumble away too. “Come on, Loki! You need to jump!”

Loki knows it, he does, but it’s too far and he isn’t as athletic and he’ll fall. He just knows that he’ll fall and what then?

He takes another deep breath or tries to but his throat is so tight and Thor gets ever closer to the rooftop where their mother is because he just does the jumping and Loki can’t because he’s never been good at this and he’s never been able to catch up with his brother and ….

No, no, no.

To hell with it.

The chasm is unbridgeable now but he has to do it.

He just has to.

Otherwise Frigga will be lost to him forever.

He takes another breath and takes a few steps backwards to gain momentum.

As soon as he starts running though, a Godzilla-sized Odin appears out of nowhere, taller than the buildings, and he grabs him by the neck with a mean snicker.

“Nooooo,” pants Loki, struggling inside his adopter’s iron grip. “Let me go!”

“Loki, hey, hey,” shushes another vaguely familiar voice and he’d be damned if he knew where  it was coming from all of a sudden. “You’re dreaming. You need to wake up.”

He realized as much minutes ago, thank you very much, but Odin is still right there and he is still holding him by the scruff and dangling him in the air as if he were a kitten or doll or a—

“Shshhshsh, hey,” says the other voice. “It’s me, Darcy. You’re in the treatment center. You’re dreaming.”

Darcy?

What?

How can she be there when Odin—

“Daddy, pleaaaseeeee, no,” yelps Loki but the dreamscape is finally blurring and kinda fading out and the hand is on his shoulder now and no longer grabbing him by the neck and—

He startles awake then, his heart beating so fast that he gets dizzy but not dizzy enough to realize that he has his fingers clasped around Darcy’s wrist.

Hard.

He loosens his grip with the greatest of efforts.

“Hey, you’re safe,” coos his former nurse. “You’re back with us. Odin isn’t here and even if that crusty old tyrant ever tried to get in here, he wouldn’t get past security.”

Her words make sense, in a weird detached sort of way, and the room is veeeery slowly swimming back into focus.

“Here,” says Darcy and hands him George. Loki hugs the stupid animal close to his chest, momentarily oblivious to what it being here means as he pieces his disintegrating psyche back together. “Your mom dropped off a few things for you last night.”

“L-last night?” Loki asks and finally the haze of the nightmare dissipates. He straightens, alarm slamming into him. “You mean … It’s morning?” Obviously, duh. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

“Loptr fronted during the examination and didn’t take the temporary separation too well. The doc decided to give you a low-risk sedative because she figured you could use the rest,” Darcy explains.

Great, Loki sighs inwardly.

Well, she wasn’t wrong per se—he was in dire need of a good night’s sleep and, even if it ended with another nightmare, his batteries are recharged a little and he’s less tense and antsy and itching to climb out of his own skin and up the walls—but missing chunks of time when it truly matters never gets easier.

“Were you there when she dropped off my stuff? Did she, uh, say anything?” Loki asks because he just can’t help himself. Sue him. “Was she disappointed?”

“No,” Darcy assures him and cradles the wrist he grabbed in her other hand. “She was worried, more than anything else, and at a bit of a loss, I guess. I told her that it wasn’t your fault that we gotta tweak your meds because the antipsychotics especially are very sensitive and occasionally stop doing their job just because you breathe wrong for a few days in a row. She also said that she was glad that you accepted, well, didn’t refuse help when it was being forced on you, let’s say, and that she knew you’re in capable hands now. You can call her between breakfast and art therapy.”

Loki’s heart skips a beat at the thought of sitting back down with the other patients and having to admit that he didn’t make it outside on his own; which is probably not the most accurate way to phrase what happened but it’s the only way his useless brain is willing to interpret it at the moment.

“Do I have to eat with them?” he tries in his best whiny grown-up baby voice, knowing it’s fruitless.

“What do you think, hm?” Darcy flutes and cocks her eyebrows at him. “We need to up your calorie intake or else we don’t even need to bother adjusting your regimen.”

“I know,” sighs Loki. If he doesn’t start eating properly again, his mood swings and his cravings will never ease up. He might as well throw in the towel and hitch a ride straight to the shady corner of the lost and the damned if he keeps starving himself.

It’s just … not as easy as it sounds, okay?

The first time he sat down at that breakfast table, Wanda was right there; the only friendly face, the only one trying to make conversation despite the fact that he kept treating her like a piece of dog crap stuck to the sole of his boot for months. It took Loki so long to get used to the company of her and the other patients that it took him quite a while to get un-used to it too—to the point where he suffered a severe anxiety attack at the prospect of not sitting down to have breakfast with them the night before his first day out-patient treatment. And now he has to get used to it again, without anyone’s help.

Okay, maybe that’s not entirely true.

Okay, okay, le grand sigh, it’s not true at all because Loki’s been coming here every day after work for almost a year, for fuck’s sake. He knows most of the other patients from DBT and group therapy and they know him and a few of his system members.

Take that anxiety, you’re all out of arguments.

Loki takes a deep breath and wishes the assembled group a good morning without looking anyone in the eye before he slides down onto a chair next to Ava. “Hey.”

“You look terrible,” the young woman says and flashes him a smirk that looks nasty but probably isn’t meant to look that way because she’s utterly helpless with social cues. She’s been here for a couple of weeks and Loki doesn’t know much about her yet; except that she too lost her parents young (apparently, he developed quite an advanced orphan radar during his time in the City of Angels) and is suffering from delusions in which she disintegrates and experiences herself as intangible and unable to be touched by another human being.

“You look better,” Loki tries because her condition must be so terribly frightening and because she does. When she was admitted, her eyes looked almost dead. Now, there’s at least a faint sparkle in them.

Ava laughs and stares at him as if he was insane. “Yeah, right.”

That’s the extent of their conversation for the time being but at least it makes him realize that Dr. van Dyne was right. He didn’t lose all his progress, not even close. When he first came here over two years ago, he was pathologically incapable of looking anyone in the eye and now he can effortlessly small-talk despite feeling torn apart and stitched back together all wrong and cockeyed.

~°~

The return to one-on-one art therapy after breakfast is a bit weird after all this time of art-ing for a living in a real-world office where no one is lurking in a corner to psychoanalyze his work as soon as he put his pen down but Mac is still his biggest supporter and Loki uses the chance to bring his latest dream to life in an acrylic painting, which he dutifully takes to his session with Dr. van Dyne afterwards.

~°~

“I know my brain is trying to outwit me,” Loki whines before she can get a word in after his explanation of what the painting means; which is fine, really, because he just took the first load of his new meds and they can’t possibly have started to work yet, so he’s allowed to ramble and spiral. “You know what this whole fiasco reminds me of? Remember that time when Thor and I both weren’t talking to Odin for a while after my brother moved out and decided to road trip?” He doesn’t even wait for her to respond but that’s okay too, right? “And then, suddenly, he did contact him again and I felt like a bad son because I couldn’t do the same and we had this session that totally spiraled out of control? I feel like that again now, which is stupid because we’re still different people with different emotional attachments. I hate that Thor makes everything look so easy, the way he’s just dealing with Robert, but, for him, I suppose it just is easy. He doesn’t live with our mother anymore. For him, it really doesn’t change anything that she’s seeing someone. And I know why that is, rationally I do. I’m not stupid. Thor wasn’t abandoned as a baby, he had the chance to form a stable relationship with our mom, he doesn’t suffer from abandonment anxiety and question his place in the family whenever she expresses genuine interest in someone or something else. I know that we don’t have the same mental and emotional tool kit to deal with stuff like that, I do, but I’m still envious and I still expect myself to just get over this and accept Robert like he does because that’s the ‘right’ way to react, isn’t it, morally speaking I mean, that’s how a ‘good son’ would react and it’d mean so much to her if I could just pull myself together but I can’t and now I feel like I’m hiding like a coward instead of facing my problems, which is stupid too because I’m literally in therapy right now to discuss my issues but I still have no idea how to fix this or even do anything about it and …”

Loki reminds himself to breathe then and sinks back into his armchair, deep into the cushions, utterly drained from one second to the next; as if he already used up all his energy for the day.

Which sucks because it’s only shortly after ten a.m.

“Your mind is still running in overdrive, I see,” says Dr. van Dyne, with a sympathetic smile.

“If my lack of coherence bothers you, you can always prescribe me some hydrocodone,” Loki jokes and winks at her even if there is nothing funny whatsoever about the fact that the only thing that ever helped to slow his thoughts down when his brain is so hopelessly overwrought is the one thing he isn’t allowed to have ever again and shouldn’t even want because he has two cats who depend on him for food and love and hugs and he has a job and he’ll travel to fucking ComicCon in less than two months (!!!!) to sign autographs (!!!) but still does want to the point where he fantasizes once more about what’d happen if he ever got into a serious accident—like a car crash or whatever would happen to him if he actually gave in and went snowboarding with Thor this Christmas—and fractured his ribs because surely the concerned ER doctor would just start him on twenty or even forty milligrams of, well, oxy probably because they just don’t see drugs as drugs in this lovely country, do they? Other countries have a much healthier attitude towards painkillers; which he only learned a few weeks ago when Leif (while they were talking about Uncle Tyr’s very persistent lumbago) was completely flabbergasted that it’s relatively easy to get US doctors to prescribe something “that’s basically heroin in a pill” for, well, backaches and shit, and then his cousin did some research because he’s curious to the bone (which makes him such a great writer) and uncovered that Americans consume eighty percent of the world’s prescription opioids, which is insane and unfair and unsafe and doesn’t make any of this any fucking easier because the next drugstore—haha, how hilarious—is never far enough away and what if Frigga does get married again and moves to Europe with Robert and Thor finds someone too because he isn’t aro after all and Wanda runs off to London with Vis eventually and Vicodin will be all he has left?

What then, huh?

“Loki?” Dr. van Dyne prompts.

He swallows and commands himself to return to the present. “Y-yes?”

“Where did your thoughts wander just now?”

He clears his throat. “Nowhere.”

Liar.

“Alright.” Dr. van Dyne smacks her lips and scribbles something onto her pad. “I was saying that I hope you’re aware that we will not ‘fix this’ within the next fifty minutes.”

Loki’s heart sinks, which is stupid too because she’s right. If years of therapy taught him one thing, it’s that it takes time to untangle his convoluted brain. “I guess we won’t,” he concedes.

“I’m glad you agree with me,” his therapist says then, as hesitant as an explorer who sets foot on an exotic island and dreads to spook the precious indigenous animals, “because Robert isn’t the only issue here, is he?”

That takes Loki by surprise, and how. He straightens again, gripping the armrest for moral support. “He isn’t?”

“Well, if what Darcy told me is true,” Dr. van Dyne says after a weighty pause that felt a little too much as though he was being walked to the gallows, “it appears you forgot to paint one person who appeared in your last nightmare.”

“I didn’t forget,” Loki protests because remember this one crazy, deranged, nasty little thought that popped into his mind out of nowhere when he watched Thor get chummy with Robert? The one that made Nikias want to set something one fire? The one he couldn’t acknowledge even to himself, let alone think through to the end, because what the fuck? Yeah, that. No fucking way. “Because this isn’t about Odin.”

It isn’t.

Not really.

Or at least it … wouldn’t be if his thoughts were starting to make sense again.

“Are you sure?” Dr. van Dyne raises her eyebrows and spears him with her intense gaze. “Because I recall you telling me just yesterday that you’ve been having nightmares that feature Robert ‘right there’ with Thanos and Odin every single night.”

Loki gulps. “Yeah but … I mean … I’m just concerned, aren’t I, that Robert will end up hurting my mother and that’s why my subconscious projects the traits of the two father figures I was emotionally attached to onto him because they’re my only frame of reference of how an adult male behaves behind closed doors. It has nothing to do with me per se. I put Odin behind me.”

It sound pretty convincing to his own ears.

Mature.

Smart.

Dr. van Dyne isn’t fooled for one second though. “Look, I understand that this is far from pleasant, especially right now,” she assures him and looks sincere enough, “but you inadvertently hurt Darcy this morning when you grabbed her by the wrist in sleep and I really think we should talk about the role Odin played in your nightmare.”

Chapter Text

“Your brother is back at the center,” Frigga tells her eldest later that day when they’ve settled into a comfortable rattan booth on the terrace of a new Indian dinner restaurant that opened a couple of weeks ago. “For a few days of in-patient treatment. He’s—”

“What? Why? What happened? Did he hurt himself? Did he relapse?” Thor speaks over her attempt to elaborate and in his eyes flares up the same alarm that grabbed her heart with almost-forgotten icy claws when she saw the caller ID from Silver Linings on the display of her phone the previous night. They hadn’t contacted, hadn’t needed to contact her, in so long that she had to physically force herself to pick up her cell and speak past the lump in her throat.

“I don’t know. He was already asleep when I got there. If he did, they didn’t tell me about it,” Frigga replies, suppressing the sigh that stubbornly wants to attach itself to her words. That they did not say anything isn’t a guarantee that nothing happened, unfortunately, because ever since Loki reached the age of medical consent the previous November, Dr. van Dyne has only disclosed to her what Loki previously authorized her to disclose—which he has every legal right to, of course, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy to let go. Especially during times like this when she feels him slipping away from her again. “They need to adjust his medication regimen and want him there for observation. Apparently, the stress and his recent weight loss rendered them ineffective.”

Thor exhales a long breath and his relief is almost palpable. “That’s … I’m glad, actually,” he concedes. “Ever since he showed up at my place after the fight you guys had because of the drugs Lokes hid in your room, I’ve been wondering. Worrying, rather. As I said, I was a bit scared, to be honest, because nothing usually comes between you two and it’s … Well, I’m glad there is an explanation for his, uh, restlessness that doesn’t directly or necessarily or only have to do with the fact that you’re dating. And, apart from that, I was this close to running out of ideas how to help.”

“Yeah, I’m relieved too,” Frigga admits because all the dread and the pent-up anxiousness of the past weeks dissolved instantly once she knew he was looked after again. She hadn’t even realized just how worried she actually was that Loki might not be ‘safe’—as problematic as that term is, given their history—anymore until she met Darcy Lewis and handed over George and a small suitcase filled with clothes and toiletries. It’s almost as if her feelings for Robert did blind her, in a way. She takes a deep breath and lowers the dinner menu. “Although, I still can’t help but wonder.”

Thor doesn’t look up from his. “Wonder what?”

“If I’m making a mistake,” Frigga specifies because if she were, if Thor truly thought she should break up with Robert for Loki’s sake, she is certain her eldest wouldn’t hesitate to tell her so. He never had any scruples calling her out on her mistakes in the past after all, be it her ignorance of the abuse inflicted upon Loki and Leah by Amora, her continuous lies of omission regarding the adoption or her overprotectiveness to his detriment. “Staying in this relationship, I mean, when it’s obviously stressing Loki out so much.”

Thor glances up from his menu then. “Mooom,” he admonishes and almost stretches the syllable into its own continent. “Seriously?”

“I’m sorry,” Frigga hurries to reply. “Forget it. I shouldn’t …” Shouldn’t what? Burden him with her problems? Although it doesn’t feel like that at all. It feels a lot more as if she were asking another adult for advice who just so happens to be her own twenty-three-year old son.

“You really think you should end the relationship for Loki’s sake?” Thor probes her and, once again, the role-reversal is both a little creepy but also immensely rewarding. Apparently, she did quite a few things right along the way too. “What does your therapist have to say about that?” He pauses for dramatic effect only. “Or Robert?”

“Dr. Fulla quite adamantly told me not to go down that route,” Frigga says and they break out into a synchronous, companionable chuckle. “She said that I cannot put my life on hold on the mere assumption that my dating life might stress him out—which I now know to be true but still—and that, despite his illnesses, it’s his responsibility to have his emotional needs met, not mine. She loves to point out that having DID and BPD is not a get out of jail free card even if it might have been in the beginning of his journey towards healing and that he has to put in the work interpersonal relationships demand as much as the next person. I haven’t mentioned it to Robert, obviously, but I know that he is somewhat worried that Loki will ask me to decide; which I don’t think he will because if that was what your brother wanted, he would have already done it and even Nikias isn’t actively trying to sabotage me after his initial demands. All that tells me that Loki and his system are willing to figure this out.”

“But?” asks Thor.

“I can’t help but feel guilty,” Frigga admits and it irks her because she has put in so much work to leave those inhibiting feelings behind her but, apparently, life is cyclic. “Even if I don’t want to.”

Thor nods, biting his lip for a moment.

“Remember when I went on my road trip after I’d told you that I was gonna visit you guys that weekend?” he finally asks after the waitress took their orders and she nods because how could she ever forget that milestone in her son’s emotional development? Not to mention that the orchids he brought her back from the Everglades two years ago are still thriving in her apartment and her office and the rooms of everyone else she gave a sprig to. “I knew that Loki was gonna take my decision the wrong way even if it had nothing whatsoever to do with him. I knew he was gonna feel abandoned and I knew I was gonna hurt him and that Nikias was very likely gonna hold it against me and try to convince Loki that I’m the bad guy but I did it anyway. Not out of spite or to hurt him or to ruin our relationship. I did it because I needed to do it for myself and I’m glad I did it because I came back stronger and healthier.”

“You did,” Frigga confirms.

“And our relationship really started to get better after that,” Thor continues. “I still don’t know how, actually, but it did. Loki and I were in a really bad place once. I mean, you know that, or parts of it at least.”

Her mind flashes back to all the shouting, the door-slamming and the vicious name-calling that went on for months before Thor moved out due to Odin’s manipulations. It’s quite a feat nowadays, to imagine that this phase in her sons’ lives wasn’t just a feverish nightmare.

“But even after he came home and began treatment, we didn’t understand each other very well for a long time because I still had too much anger and unresolved conflict going on and he was too caught up in his struggles and his traumas to be able to put himself in my shoes. Doing that for myself taught me that you’re allowed to look after yourself without losing a person you love because you can’t work on a relationship if you’re emotionally depleted and you can’t sacrifice your own happiness for someone else, no matter how much you love them. Because if you do, you might end up bitter and resentful. You might think, ‘Okay, that’s what this person needs from me right now and I can give it, maybe, if I really try,’ but how are you gonna look at it in a year from now? You might end up harboring unpleasant thoughts because, well, ‘What could have happened if only I’d put myself first?’ That sort of thing, you know? Because I told you before and I’ll tell you again that I’m not blind. You’re serious about this guy. You’re happy. You’re glowing. He’s good for you and if you send him packing, you’ll probably end up blaming Loki for it or at the very least you’ll end up wondering.”

Frigga opens her mouth to protest but Thor isn’t yet ready to surrender the right to speak and signals her so by raising his hand. “And I really don’t think Loki is back in a place where he absolutely can’t work on your relationship. Yes, Robert threw him badly and I’m not gonna sugarcoat that or anything. Otherwise, he probably wouldn’t have suffered a few very severe flashbacks and nightmares and dissociative episodes, and you wouldn’t have fought about the Vicodin and he wouldn’t be back at the center either. And maybe this is a bit different than everything else he had to work through because it cuts so much closer to home or whatever but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s come such a long way and if you break up with Robert now without giving him a chance to work it out, I don’t know … It just feels like if you did, you’d straight-up neglect or disregard all that progress and go straight back to coddling him, don’t you think?”

For a moment, Frigga can just stare as a long-forgotten memory resurfaces in her mind, unbidden and so far out-of-context that she has no way of telling what brought it back.

“I’m aware that I sound a bit harsh but honestly,” Thor begins but then trails off when he sees her expression. “What?”

“Nothing,” Frigga tells him and the word comes out as a chuckle. “Sometimes, it just still takes me surprise how much you’ve matured, that’s all. I’m so proud of you, honey, and I love you very much.”

She reaches across the table to cup her son’s cheek and he lets her but his features morph into a gleeful smile all the same when he clasps her wrist. “How much I’ve matured compared to when, exactly?”

Frigga laughs then and withdraws her hand after Thor released it with a gentle squeeze. “Don’t ask me why but I just remembered that one day I gave Mrs. Fletcher the afternoon off because I felt like cleaning myself. You were sixteen or seventeen, I think, and I don’t remember why you walked into the bathroom but when you asked me why I was ‘doing our housekeeper’s job’, I told you that cleaning relaxes me sometimes. You just snorted and said, ‘Women are so weird,’ and then you turned around and left even though I called after you. In that moment, I was … worried,” she settles on saying after a bit of consideration, “at least for a moment, that I’ve missed my chance to … I don’t know … curb your arrogance, maybe? It seemed like I had no influence on you anymore but, in the end, you still ended up surprising me. I guess there’s a lesson in there even though I’m not sure I see it just now.”

“Jeez, I was such an asshole,” grouses Thor, half-playful, half mortified, mock-hiding behind his hand.

“A bit, yeah,” Frigga agrees because, well, how could she possibly deny it? Under Odin’s influence, her eldest didn’t exactly have a chance to thrive. “And it feels really surreal sometimes. Only a few years have passed since that moment but it seems like a lifetime ago now. Odin, Vegas, our life back there, it all seems so very far away now because we’ve—”

“We’ve built something amazing here,” Thor finishes for her. “Something neither of us thought was even in store for us while we were still living with Dad.”

Frigga nods and draws another breath. “And I guess I just don’t want to jeopardize it, that’s all, but you’re right. I don’t want to coddle him either. That’s the last thing I want.”

“You won’t jeopardize it, Mom,” Thor says, sounding every bit like the rock he looks. “You and Loki love each other and your bond is inseparable. You just need to, well, talk.”

“I tried,” Frigga sighs. “Believe me, I did. Many times. I just hope that Dr. van Dyne will insist on that family therapy session he’s been avoiding like the plague now that it became obvious that the issue will not just settle itself.”

Their food arrives then and they silently dig in.

“Do you, uh, think he took something?” Thor asks after a few minutes and the concern in his eyes as he puts down his fork changes him from a fellow adult back into her son in need of her reassurance.

If only she could provide it.

“I’d love to say ‘no’ and that I trust him but the truth is that he’s been so keyed up for the past few days that I honestly can’t tell the difference,” Frigga replies and, even after all this time, words still can’t begin to express what the certainty that your own child craves poison in a pill when he’s stressed feels like deep in your gut.

“Same,” sighs Thor and her heart bleeds a little for him.

“But I think we have to give him the benefit of the doubt nonetheless,” she says after a moment of reconsideration, to reassure the both of them. “Because Loki wants this to work. He might not know how to but I just know that he does.”

Chapter Text

“I’m not entirely sure how to play this, to be honest, but after careful consideration I think a good way to start would be if you, Frigga, began by telling us all about this new development in your life from your perspective, including any challenges that you perceived along the way,” Janet instructs after Loki and his mother settled into her office for a family therapy session three days later. The atmosphere is awfully strained and the greeting was so reserved that the therapist wouldn’t have been able to guess the relationship they’d had before Robert came into their lives.

“Well, I,” the other woman begins and searches for her son’s eyes—her child’s eyes, Janet corrects herself silently because she does want to do justice to his gender identity even if she finds that calling Loki Frigga’s ‘child’ unnecessarily infantilizes him and ‘offspring’ doesn’t sit right with her either because it isn’t technically correct—but Loki flees his mother’s gaze and focuses on his freshly painted nails instead.

Frigga looks at Janet then. “I met Robert through his cousin, who I took on as a client in mid-April. She had just left an abusive relationship and had been treated in the hospital for a rib fracture. I told her that I’d need all her medical records to make a compelling case and she sent him to deliver them to my office. And we connected. Instantly. It was”—she blushes slightly, which fills Janet’s chest with warmth despite how much anguish it causes her patient—“unexpected. Entirely unexpected. After I’d filed for divorce, I was at a point where I genuinely thought I was fed up with men and relationships and, well, everything that comes with it. Meeting someone new wasn’t on my radar at all. I wasn’t actively looking or anything. I wasn’t—”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Loki says then even if he still won’t look his mother in the eye.

“I won’t,” Frigga says then, reaching for his hand. He hesitates before he takes it but eventually he does and she squeezes it. “It’s just … He took me by surprise too. And once I stopped fighting the attraction, well, Loki and I had a conversation about it. He—you,” she corrects herself and tries once more to make Loki look at her, “said you’d be okay with it. Nikias told me I possibly couldn’t have a relationship because he needed me to keep the system safe and happy but you said you wanted me to be happy, so I pursued the relationship.”

“As you should,” Loki says despite everything he confided in Janet and he withdraws his hand too and draws up his knees, hugging his own legs.

Frigga sucks in a deep breath. “But you’re obviously not ok—”

“Maybe you should just continue,” Janet cuts in. “For the time being, I mean. We’ll have plenty of time to address the rest. Just go ahead.”

“Okay, so, I pursued the relationship and it really, well, Robert makes me happy. He makes me feel young again, in a way, and it really feels good to have a partner who recognizes what I need after the marriage I endured because … If only I knew. The more time passes, the less I understand why I stayed married to Odin this long, to be honest. I suppose we’re culturally indoctrinated to see it through at least until our children are grown even if it doesn’t fulfill us or make us happy because children need both of their parents in their lives,” Frigga continues and then takes a brief pause to massage the bridge of her nose. “But that’s a different story altogether.” She chuckles, a little embarrassed, and then clears her throat. “After our initial conversation, I thought Loki was okay with it. I mean, I knew it’d mean a period of adjustment but I thought he was genuinely okay with it. But then we, uh, had a fight and it made me second-guess the degree of which he was actually okay with it because we—”

“—never really fight,” Loki chimes in.

“Right,” says Frigga and they both chuckle, in perfect sync.

“Was that the fight about the drugs?” Janet asks.

“Yes and no,” says Loki. “I mean, I hid Vicodin in her room and she found it, which sort of sparked off a fight but the actual fight was about something else entirely.”

“Do you agree with that?” Janet asks Frigga when the corner of the other woman’s mouth twitches a little.

“Not really,” Frigga admits and Loki flinches from his mother’s words as if she physically burned him. “I mean, well, let’s put it this way: I wouldn’t say that the actual fight wasn’t about the drugs at all,” she corrects herself then. “Because we did fight about the drugs. Loki, uh, he insisted that he was in charge of his own recovery and that it was his right to keep them in the house as a part of that.”

“Right,” Janet agrees.

“But I told him that I didn’t want narcotics under my roof, end of. That doesn’t mean that I’m denying him the right to take charge of his own recovery, of course, but I felt very uncomfortable with the temptation right there.”

“And I get that now,” Loki tells … both of them, probably. “It was stupid, okay? I shouldn’t have done it, I know that, but I didn’t fucking take them, okay?”

“We know,” Janet assures him.

“Of course you do,” snaps Loki, “because you took my fucking blood! Fuck, I didn’t think that …” He briefly looks at his mother then. “Are you still holding that against me? I’m sorry, okay?”

“I’m not holding it against you,” Frigga insists. “I’m not. Purchasing them was obviously what you felt you needed at the time. I was just trying to say that I don’t think the fight about the drugs didn’t matter at all. It did because, thinking about it now, to me it feels as though, for the first time ever, we reached a situation where there was an unspoken, underlying disagreement about the rules—even if neither of us realized it back then because the fight moved on to Robert really quick and then you just left to stay with your brother.”

Loki’s eyes have grown to the sizes of dinner plates during his mother’s reply. He’s at the edge of his seat, vibrating with anxiety. “When you say ‘rules’, you mean that you…  you would’ve kicked me out?” he stammers and Janet is fairly certain that he’s co-conscious with one of his child alters.

“No.” Frigga shakes her head for emphasis. “Of course not. I would never kick you out, my love. I told you that and I meant every word of it. You’re welcome to stay with me for as long as you need to in order to feel safe but—”

“If I ever buy drugs again, you will?” Loki asks, all panic now. “Because I can’t promise that I won’t, I just can’t. So, where does that leave me?”

“It’s not about the purchase per se,” Frigga tells him and Janet can’t help but think back to how fragile and guilt-ridden the other woman came across when they first met. She has truly come a long way. “I mean, you’re … an addict and relapses might happen at every step along the way. And even if I hope they won’t, and wish for you that they won’t, I’m prepared for them, at least in the abstract. But you demanding of me to be okay with you hiding chemicals that might kill you in my drawers is a different matter altogether because it puts me into an impossible position; one that I can’t just ignore or brush over. I hope you can see that.”

“Yeah, I can,” Loki says after a moment of silence and inhales a shaky breath, trying to curb his emotions. That concession alone is rock-solid proof how far he too has come since his admission when he went on a silent strike and then tried to emotionally blackmail his mother to take him home by attempting suicide. “Thor made it pretty clear as well, that I couldn’t possibly ask this of you and I get it. I do. It’s just … I can’t promise it won’t ever happen again.”

“If it happens again, we’ll deal with it,” Frigga assures him. “Just as we’re dealing with it right now. And I’ll always support you, always.”

“Support me but not enable me,” Loki says and checks off the air. “Got it.”

Janet scribbles that down for future reference. “Okay, so what else was the fight about?”

“I asked him why he was so upset,” Frigga all but sighs. “If it was ‘just’ because of Robert or if there was something else going on. I didn’t realize until later that I implied that there must be more to it than his fear of abandonment and he told me that maybe he just doesn’t trust men anymore. I reacted to that by telling him that ‘not all men’ are going to hurt me—which, I suppose, is a problematic statement in this day and age.”

This, Janet already heard from Nikias’ perspective.

We fought because she belittled Loki’s traumas, the alter told her a month ago, and went not-all-men on him when he told her that he didn’t trust anyone around her. When he called her out on her BS, she said she apparently wasn’t enough of a feminist to get her point across convincingly.

“But I’ll have to admit that I honestly fail to see why. Not when men say it, of course,” Frigga hurries to add when Loki draws an audible breath. “I don’t know how much you know about it,” she tells Janet, “but my ex-husband grew up in an abusive family too and his father passed on a lot of those traits to Odin and his younger brother. My brother-in-law turned the corner early on because his now-wife told him to get counseling or else she’d end the relationship. He did and it did him a world of good but some residue of toxic masculinity stayed with him and his sons. Thor and Loki called their uncle and cousins out on that when we were there for Christmas last year and their first instinct was to argue that ‘not all men are abusive’. I understood where my own sons were coming from in that situation but, no matter how hard I try and perhaps that is a generational issue, I just can’t seem to wrap my head around how it is a bad thing when I, as a woman, say it. As far as I’m concerned, it is a fact. I’ve been married to an emotionally—and otherwise, even if not to me—abusive husband for two decades and that left an impact of course but I still know that ‘not all men’ are like Odin or the men my clients try to get away from.”

The other woman’s words, Janet finds, are refreshingly relatable. Maybe it is a generational issue.

“It’s fine,” Loki relents then. “It’s just … it comes across as really dismissive whenever I heard people say it in the past. Of course it’s technically a correct statement but it’s still often used, by men mostly but also by others, to diminish a person’s experience and that’s why it often feels like a, ‘Shut up, I don’t want to hear about your drama because what was done to you by one random man isn’t an accurate reflection of the male populace as a whole, so I don’t care’.”

Frigga’s face loses a bit of color at that. “You felt as though I was telling you that I’m tired of your ‘drama’?”

“Nooo,” Loki insists but then stops himself. “Maybe for a second, I don’t know.”

“Do you truly not know?” Janet probes because it’s her job to dig deep into the unpleasant, no matter how her core rejects it at times.

“Okay, yeah. It did feel as though she was downplaying my concerns,” Loki admits.

“I honestly didn’t mean to, sweetie,” says Frigga, searching for his gaze again but he is still not complying. “I just. .. Well, I meant it literally because if I had decided to walk through life thinking all men are inevitably going to harm me just because of Odin’s shortcomings, I wouldn’t have been able to give Robert a chance at all.”

“I suppose not,” Loki tells the floor.

“So, was this what drove you out of the apartment?” Janet asks into the silence that ensues.

“What drove me out of the apartment,” Loki snaps with a sudden echo of hostility to his voice, “was the urge to get lit because the drugs were right there, in her hands, and, when she said she was going to get rid of them, I straight-up panicked, snatched them from her and ran because I couldn’t deal with the thought of them not being there anymore. Okay? Can you guys stop talking about the fucking drugs now? Unless, you wanna feed my cravings of course. In that case, go right the fuck ahead.”

“Of course we can stop,” Janet assures him just as Frigga asks if they’re talking to Nikias now.

“What would it matter if you did?” Loki asks back. “Just tell Dr. van Dyne about the challenges you perceived on the way and get it over with.”

“Loki, I … don’t want to ‘get this over with’,” says Frigga. “This is not a chore, not for me. It’s an important conversation we should have had weeks ago and I do apologize that I didn’t realize how much me seeing someone was stressing you out.”

“You couldn’t have,” Loki concedes after a short pause. “Because I lied to you and told you I was fine. I guess we’re at a point now where you took my words on trust, which actually does feel kind of nice and I hate myself for abusing that by pushing you away and keeping you at arm’s length. You must not beat yourself up about it, though, for you are not alone. I withheld the truth from the doc too, especially about the meds.”

“I see.” Frigga nods, her facial expression shadowed by a deep-seated helplessness. “Why is it so hard for you to talk about this with me, honey? Can you tell?”

That is indeed the one-million-dollar question and Janet herself hasn’t been able to find a satisfying answer to it in the past few days.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Loki snarls. “Me freaking out that much over a guy in your life is downright pathetic at my age and I wanted to resolve my inappropriate gut-reaction internally to prove to myself and to all of you that I’m not just an adult on paper!”

Which is the obvious explanation and Janet cannot deny that her patient’s high expectations of himself regarding how he, according to his own standards, is supposed to process setbacks and emotional hardships now that he is legally an adult certainly motivated his actions but, in acknowledging those, they are still only scratching at the surface. Janet is sure there is more to it even if Loki himself doesn’t realize it. In fact, it’s highly likely that he doesn’t.

“Honey, you’re going to be nineteen in three months,” Frigga replies because the other woman knows as well as Janet does that, no matter what self-directed demands Loki might fabricate in his overwrought brain, turning eighteen doesn’t warrant the designation ‘at my age’ and didn’t magically bestow upon him a brand-new skillset to cope with his complex trauma of abandonment either. “Do you remember how much of an ‘adult’ your brother was at nineteen?”

Loki barks a laugh in response to his mother’s question and the tension in the office finally eases a little. “Fair enough.”

“I’d like to go back to the question I initially asked, if that is alright,” Janet says after glancing at her notes now that the coast is clear(er). “If I asked you to sum it up, what would you say is the biggest challenge you’re facing right now, Frigga?”

“The lack of communication,” the other woman answers without hesitation. “I mean, I know I can’t ‘make him’ talk to me and I have a hard time readjusting to his, uh, withdrawnness, if I’m being honest. Our relationship was in a very good place before I met Robert and I want to know what I can do to salvage the trust we shared without having to end the relationship with Robert, which I probably would if Loki asked it of me because my guilty conscience is quiet at the moment but it’s a very light sleeper unfortunately. But I really don’t want to and I hope we can find a way to make it work but, for that, I need to know why it’s both—well, I know why it is bothering him, obviously, but I would like to know what I could do to make it easier for him. I mean, I already am trying to accommodate the system’s needs as much as I can.”

“It’s true,” Loki says and rolls his eyes, inviting the tension right back in. “She told him that she lives with her poor, fragile mentally ill kid who isn’t always up to dealing with change, so she meets him at his place or they go out to dinner. They never spend the night at ours and he never drops by unannounced. She trained him well, for I really don’t see much of him.”

“I called you neither ‘poor’ nor ‘fragile’,” Frigga corrects him, slightly agitated by now. “I simply said—”

“Doesn’t matter. You outed me as a needy freak when you wouldn’t have had to because we all know you’re more than capable of telling a convincing lie!” Loki snaps and Frigga flinches from his words. “Shit, I’m sorry,” he splutters when he sees her expression and buries his head in his hands. “I’m sorry, Mom. I don’t know why I said that.”

Janet takes a deep breath. “I really think we should—”

Before she can finish, Loki looks up again and his eyes light up. “Mommy, you back! We go home now?”

Chapter Text

It is in moments like this that the primitive and instinctual parts of Frigga’s mind, which Freud once lumped together under the ‘id’, can actually relate to Odin’s base gut reaction to want to grab Loki by the shoulders and shake him. She doesn’t, of course, because she isn’t her ex and she is able to subjugate her discontent within seconds after the initial spark but it’s still far from easy, even after all this time, to navigate the minefields in her son’s brain—didn’t he make her promise not to ever apologize for lying about the adoption ever again?—and just roll with unexpected switches that terminate an important conversation for an indefinite period of time. Perhaps it makes her a bad person to feel this way but the last few weeks have weighed on her too and she just wishes that she would finally get through to him and to the bottom of what troubles him so. None of that is Loptr’s (?) fault though because the little guy holds a lot of the system’s infant abandonment trauma and he certainly didn’t front to sabotage the family therapy session, so Frigga shoves her frustration aside as she always does. “No, honey, actually I came here to find out why Loki is so sad about Robert,” she tells him and squeezes his hand.

“We no go?” the little asks, widened eyes rapidly filling with tears. “I wanna go home.”

Frigga exchanges a look with Janet, who looks a tiny bit defeated as well. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, sweetie,” the therapist replies. “Not yet. The body had to adjust to the new medicine and—”

“It’s starting to work,” Loki—or perhaps Nikias—talks over her. “The cravings are easing up and this conversation is obviously going nowhere. I’ve heard enough, Loki misses his stupid cats and the littles are confused, so let’s get outta here.” They rise to their feet and Frigga’s heart sinks. Not because she doesn’t want to take Loki home, she would love to, but the current circumstances are less than ideal and no matter how much he evolved, spending time with Nikias alone still unsettles her a little despite her best efforts to accept them as someone who emerged for the sole purpose of sparing Loki additional trauma.

“Nikias, please,” says Janet. “I would advise you to stay for a few more days.”

“But we don’t have to, right?” the former persecutor asks. “Legally, I mean? Because from what I understood, we can discharge ourselves once we’re no longer a danger to others or ourselves.”

“That is correct,” Janet has to concede and manages to do so without a sigh even though Frigga is fairly certain that a sigh is struggling to break free somewhere inside the other woman’s chest. “But you’re not the only person in the system and Loki’s been looking forward to art therapy tomorrow morning. It really helped him to express himself like this again these past few days.”

“Well, then we come back tomorrow morning. Would that be alright?”

Janet nods. “If it’s okay with Frigga?”

“Of course,” Frigga replies, slightly more forceful than she intended because, well, did the other woman just seriously question whether or not she could handle taking them home? She shoves that thought away too because it’s uncalled for. Janet van Dyne is only doing her job.

“Splendid.” Nikias flashes them both a sharkish smirk. “I’ll go get our things and meet you in the lobby, Friggs.”

“I’m sorry,” Janet tells her once the door has slammed shut behind the prickly alter and then she sighs, long and deep. “This has been quite a challenge, even for me.”

“I can only imagine. I’d forgotten how things used to be between us when he was fourteen, fifteen and I just couldn’t reach him no matter how hard I tried. I never thought he’d revert back to these old ways and I just don’t know what to do anymore,” Frigga confesses. “I’m out of my depth, to be honest.”

“Be patient,” Janet advises. “Giving him time and space is the only thing you can actively do at the moment, I’m afraid.”

Frigga nods her understanding. Dr. Fulla would tell her the same thing. Well, she did tell her the same thing actually, and not only once, but still. Sometimes, Frigga is amazed that she has patience left to summon.

~°~

She needn’t have worried about Nikias though, for Loptr fronts again as soon as they step out of the center and stays in control of the body for the evening, basically tied to her proverbial apron strings—which traps her in a bit of a moral cobweb because, while she is glad to finally spend quality time with at least one of his alternate states of consciousness and cherishes her time with the littles, she is rather exhausted and really would have loved to talk to Loki. But it can’t be helped and she feels awful just thinking that way whenever her thoughts wander in that direction, so she tries not to while she makes dinner for them, feeds him, plays with him afterwards and eventually tucks him into bed because it’s obviously what the young alter needs from her.

~°~

Afterwards, she treats herself to a hot bubble bath and three glasses of the wine a client sent her in the mail a couple of weeks ago, and collapses into bed warm and a bit fuzzy-headed.

~°~

In the middle of the night, he screams so ear-piercingly that he startles Frigga out of her own sleep from the next room—which hasn’t happened since Loki’s first discharge from residential treatment—and when she goes to check on him with her heart thumping in her chest, she finds him upright in bed, legs pulled up to his chin, arms looped around them, rocking back and forth and biting into his knees to suppress his bitter weeping.

Not Loptr anymore, then.

“Loki?” she asks softly and her guilt blossoms in her chest as she sits down beside him. He makes a howling sound and hugs himself tighter. “Hey, I’m here,” she soothes. “It’s okay to cry. Can I touch you?”

Frigga can’t understand the answer and decides to chance her luck. He cries harder when her hand begins to rub large circles across his back and then he screams and eventually he collapses beside her and curls himself into so small a ball that she can effortlessly sweep him into her arms. “I’m here,” echoes Frigga. “I’m here, baby. You’re safe.”

“Why am I,” Loki snivels after a good twenty minutes and Frigga struggles to open her eyes again. Inexplicably, she has just drifted off into a light sleep despite his low whimpering. “Why …” He trails off and chokes on a noise halfway between a sob and a hiccup.

“Nikias discharged you. They said your meds were starting to work and the littles really wanted to go home. Do you want me to drive you back?”

He shakes his head. “No, I … I’m gonna be okay, Mom. You can go back to your own bed now.”

“I don’t want to go back to my own bed,” Frigga murmurs around a yawn and her dazed brain doesn’t grasp the implication until Loki sits up and vocalizes his confusion. “Wait,” she says then and props herself up on her elbows, suddenly on that kind of high alert that pierces even the thickest veil of exhaustion. “Is that what’s been bothering you so much? Do you think our relationship has to change now that I’m seeing someone?”

“Of course it does,” Loki exclaims, with utter conviction. “This is weird and pathetic and Robert’s not gonna be happy about it.”

Ah.

Of course.

How on earth wasn’t she able to see this sooner?

“Well, it’s none of his business,” Frigga begins, unsure how to proceed. Apparently, her cognitive functions are still impaired by fatigue or perhaps the wine is the culprit.

Loki stares at her with big, red-rimmed eyes. “I..I don’t understand.”

He really doesn’t and Frigga’s heart goes out to her aching son child? progeny? “I think I do,” she replies and cups his chin. “Because this is how Odin made you feel, isn’t it?” All those nights her ex-husband complained about Loki’s inability to sleep through the night in a low growl are suddenly very vivid in her mind and that pesky splinter of self-flagellation that used to constantly punish her for having stayed married to Odin for so long pricks into her heart again. “That you have no right to or don’t deserve my comfort and that you absorb too much of my time and leave very little for him, and you assume based on past experience that Robert is going to react the same way. Is that what you are so afraid of? Why you are pushing me away? Because, that way, you’re the one who’s calling the shots?”

“I …” Loki sucks in a hitchy breath. “I don’t … Maybe?”

It finally makes a world of sense to Frigga. “Look, I know Odin’s behavior left deep wounds in your psyche that haven’t fully healed yet but—”

“No, that’s not it,” Loki cuts in. “I mean, he did but”—and here, he lowers his gaze, fleeing hers—“I don’t know.”

Frigga counts to ten in her head, then softly asks, “What?”

“I can’t tell you because it’s too fucked up,” Loki tells his blanket.

“Honey, you can tell me everything,” Frigga reassures him even though she isn’t quite convinced she is ready to hear the answer. “Everything.”

“It’s just,” Loki relents after drawing a deep breath, “there’s this weird, awful twisted part of me that keeps thinking if you got back together with him, with Odin, I mean, at least I would know what to expect because he made it clear he doesn’t love me and it wouldn’t stress me out as much.” Frigga can feel her eyes widen and has to swallow the incredulous laugh that builds up in her throat along with the question if he’s kidding because she can clearly see that he’s not. He’s emotionally overwrought and in a lot of pain and if she laughed now, she would achieve nothing; except chasing him away again. “With Robert, I feel like I basically have to wait until he decides he doesn’t like me. And I mean, why would he? How could he?”

Did you hear that? That was the sound of Frigga’s heart shattering to pieces and crumbling to the floor. “Oh baby, why wouldn’t he like you?”

Loki shrugs.

“Why do other people, who aren’t evolutionarily programmed to love you like myself, like you?” Frigga tries because sometimes humor is the best bomb defuser when he’s trapped inside his head like this. Tonight, unfortunately, her attempt falls flat.

“I have no idea,” Loki croaks and fresh tears well into his eyes. “I’m a horrible person and I’m sorry I threw the adoption lie in your face. I’m awful and unfair and selfish and unlovable.”

“Baby, these are symptoms of your disease and the new medication will treat them given time.” If only she wasn’t so tired, she might be able to find better words. “Look, I understand why you are worried, I really do, but Robert doesn’t even know you yet. He has no reason not to like you.”

“Neither did Odin and back then, I was a tiny baby. Now, I’m a grown person with actual flaws who is the reason he couldn’t spend your birthday with you.”

He has a point in the sense that this is exactly the kind of thing that would have irked Odin and she knows how pointless it is to try to unravel the complex traumas he suffered over the years with words alone. He needs action. “Loki, do you want me to break up with Robert?” Frigga asks then because with all due respect to Thor’s speech, it’s three forty-five in the morning on a weekday and she’s at her wits end. Constant dripping wearing away a stone, and all that. Sue her, if you must, but she’d rather spare all three of them any more needless pain. “Just say the word and I’ll remove this stressor from your life.”

“No, I …” Loki looks utterly terrified all of a sudden and her heart bleeds for him while the urge to pin him in place and throw his brain into the washer sneaks back up on her. “You’re angry.”

“No, I’m not angry. I know you’re not doing this on purpose.” It’s certainly not a masterpiece of eloquence and despite her protest she sounds a tad angry but it’ll have to do. She’s only human, after all. “I’m just .. exhausted because I don’t know how I can assure you that, for me, the relationship with Robert doesn’t change anything whatsoever between us. I told you before that anyone who doesn’t approve of the fact that you feel safer living with me can go to hell and I still mean that. If you have a night terror or a nightmare or a flashback, you’re still welcome to sleep in my bed if you need it. The littles too if they do. There’s nothing weird about it and it doesn’t affect my relationship with Robert in any way. These are two very different relationships and different types of intimacy after all and I promise you that this here,” says Frigga and makes a sweeping gesture indicating the bed, “doesn’t take anything away from what I have with Robert and vice versa. And should he ever make it clear to me that he thinks of me comforting you like this—which, for the record, happens once or twice in two months, if that—as ‘weird’ or ‘inappropriate’ or whatever else in any way, I’ll have to admit to myself that I was wrong about him and then I’ll end the relationship instantly because I won’t spend any more time with a man who doesn’t take what you suffered through seriously. That’s a promise. I know I neglected and abandoned you before and that I partly have myself to blame for that deeply ingrained fear that is inhibiting you right now but I still wish you could just believe me when I say that I won’t leave you or Leah or Loptr or the baby behind ever again.”

Loki nods, silent tears streaming down his face. “I wish I knew how to cope with this. You deserve so much better than what I’m able to give you right now.”

“Just … try to trust me?” Frigga asks softly. “Can you do that? Can you take a leap of faith?”

“Y-yes.” Loki exhales a long, stuttering breath and, eventually, he lies back down beside her. “You can stay,” he whispers and finally snuggles up to her. She can feel the smile on her lips and deep in her gut. “I want you to stay, I mean. Please stay, Mom.”

“Come here,” Frigga murmurs and hugs him close, brushing a kiss against his hair. She can practically feel the tension seep out of him. “We’ll figure it out eventually because we’re good at figuring things out, aren’t we?”

Loki doesn’t reply.

Apparently, he fell asleep instantly.

Chapter Text

Friday, August 5^th, 2022

When her alarm rings in the adjoining room the next morning, Frigga wakes to Loki squirming in his sleep murmuring, “Hold your peace, hold your peace, hold your peace,” on a loop, two meowing hungry felines lurking in the doorway and the precursor of a headache. Splendid, she groans inwardly and gently shakes Loki awake. “Hey, wake up, my love,” she soothes in a voice that sounds awfully hoarse. “It’s morning and you’re having another nightmare. Follow my voice. I’ll be here when you wake up. You’re safe, baby.”

Loki groans and slowly slips into the realm of wakefulness. “It wasn’t a nightmare,” he mumbles around a yawn. “It was just … very weird.”

Frigga debates with herself if she truly wants to know the answer and heap more guilt upon the pile that kept growing steadily without her even noticing for the past days but the phrasing was rather unique and her curiosity wins. “It was a wedding, wasn’t it? My wedding?”

“Yeah,” Loki admits. “But not … nightmare-ish in any way. Leah and I were co-con, I think, because the entire decoration consisted of unicorns and your dress was a very aggressive bubblegum pink that made you look a lot like Barbie. The pastor and everyone else kept staring at me because they were all worried that I was going to bring forth a reason why you shouldn’t be joined in holy matrimony even though I didn’t intend to. I was just standing there, keeping my lips sealed, but they kept telling me to hold my peace anyway. But that wasn’t even the scariest part,” he tacks on hastily when he sees the frown she can feel on her forehead. “Odin attended and he had a woman with him who looked exactly like you, which neither you or she seemed to find particularly odd or comment-worthy, and when Thor asked him about it, Odin said that he’d hired someone to find your Doppelganger and then paid her to marry him.”

That makes Frigga laugh, which convinces her headache that it’d be a great idea to stab into her temples and make her wince.

“I’m sorry,” Loki mumbles. “But you asked and I can’t control what my brain does when I’m asleep.”

“No, that isn’t it,” Frigga assures him, swearing to herself that she’ll pour the rest of the goddamn wine down the drain and never touch another drop of alcohol ever again. “Sometimes, I just wish I could exchange brains with you for a day just so that you can feel what it’s like not to be running on overdrive all the time.”

He snorts. “That has to be a textbook case of ‘be careful what you wish for’.”

“Loki, I’m not going to get married again, okay?” Frigga says after a pause and reaches for a strand of his hair.

He jerks away and gets up. “You can’t know whether or not you’re gonna change your mind in five years, so please don’t try to reassure me. It’s a different kind of promise, one that’s much harder to keep because humans evolve and reevaluate their decisions all the time. Just leave it at ‘I’m not gonna leave you behind’ again, okay?” Loki asks and devotes all his attention to Fenrir and Lilah when she nods because he does have a point. She was fairly certain she wasn’t going to fall in love ever again—or at least not any time soon—and look what happened. “Hey, my babies. I missed you so much! Come here, little furnadoes, let’s get you two breakfast.”

Frigga sighs, struggles out of bed, trudges into the bathroom, swallows a Tylenol to beat her headache into submission, silently thanks Loki for insisting and buying it for her when she pulled a muscle four months ago, takes a quick shower, worriedly watches Loki slowly eat nothing but two tangerines for breakfast, drives him back to the center for outpatient treatment and then drives back into town for work.

When she finally sits down at her desk, she is already exhausted.

~°~

By the time noon rolls around after a morning of listening to three client’s life stories—one of them being a sixteen-year-old girl who came to see her to ask for legal possibilities to emancipate herself from her abusive parents, which, needless to say, brought a few very unpleasant memories back to the forefront of her mind—Frigga is ready to cry and/or fall asleep.

“Hey,” Robert murmurs, startling her out of her thoughts. He’s standing in the doorway, a steaming bag of Chinese take-away dangling from his right hand. “Is everything alright? You look terrible.”

“Well, thanks,” Frigga mock-snaps but the truth is that some of the tension melts off her instantly at the sight of him; which bears testimony to how direly she is in need of comfort.

“You know that is a form of expressing affection, right?” Robert asks and crosses the room to plant a slow, gentle kiss on her lips.

“Oh yeah?” Frigga laughs and practically melts into him. “Since when?”

“The Two Towers?” Robert asks back and parks the bag on her desk in order to massage her shoulders. It’s such a simple gesture but his emotional support and the fact that he offers it so freely without even needing to ask take her by complete surprise and this time, the tears show her no mercy and flood her eyes with a vengeance. “Hey, what’s wrong?” He loops his arms around her from behind and presses her close to his chest. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No, I,” Frigga sobs. “Quite the contrary. The last few days were a bit … okay, they were very stressful emotionally and I’m just glad you’re here. It appears I still have to get used to the fact that I have an adult in my life I can lean on now.” She chuckles like an idiot because why the heck did she have to phrase it like this? “It’s just …” She blows her nose on a tissue he handed her unprompted; and is astonished all over again just how low Odin set the bar. “One of these days you didn’t realize you were actually running on fumes until someone comes along and tells you to breathe, you know?”

She can’t see it but she can feel him nod against her scalp. “I do,” Robert assures her softly and holds her for a few moments longer, grounding her, soothing her. Then he grabs a chair, pulls it close and sits down beside her. “We should eat before it gets cold though.”

Frigga agrees and they dig in.

She hadn’t realized just how hungry she was either.

“So, what happened?” Robert asks after they got the first two forkfuls of pan-fried noodles into their respective stomachs. “Is …” He pauses, obviously searching for words. “Does this have to do with Loki? Is he okay?”

“I’m not sure,” Frigga breathes out. Her voice is still shaking a little but the fact that Robert seems to be genuinely interested rather than annoyed or angered propels her onwards. “He went back to the center for a couple of days of inpatient treatment because he’d been, uh, stressing himself out a lot.” It still doesn’t feel right at all to lay bare his struggles but she just needs someone to talk to at this very moment. “And whenever he stresses out a lot, he stops eating.”

“He is pretty thin, yes,” Robert concurs. “And he barely touched his dinner last Sunday.”

“Which is a problem,” Frigga tells him, “because the medication he is on requires a more or less consistent calorie intake, so his therapist adjusted the dose and they agreed that he would stay there until the new regimen kicked in. He discharged himself last night and, while he’s generally more stable, he’s still having nightmares and, well, I didn’t get a lot of sleep.”

“And he’s been stressing himself out a lot because of us,” Robert says after a moment of silence and it isn’t really a question.

Frigga nods because she’s still fed up with lying. “And I know this worries you but we had a very important conversation last night, which is probably the reason my mental resources are so depleted, and I know that, deep down, Loki wants this to work. It’s just … not easy for him.” She gulps. “It never will be because of what he went through as a baby. I’m sorry.”

“Listen,” Robert says and sets down his lunch, and his tone alerts every fiber in her being. During the few seconds before he continues speaking, Frigga’s brain is firmly convinced that he is going to end this right here and now, which fills her with equal parts of dread and relief. “There’s something I should probably tell you.”

She nods again because words would just cost her too much effort.

“I don’t know how to start, really, but my assistant, uh,” Robert begins, “he’s very protective of me. He witnessed firsthand how Cathy’s death devastated me and he took it upon himself to investigate the women I went out with after I came through on the other side of … of mourning. I mean, you know how it is when you have money. You inevitably attract people who are attracted to money only. Milo just doesn’t want me to get hurt.”

“Maybe that’s part of it but he also has a thing for you, doesn’t he?” Frigga asks, feeling far less triumphant than she sounds to have her suspicions confirmed.

“Well, yeah, I guess he does, but I’m not gay, so.” Robert shrugs away the issue and she wonders why she can’t do the same. It’s not as though she does have any reason to be worried or jealous, right? “Anyway, he … After we had dinner with your sons, he googled you.”

Riiight.

As far as Frigga is concerned, what Nikias did to Thor happened in another lifetime and, on most days, she can exist without having to think about the stabbing at all. Today, the walls that are keeping the memories at bay are already laced with cracks left and right. “And let me guess: He found the headlines from a few years ago,” she concludes, a lump forming in her throat. She doesn’t know why she never wasted a thought on the possibility that this might come to light eventually. Ugly truths always do, after all.

“Yes.”

“Thank the fates for the internet,” Frigga tries to jest but her words leave her mouth shaking, followed by another sob.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to,” Robert begins, then trails off. “I don’t know. I just felt awful and secretive knowing about what you endured and not telling you that I do; especially because I didn’t even want to know in the first place. And I’m not telling you this because I’m going to ask you about the details. I just want to let you know that what happened to your family is terrible and I won’t pretend I could even begin to understand what your relationship with Loki is like after he ran away and was missing for a few weeks. That’s all.”

“Months,” Frigga corrects him. “He was, uh, missing for three months.”

“Oh God,” Robert mumbles and his cheeks pale a little. “I can’t always reach Brian because he doesn’t have internet access everywhere he works. Some hospitals in poor, rural areas of Africa, for example, don’t even have access to affordable, reliable electricity but at least I know his whereabouts. I can’t even imagine the horror of thinking him missing or”—his voice hitches a little as he gently thumbs away her tears—“dead.”

Frigga clears her throat. “This might sound strange to you but I always knew Loki was alive. I felt it, deep in my heart. But I still didn’t know if he was going to come home at all or when and, yes, it was a horrible time. And even the years before that were horrible.” The tears keep pooling into her eyes and the memories keep unspooling and Robert gently squeezes her hand, encouraging her to go on, so she just lets them. “Our family was such a dysfunctional mess and I … There was constant arguing and verbal abuse. Thor and Loki were fighting, Thor and I were fighting, Odin and Loki were fighting, Odin and I were fighting; and I never stopped to think that this couldn’t possibly be normal. I thought it was just a phase, you know. ‘They’re teenage boys after all,’ I kept telling myself. ‘It’s going to get better when they grow out of puberty.’ You’ve seen how close they are now. That’s how they were as children. You would have needed a crowbar to pull them apart.”

“Which is why I couldn’t believe at first that Loki hurt Thor enough to put him in a coma,” Robert murmurs. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was … Loki wasn’t himself,” Frigga settles on saying because she still doesn’t have her son’s permission to disclose his DID and it isn’t technically a lie. “He’s gone without treatment far too long because I ignored all the warning signs and there were sooo, sooo many, even when he was little. I took him to a therapist when he was four and that man assured me that it’s normal that adopted children suffer from separation anxiety and that he’d grow out of it. And I … I believed that doctor even though it was clear as day, in hindsight, that Loki grew into it and it into him. He probably should’ve been on medication his entire life but I just … carried on, oblivious. Denial truly is such a powerful psychological mechanism. I was so convinced I could love him well for the longest time and that he couldn’t possibly remember what happened to him when he was abandoned as a baby because he was just a few days old. And I came close to telling him the truth a few times but either Odin talked me out of it or I couldn’t bring myself to do it because I didn’t want to hurt him. And so our family got worse and worse and worse until his birthmother suddenly showed up after sixteen years of radio silence because she had cancer and needed a donor and Loki was her only living blood relative. She flung a match into the powder keg and, when the truth that he was adopted came to light, all that toxic waste just exploded. Looking back, I can clearly see how things could have escalated like that but, back then, I was utterly blind. And it’s not easy, to live with that. I mean, that’s why I go to therapy and I think I have my guilt under control most of the time but sometimes, it just catches me off-guard because it’s such a devastating feeling to know that you’ve unwittingly added to your child’s suffering. To have made him worse. It’s … all-consuming. It eats you alive. And I’m trying to be more lenient with my past self. I really am because I was trying to protect Loki from something I knew was going to hurt him and, to the best of mine and Odin’s knowledge, his birthmother wasn’t ever going to come back but sometimes it just overwhelms me. I’m so sorry.” Frigga blows out a breath and tries to ground herself. “I’m sure that’s not the lunch date you expected.”

“It’s okay,” Robert tells her very solemnly. “It’s not healthy to keep things like that inside, right?”

“Definitely not,” Frigga agrees and the outburst finally subsides because Robert told her that he was supposed to be in the car the day his late wife got into the accident that injured her spine. He was supposed to pick up the birthday cake for their friends but he was preoccupied with work due to a particularly obstinate client who monopolized his attention. She knows that he knows all about guilt and how much of an insatiable parasite it can be. “Wow, now I probably look even more terrible.”

“Your face is a bit blotched, yes,” Robert jests. “Aand you’re puffy and red-eyed but women generally have the luxury of being able to hide such evidence with make-up. I wouldn’t be so lucky.”

That genuinely makes Frigga laugh and she leans in for another slow, gentle kiss. “Thank you,” she whispers when their lips apart again. “For everything.”

Robert’s eyebrows hike up. “I … didn’t even do anything?”

“You’re here and you’re emotionally present,” Frigga explains and feels ridiculous because how on earth could she not see until Thor was lying in a coma that Odin never offered her any kind of emotional support and always left her to deal with everything by herself? Maybe it was because she is strong and didn’t need his help until life truly got rough. Maybe it was denial. Whatever it was, she still can’t believe that she looked at her marriage for over a decade and deemed it normal or healthy or fine. “And I’m still not used to that, I’m afraid.”

Robert pulls her into a side-hug, presses her close and brushes another soft kiss against her temple. “As far as I am concerned, we have the rest of our lives to figure out how to change that.”

“We do,” Frigga whispers against his neck.

Because Loki wants me to be happy and I just know he is going to adjust the same way I knew he wasn’t dead, she doesn’t add even though every atom in her body wants to broadcast it to the world.

There is no need, though.

They will figure it out, in time.

~°~

As if to prove her right, Loki sends her a text shortly after four in the afternoon that further brightens her mood.

Chapter Text

Loki exhales a looong breath.

So far, so good.

He didn’t add the “Please don’t be mad at me” that his miniscule BPD brain feverishly urged him to add because, even though his meds are slowly beginning to take effect again and his rational brain knows very well that Frigga isn’t and wasn’t at any point angry with him, he’s still very far away from his pre-Robert state of mind. He can’t fucking help it, okay? He was born drugged and drunk with a skewed, twisty labyrinth inside his head. If you wanna blame anyone, blame Hela. It’s all her fault. Well, actually it’s all Hela’s mother’s fault; what was her name again? Angela? Angie?

Anyway.

On the bright side, because Loki didn’t entirely unlearn to think positively, the cravings are finally down to a manageable minimum and art therapy knocked a sliver of sense back into him when Mac—being his typically blunt I-take-no-crap-from-huge-whiny-babies self—looked him straight in the eye and asked him if he really thought Frigga would still bear with him if she felt that he was too much for her. “She didn’t give birth to you but she chose you, Lo, over and over again. Just think about everything she went through with you. Think about the cutting, the stabbing, the running away from home, the drug withdrawal, the suicide attempt, the threats, the emotional manipulation through your stubborn silent treatment, the almost-drinking-yourself-to-death in the park, the hiding-something-in-her-room-that-could-kill-you. Did she turn away at any point? She did not and she isn’t going to. She loves you, Lo, and she’s going to stick it out no matter what you do, believe me.”

Loki did, at least in that moment.

Right now, alone in the apartment, the doubts are creeping back in because what’ll happen to him if he never gets his shit back together and what if Odin was right and he’ll eventually lose everyone because they get tired of him? He’s still young now, still has sixty years or so to live, and if he’s still this pathetic when he’s thirty or forty, Thor and Frigga will have had enough, and they’ll tell him to fuck off and then he’ll have to move into an apartment all by himself and what if he relapses and ODs and Fen and Lilah rip the flesh from his bones and he’s found five days later looking like roadkill? And then there’s the question if Frigga will even still be alive when he’s forty, which is very likely, he tells himself; unless of course she dies on her way home because some idiot drunk driver crashes into her car and they rush her to the hospital but she’s DOA and he’ll never even get another chance to get his shit back together and she’ll leave this world thinking her own child doesn’t accept the fact that she just wants to be happy.

((I can’t wait for the day I won’t have to walk straight into one of your meltdowns whenever I set foot in this house.))

“Oh, stop it,” Loki hisses at himself and violently rakes his fingers through his hair. “You’re not fucking helping, brain! Just shut the hell up!”

A deep breath.

Finally. You were starting to give me a headache, grouses Nikias.

“Sorry,” Loki grits out.

Okay, okay.

Another deep breath.

He can do this.

He can.

He just needs to relax.

Needs to trust the process.

Loki bites into the base of his thumb, does the four-seven-eight three times and commands himself to focus. He switches on the TV, turns up the rock radio station to drown out his own fucking thoughts and applies himself to the task of making dinner because Mac was right about one thing: He put his mother through a lot of mental stress and he needs to express his gratitude more often.

Alright.

He got this.

He does.

Well, kinda.

He slips in and out of control over the body as he pan-sears the chicken strips for a big bowl of Caesar’s salad, sets it aside to cool and prepares a small bowl of the parmesan dip he perfected over the course of the previous year and puts it in the fridge. He slices the bread and grills it in the oven. Feeds the cats. Reads a bit in the meantime even if he can’t really concentrate.

~°~

Loki has arranged the bowls and the plates on the glass table on the balcony that is basking in the evening sun at six thirty sharp and sits down and waits, telling himself that everything is fine.

She said ‘ish’. She can’t always time when she’s going to leave and traffic is unpredictable. It’s fine. There’s no need to panic. She’ll be here in a bit. She said ‘ish’, okay? Just fucking relax.

He can’t.

His chest is hot and so tight with dread that he can barely breathe.

The baby’s—or is it Loptr’s?—consciousness is brushing against his and, unbidden, a shadowy memory of utter darkness and heart-crushing anguish bleeds through. Tears flood Loki’s eyes and he gasps for air and hugs himself and curls up on one of the deckchairs, shivering despite the heat.

And then he whitens out.

~°~

When he emerges from a floating plane of weightless existence, he wakes with his finger in his mouth and the sun hanging very low in a dark-orange sky. A woman is sitting on a deck chair next to him. She is wearing a dusky pink summer blouse and she is munching on a slice of crisp, toasty bread dipped in cheesy, garlicky goodness. He pulls the finger out of his mouth and promptly leaves a slobber trail on his chin and shirt.

It is quite embarrassing because it isn’t at all age-appropriate. He doesn’t know how old he is, exactly, but he knows that he isn’t a helpless little toddler.

He sits up, utterly drained.

“Hey,” the woman murmurs around a mouthful and then she swallows. “I didn’t want to wake you but I couldn’t resist.”

Hearing her voice is soothing, and he understands deep in his core that this woman loves him and he her. “I’m sorry I fell asleep,” he mumbles even though he doesn’t know if that is what happened. Fear creeps up on him then and tightens his chest because, despite the fact that he is very much alive, he has no recollection of ever having lived, doesn’t even know where he is or what his name is or what the name of the woman is, but at the same time he knows that he is sitting on a balcony and that the structures around him are buildings that comprise a city and he knows the names of the food in front of him and he knows too, or senses rather, that he is emotionally attached to this kind-looking person beside him and that, even though he feels entirely lost and alone, he isn’t. It’s an odd sensation, relief mixed with terror, that defies any attempt to capture it with linguistic devices. “What time is it?”

He knows too that time is an important concept that structures days.

“Almost eight,” the woman tells him. Her eyes are so warm and shiny with love and she smiles at him as she fills up their plates with salad. A little child’s voice inside his head tells him that she’s their mother, which is odd, so he tries to ignore it even though it makes sense. The woman looks like a mother and has the aura of a mother. “And please don’t be, Loki. I know how much night terrors and flashbacks exhaust you. Well, I don’t know obviously but … I mean, I see what it does to your psyche.”

Loki. 

That must be his name, then. 

It doesn’t feel right but if the woman calls him that, he can hardly contradict her. She seems very sure where and who they are after all, so he nods. “It’s okay, mother. I think we’re both exhausted.” She certainly looks exhausted and then her eyebrows hike up. She looks alarmed, which alarms him. “What?”

“Nothing,” she says after a moment too long and raises a forkful of salad to her lips but there is no doubt in his mind that she too notices that something veeery peculiar is transpiring. “It’s just that, well, you never call me ‘mother’ unless you’re teasing but you’re right. We’re both exhausted. Let’s get some food into ourselves, hm? This looks delicious.”

He isn’t sure why he wouldn’t call his mother ‘mother’ but he is hungry and so he eats. The food is delicious and he clears the plate she offers to him, forkful after forkful, one bite at a time. It seems to lift her spirits quite a bit, which takes a bit of the terror and the tension away.

~°~

A few blocks away, Thor startles awake from a nightmare about eight hours later and is forced to admit to himself that, despite his best efforts to ignore his emotional turmoil, he’s had a pretty shitty fucking week.

Chapter Text

Thor doesn’t recall any specifics of his nightmare when he tries to rope his scurrying thoughts back in but he does remember that it did feature Odin quite prominently and it’s obvious that, whatever it was, it left an icky feeling deep inside his gut that makes him want to stuff his face until he passes out. Which isn’t a good sign at all. He could really benefit from a talk with Dr. Rhodey right now but it’s only shortly after four a.m. on a Saturday morning and there’s no chance in hell he’ll abuse the guy’s offer to call him any time for … well, whatever has been going on inside his brain because it’s not a real emergency. It just … sucks. And the worst part is that he can’t really tell why.

Even though it was pretty obvious that Loki was struggling not to dissociate at times and lost the fight eventually, the dinner with Robert went well overall. His brother tried very hard and Frigga handled everything well. She didn’t freak out, she didn’t lie to Robert about (one of the reasons at least and, yes, he totally eavesdropped but who wouldn’t?) why the mention of painkillers is triggering for Loki and she didn’t buckle under the pressure of the guilt Thor knows she’s still battling. Despite the fact that Loki ended up back at the center for a couple of days, sitting down at a table with their mother’s new boyfriend felt—and still does feel—like progress in a way that only starts to make sense to you once you’ve learned to appreciate the tiniest, inconspicuous baby step and dismiss all the other things that are very likely to overshadow how important a tiny, inconspicuous baby step can be. You know, the thing they never learned growing up in the prestige-and-glory-seeking House of Odin.

And still Thor drove home that night with a lump in his throat that kept growing and growing and growing over the course of the past few days and is now sitting on his chest like a smoldering rock that’s starting to crush the air out of his lungs and fill his throat with poisonous fumes.

Because it’s still the middle of the goddamn night, he isn’t very likely to reach anyone else either, so Thor does what Dr. Rhodey asked him to do regularly for a few months in spring the previous year until the exercise wasn’t necessary on a daily basis anymore: To keep a journal about his emotions and try to identify them. He feels a bit weird taking this habit up again but he knows deep down that he should because it’ll help if he has something to read to Dr. Rhodey in the next session. If he doesn’t do it now, he’ll probably lose half of what’s cooking in his mind right now or end up at the Burger King drive thru window, so he just grabs pen and paper and gets down to it.

08/06/22

I’m all over the place. I’m happy for Mom. In a lot of ways, she reminds me of the mom she was when I was very little. I realize now that really EVERTHING changed when Loki came to us because my Dad couldn’t get on board with it. She has that look in her eyes that I’d forgotten was once there. She is happy and that makes me happy. She is treated right by this guy.

But I’m worried for Loki. He isn’t doing well and I’m afraid they won’t figure it out. I have the feeling that something bad either already happened or is about to happen and that makes me feel helpless --> which makes me wanna binge (which isn’t a feeling, I guess). I just wish he wouldn’t suffer like this and wouldn’t have to be so terrified. He’s literally TERRIFIED and I can’t help.

He also told me something pretty shocking that I can’t get over because it proves once and for all how badly our Dad treated us. Loki doesn’t miss him but he misses Thanos (!!!) sometimes and that really fucked me up big time. Odin was and continues to be so emotionally distant and unable to express affection, pride or even basic acceptance that my little brother MISSES a drug dealer and child porn dealer who branded his collarbone with the first letter of his fucking name and raped him. I feel sick. Not because of what Loki did but because. Fuck. And that makes me angry with Dad and it makes me sad because … why do other kids get to have great fathers that make them feel like they matter? I guess that’s been bothering me since the dinner. I like Robert; he’s kinda like Dad would be if he weren’t so obsessed with success and more in touch with his emotions. Which isn’t surprising, I think, but it’s hard in a way because it makes me jealous (or envious, who the hell remembers that difference anyway) because Brian has a pretty great Dad from the look of it. Robert made me feel as if what I do for those kids is important. He even said that doctors aren’t the only ones who help people. He also seemed glad that both his son and I gave up on a career as professional athletes whereas Dad was disappointed when I quit and basically told me to my face that I was a loser. He still doesn’t like what I do, I can tell, because it isn’t attracting attention and isn’t high profile or whatever. Maybe it’s because my “success” isn’t recognized by others, except those who are right there with me. Which would never be enough for him. Sometimes I think that he lives his life as if grandpa was still alive. He can’t break out (and you said it takes 7 generations) of that need to succeed even though Bor has been dead for almost ten years and can’t judge him anymore and Uncle Tyr doesn’t even care. But it’s ingrained, I guess, and as long as he doesn’t go to therapy, he won’t change. I just … still want him to because I miss the person I once thought he was and was then hoping he could maybe one day become. And it hurts like fucking hell that I don’t matter enough to him to change. It makes me sad and angry. And a bit resentful. Because Robert made me feel more appreciated in the four times I’ve seen him than Dad has in the last 3 or 4 years combined. And that really, really stings … Also, I feel guilty because Robert approaches me differently than he does Loki because Loki can’t open up and approach him, so it’s probably coming across as if Robert likes me more or whatever, which is an exact repetition of our roles in Dad’s life and I hate that. I even noticed the same pattern with Uncle Tyr in Norway last year. Loki is always so reserved around people that they understandably take a step back and are more careful around him. I don’t have that problem, which always creates the impression that people like me more and that’s just NOT TRUE. I hope this all works out because I’m sure Robert would appreciate Lokes too and give him that feeling that he matters as a person for no particular reason. He IS a good guy, after all. I’m sure of it. He doesn’t pretend or put on a show. Loki was really out of it at times while we were having dinner and he didn’t get upset or even irritated. He just rolled with it basically. He is a father figure that could do Loki some good, I think. If he lets him.

Looking at the page, tear-smeared where he wrote down the hardest parts, Thor adds pride to the list of the emotions he circled because he remembers all too clearly how, a couple of years back, all he was able to feel was anger. A couple of years back, he would have punched a wall or beaten someone up or trashed his mother’s kitchen to blow off some steam if he’d felt this unhinged. And now he’s capable, without immediate therapeutic assistance even, to sort through the rubble all by himself.

It doesn’t make any of the anger or the sadness vanish entirely but it makes him feel a lot better and it alleviated the urge to binge—which is arguably the most important thing when you’ve been diagnosed with a fucking eating disorder not otherwise specified (gah).

Thor swallows the feeling of inadequacy and reaches for his phone to text his mother that he’d like to have breakfast together with her and Loki because, even though the worst of the cravings have passed him by, he’s a lot less likely to pig out when they’re watching.

To his big surprise, Frigga is online.

~°~

Frigga is right. 

Something is definitely a little off when his brother emerges from his room about three hours later. He looks and talks like Loki but underneath he is too quiet, too shy and too reticent. Not to mention that he eats too much too soon and the cats are a little too cautious around him. Thor never had much of a gaydar—Steve Rogers doesn’t count because he made it way too obvious—but he does have a well-developed alter radar that registers even the tiniest of gestural or tonal cues that a switch might have occurred. 

“I don’t think that’s him,” Thor tells his mother as soon as the bathroom door closes behind his brother. 

“Are you sure?” asks Frigga and Thor can almost see the turning wheels kick it into high gear behind her forehead. If not Loki, Nikias or any of the children, who is fronting and why don’t they trust her to reveal themselves? Why is the alter pretending to be Loki if they aren’t? Is the system trying to spare her feelings? Is it someone they have talked to before or was someone who hadn’t been active for a long time triggered out by the whole Robert predicament? Is this her fault? Will they get through this? Does she have to end the relationship before it really began after all, for Loki’s sake?

“Relatively sure, yes.” Thor takes a deep breath. After a long conversation with his mother—who sat down with him and gently rubbed his back and reminded him that Odin’s behavior bears testimony to his father’s emotional immaturity and not to the amount of affection and appreciation his children deserve—he feels rather invigorated mentally. “But let’s not pressure him. He’ll come to us when he’s ready.”

Chapter Text

He slides onto the closed toilet lid and exhales a long breath. Talking to the woman who is supposed to be his mother and the man who is supposed to be his brother is quite overwhelming, even if they are kind, nurturing individuals who truly love their Loki and are very gentle with him and respectful towards his personal space. He likes them, both of them. The woman has a lot of love to give and her presence is soothing and the man is an enigma that unites a loud, booming voice and a room-filling, captivating physical presence with an incredible softness and serenity. His jokes aren’t particularly funny and he called him ‘squirt’ but his laugh is heartfelt and contagious, and both of their eyes are a rich, deep blue. He should feel at ease but he doesn’t. Because there is a mirror in the bathroom and he doesn’t … He doesn’t look like he thinks he does. His reflection shows a skinny guy with pale skin and pitch black hair that feels utterly wrong. Not only because his complexion is several shades lighter than that of his alleged mother and brother, who have the same hair color and a similar eye color by the way, but because it doesn’t conform to what he thought he looked like. He was just convinced that he is blond too, with hazel eyes instead of azure ones and much shorter hair than this obsidian waterfall of unruly curls. He knows this the same way he knows he isn’t Loki even if he doesn’t remember himself or his name.

We’re adopted, the child’s voice spooks him again as he begins to wonder why they’re lying to him, why they’re pretending that he is someone else and why his reflection is skewed.

He saw her last night, in his dreams. After he traversed shadowy realms of swirling mists, he emerged in a cave with steep, rugged walls and a waterfall behind him that poured into a lake the surface of which was glistening like a thousand crystals. She emerged from the shadows in a red onesie with black dots and ladybug wings while he glanced around paralyzed by terror; a small girl with black hair rolled into two buns on the top of her head and bright green eyes. She smiled at him and introduced herself as Leah. He turned around and fled in a haste to wake.

But the voice is real. He can feel the presence of another person and he can no longer ignore it or tell himself that this is just a dream.

That’s why we look different than mama and Thor. We have a lovemama and biomama. Our biomama had black hair.

The voice is making sense and the child is explaining at least some things.

“We?” he whispers, afraid that the man and the woman are going to hear him. “What do you mean ‘we’? Who are you? And who is Loki?”

I’m Leah and we’re all part of a system that protects Loki’s consciousness and we live in his head because it has a big jungle in it. You saw it from the cave. But sometimes we need to go out in the body because he can’t but mama and Thor know about us. You can tell them that you’re not Loki and that you were just born. They only call you Loki because they don’t know you yet.

Okay, what?

Born?!

He wasn’t just born.

He’s a young adult who’ll graduate high school soon to become a lawyer.

And how could you possibly live inside another person’s head?

“No, this is ... You need to stop talking, please,” he says and splashes his face with cold water because even though this whole conversation does have a sense of realness to it and Leah feels almost physically close, it’s just not within the realm of possibilities that he is one of many others living inside a human head.

The very idea is absurd and insane.

We’re not insane, protests Leah.

But then again … that reflection … isn’t his and the explanation she gave suggests that he somehow borrowed (?) this Loki guy’s body, which sounds far too crazy to dwell on it for long.

Please, come to the cave, begs Leah.

“No,” snaps he and shuts her out.

~°~

“I need to tell you something,” Loki blurts out as he collapses into his armchair in Dr. van Dyne’s office on Wednesday morning. Despite everything, he went back to work after the weekend and the center couldn’t squeeze in an individual afternoon session with her during the past two days because a very unhinged new patient arrived and threw the program’s daily routine into disorder (probably like he did when he arrived two years ago and monopolized everyone’s attention with his silent strike and his suicide attempt). They offered him a slot with Wanda’s former therapist Dr. Baker on Monday when Loptr broke down crying again but Loki refused because he never really clicked with the guy—mainly because he went to him out of spite after he accused Dr. van Dyne of having a crush on Thor half a lifetime ago. In the present, his therapist looks alarmed and rightly so. Loki is exhausted, frustrated, angry and, above all, disgusted with himself. He’s so disgusted with himself that the urge to rip the flesh off his bones that was his constant companion during his last months at Infinity High has revisited him a few times. “Nothing relapse-related or anything,” he tacks on and then he breezes through the list of questions she asked him during previous adjustment periods to a new regimen. “The meds are doing their job. And you probably saw that they weighed me yesterday and that I gained two pounds. I’m not technically suicidal.”

Dr. van Dyne perks up her ears at that. Of course she does. “What does ‘not technically’ mean, exactly?”

“I’m not ‘Everything is horrible and I want to die’ suicidal even though my life and my DID really, really suck at the moment,” Loki explains as best as he can to avoid in-patient re-admission. “It’s more the ‘If I can’t get it together, dying is my only option because otherwise everyone else will suffer forever’ kind but it’s not in any way urgent. I wanted to hurt myself a few times but didn’t because I spent a lot of time in floaty land and I’m clean. No alcohol, no drugs.”

“I’m proud of you,” Dr. van Dyne beams at him and his cheeks heat up with embarrassment. He so doesn’t deserve that. “Even if you aren’t proud of yourself.” Oh, she knows him too well. It’s simultaneously reassuring and terrifying. “Now, what’s going on?”

“It’s kind of a lot but I didn’t want to tell anyone else. It takes too much energy to get another doc up to speed, you know,” Loki begins even though he knows that he doesn’t have to justify himself. “So, I decided I’d grit my teeth and get through it. Anyway, what happened was that I … Uh … And it really sucks because I did feel a lot better on Friday. Mac helped me understand that my mom isn’t gonna leave me and I felt pretty confident after my session with him. I texted her that I’d make dinner and she said she was gonna be back home at six thirty-ish. She wasn’t there at six thirty sharp, which isn’t at all unusual, but still I straight-up panicked. I tried to talk myself out of it using reason because she was only a few minutes late but Loptr was very upset too and some of his abandonment memories bled into mine and …” Aaand he chokes up again, fuck. “I-it was horrible. That memory that he held … f-for me … I can’t even describe it. It felt like being trapped in the darkness and suddenly there was this big black hole gaping open inside my chest and I felt entirely alone and terrified because I was dead certain nobody’s ever going to come and rescue me and all that anxiety suddenly slammed back into me and my mind went through all these horror scenarios of never seeing her again and her dying and I just … I couldn’t deal with it anymore. It was too intense, too painful, too exhausting, too much, and eventually I whitened out. I didn’t regain consciousness until Monday morning and, apparently, a new alter was created in the process.”

The doc’s eyebrows hike up but she encourages him to go on and continues to scribble as he walks her through the whole disaster as best as he can with his limited inner world knowledge. “We don’t really know much about him or her yet because they refused to talk to Leah but she told me that they stayed in control on Saturday before Loptr took over and that Mom and Thor didn’t realize it was someone else. Loptr was still in a very volatile state and needed a lot of emotional reassurance and he’s age-sliding rapidly currently, so Leah’s been trying to take care of him inside with Sigyn’s help and my mom’s been taking care of him outside. And Killian and Magnus are still trying to take care of Nikias because he’s so mad at my mother for ‘allowing that split to happen because she didn’t break up with Robert when she had the chance’ that they’re worried what’ll happen if he fronts. We all know he isn’t violent towards anyone anymore but he’s still very … I mean, he’s a protector alright but he’s also a loose cannon and a stubborn, hotheaded bastard and neither of us could convince him that it was okay for my mom to actually pursue that relationship, you know?”

“I do,” sighs Dr. van Dyne. “His relationship with Frigga is still complicated.”

Euphemism, anyone?

“Unfortunately, yes. He still hasn’t forgiven her for what she ‘put Leah through’ and I’m not sure he ever will. Anyway. Nobody could really take care of the new alter because nobody could reach them. Leah told me that they don’t even want to believe we exist yet and I feel awful about that. And the worst part is that I … I haven’t seen my mother since Friday morning. I haven’t been home. Killian gets the body to work and then I come here and then someone spends the evening with my mother because, apparently, it’s just too much to … deal with the guilt and the shame and I go straight back to floaty land. I haven’t spoken to her except through texting.” He takes a trembling breath. “It’s so frustrating and embarrassing and … I’m not sure what even happened. Did my brain remove me from the source of that fear to protect me, so that I no longer have to deal with agonizing over how to behave around her or did it purposefully create another son who’ll accept Robert and won’t put her under so much pressure because I’m too much of a wreck to be the grown child she wants and needs and deserves?”

“Loki,” sighs Dr. van Dyne, looking pained for some reason.

“What? I am a wreck and my mom deserves better than someone who forms new alters every time he can’t handle the thought of losing her or being apart from her,” Loki insists. He’s always known the truth. Frigga might be convinced that she doesn’t want two Thors but if she got a taste of what it’d be like to have two Thors instead of one Thor and his pathetic, needy ass full of hurting child parts who put her through the wringer just because she started dating again, she would keep the two Thors and never look back. Sorry, Mac. But you were wrong. “The creation of Robin was one thing because that was a traumatizing situation. I was co-con with Nikias when he stabbed my brother and then I woke up in LA with Hela in that environment. Everyone called me Robin. I thought I could never go back home. Thanos locked me up in his apartment every day. I was essentially a prisoner. That was deeply disturbing, yes. But Friday night I was waiting for her to come home from work in a safe, familiar space with no threats whatso-fucking-ever. No reason to panic, no trigger, nothing. She was a few minutes late, tops, and I lost my shit like a fucking toddler!”

“Well, you said you were co-con with Loptr,” Dr. van Dyne reminds him. “And, from the sound of it, you experienced a flashback to infant abandonment; which is a very powerful trigger that can cause re-traumatization.”

Brilliant.

Absolutely brilliant.

“No. I refuse to accept that because it’s just not acceptable anymore,” Loki huffs, interrupting her efforts to placate him and shift the focus of the conversation towards the new alter. “I need to get over this. Work through this. Whatever. For her and for myself. This isn’t a long-term solution because I miss her and I’m even more worried now that something will happen to her and I won’t get a chance to say goodbye. I’ve never gone this long without speaking to her since my suicide attempt and I need to get over this. How am I ever gonna function otherwise? But it just seems like such a monumental, impossible task to change my attachment style and it makes me so tired to even think about it. It’s like standing at the foot of a mountain and looking up at a steep wall of rock. And I’ve climbed smaller peaks before, I know that, but they were okay to climb with just a rope and now I need professional equipment but I don’t know how to use it, so I just know that I’ll stumble and slip and fall if I try to climb this thing.”

Dr. van Dyne smiles at him. “That is a great metaphor, actually, because we’re not going to climb the mountain all at once, right? We figure out the route step by step, stone by stone. And first of all, we need to make sure the harness is secure.”

Loki swallows. “And how do we do that?”

“We figure out what you need to start climbing the route that eventually leads you to the summit where you can trust your mother again and accept that this romantic relationship isn’t a threat to you,” his therapist explains. “And in order to help you get there, I have to make sure I fully understand how your mind goes from ‘she has a new partner’ or ‘what if she gets married again and I have to move out’ to ‘she’ll die and I’ll never see her again’ and whether there’s something in between in that downward anxiety spiral.”

The ridiculousness of the emotional shitshow that is his life unexpectedly makes him giggle because what the fuck. What the actual frickety freaking fuck times twenty-three squared. He breathes out. Okay, focus. “Usually, it’s a steady-ish progression. For example it’d start with ‘what if she spends more and more time with him and less and less time with me’ and lead to ‘what if she realizes how annoying it’s truly been with me now that she is happy again’ and from there to other scenarios. What if I can’t reach her because she’s not picking up the phone, what if I have a flashback and she isn’t there to ground me, what if I accidentally hurt the cats, what if she decides to move out or tells me to because she wants them to live together, what if I have to live alone because my brother doesn’t want me either, which isn’t even true because he said that I was the person he loved the most and wants to spend time with the most but he also said that he needed to live alone. Although that was two years ago, so who knows, we haven’t spoken about it recently. Anyway. It’s at this point, the living by myself, that I just spiral and then it goes from ‘What if I have to live alone’ to ‘What if I overdose and my cats eat me’ or ‘What if she dies on her way home’.”

Dr. van Dyne nods, deep in thought for a moment. “What about ‘What if he moves in’? Does that enter the equation at all?”

Loki shakes his head. “Not really. The apartment is too small for a third person. It’d be too crammed, so if anything, we’d get a bigger place but I can’t see that happening because I’m pretty sure Robert wouldn’t want to live with me.”

She doesn’t even ask. She just scribbles something onto her notepad. “What about her getting pregnant again?”

Fear descends upon him because he never even thought of that ONCE, thank you very fucking much for nothing, but it’s only for a second because his rational brain reminds him that this is a very, very unlikely scenario. He shakes his head again. “At her age, the chances of getting pregnant naturally are very low, aren’t they? As far as I remember, female bodies are born with their entire lifetime supply of eggs and can’t make new ones, so how many can possibly be left at fifty-five?”

“Not an awful lot, I give you that.” His therapist flicks a quick glance at her notes and looks up again. “What about adoption?”

“Do you really think my mother wants or needs another biological child?” Loki snorts. That thought is absurd. “I think she’s got her work cut out with us.”

Dr. van Dyne scribbles some more. “So, in conclusion, scenarios you either know to be unlikely or deem unlikely do not trigger your abandonment anxiety, which is a good sign. Let’s look at the others. Every other ‘what if’ you mentioned that caused you to spiral could occur, in varying degrees of likelihood.” A lump grows in his throat as she continues. “Which is why I think it might be time to think some of those ‘horror scenarios’ through to the end. Together.”

Loki sits up straight, his heart racing. “Wh-why?”

“Because fear ultimately stems from helplessness and from not knowing how we’re going to get through or, in the worst case, survive a particular situation,” Dr. van Dyne explains. “The key to conquer a fear like this is to mentally prepare for a situation and think about how we are planning on adjusting to it, so that we have a few possibilities for action available to us and don’t feel entirely paralyzed once the worst-case scenario ultimately occurs.”

Loki gulps. It makes sense but still … Thinking it through and subjecting himself to that rock of dread that crushes the air out of his chest whenever he thinks about getting a call that Frigga got into an accident and died on the scene or on the way to the hospital and he never even got to say goodbye …

“And the worst of the worst-case scenarios is something that scares everyone,” Dr. van Dyne continues softly, “and that no one can ever truly prepare for. The thought of losing a loved one is scary, Loki. It’s scary for everyone. Everyone grieves when they lose someone, even fully self-actualized, mentally healthy, functioning members of society. Grief tears a hole through everyone’s chest. The only thing we can do to minimize the emotional hardship is to share it with others and to try and communicate as best as we can while we still have each other. We can try to let go of grudges, to forgive others, to finish conversations and don’t storm away in anger and to tell the people we love exactly that in order to ensure that we won’t have to deal with regret on top of the grief once they’re gone.”

In other words, everything he hasn’t done for the past weeks.

A violent sob tears through his chest and his throat burns with unshed tears. “That’s not enough.”

“It has to be,” Dr. van Dyne tells him and slides the tissue box over the desk when they spill out. “Unfortunately, our culture has lost touch with the fact that death is an inevitable part of life because we like to cling to the illusion that we’re in control and can subjugate nature. Humans have accomplished astonishing feats that lure us into a false sense of security but there is this one great enemy that we’ll never vanquish and denial only gets us so far. It’s true and your brain is right. One day, Frigga will die and you and your brother will grieve and you will cry and you will miss her terribly, and I’m not sure I’d be doing you too much of a favor if I continued to disacknowledge that. Because we currently have a situation in which we have an awful lot riding on the assumption that the support system that enabled your recovery so far will never change and that’s simply not true. Robert’s arrival in your lives is impressive proof of that. So, if we want to work through this, we need to make sure that you acquire the tools to look after yourself and help yourself as best as you can; should you against all odds really end up entirely alone.”

“But it’s too much,” Loki whispers. It is. That black hole in his chest yawns open again and it’s too wide, too greedy. It sucks everything in. He can feel Loptr crumble to pieces in the cave and his nameless emotions bleed into Loki’s. “I-I changed my mind. I can’t do this and I don’t want to. I wanna go home to her and if she ever dies …” He trails off. Shit. He can’t possibly say that to her, can he?

“What?”

He shakes his head.

No fucking way.

Why does therapy have to be so fucking painful and exhausting?

Dr. van Dyne is on high alert now. “Loki, what were you going to say?”

“Nothing,” Loki evades. “I mean, I don’t know.”

“I think I do.” His therapist looks so sad and so, so serious all of a sudden. “You have that look in your eyes and I think you were going to say that if she ever died, you would kill yourself, which I find very alarming because it suggests that your very existence is still inextricably linked to your mother’s and that your mental health and stability are entirely dependent on whether or not you live together or whether or not she’s alive or whether or not she has a partner or a husband. And I … I don’t know what to do with that, to be perfectly honest with you. I didn’t realize you were still this deeply attached.”

“That’s not true,” Loki protests as the implications behind her words sink in and his tears finally run dry. “I’m not! I was fine.”

“Past tense, yes,” sighs she and glances at her notes, struggling with whatever she’s going to say next.

Shit.

Fuck.

You need to do something.

“What you just described,” Loki scrambles in a valiant attempt to get his mind back into a state resembling coherence. Think, you cretin. Quick. “That’s basically how small children exist, right? Because small children need their primary caregivers to actually survive. And I … shouldn’t need her like this and I don’t think I actually do. I mean, not on an, uh, existential level. Not like I did when I was first admitted. Because I do have a big brother still, I have a job, I earn a bit of money with it, I can cook, I can do adult stuff. I know I wouldn’t perish if she”—gulp—“if she wasn’t … there anymore.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Dr. van Dyne confirms, looking utterly defeated. “But do you actually feel that or were you going to say that you’d kill yourself if your mother died? Because you didn’t exactly contradict me very convincingly.”

“I was gonna say ‘If she ever dies, we’ll die too’ but it was a fleeting thought, an impulse, because I’m still co-con with Loptr and he’s hurting and he’s in a lot of pain and we didn’t really mean it in the killing-ourselves way. More like a ‘we’ll die from the pain’ kind of way. I swear. I promise. Please, you have to believe me.” Loki exhales a stuttering breath. He needs to get them back from this fucking precipice. They can’t end the session like this. He can’t go home like this. “I mean, this isn’t really much better in terms of dependency but I’m not going to kill myself and I want to work towards accepting Robert and accepting the fact that my mom’s not gonna be here forever and that I can’t make my mental health and my recovery conditional on her ‘availability’ or whatever. Please. Don’t give up on me just yet. I don’t want to work with another doctor. Please.”

There is a long, long pause and for a moment, Loki is convinced that she’s going to throw in the towel either for today or for good. She doesn’t because she’s a fucking saint. “I wasn’t going to give up on you, Loki,” she breathes out at long last. “But we have a lot of work to do, don’t we?”

Thank fuck.

He’s so relieved that tears spring to his eyes again.

“So, uh, what do I need to start climbing the mountain, right?” Loki asks and wipes them away. Dr. van Dyne nods. “Well, Loptr needs a few individual sessions, if possible, and we need to find a way to make sure he doesn’t always get sucked into my crises because he too was fine while I was. I suppose I’ll have to get to know Robert better because I’ll probably feel better equipped to cope with the situation if I were able to judge his character for myself and determine if he’s actually a ‘threat’ or if Odin simply demolished my trust in all cishet men except my brother forever.”

“These are important steps. For now, I think it’d be most helpful if you began by going back to your life how it was two or three months ago when it was, as you said, ‘as good as it can get’ and taking inventory of everything. The positive, the negative, work, therapy, all your interpersonal relationships, your living situation, daily routines, challenges, what came comparably easy to you; write down anything that comes to mind until our next session,” Dr. van Dyne suggests. “And from there we can approach which sections of your life Robert effectively influenced and in what way and which ones remain completely untouched by your mother’s relationship, and how the same sections would be influenced if your mother moved out of the apartment. Does that sound doable?”

Loki nods. “It does. And I’m so, so sorry, Dr. van Dyne. This session couldn’t have been a very rewarding experience for you as a doctor.”

“Well,” she says, on the heels of an exhausted chuckle, and he fully expects her to crack a joke. Again, she surprises him. “That observation compensated for a lot just now, you know that?” She rises to her feet. “I’ll see you on Friday, okay? Be safe.”

On a sudden impulse, Loki walks around the table and, even if it’s probably inappropriate as fuck, he hugs her and he tells her that he loves her because she deserves the appreciation.

Chapter Text

Friday, August 12^th, 2022

Thor was right.

The alter who has been pretending to be Loki all week, or rather hasn’t corrected her when she called him that, isn’t Loki and there’s been enough evidence to support her eldest’s theory: He hasn’t called Frigga ‘mom’ once since she came home from work seven days ago, he hasn’t shown any sign of being bothered when Robert called her on Tuesday night and his behavior towards Fenrir and Lilah is a little different. It was a subtle shift at first but the alter doesn’t cuddle them as much or as unreservedly and isn’t nearly as vocal about his love towards them as Loki usually is. The cats reacted accordingly and didn’t sleep in his bed, and Fenrir especially has been very cautious around him. Frigga has been trying not to agonize over it too much and to just give it time and heed Thor’s advice not to pressure him but when she finds him hunched in front of his laptop screen after work and realizes that he’s looking at the admission page to the Juris Doctor program of Arizona State University’s law school, she feels a twinge of panic because she hasn’t spoken to Loki in a week. Because he has retreated into the inner world after (and despite the fact that) he took a leap of faith and let her back in the night after his discharge and because it’s still difficult for her to let go and because Loptr has regressed to an emotional state where he bursts out into random crying fits and won’t physically let go of her whenever he fronts.

She’s exhausted plain and simple, and seeing that webpage just … fells her like a tree and the implications behind it drive her to action.

“So, law school, hm?” Frigga begins after they greeted each other. It’s the least thing Loki would be interested in but the alter is quite enthusiastic about the idea. “What, uh, about your job at the publishing house?”

“I can be more than just an artist,” he says nonchalantly and, when his head snaps up, all Frigga sees are Loki’s features. “Like you and Dad. Why? Do you think I wouldn’t be good at it?”

Dad.

He hasn’t called Odin that in ages and why on earth, she laments silently, is she ‘mother’ to him while Odin gets to be ‘dad’?

Frigga brushes that thought aside and gives him a gentle shoulder squeeze. “Of course not. You’d be terrific at it,” she assures him and she means every word. He has proven time and time again that he has the eloquence, the analytic thinking skills and the brainpower to remember even the obscurest subparagraphs of the penal code. Not to mention that even Odin himself once admitted out loud that Loki would be far more likely than Thor to succeed in the courtroom if he chose to follow in his footsteps. “I just didn’t think it’d be something you’re interested in.”

He shrugs. “I changed my mind. Young adults are prone to do that, you know.”

She should let him be, she knows that. Because if he doesn’t yet know that he is part of a system, she could do more harm than good by pushing him to talk about his identity. On the other hand, she noticed that he was tense and confused at times even though he valiantly pretended that he knew what was going on and she can’t see any way it’d work out if one alter wants to enroll in law school and Loki wants to keep working at the publishing house. On top of all that, a part of her is suddenly outright terrified at the thought that Loki might be gone. That this alter in front of her is the result of a fusion or a merge or an integration between Loki and someone else because this right here is Loki’s facial expression and his attitude and his parlance and what if she’ll never see the person Loki was a week ago again?

It’s a very selfish thought, yes, because this isn’t about her. A DID system does what it has to do in order to survive emotionally and she knows she shouldn’t interfere with their healing process. It’s difficult though. It’s really, really difficult right now because she can’t help but hold herself at fault.

He’s come such a long way, Thor said to her, and if you break up with Robert now without giving him a chance to work it out, you’d straight-up neglect or disregard all that progress and go straight back to coddling him, don’t you think?

But what if working it out ultimately led to the creation of someone else, someone new? How could she ever forgive herself and not drown in guilt if she made her own child disappear because she decided to pursue the relationship with Robert? Selfish and ignorant as it may be, that thought crushes the air out of her lungs and makes her want to crumble into a heap and burst into tears.

“Are you alright?” asks the alter, his forehead in a deep frown.

Frigga clears her throat. “Y-yes, of course. Let’s order some dinner, shall we?” She takes a deep breath that is trembling under the fragility of her composure. “What are you in the mood for?”

~°~

Later that evening, Frigga sits down on the couch with a cup of herbal tea to help her digest the piece of disproportionately cheesy but sinfully delicious lasagna she ordered, connects her phone to the television set and browses through the photos she captured and the ones Thor and Loki sent her over the past years in order to remind herself of everything good that happened in their lives ever since Loki returned from LA. She looks at snapshots of birthday cakes, walks in the park, visits to ice cream and frozen yogurt parlors, the zoo, Thor’s life-changing road trip, her new office when it was finally furnished to her satisfaction, Loki and Wanda dressed up as Edward Scissorhands and a bush for Halloween that one year, Lilah’s first few months, Loki playing or cuddling with her and later Fenrir, their 2020 New Year’s vacation in a cozy Mount Charleston cabin, Leah’s discovery of snow, her sons’ 2021 vacation in Nova Scotia, Loki’s first selfie at his desk at work, their 2021 Christmas vacation in Norway.

Halfway through, she realizes that a lot of them feature Leah and Loptr and tries to remind herself how much of a struggle it was to accept the fact that Loki had different personalities at all in the beginning and that all of his alters are ultimately and always have been alternate states in which Loki’s consciousness exists. And even if there was a fusion, Loki isn’t and won’t ever be gone because he’s had DID since he was a child. She interacted with several different alters throughout his life until his condition came to light and always thought of them as Loki. And whether he wants to draw comics or go to law school now, her child is right there. He always was. He was there when Robin claimed he didn’t know her and that Hela was his real mother, and he is there when Nikias calls her ‘Friggs’ to rile her up and insists that she isn’t his mother either. Although she doesn’t really see, can’t really see, Nikias as her son because of various reasons, she never stopped seeing her son when she looked at Robin.

So why should this alter be any different?

Because this time, you might be directly responsible, the obnoxious voice of guilt drawls into her ear. You took a gamble and you lost. You prioritized your own needs over his because of a man.

Frigga shoves away the voice when she realizes that Loki is standing beside her and catches him staring wide-eyed at the TV screen that currently shows the photo she couldn’t help but take when Luna wrapped herself around Thor on her big brother’s lap by the fireplace in Tyr’s and Zisa’s living room. Her heart gives a lurch because, while she’s quite certain she didn’t put those photos on display to initiate a conversation about his memories, at least not consciously, his confused expression peppered with unease and trepidation leaves no doubt that she hit the damn nail square on its pesky little head.

“Hey, are you okay?” asks Frigga, feeling utterly wretched and guilty.

Loki can’t tear his gaze of the screen. “I … This …”

“Come here,” murmurs Frigga and pats the cushion beside her. “Sit with me, please.”

Loki hesitates for a few seconds but eventually, he complies. “When was that?”

A few hours ago, every atom in her body ached to have this conversation. Now that they’re about to have it, she isn’t so sure anymore if she has the mental and emotional resources it takes to safely guide him through it after the week that lies behind her. “Last Christmas.”

Loki swallows with perceptible difficulty.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Frigga begins because there’s no turning back now, “if you’re … if your name really is Loki because if it isn’t, if you aren’t Loki and you’re wondering why we call you that or if it makes you uncomfortable or confuses you or frightens you, you can tell me, my love.” She reaches for his shoulder and squeezes gently. “You can ask me any question you have and I’ll try to answer them as best as I can, okay?”

Loki swallows again and flicks quick glances across the room, fleeing her gaze until his eyes land on one of the framed pictures on the wall. “What’s that girl’s name?” he asks eventually, pointing at the painting of the system Leah gifted her for her birthday two years ago with a shaking index finger. “The one with the black hair?”

“Leah.”

Loki exhales a trembling breath. “So she is real. Y-you know her?”

Frigga’s own voice doesn’t quite carry either. “Yes to both. She’s the one who drew this picture.”

“But … how? How is this possible? She’s been inside my head.”

It’s a good thing she rehearsed several different conversations in her head over the course of the past week in preparation for this moment. If she hadn’t, she’d be at a loss right now. “Do you see that painting of the jungle up there? Does it seem in any way familiar to you?”

“I … I think I saw it in my dreams,” he confesses after another lengthy pause.

Frigga nods. “I know it’s very difficult to conceive of at first but it’s a place that exists inside your head, in the body’s brain.”

He gapes at her as if she lost her mind. “Again I ask you how, mother.”

“It’s due to how the brain develops in childhood,” Frigga starts her subsequent explanation that doesn’t instantly focus the fact that DID is a trauma disorder because she knows quite well that he’ll inevitably do his own research after this conversation if she drops the term. Which is why she’s trying to avoid it until she can be sure how much he already knows about what happened to the system or he presses her for the whole truth, whatever comes first. “You see, every time children dream themselves far away from reality and imagine themselves as someone else at a young age, they create a different person in their minds. Usually, these disappear when children get older and their personalities begin to form because they fuse all of these experiences and imaginations into one person that starts to grow from there. But some children can’t merge all these different identities they created, so they stay separate and the child’s mind or brain continues to exist in different states of consciousness far into adulthood. These different states form a system and, because usually only one of them can be out controlling the body as you do now, they exist in a place that’s called the inner world or headspace, in the literal sense.”

“The jungle.”

Frigga nods again. “Loki is one of these states too and he drew that picture about a year before he learned that the world was real because he saw it in his dreams too.”

His eyes are blown open wide. “But who’s … I mean … Which one of us is the original child that dreamed of”—another pointing gesture at Leah’s painting—“all those people?”

“There’s no way to determine that,” Frigga tells him then because—even though she, sue her if you must, will probably always think of Loki as the core personality—most of the papers about the structural dissociation model she read argue that it’s impossible to determine who was there first precisely because DID develops before the developmental stage that fully integrates a child’s personality. Past the age of nine, it’s basically anyone’s guess why a particular alter emerged as the host. “There’s no way of knowing who was there first or who emerged when because you’re all part of the same whole.”

“What? Like slices of a pizza?” asks Loki, probably thinking back to his own dinner. Yes, he definitely has the logical and the analytical reasoning skills to pass the LSAT with flying colors.

“A bit, yes. I mean, there’s no ‘original’ slice, right? There’s a pizza cut into four or eight or twelve slices that are all equally contributing to what we see as the whole product.”

“Wow, that’s … so crazy, isn’t it?” Loki asks, followed by an incredulous laugh, and then he unexpectedly tackles her in a fierce hug. “Hi, mama.”

Frigga’s brain needs a moment to process a switch that swift. “Leah?”

“I love you, mama,” the girl murmurs into her neck. “You explained everything so nicely.”

Even though she still doesn’t know the alter’s name or if he’s the product of a fusion or whether he has been there all along or was just created, those words fill Frigga’s heart up with warmth and love. “Hey, princess.” She cards through the body’s hair. “How are you?”

Leah shrugs in her embrace. “The system is very tired.”

“I know, baby,” sighs Frigga, pressing her as close as she can and trying to ignore the beast that is her guilt rear up on its hind legs in the corner of her vision. “I know. How about some hot chocolate and a movie? We haven’t watched 101 Dalmatians in a while.”

~°~

Later that night, when the body is asleep, Loki dreams.

At least he thinks it’s a dream. He can’t be entirely sure, though, because dreams of the others have leaked into his ever since his meds stopped working and because the past two days—you know, since he hugged (!!!) Dr. van Dyne and she hugged him back and even said ‘I love you’ back (!!!) in defiance of the doctor-patient boundaries she, as the professional in the relationship, is supposed to establish and maintain at all times—were filled with rapid, immensely disorienting switches and a dizzying sensation of being sort of blended together with Loptr that was more intense and more draining than the experience of ‘mere’ co-consciousness and restrained him from fronting and working on his homework assignment.

Wait, or is he awake?

He’s thinking as though he, or at least his brain, was awake but he’s also sprinting through a dark, vaguely familiar subterranean parking garage trying to determine where the sound of a wailing child is coming from. When he’s finally getting close, he’s suddenly inside the car himself with Loptr, who’s barely verbal and quaking with fear, tears and snot running down his cheeks and chin. Loki rattles at the handle closest to him but the car is locked. Shit, shit, shit. Panic sprouts in the pit of his stomach as the little guy clings to him in utter despair and Loki feels that dread again, that grueling sensation of no-one’s-gonna-come-I’m-alone-I’m-trapped-I-need-my-mama-why-isn’t-my-mama-here-why-doesn’t-she-come-and-help-me, and it envelops him and it seeps into him as though his skin was permeable and then he realizes that the interior of the car is familiar too and that they’re inside the SUV Odin drove way back when he and Thor still needed booster seats that don’t fit in a sports car and he understands that he must be in Loptr’s dream but then Loptr suddenly disintegrates in his arms and Loki’s eyes snap open but he isn’t out of the woods yet, no, he’s still in the fucking car, oh please noooo, what the freaking hell, and that’s when the terror washes over him for real and he starts to scream and thrash around for what feels like hours because he’s fucking trapped inside the fucking car all alone and he can’t fucking breathe and he … he … The lock beep doesn’t even register at first but then the door is yanked open and Odin pokes his head through the door and he says, “Shit, I’m so sorry, they practically ambushed me up there,” and he says, “Come here,” and he presses Loki close and his Dad is cursing himself under his breath and his heart is hammering inside his chest and Loki can hear it very loudly and he can feel its scared beat against his cheek, and he knows then with a sudden clarity that he just recovered a repressed memory.

This dream really happened to him or rather it happened to Loptr and, ha!, he knew that Dr. van Dyne was wrong when she insisted that being in a car might not have been a traumatic experience at all for the state that developed into Loptr. She was wrong and he was right. He’s a sorry ass coward and Loptr was forced to be the trauma holder for this awful, nameless, stomach-twisting, soul-shattering dread and had to switch out frequently in all kinds of public and private means of transportation from that moment on and suddenly Loki has access to memories of the school bus and of plane rides to Hawaii and Florida and Norway and he remembers the anxiety that squeezed his tiny, little heart tight in its massive giant claws and he remembers clinging to Frigga during the ordeal and he remembers the sheer relief when the car doors opened and he was finally free and safe again. And recovering all of that explains so much because it’s basically car trauma piled upon car trauma starting with Hela leaving him alone as a newborn and continuing with Odin putting his meaty hand on his mouth in his booster seat because he wouldn’t stop crying when he thought Frigga’d died when she didn’t come to pick him up and Odin just straight-up forgetting him in the parking garage of his fucking law firm after that and ultimately there was Nikias losing his shit behind the wheel and almost killing them and Thor on the Interstate because he wasn’t yet aware that he would die if the body died and, geez, he’s really beating himself up because he still doesn’t have a license?? Loki wants to laugh and does because he’s being ridiculously hard on himself but then he stops when it dawns on him what all of this means and then his eyes FINALLY snap open.

He’s still not in his room though, dammit.

He wakes in the jungle, surrounded by Magnus, Killian and a sad-looking Leah with glassy eyes.

“We fused, didn’t we?” Loki groans in lieu of a greeting, still feeling a little disoriented and kind of woozy. “Loptr and I?”

“Yes.” Killian nods. “And it took you a whole week.”

“So, that’s why everything felt a little tilted,” Loki concludes and he didn’t even realize just how disconnected from himself he actually felt for the past seven days until now that he feels somewhat normal again. It’s a bit similar to not realizing how hungry you are until you actually start eating. “Shit, sweet pea, I’m sorry,” he exclaims when Leah’s facial expression fully registers with his dazed brain. “Come here.”

She does and Loki picks her up and rubs her back. “I’m so sorry. I know you’re gonna miss him because so am I.”

“Why did it have to happen?” mewls the girl, her lips quivering. The poor thing.

If only Loki knew. He glances up at Killian. “And why did it take a whole goddamn week? And how does the new alter fit into this?”

“Well, it took a week because you both struggled against it,” explains the primary protector, “which is why Jörmungandr didn’t tell you in advance. I asked him to consult our therapist first but he refused that also and initiated the fusion because he feared that you won’t be able to get over your inhibitions that keep you from making sure your emotional needs are met and, more importantly, to make sense of your abandonment anxiety with Dr. van Dyne without full access to Loptr’s experience and his memories. I’m not sure how the new alter was created.”

“But mama explained DID to him,” Leah adds and it hurts to see her cheery, bouncy nature so subdued by sadness. “And he listened. He didn’t listen to me.”

Loki cradles her closer and presses a kiss onto the top of her head. “I’m sure you did good though, princess. Sometimes people just aren’t ready to listen.”

“I suppose a separation from Frigga might have been necessary to intensify the fear of abandonment and expedite the process,” Killian continues when Leah doesn’t verbally react to Loki’s reassurance, “but it obviously overwhelmed you and you probably felt as though you needed someone to take your place to deal with it. Why it couldn’t have been anyone of us, I do not know.”

Loki snorts a laugh because isn’t this just great? “Aaaand here I was wondering why Nikias still doesn’t like our gatekeeper very much.”

“Oh no,” exclaims Magnus, suddenly on high alert as his gaze sweeps their surroundings. “Where is Nikias?”

Alarmed by the usually so calm alter’s very apparent discomfort, Loki struggles to his feet on shaky legs. “Why are you asking and why are you asking it like that?”

Both protectors answer his question at the same time.

“Because he was here before you woke up,” replies Leah.

“Because the jungle just shifted,” replies Killian.

Oh no.

No, no, no, no.

The bottom drops out of Loki’s stomach because there’s another person Nikias doesn’t like very much at the moment, another person he blames for the system’s current plight, and, in contrast to almighty old Jorgi, that person won’t be very far out of his reach if he fronts. Seventeen blocks at best, the adjacent or even the same room at worst.

Fueled by a fresh terror that punches the air out of his lungs, Loki sets Leah down and breaks into a run.

“Wait,” shouts Killian as he comes running after him. As per usual, his alleged primary protector catches up with him in no time and grabs him by the arm. “You don’t even know where you’re going! We need to orient ourselves first before we blindly take off!”

“I don’t care,” howls Loki, liquid heat pooling into his eyes. “I need to get to the cave. I won’t let him hurt her or attack her with words and make her feel like crap, okay? Fuck!”

“He is not going to hurt her,” insists Killian. “You have to have faith in him! He changed!”

“Did he really? Because if that’s the case, why were you guys so fucking worried about him earlier, huh?” Loki screams at him in a shrill voice that startles Leah and he tries to keep it together for the little bean’s sake but Killian just bites his lip with a contrite expression on his fucking face, the bastard, and Loki’s emotions overwhelm him and he pounds his free fist against the steel breastplate of Killian’s armored chest. “See? Let go of me, you fucking liar!”

Chapter Text

Robert Linton is in the midst of juicing an orange for his daily glass of breakfast juice when the doorbell rings. Fully expecting to finally see the mailman with the package that has been delayed two frustrating times already, his brain needs a few seconds to reboot when he opens the door and sees Frigga’s younger son standing there in black sweatpants and a black long-sleeved tee, arms crossed in front of his chest.

“Uh, Loki, hi,” stammers Robert as soon as his brain caught up and his gut tells him that it can’t possibly mean something good that the kid turned up here all by himself. “Is everything alright? What are you doing h—”

“I want you to stop seeing my mother,” Loki tells him outright.

See?

This isn’t entirely unexpected, Robert has to admit to himself, but it still comes as a bit of a surprise after the dinner they had where the young man wasn’t even a fourth as assertive. “Blunt,” Robert acknowledges because it surely must have taken a lot of guts to come here and confront him like this. “I give you that but no, I won’t. I’m sorry.”

Loki narrows his eyes at him. “I beg your pardon?”

Robert clears his throat. “I was just about to make breakfast. Do you maybe want to come in, so that we can—”

“No, I don’t want to come in,” Loki blusters. “I want you to tell her that it’s over between the two of you!”

It admittedly takes quite a bit of effort to quench his gut reaction to laugh into his face and to take the kid and his rather infantile indignation seriously instead but he ultimately manages to keep a straight face by reminding himself that he can’t possibly fathom and/or judge the kind of struggles he is going through. After all, his birthmother kidnapped him and then killed herself. “Look, I get that it’s a big adjustment for you that your mother is seeing someone,” Robert begins in the least patronizing tone he can manage, “but I promise you that I won’t hurt her. Frigga is a strong, intelligent, independent, beautiful woman and I do care about her a lot, okay? I never even thought that it’d be possible for me to appreciate another person like this after my wife died but I do and I would be an utter fool to let her go, so I won’t unless she wants to leave. If she wants to end this, I will accept her decision because I firmly believe that, if we truly care about people, we need to respect their decisions. But I will not stop seeing her because you ask me to. I’m sorry.”

Loki snorts a laugh. “What?!”

You don’t have the right to emotionally take your mother hostage, is what pops into his mind but he swallows it down because it’d sound way too aggressive and too confrontational. “She has the right to decide what she’s doing with her life and I really don’t know how to make this any clearer,” Robert tells him instead, knowing full well that he won’t find the words that’ll turn the tide of the conversation in his favor.

“No, she doesn’t,” exclaims the kid and Robert has to admit to himself that his death glare is quite impressive. “She’s … No. Just no. This is not acceptable! You need to leave, okay? You’ve done enough damage and this is me asking nicely.”

Despite the knowledge of what not asking nicely amounted to in the past—and his brain does supply him with the memory of the headlines Milo shoved in his face with the best of intentions—Robert can’t be truly afraid of him when the kid takes a step towards him. He’s quite tall and obviously angry but he’s scrawny as hell and, unless he has a weapon hidden somewhere, Robert is sure he could defend himself in a physical altercation. Apart from that, he doesn’t even want to think along these lines because Frigga assured him that her son put a lot of work into his recovery and he believes her. He chooses to believe her again in that moment because she’s been—quite brutally—honest with him from the start. She told him outright that she’s doing the work she’s doing because she stayed married to her abusive ex-husband for over twenty years, oblivious to the fact that he’d been physically abusing her children. She told him outright that she was still living with one of her sons and that she might end up having to prioritize him over Robert every now and then because he had a severe and unpredictable mental illness. Robert accepted that because he knew, and still knows, too little to be able to judge what that entails and he owes it to her not to question her assessment of her own son’s mental state; even if said son isn’t making it particularly easy at the moment.

The things we do for love.

“I didn’t mean to cause any damage,” Robert assures him. “It wasn’t my intention to hurt you or make you uncomfortable at all and if I did anything wrong, I’d really appreciate it if you could tell me what it was, so I won’t unwittingly do it again. Because even if we don’t know each other yet, I know that Frigga loves you very much and cares about you very much and that means you’re important to me too and I’d really appreciate it if you could try to give me a chance.”

Loki stares at him, open-mouthed—as if he couldn’t quite believe what he just heard. Then his lips move but no sound comes out. He just … squints at him.

“W-what?” asks Robert, feeling a biit uneasy at this sudden departure into the realm of the non-verbal.

And theeen Loki completely zones out.

Dammit.

“Hey,” says Robert, louder this time, and only just suppresses the urge to snap his fingers in front of his face because Frigga taught him that decades of movies got it all wrong. “Are you there? Can you hear me?”

No response. He … basically just keeps standing there.

Shit.

Frigga told him that her son was experiencing episodes of dissociation and, as one does in this day and age, Robert googled the term to get a general understanding of what it means. He thought he understood the basic concept at the time but seeing Loki stare into nothingness for a few minutes at a time during the dinner up close was something else entirely. And seeing him do it up close without Frigga and Thor there to take care of him is, admittedly, a little terrifying because they took care of it by not doing anything. They just let him be, probably because he was in a familiar environment.

Robert doesn’t have that luxury.

“Hey, are you alright?” Robert asks, which is a stupid question because it’s very obvious that he isn’t but he has to do something, right? He can’t just leave him be in an unfamiliar environment with a person he doesn’t trust. Or could he, theoretically? Should he? He definitely needs to do a biiiit more research if he wants to build a relationship with Frigga’s kid. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. I was just trying to …” Yeah, what exactly? Establish boundaries? Put the boy in his place? It seems awfully childish and silly now and it doesn’t get any reaction whatsoever out of him. “Do you, uh, need your medication? Is there anything I can do to help?”

Loki sways and Robert grabs him by the shoulders to steady him, asking himself why it couldn’t have just been the goddamn mailman. The kid tenses beneath his touch and his breath hitches. “It’s alright. I’m not going to hurt you, okay?” he tries. “As I said before, I was just making breakfast and I can get you a coffee or a tea or a juice or a hot chocolate, if you like?”

Loki squints his eyes at him again and Robert is just standing there like an idiot, talking to a human wall, holding on to the kid’s arm. “Let’s just go into the kitchen and call your mother, okay? She’ll probably know what to do to help you through this episode, right?”

The kid squeezes his eyes shut again but when he opens them the next time, he hectically glances around, studying the plants in the foyer and the stairs.

“Loki? Can you hear me?” Robert asks quietly. “Are you with me again?”

“R-robert?” Loki asks back, slightly panicked now.

Jesus, he looks exhausted and so pale. Robert lets go of his arm. “Yeah. Come on, let’s get you something to drink, okay?”

Loki peers into the hallway as if God knows what monstrosities are lurking in the kitchen and the dining/living room area. “Is my ma-my mother in there?”

Okay … what?!

Now they’re definitely approaching mind-boggling territory.

“No, she’s not. You came to talk to me alone, remember?” Robert asks, completely flabbergasted by now because Frigga never mentioned anything like that.

Loki nods and pats his pockets, feeling through the fabric and eventually pulling out a bunch of keys Robert recognizes as Frigga’s when he notices the sapphire butterfly pendant. Seeing them in the kid’s hand raises his suspicions eventually because Frigga told him that Loki doesn’t have a license and if he drove here all by himself, she either lied to him or Loki lied to her and kept her in the dark to be chauffeured around town for a bit longer or he drove here without a license; and neither implication is particularly promising. “Alright, what is going on here, Loki? Why do you have your mom’s keys?”

Did you steal her keys to ask me to break things off with her, he doesn’t add because Loki flinches from his tone as one would from a blow and, both eyes glued to the floor, whispers, “I don’t have my phone.”

Robert reminds himself that the kid was hit by his old man and takes a deep breath to curb the indignation Loki awoke in him because he’s the fucking adult here and the kid is obviously very disoriented. No matter who’s in the right or who’s in the wrong or how entitled Loki came across earlier, there’s no need whatsoever to corner an already upset eighteen-year-old boy with a history of childhood trauma and mental illness. “Mine’s in the kitchen,” Robert tells him, keeping his voice down. “I’ll go get it. You can either wait here if you feel uncomfortable or come with me and get some fluid into you, okay?”

Loki gives another nod.

“And I promise you’re safe in my home,” Robert adds and eventually the kid follows him into the spacious open-plan kitchen with the large sliding glass walls that open up to the backyard.

And then his eyes open wide. They even begin to sparkle. “You have a pool!”

“I do, yes.” Robert reaches for his phone and dials Frigga’s number while observing her son with a mixture of unease and that same kind of rude curiosity that makes people slow their cars to get at least a glimpse of the crash site. “You wanna go for a swim?”

Loki shakes his head forcefully.

No surprise there. That kid isn’t wearing long sleeves in a hundred-and-seven degree weather for nothing, thinks Robert, waiting for Frigga to pick up the phone.

She doesn’t.

The call goes to voicemail.

Shit.

Those damn headlines flare up in front of his inner eye again.

((The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department is asking for the public’s assistance in locating this fifteen-year-old boy who was last seen in his home yesterday afternoon before he ran away after a violent altercation. He is likely wearing black pants and a dark green sweater covered in blood, and he is in a volatile psychological state.)) 

Robert silently curses his assistant for investigating Frigga’s family even though he knows Milo’s heart was in the right place when he did it because he didn’t leave Robert’s side even in the darkest of times. Instead, he tries to remind himself that this was almost three years ago.

Frigga is probably in the shower right now or something.

She probably didn’t even realize that Loki isn’t in his room right now.

Robert flicks another glance at him and assures himself that he doesn’t come across as violent at all right now. If anything, it’s the freaking opposite. The kid is currently standing in front of the shelf that displays the miniature models of the projects Robert is still most proud and fond of, and he’s calling them toy houses.

Toy houses!

What the …

“No, these aren’t toys. These are models of buildings I designed and then printed with a 3D printer to show to my clients,” Robert corrects him, wondering briefly whether Frigga didn’t tell her son anything whatsoever about his life and his work or if Loki just didn’t listen to her when she did because it didn’t interest him. He certainly didn’t listen when they spoke about their respective jobs over dinner and particularly about the kind of people who take the fun out of them. Apparently, having these dissociative episodes means that he’s missing a lot of what’s going on around him, which is really scary and, damn, Robert is so in over his head right now and why did Loki even think that coming here and confronting him like that was going to be any less of a stressor than the dinner that obviously freaked him out considerably already? What the hell?

Robert moistures his lips and hits that dial button again, mentally begging Frigga to pick up.

She does this time, thank God, and her raspy voice makes it clear that he roused her from a deep sleep. “Please tell me there’s a good reason you’re calling me so early,” Frigga grouses into the phone and Robert wishes he was sitting right beside her, so he could brush his lips against her forehead and the beautiful little crinkles on her eyelids. “This is the first good night’s sleep I’ve had in weeks.”

Robert knows for a fact that she would’ve picked up at the first ring if she’d seen Loki’s name on the display no matter the hour and it admittedly peeves him a little but he still forgoes the banter about how it isn’t exactly early and how she must have had more than thirteen hours of sleep because she texted him good night at eight thirty the previous night. “Kind of, yeah. Loki is here.”

As expected, that wakes her up instantly. “What?”

“He came to confront me but then he, uh, had an episode, I think,” Robert tells her in a low voice but Loki doesn’t seem to be listening, considering that his attention is currently captured by the box of toys he spotted in the corner of the room. “I mean, I’m not sure. He asked me to end things between us and I told him that I wouldn’t unless you wanted to and then he, I don’t know, dissociated. Probably. I don’t know but he’s very disoriented right now. I’m sorry that I sent him over the edge. I didn’t mean to—”

“I know,” Frigga cuts in. “Can you still put him on the phone, please?”

“Sure,” says Robert and, as he walks over to where Loki is squatting, he tries to ignore the grating voice that is telling him she’ll dump him over his straightforward reaction even if he tried to be considerate of her son’s feelings. “Your mother wants to talk to you.”

Brian asked him if he was really sure about this.

Milo told him to be careful.

The guys told him to run.

But Robert Linton doesn’t want to run.

Not even when the kid greets Frigga with, “Hi mama,” and then proceeds to tell her in a low-ish voice that does nothing whatsoever to muffle his words that Robert has a very nice house and that Loki doesn’t have his phone but that he has her car keys because Nikias (???) drove them there and could she please pick him up?

Listening to the exchange, Robert half-way expects that someone is going to jump out from behind the couch any moment now and yell at him to smile because he’s on Candid Camera.

He isn’t.

And the naked reality of it finally makes Robert understand—not fully of course but a bit better—what Frigga truly meant when she said that her son was suffering from a severe, unpredictable mental illness because this, whatever it is that is happening right now, doesn’t look like anything he read about dissociation on the internet and he isn’t sure he could describe it if his own life depended on it.

Loki ends the call and tells him that his mother is going to take an Uber, saving him from further mental speculation.

~°~

By the time Loki finally reaches the mouth of the cave panting and overwrought with panic, he discovers that Leah is in the body and that she’s asking Robert about some toys. Robert. How is that even possible?? What is he doing there and where the fuck is Frigga??? No wait, they’re not at home, are they?? Loki can only see a blurry shadow of what Leah is currently seeing but these aren’t their toys and these aren’t their floor tiles and, holy fucking hell, Nikias!! Could it really be that he took the body to Robert’s house and if that is the case, why is that guy having toys lying around in the first place???

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

What did you do??

Loki’s heart gives a violent lurch of terror when he can’t take control back because Leah’s clearly not doing a very good job at pretending to be an adult at the moment and—not that he blames her, of course not, this isn’t her fault—Loki just knows what’ll happen next; what Robert will say.

He heard a million different variations of the same accusation after all.

What the fuck is wrong with you now?

Why are you acting so weird?

Pull yourself together.

Don’t be ridiculous.

Don’t be so whiny.

Act your age, for fuck’s sake.

Why do you always have to act up like this and terrorize everyone with your moods?

Why can’t you just be normal?

Robert … doesn’t say any of those things. Instead, he tells Leah that he had his family over the night before and that his sister’s grandkids are four and seven, which is why he brought down some of Brian’s old stuff from the attic to keep them occupied so they could all eat in peace. After a beat, Robert asks Leah if she wants to have a look. His voice carries an unmistakable echo of ‘what the fuck’ and he sounds a bit nervous but he’s still mostly calm and unthreatening and Loki’s head starts fucking spinning because why is he so gentle with Leah? How is that possible? How can he just roll with this and not be creeped out? How can he not turn away? Why isn’t he yelling?

Because Leah is a precious angel, that’s why.

Of course he’d be kind to her.

Because, unlike Loki, the children are lovable and awaken parental instincts in people. Just ask Isolde who got pregnant three months after she spent a week with Luna and Loptr.

“Because the guy knows that Frigga will dump him if he fucks her little baby up,” the voice of Nikias corrects him from somewhere behind him.

Loki whirls around, all anger and pent-up fear. “You insufferable asshole,” he screams, his voice approaching breaking point at record speed. “This is all your fault! You gave me the fright of a lifetime and you exposed Leah like that and I don’t … I don’t fucking get it. We all agreed that we weren’t gonna let him know that we have DID and now …How could you do this? We’re supposed to be a team! We’re supposed to be making decisions together! You can’t just single-handedly decide what’s best for us and ignore what everyone else is saying! I thought you’d learned your fucking lesson but this is Operation Thor all over again! You’re insisting that my mother doesn’t care about us just like you did with Thor back then and you’re basing that conclusion solely on your own skewed, stupid ass criteria that don’t even make any sense to anyone but yourself!”

“Hey,” booms Jörmungandr. “She can hear you. Keep it civil.”

“You’re a fucking hypocrite,” snarls Nikias and the red, fiery ring around his pupil is flickering dangerously. “You’re saying that I can’t just single-handedly decide even if you have no problem doing the same thing!”

“I am not,” Loki cries out and, suddenly, the inner world shifts again and he is standing in the midst of a lush green thicket. “Fuck!”

“You just single-handedly decided that your mother ‘deserves’ this relationship,” Nikias cuts him off, seemingly unbothered by the sudden change of scenery, “because she ‘deserves to be happy’.”

“And what do you know about what she deserves, huh? You don’t even really know her, let alone care about her!” Loki shouts, tears burning his retinas. “Instead, you still want to punish her for what happened to Leah fifteen years ago even though she clearly bent over backwards, sometimes quite literally, to make up for her negligence!”

“Nice try,” scoffs Nikias, “but you single-handedly decided too that it was okay for all of us to deal with your abandonment issues and your flashbacks and whatever else you’ve been going through while trying to cope with the situation because of what you want for her. You didn’t ask me or Leah or Loptr if we were okay suffering with you through all those nightmares about Odin and”—and here his voice breaks a little—“Thanos. You didn’t consult any of us and I’m sick of you and your double fucking standards!”

“This isn’t the same thing,” Loki screams at him at the top of his lungs, quickly burning through the fire of his fear-induced rage. “It’s not our decision if they wanna stay together or get serious. It’s theirs. I hate it as much as you do but we can’t control other people’s fucking lives, Nikias! We can’t tell her to break up with him. We have no fucking right, okay? And pardon me for not consulting you prior to having nightmares. Next time, I’ll ask for your permission before I dream of … Wait.”

The implications behind the rogue protector’s words and actions hit him like a meteor and his lips part in surprise.

Nikias narrows his dark eyes at him. “What?”

“That’s why you want Robert gone,” Loki infers, his words followed by an incredulous chuckle that quenches the rest of his fiery wrath. “This has nothing to do with my mother or Robert and only very little with my abandonment issues, does it?” Another chuckle. “You want him out of our lives because you want me to stop dreaming about Thanos!”

“Of course I want you to fucking stop dreaming about Thanos,” Nikias snaps at him but his voice is shrill and shaking. “I’m a protector, remember? That’s why you created me!”

“Well, today you did a lousy fucking job!” Loki snaps back and stabs the air with his index finger despite the fact that he has no knowledge of where the cave is currently located. “Because Leah had to go out there utterly unprepared to put out the fire you started not to protect any of us but to save yourself from having to admit that you still haven’t dealt with your crush on Thanos!”

“What? That’s bullshit,” snorts Nikias.

“Is it bullshit?” Loki prompts. “Is it?”

The fickle bastard only huffs and looks away.

“Well congratulations,” Loki growls. “I hope you’re satisfied with how you exposed us like this to get your own way. Fucking protector, my ass.”

And then he turns at his heel and stomps away without another word.

Nikias doesn’t follow him.

Chapter Text

Frigga doesn’t know what kind of atmosphere she expected prior to letting herself into Robert’s house with this week’s keypad lock code but it certainly wasn’t the sight that greets her when she enters the living room area. Because, for one, they’re both on the floor—Robert is lying on his side in a relaxed position with his ankles crossed and his left arm propped up in a ninety degree angle and Leah is squatting next to him with an expression of deep concentration on her face—and, two, they’re both so immersed in playing a game that appears to be a child version of dominoes that they don’t even acknowledge her presence.

What the …

How on earth did that happen?

Frigga herself still hasn’t fully overcome the shock and the anger and the fear that slammed into her all at once as soon as her sleep-befuddled brain understood that Nikias had hijacked her vehicle and driven it across town without a license in order to ask Robert to end the relationship with her and he’s just lying there, playing a game with them?

In what universe is this possible?

One in which the man currently by your side was raised by a father who taught him to be one, her internal voice replies and Frigga decides to seize the opportunity and watch them silently for a moment, awed by the unexpected turn this morning took.

“This one has two flamingos on it,” the young protector exclaims. “Look!”

“But there’s no flamingo on either end, so you can’t use it,” Robert explains and Leah’s forehead creases into a frown. “But you can set this one here,” he adds, pointing to a tile Frigga can’t see from where she’s standing, “with the frog and the monkey.”

“But I wanna set the one with the two flamingos,” pouts Leah.

“Well, you can’t unfortunately,” Robert tells her again, calm and patient and (at least) outwardly unfazed by what must be a thoroughly bewildering experience for him and why isn’t he vexed or distanced? “That’d be against the rules.”

Liquid warmth pools into Frigga’s eyes when she realizes that her subconscious has been making the same mistake as Lokiʼs by basing her expectations of how Robert might react on Odin’s behavior yet again because Odin snapped at Loki when Leah or Loptr fronted for the first time shortly after she’d revealed the adoption secret. Her ex-husband instantly put the system down by telling them that there was ‘no need to act like a goddamn child’ and that they were making themselves ‘look ridiculous’. Robert doesn’t even know Loki—has only seen him twice—but he’s playing a game with Leah even though Nikias confronted him earlier. Frigga doesn’t yet know what that entails exactly but she knows from painful experience how rude (and violent) Nikias can be (used to be) and their behavior might very well have antagonized Robert to the point where he decided that dealing with Loki wasn’t worth the bother. But then again, maybe Leah told him that they have DID because Frigga is fairly certain that he must have been still in earshot when the little one mentioned Nikias and—

“Hey, look who’s here,” Robert’s voice yanks her out of her thoughts.

Leah’s head snaps up then and she greets Frigga with a wave and a wide, toothy smile.

Frigga hastily wipes at her eyes and wishes them a good morning.

Robert stands to greet her and it’s the first time she sees him in sweatpants and a well-worn tee too, which does something to the butterflies in her stomach she can’t really explain. “Good morning,” he murmurs and plants a soft kiss onto her forehead. “I hope you’re not mad at me.”

“Why would I be mad? Wait, was I being rude on the phone earlier?” asks Frigga because she certainly wasn’t very patient with the Uber driver when he asked her if she was okay and she, shame on her, retorted that he wouldn’t even be asking that question if she was appearing to be.

“Maybe a little,” kids Robert. “But I woke you up, so you have an excuse. Can I get you a coffee?”

“Please,” Frigga all but moans because, of course, she didn’t take the time to make one at her apartment to get here as soon as possible. She didn’t think she’d need one so desperately either because she went to bed the minute she’d tucked Leah in after the girl had fallen asleep on the couch half-way through 101 Dalmatians.

“I could get you breakfast too. I made bagels and I asked Loki if he wanted something to eat or to drink earlier but, uh, he didn’t answer me.”

“I want the hot chocolate now,” Leah replies and then gives her attention back to the domino tiles.

Robert nods. “Coming right up.”

“Well, I … Are you sure?” asks Frigga because she suddenly feels like an intruder. “I mean, not about the drinks but about having breakfast together? I can’t help but feel like we interfered with your morning enough as it is and I … I don’t want to impose.”

“Are you kidding?” chuckles Robert. “You know I’m always glad to see you.”

“But not like this,” whispers Frigga. “I don’t even know how to … You must be so baffled.”

Robert flicks a glance at Leah and she follows his gaze. The girl is currently in the process of aligning the dominos to her own logic, seemingly oblivious to them. They seize the opportunity and walk into the kitchen together, where Robert pours them both a cup of coffee. He kisses her temple again when he hands her the mug. “I sure am. It’d be weird if I wasn’t, right?”

“Right.” Frigga takes a careful sip, silently debating with herself how to start as she watches Robert fill a kettle with water and put it on the stove and eventually deciding upon, “So, uh, what happened exactly? Between the two of you?”

“As I said, he came to confront me,” Robert answers in a low voice and walks back to the counter where he begins to cut the bagels in half. Unbidden, her stomach growls when she spots the salmon, the cream cheese and the cucumber lined up next to the chopping board. “He asked me to break up with you and he tried to threaten me. He came across as really aggressive. I told him I wouldn’t unless you wanted me to leave you alone and, for a few moments, he just stared at me and didn’t say anything at all. And then he seemed scared and disoriented. And then he, well, as soon as we stepped into the house and he saw the pool and the toys, he”—a jerk of his head towards the living room—“perked up?”

Frigga takes another sip of her coffee to fortify herself. “And you want an explanation,” she surmises because who wouldn’t?

He deserves one too after what Nikias did, especially since he knows from the news headlines that they stabbed Thor, and her heart sinks.

“I do, yes,” sighs Robert, gesturing with the bread knife. “I’m not one to pry, you know that. I never pestered you with questions before because I knew I didn’t have the right to be nosy but I’d really like an explanation now. Because I like you, Frigga. I really, really like you and I want it to work out between us and I know I said that I was ready to accept the fact that Loki doesn’t want anything to do with me. But that was before he showed up here, at my home, and I … I thought I understood where he was coming from at first. I did. But then he had this episode and now I am, indeed, baffled. I’m very baffled because he told me that that this was ‘him asking nicely’ and five minutes later, he called my models toy houses and now he’s playing domino on the floor all by himself. I just … I want to understand because I know that your son isn’t going anywhere and, hopefully, neither am I.”

“I know, I know,” Frigga acknowledges but she’s still too caught up in her own moral dilemma to make a decision, torn between wanting to tell Robert the truth because it’d only be fair and because she too doesn’t want him to leave her life again either, and not wanting to breach Loki’s trust. Perhaps she could compromise on mood swings? Would that be believable? “It’s a lot but I don’t know if I can tell—”

The kettle whistles and she flinches from the high-pitched noise like an idiot.

“Your hot chocolate is almost ready,” Robert calls out to Leah after flashing her a fond smile and the girl abandons the game to join them by the kitchen counter, watching as he pours powdered chocolate into a mug, tops it off with the boiling water and stirs the mixture with a spoon.

And then, when Robert hands her the beverage, she just blurts out the truth, saving Frigga from having to betray the system’s confidence and proving that she was probably listening even though she didn’t seem to be. “I have DID.”

Robert’s lips part in astonishment. “I, uh, don’t know what that means.”

“Mama can explain,” says Leah and then simply trudges back to the living room floor with her mug.

“Wow, okay,” Frigga chuckles nervously because she didn’t expect that either. This day is already full of surprises and it’s only a few minutes past eleven in the morning. “I guess I can tell you now.”

“Or,” says Robert, gesturing towards the ingredients on the counter, “we could have breakfast first. Because AC or not, this stuff’s been sitting here for over an hour and I’m worried the salmon will go bad at this point.”

“Good call,” says Frigga and breathes a silent sigh of relief, allowing herself to believe she won’t have to have this conversation today after all.

~°~

“Can you show me how you made the house models?” Leah asks once they’ve all finished breakfast and Robert’s eyebrows hike up in what looks like surprise at first but might be irritation and, again, Frigga feels as though they intruded upon his morning enough as it is.

She reaches for the girl’s hand and pats it gently. “Honey, I think we took up enough of Robert’s time already. We should get going now.”

“What? No, I’d love to,” he insists with that irresistible smile of his. “My workshop is upstairs.”

She doesn’t quite trust that he means what he says even though she probably should. He’s never given her a reason to doubt him after all. “Are you sure?”

“It’s Saturday and I’m between projects,” Robert reminds her. “If you weren’t here, I’d be lounging by the pool, wondering what to do with myself. Come on.”

He leads them both upstairs and, climbing the white marble steps, Frigga is no less enamored with the building, which he designed with input from his wife when Cathy was pregnant with Brian, than she was when he first gave her the tour. Compared to their former suburban Vegas residence, which had floor-to-ceiling windows in the living room area, Robert’s home almost exclusively consists of sliding glass doors that let in the sunlight at all times and allow access to the backyard downstairs and the large balcony on the second floor and give the entire structure a modern, bordering-on-futuristic look without seeming cold or impersonal or too pristine in any way. Or maybe the building owes its mesmerizing influence to the fact that Robert created it all in his mind and then made it a reality to raise his family in.

“So, here’s where I design my models,” Robert tells Leah as he fires up his, well, to Frigga it’s basically a computer because she doesn’t know what else to call the giant screen connected to a large touch screen table beneath it.

“That’s like a graphic tablet,” squeals Leah. “We have one at home but it’s not that big!”

Frigga watches the girl watch Robert and his fancy technology with wide-open eyes as he explains the program to her and she can’t help but think (hope) that, even though this probably wasn’t what Nikias intended at all when he hit the road this morning, Loki might be willing to accept Robert eventually once he learns that Robert wasn’t, in fact, creeped out or driven away by his littles. Because that is what he said to her, didn’t he, after she’d come home from her first date.

What if I switch and your new partner or lover or whatever is creeped out by my littles or irritated by Nikias’ charming personality, he asked. This is some weird shit that might drive people away.

“Can I draw something we can make into a toy house?” Leah asks when Frigga devotes her attention back to the present.

“Sure,” Robert tells her and takes a step back.

She’s getting a handle on the program so quickly that Frigga momentarily doubts she’s alone in the cave right now but then again, she’s gotten quite used to controlling the grown body’s limbs over the past years. In contrast to Loptr, she can hold cutlery and eat by herself now without making (too much of) a mess and she does operate Loki’s graphic tablets too.

“Let’s step out on the balcony for a moment,” Robert suggests in a low murmur and, when Frigga nods, he tells Leah to yell if she needs any help.

The balcony treats them to a perfect view of Granada Park basking in the sun in the distance, and Frigga grabs the banister with both hands and inhales a breath of hot summer air through her nose. It still surprises her sometimes that she feels comfortable in the dry climate after spending her childhood and youth in Northern Norway.

Robert steps behind her and rests his chin on her shoulder and his hands on her hips, squeezing gently.

“I suppose you want your explanation now,” Frigga tells the bright, cloudless sky.

“If you’re willing to give it,” Robert murmurs into her hair.

“Alright, then. Dissociative disorders can be categorized according to their, uh, let’s call it severity,” Frigga begins without preamble because their budding relationship is still fragile and she’d like to find out right now and not a few months down the road if the truth will trample all over it. “The most severe or disrupting one, the one Loki has, is called dissociative identity disorder, DID for short, and it means that his consciousness is existing in alternate states of identity or personality states or dissociated parts of his own identity. There are lot of names for it but the essence is that there is more than one sense of identity within, uh, a single human body.”

Robert spins her around then and stares at her for a few seconds, eyes wide, lips open, forehead creasing into a frown. “I’m not sure I understand because that kind of sounds like … multiple personalities to me?”

Frigga takes another leap of faith. “That’s what the disorder was formerly called, yes.”

“A-are you serious?” asks Robert and a little color does drain from his cheeks.

“I am, yes.” Frigga swallows, mentally steeling herself for the possibility that this might be their very last conversation because she can’t and will not expect him to stick around if he feels that this is too much for him to grasp or handle.

“Damn, I honestly thought that condition was entirely made up to spice up the horror movie genre,” Robert splutters but then he seems to realize what he just implied and holds up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

Frigga tries not to take offense because her own reaction to learning about her child’s disorder wasn’t exactly praise-worthy either and Robert did see the headlines after all. Without the additional knowledge of how much Nikias has grown since the fall of 2019, the pop-cultural myth of the evil personality probably doesn’t seem all too far off to him right now. “The idea was exploited by horror movie writers, yes, but it is a real illness. It’s very rare obviously but it does exist and, as I told you before, things escalated the way they did because Loki should’ve been on medication all his life. There’s no malevolent, bloodthirsty killer personality lurking inside of him.”

“I didn’t think there was. I’m just … Well, I’m wondering who your son is. Your actual son, I mean. Who’s the real Loki?” Robert asks after another lengthy pause he undoubtedly needed to digest all of this. “The kid we had dinner with or the angry guy who threatened me or the one who stabbed Thor”—and yes, that does make her wince if ever so subtly—“or the one I just played domino and had breakfast with?”

Frigga moistures her lips. “The one who threatened you is the same one who stabbed Thor. Their name is Nikias but they’ve been to therapy and I really don’t think they would have tried to physically hurt you. They haven’t hurt anyone in a long time. They can even peacefully co-exist with Thor now even though they still don’t particularly like each other but Nikias apologized. Ultimately, they just don’t want Loki to suffer and he did, well, suffer because of us. Which is probably what propelled them into action.”

Robert cocks a brow but he benevolently ignores that last comment, bless him. “They?”

“Not all of his consciousnesses are male. The one who’s currently out, Leah, is a girl, for example. She’s five. And, as for who my ‘actual’—as in ‘real’ or ‘original’ or whatever else you want to call it—son is, I honestly have no idea,” Frigga tells him point-blank, thinking of the alter’s interest in going to law school again. “I think of Loki as my son but I couldn’t even tell you if it was really him during the dinner because he was dissociating quite a lot.”

“So, chances are I haven’t even met Loki yet?” Robert deduces.

“That’s right,” confirms Frigga and takes the first deep breath since she started talking. It trembles a little. “There, now you know the truth. I know from experience that it’s a lot to take in at first and that it’s very difficult to wrap your head around the idea that you’re regularly interacting with a number of people when there’s only one face to look at.”

“Well, I … I mean, yes, but it was …” Robert rakes his fingers through his black, silver-streaked hair that is glinting in the sun and looks unfairly attractive doing it. “I mean, when that, uh, shift happened earlier I obviously didn’t know that I was now interacting with a five-year-old but I still readjusted my behavior and kind of treated him as one? I think? It happened kind of naturally, now that I think about it. I don’t know if that’s because I had Jake and Tristan over yesterday but it wasn’t really that difficult.”

Frigga thinks back to how the family in Norway did the same and feels a fond smile tug at her lips. “Well, DID is a very covert disorder, so the child parts don’t usually reveal themselves but, when they do, they tend to awaken a parental instinct in most of the few adults I’ve seen them interact with, yes.”

Robert cocks a brow. “Even your ex-husband?”

“No,” Frigga exhales, surprised that nothing clenches deep inside her gut and that her guilt pangs don’t even stir. “Unfortunately, he’s the exception. But he was incapable of responding to Loki’s emotional needs even when he was a biological child, so he doesn’t really count.”

“Sorry,” gulps Robert. “I didn’t mean to rub salt into the wound.”

“Don’t be. It’s not really a wound anymore. It even left the scabbing stage,” Frigga tells him. Perhaps it helped that she no longer tries to think of him as an asshole or abuser—and, by extension, of herself as The Woman Who Stayed Married To An Abusive Asshole—but as a pathetic, lonely old man who never got to know himself and has yet to figure out how to love at the ripe age of sixty-two. “It’s just a scar now and it’ll fade, in time.”

Robert’s dark brown eyes look at her as if she was made of pure sunlight and, this time, her stomach responds with an explosion of butterflies. Before they can lean in for a passionate kiss, though, Leah announces that she is done with her design.

~°~

About two hours and several rounds of animal domino later, they’re on their way with a finished 3D print of Leah’s treehouse in the inner world and the girl thanks Robert for everything and tells him that he can come to dinner at their apartment again. “And I’m sorry that I was being rude before because you’re very nice and mama is very lucky,” she tacks on and something in Frigga’s chest gives a little under the sheer weight of this morning’s load of emotions.

“Apology accepted, kiddo,” Robert tells her and squeezes her shoulder, which unleashes something in the young protector and makes the body’s eyes wet and shiny. “I-I’m sorry. Wh-what did I say? I didn’t mean to upset you.” He swiftly withdraws his hand and glances at Frigga for support but she can’t help him because she momentarily draws a blank too.

It doesn’t come to her that Hela called them that until Frigga steers her thankfully undamaged car away from the curb and Leah leans her head against the window pane, sniffing quietly to herself.

((I went into labor ‘round eleven on the twenty-sixth. You made it out kinda fast but I don’t remember how fast. Could have been before midnight, could have been after. Sorry, kiddo.))

“That was a lot, hm?” Frigga asks and pats Leah’s leg. “Do you want to talk about any of it?”

“I’m very happy and very sad, and I don’t how to feel both at the same time,” sobs the little protector and Frigga’s heart starts to bleed for her.

“That’s very difficult indeed,” admits Frigga. “But, while it’s important to acknowledge the sad feelings too, you can always try to focus on the happy feelings.”

“Uh-huh,” murmurs Leah but doesn’t respond in any other way. The poor thing must be utterly exhausted after disrupting Nikias’ crusade and having to process so many new impressions.

Back home, Frigga helps the drowsy, half-asleep girl out of the car, up the stairs and onto the couch and tucks her in because even in summer the body tends to get cold when it winds down. Frigga cups the body’s cheek and tries to blink away the tears that pool into her eyes because, as much as she appreciates Leah’s company, she still hasn’t talked to Loki in more than a week and she can’t help it; she misses him terribly and the instinctual fear that he might be gone forever or lost in the inner world creeps back up on her.

Today was a lot indeed and Nikias’ behavior is doubtlessly going to have repercussions on the system relationships and her own.

“Thank you for stepping in today. I love you, princess,” whispers Frigga. She glances up at the painting of the jungle and tries to swallow the nasty sting in the back of her throat. Somehow, her children’s condition feels a lot more overwhelming now that she just explained it to someone else again. She bends down and kisses the body’s forehead because Leah is already snoring. “I love you, Loki. Please, be safe in there, my love. Just … be safe.”

Chapter Text

He is still walking through the jungle with no sense of time, lost in the lush, green vastness of this curious ‘inner world’ ever since his mother told him that it existed inside his head. It still disconcerts him a little that it is indeed possible for him to physically walk through his own brain—and even more so that he landed here the exact millisecond he allowed himself to contemplate that it might be true—but with every step he took farther into his ‘headspace’, awe and a strange sense of familiarity began to gradually supersede the initial sensations of shock and bafflement because the world is, well, it’s vibrant and tropical and luxurious and so, so beautiful. And a part of him, buried deeply in his subconscious, senses that he’s seen some of these places before, like that one area with the three palm trees that entwine a large, deserted tree house or the hill covered entirely in bright pink split leaves and Chinese evergreens. He also feels as though there should be a temple somewhere and he glances up every now and then, to see if he can spot its tip above the canopy.

Being here confirms that he wasn’t just born, as Leah claimed, but it still doesn’t explain why he blinked and suddenly found himself inside with no way to get back. His mother didn’t really explain that part exhaustively, didn’t even tell him how many states of consciousness their system consisted of, but she did say that only one of them could be out controlling the body at any given time, which implies that someone else is doing it right now.

Which irks him because, whoever it is, they robbed him of the possibility to finish the conversation and so he keeps on walking, keeps on trying to find the cave because that was the only place he ever encountered another identity.

Until he’s stumbling down a steep, overgrown slope and sees two other distinctively humanoid shapes moving towards the same point he’s headed for in the valley below; almost as if he and the other two states started out from the three angles of an equilateral triangle and are about to meet in the exact middle where the three medians are about to cross. Coming closer, he recognizes one of them as Loki because the identity looks exactly like the darn reflection that stared back at him from the mirror every time he brushed his teeth. It gives him goosebumps. The other one has white hair and doesn’t look at all like the body’s reflection either but the pair still looks very similar to him. Even though the one who is not Loki is not lanky but muscular with broad shoulders and a broad chest, they’re both tall, they’re both dressed entirely in black and they both seem very angry, and he slows his pace a little to watch them from a safe distance.

“Are you doing this?” yells Loki once they’ve run up to each other. “Are you trapping me here?”

“Maybe I am,” the white-haired guy yells back. Well, actually, they don’t look particularly male in their respective androgynous getups—and he can very vividly imagine how Dad would frown upon Loki’s long hair and the other guy’s leather boots and both their skinny jeans; he’d totally wrinkle his nose and draw a deep breath and he’d try not to sigh if he was still around to see them get ready every morning—but their voices are deep enough to suggest that they are. “Maybe I won’t ever let you see your mommy again after what you threw into my face!”

“This isn’t funny,” screams Loki. He sounds desperate, panicked, angry, and his breath is hitching. “Let me go! You’ve done enough damage for one day! I need to get back! P-please, I need to get back! Let m-me go back!”

“Fucking hell, Lokester, just think for a goddamn second,” the other backpedals then, shrinking from the intensity even if he’s still panting furiously. “Do you really think I’d trap you here and risk running into you again? I can’t even stand to look at your fucking face right now!”

Okay, what?

This is …

Wow.

When his mother told him that the different states of identity form a system, he just assumed that meant a mostly harmonious assemblage but he was obviously very wrong about that. The realization unsettles him a little and he takes another step back only to step on a twig that creaks loudly.

Of course it does.

And of course the other two whirl around at the noise, looking right at him.

Loki is eying him curiously but the white-haired guy instantly narrows his eyes at him and, damn, they are entirely black and very, very creepy. “What are you doing here?”

“I got lost,” he says because it’s the truth and because he can’t think of anything else in the face of confusion peppered with a few sprinkles of insecurity.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” angry-guy yells at Loki. “First the fusion with Loptr and now this? And you have the audacity to tell me that I have done enough damage for one day? Screw you, for fuck’s sake!”

“W-what?” asks Loki, his eyes wide open. “I don’t even know who—”

“How is this even fucking possible?” The white-haired guy focuses him now and takes a step towards him, and he tries not to flinch because that state of consciousness isn’t just creepy. It’s downright scary. “You’ve been dormant for years and we really don’t need you here now, Thor. We have everything under control. Just … go back to your little hide-out, okay?”

Loki’s jaw falls open.

Okay … what the hell?

He should possibly ask himself what dormancy means in this context but he’s suddenly too furious to think straight because seriously? This is too messed up. He hasn’t been hiding from anyone or anything and he obviously isn’t Thor.

“Why are you calling me Thor? Thor is my brother,” he shoots back. He recognizes Thor and Frigga as his brother and mother now. It took a few days but eventually, the memories of his life and his childhood in Las Vegas and their parents’ divorce unfurled, one tiny petal at a time. “And you two have nothing under control right now. I’m the only one who isn’t an emotional, bickering mess!”

“But y-you look exactly like him,” the white-haired guy stammers. “Why do you …”

“Because he’s my brother?! Of course we’d look alike. To be perfectly honest, it’s rather more baffling to me that you two look like a couple of goth—oh wait,” he cuts himself off when the other two identities exchange a puzzled glance that reminds him of what Leah told him. “We’re not blood-related.”

This is so confusing.

And meeting the others isn’t clearing anything up; quite the contrary.

“I wasn’t referring to external world Thor,” angry-guy says then and finally softens up a bit. “I meant inner world Thor, our former primary protector. You look just like him, minus the, uh, armor and the long, braided hair.” He clears his throat. “Do you really not recognize me?”

He shakes his head.

“Well, then. I’m Nikias,” he says with a stiff little wave. “This is Loki.”

“I know,” he says a little sheepishly. “You, uh, look like the body and Leah and mother told me about you.”

Loki nods. “What’s your name?”

And isn’t that still the million dollar question? “I, uh, I’m not sure,” he allows and then, pointedly, adds, “But I know that it isn’t Thor.”

“I still don’t believe this,” Nikias mutters to himself under his breath.

Loki ignores Nikias and instead wants to know if he has any questions and it’s still the surrealest, whackiest thing to see ‘the body’s face’ on a different person after it stared back at him from the mirror every day for a week. He fights a shudder and asks them why they’ve been fighting because the ten-thousand other questions currently seething in his subconscious refuse to morph into a linguistic structure vaguely resembling coherence.

“Because we disagree on Frigga’s new boyfriend,” grumbles Nikias.

Okay, what?

Again, this is …

He tries not to laugh and fails.

“Why?” asks he, truly baffled. “He seems like a good guy, he isn’t after her for the money and he looks a lot better than Dad. I think he deserves a shot.”

~°~

It is in that moment, the moment the new alter refers to Odin as ‘Dad’, that understanding begins to dawn on Loki because it’s one of the rare ones in which it’s glaringly obvious to him that, at the end of the day, every single one of his alters (whoever they may be) is still an alternate state of his own consciousness. It’s easy to forget or rather ignore this most of the time and just regard them all as individual people who just so happen to live inside his head but, after the recent fusion with Loptr, he is again more aware of the fact that, ultimately, they all exist because they experienced something that he himself initially began to experience before he dissociated too heavily to endure the situation. You know, like being locked alone in a car for who knows how long. And he, Nikias and the new guy coming together like this is very hard to just ignore because Loki is suddenly reminded of the triadic relation that features prominently in every mythology ever documented. Whether they were referred to as the Fates, the Moirai or the Norns, there were always three of them and they always represented different aspects of the human experience that only ever made sense as a whole.

Exactly like … like them.

If Loki was a sane, healthy person without DID, all their attitudes would probably co-exist and balance each other out to some extent.

His own (and Loptr’s) paralyzing fear to lose his mother even if he wants her to be happy that overshadows everything and disables his rational thinking skills. Nikias’ hatred for her because she had the audacity to subject them to this much stress. The new alter’s (Thor’s?) sober assessment of Robert’s character that doesn’t seem to be tainted by either one of their overpowering emotions.

Loki never understood more clearly than he does in this moment what ‘fragmented state of identity’ really means because Loki is incapable of allowing himself to acknowledge any of Nikias’ rage. It isn’t ‘safe’ for him to feel that way or, the fates forbid, to yell at Frigga or to demand anything from her after everything he put her through or to get in a fight with her. If he did, he would risk upsetting his mother and driving her away for good, so Nikias does it for him, on his behalf, because they can. They don’t care if they piss her off and they don’t mind asking the heavy questions that Loki knows aren’t fair even if he thought them more than once.

How can you do this to us? How can you hurt us like this when you promised me that nobody’ll ever come home again and that it’ll just be the two of us from now on? How fucking dare you?

Nikias won’t ever hesitate to ask those because they aren’t attached to Frigga and have nothing to lose and the new guy obviously isn’t inhibited by Loki’s abandonment anxiety either. He’s chill enough (as a better, less difficult son would be, the curst voice in the back of his mind adds nastily) to put his concerns aside for one minute and interact with Robert to actually see him as a person and not just an amorphous threat that might or might not steal his mother away from him.

If they all came together, the … inhibiting terror and the blinding rage wouldn’t be the only things Loki and Nikias felt at any given moment. They would be able to develop a more holistic view of Frigga’s relationship and they wouldn’t … they wouldn’t …

Same with Odin, Loki’s brain deflects.

To Nikias, he is just, well, Odin or simply asshole or fuckwad. To them, he isn’t their father. He’s an abuser who royally fucked up and deserves nothing but contempt in return. To Loki, he’s ‘his adopter’ most of the time ever since Thor confessed that their old man admitted to him that he never managed to get himself to a place where he could truly love Hela’s offspring. To the alter though, he’s still ‘Dad’ and Loki feels that deep in his bones because … because … Well, he still hasn’t fully processed Odin’s impact on his psyche (Dr. van Dyne was right about that, unfortunately) but he can’t possibly deny that Odin is, or maybe rather was, his father. No matter from which angle you look at it, he’s the only father Loki’s ever known.

(Because Thanos doesn’t fucking count, okay, he doesn’t!!! Shut up, you stupid fucking disorganized attachment style brain!!)

If they all came together, maybe Loki would know what to feel about both Robert and Odin.

Swept away by a giant wave of apprehension that another fusion is the purpose of this entire encounter—a fusion with Nikias (!!!) of all people and an alter that might or might not have once been alter Thor; a thought that is so unparalleled in its what-the-fuck-ery that he just can’t think it through to the end—Loki turns on his heel and he runs as fast as he can without looking back once. It’d make sense for it to happen—maybe eventually, probably (?) but, then again, WHO THE HELL EVEN KNOWS because Dr. van Dyne wasn’t consulted on the fusion with Loptr either because scaly, old Jor is still playing by his own rules sometimes and they aren’t always compatible with the tenets of trauma therapy their doctor swears by—but Loki knows he wouldn’t be able to deal with it if it were to happen right now because then he’d have to deal with all sorts of stuff like Nikias’ feelings for Thanos and maybe he’d even start feeling sexual attraction and he can’t deal with that kind of stuff.

Not after everything else that happened recently.

And so he runs runs runs runs until, fucking finally, he reaches the cave.

Loki barrels into it without looking left and right and, at long last, his eyes snap open in the external world and his mother is right there, standing up on tiptoes to prune one of her Tradescantias that are sprawling all over their fluted white ceramic hanging pots.

His tear-inducing relief is instantly crushed by the sickening realization how small she looks despite the fact that she couldn’t possibly get any taller without wearing heels; almost as if she shrunk since he’d last seen her. The feeling passes but then it returns as his eyes try to adjust to the new post-fusion external reality. He experienced a lighter version of this after fusing with Robin but this is different and so much more intense because he and Robin were both teenagers. They were the same age, the same height. There wasn’t that much to (re)adjust to. Loptr, on the other hand, was age-sliding between infancy and toddler age, and incorporating his vision of the world feels as though Loki was looking at his mother through the same ocular device as the guy from National Treasure. Through one set of color lenses Loki sees her how she looked to him a week ago but, through the other, he sees her how she must have looked to Loptr—and possibly Leah too and why did he never even pause to think about that especially after Luna was so obviously bothered by how big they’ve all gotten and, dammit, he still can’t believe that the little guy is gone forever—when he began to front again. And the worst part is that Loki isn’t in control of adjusting the two different filters. His eyes just try to do it aaaall by themselves and the terror Loptr felt slices through Loki’s core like a knife; the terror of seeing his mommy, who was tall enough to pick him up and balance him on her hips and cradle him on her lap when he was created, suddenly five or so inches shorter than him.

Loki squeezes his eyes shut and presses his fingertips into his forehead.

How the fuck did the child parts even cope with this?!

Because this … this is eighty-seven shades of intense even though Loki knows what’s happening and knows that it’ll be over as soon as his physical brain has caught up with his DID brain but the littles … they probably didn’t know. They probably had no fucking clue. They just saw their mother dwarfed and had no explanation at all.

How did they …

How …

“Sweetie?” asks Frigga. “Can you tell me what’s happening? Is there any way I can help?”

Her voice sounds the same as always and Loki can’t fucking help it. He buckles under the weight of his stupid fucking overwhelming emotions and dissolves into a bawling mess.

Chapter Text

For a second or two, Frigga is taken almost physically aback by the magnitude of her child’s pain because she hasn’t witnessed a crying fit this intense and this unexpected in months. But luckily for the both of them, she decided to prune her Tradescantias as soon as Leah had fallen asleep because there is something about looking at the variegated leaf pattern and the color combination of green, gray, white and purple of this plant specifically, and watching how it thrives and twines around the hanging chains of the flower pots, that reduces her stress levels and soothes her thoughts like nothing else can. If she’d decided to anything else, she’d be far less mentally equipped to sit down beside him and slip back into caretaker mode. Before she can ask him if touch is allowed, he puts his head on her lap and tells her how much he missed her and that he’s Loki, and the dance of joy she suspected her heart to perform once she sees him again is instantly overshadowed by the fact that he burrows into her stomach and just cries. Watching his shoulder blades jerk up and down with every sob as she strokes him and feeling every tremble beneath her palm, she contemplates breaking up with Robert again. She doesn’t really want to because, well, she’s in love—and maybe there are other, even more selfish reasons too that stay her hand—but how could Dr. Fulla truly expect her not to consider it? How could she truly expert Frigga to hazard subjecting Loki to this much pain if she stays in that relationship and not feel inadequate as a mother?

But, then again, she can’t know for certain whether Robert lies at the root of his current pain at all, at least not directly. Loki might have gotten into a fight with Nikias over what happened and then there’s the new alter and whatever Leah was so sad about.

You wish, scoffs the jarring voice of her guilty conscience that has been very difficult to put back to sleep since their family therapy session.

It doesn’t really help either that it takes Loki almost twenty minutes to weep himself out and that he’s shaking all over when he sits back up and reaches for the glass of water she put within the body’s reach earlier. He greedily gulps the liquid down and puts the glass back on the glass table with trembling hands. “I’m sorry about Nikias,” croaks he, his eyes red and swollen. “But they’re just so furious.”

Furious with you, her inner voice corrects.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Frigga assures him, gently rubbing his back. It’s mine; I shouldn’t have pressed for that dinner just to placate Robert when he didn’t even ask me to, she bites back, and can feel her child’s trapezius muscles move when he shrugs. “It wasn’t you who took my car, was it?”

Loki replies with another half-shrug, lies back down and closes his eyes. “I have a killer headache,” he groans then. “Can you get me some Tylenol and more water, please?”

“Of course,” replies Frigga.

When she returns to the living room, he swallows the meds and drinks another two glasses of water and then he dozes off again, murmuring a barely intelligible apology for his fatigue that pinches her heart.

~°~

He wakes again another two hours later, looking like a ghost as he stumbles past her to the bathroom. Frigga prepared a light pasta salad in the meantime and goes to retrieve it from the fridge, hoping that he’ll be willing to ingest at least a few forkfuls of it to replenish his depleted energy. “I made dinner,” she calls out to him when she hears the bathroom door open again. “I hope you’re hungry.”

“I’m really not,” sighs Loki and her heart sinks but then he sits down opposite from her. “But I know I need to eat because, at least, Nikias took the meds this morning and I don’t want to mess with—wait, is it still the same day?”

“It’s still Saturday,” Frigga tells him, unsure if she should initiate a conversation about Robert or his encounters with Nikias and Leah at all—which is probably also why she instinctively left the 3D model in the car for the time being—because Loki’s already so exhausted and her first instinct is still to shield him from unpleasant truths for as long as she can without, well, lying by omission.

“And Leah,” Loki says three slow forkfuls in. “Is she … I mean, I don’t know how she got exposed like that in the first place and I was only co-conscious with her for a few minutes but Robert seems to have been, uh, patient with her. Is she okay?”

“She was a bit overwhelmed and she told me she was sad and happy at the same time and didn’t know how to process it but Robert was patient with her, yes,” Frigga tells him and then proceeds to tell him about the animal domino game and the hot chocolate.

“And how did you explain that kind of behavior?” Loki wants to know.

Of course he does.

“With the truth,” Frigga says after a short pause she took to gather her bearings. “Because Leah told him you have DID. I’m sorry.”

Loki pauses mid-movement, his hand hovering in the air for a few heartbeats, and then he puts his fork back down. “Well, I guess all my protectors have gone rogue now.”

“But I swear to you that he understood that you aren’t Nikias and, even though it was obviously a lot to digest for him,” Frigga adds hastily, propelled forwards by the need to explain, “he didn’t—”

“It’s okay,” Loki cuts her off and pushes his plate away. “You don’t have to defend him or … I don’t know. It’s just … I don’t think I can handle this conversation right now.” He gulps, eying his barely touched dinner, knowing what it does to her. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s perfectly okay,” Frigga assures him because it has to be. Recovery isn’t something that can be rushed.

He pulls the plate back towards himself and eats a few more bites but excuses himself shortly after. She can hear him play with the cats in his room for a while as she loads the dishwasher and sweeps up the leaves that sailed to the floor during her pruning endeavor. As soon as she is done, Loki comes back out and, unprecedentedly candid, announces that he’ll go to bed because he’s still exhausted “from all the switching and the bawling.”

It’s unusual to hear him talk so casually about the type of crying fit he is normally very embarrassed about or even ashamed of and Frigga isn’t quite certain how she feels about that. Sure, it is, in essence, a very healthy development because he was ashamed of his alleged weaknesses for the longest time, thanks to Odin’s impressive lack of parenting skills, but it’s still too sudden a change from their last therapy session a little over a week ago.

She has to let that go too though because Loki is bone-tired and she doesn’t want to push him any further.

You pushed him enough already, snarls her guilty conscience.

~°~

“You can see the recent system changes written all over my face right now, can’t you?” Loki asks her over breakfast the next morning. He does look a lot less overwrought after twelve hours of sleep but he looks different too—more vulnerable, in a way, and less guarded, his facial expression not quite so sharp—and her egotistical fear that he won’t ever be the same person he was a little over a week ago creeps up on her again unbidden. “And I know you met the new alter. They told me.”

Frigga nods. “I told them that he is an alter but we didn’t get very far. They didn’t even tell me their name because Leah switched out in the middle of our conversation.”

Loki takes a moment to crack the top part of his soft-boiled egg with his knife before he replies. “They themselves don’t even know their name yet because it’s … I don’t know. It’s complicated.”

“Complicated how?” asks Frigga and devotes her attention to slicing slowly through her own egg to remove the top, giving him time to answer.

“Nobody knows what exactly happened or who he is,” sighs Loki eventually and dips a slice of toast into the liquid yolk. “He appeared during a … a fusion.”

No matter how many times she tries to convince herself that Loki always had DID and that she always interacted with different states of his consciousness during his childhood and that there is no original core personality and never has been, the realization that she was right to fear that her decisions might lead to the creation of someone who isn’t the same Loki she spent the last year with after he fused with Robin settles heavily into the pit of Frigga’s stomach.

This is your doing, snarls her guilty conscience.

“With Loptr.”

Her vision blurs momentarily when she thinks about the little guy’s obsession with the five little ducks.

Why are you even surprised, hm? You only have yourself to blame for this development.

“And I have all his memories now and access to his trauma and …” Loki’s breath hitches and, as his voice breaks a little, Frigga’s chest tightens a lot. “Abandonment anxiety was simply a psychological term before but now I truly experience what it means. I thought it was bad before but now I feel it, in my chest, in my stomach; it’s intertwined with every nerve fiber. And it’s absolutely horribly crushing and it hurts so much and … I-I get it now. Everyone’s been trying to tell me for years that I’m not pathetic or weak or needy or clingy but, deep down, I never really believed any of you and expected myself to rise above it when I got older. I do understand you now. Because this is … I can’t even describe it. It’s just such a dreadful and excruciating sensation to be left to your own devices somewhere in the darkness with no way of knowing if or when someone will come and save you from it. It’s awful and of course my brain would do everything in its power to make sure I never ever feel like that again. This isn’t … a weakness. It’s a survival instinct. Loptr was too young to truly understand that but he sort of sensed it and he wasn’t ashamed. He just wanted you close by to avoid feeling that way and he didn’t see anything wrong with that.”

Frigga is struggling for words in the face of his forthrightness and the vulnerability he so freely reveals to her after weeks of withdrawing into his shell.

“I mean, this is all just beginning to sink in but it’s an issue that’ll take a lot of time to deal with while it’s also an issue that wasn’t caused directly by you and, uh, Dr. van Dyne asked me which areas of my life Robert was actually impacting and why his presence was triggering these abandonment anxieties,” Loki continues, his mind going so fast that Frigga’s brain has difficulties keeping up. “And I realized that he isn’t really changing a lot because you do come back here every night, right? I’m not really losing you because you’re in a relationship now. But then there’s other stuff, like me being envious of Thor because he can just accept Robert and I can’t. It made me feel exactly like it felt when he reestablished contact with Dad and I couldn’t. I felt insufficient and inadequate, the lesser son compared to him, same old, same old, blah blah. And I hate to feel that way, so I kept my distance from Thor again even though we’ve become so close again that I thought nothing could come between us.”

There it is again.

Dad.

Has he even called her ‘mom’ once since he woke? She cannot remember.

“Loki, what …” Frigga trails off, her thoughts reduced to mush. “What do you mean, it wasn’t ‘caused by me directly’?”

“Hela inflicted the trauma and it’s not your fault that I got re-traumatized every time I was left alone because you couldn’t have known what it was gonna feel like for me,” Loki says and he says it casually as though it’s nothing. “Dad is a different matter because he did things he must have known weren’t gonna be very pleasant and he still made the conscious decision to go through with them. Anyway. The point I was trying to make is that the new alter seems to accepts him. Robert, I mean. They are capable of that and, if they are capable of that, that means that I am capable of that because they’re an alternate state of my consciousness, which means that I-I don’t have to push myself to interact with Robert anymore and you don’t have to break up with him.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Frigga admits and the pit of her stomach where all her guilt sits bubbling and seething lurches.

You want them both in your life, together, because you’re selfish, snarls her guilty conscience.

Loki straightens up and searches for her gaze. “I know you asked me to just say the word but you don’t have to change a thing because I have alters who can step in for me if you wanna invite Robert over for dinner next time, like Leah or the new guy. Because I know you want this, you told me and Dr. van Dyne that you do, and I do want you to have it, Mom.”

Finally, there it is.

Mom.

The three-letter moniker fills her with such overwhelming relief that momentarily overshadows the meaning of his words.

“You also said that you hope that we can find a way to make it work and that you’d like to know what you could do to make it easier for me. But it doesn’t have to be me specifically. It doesn’t have to be me at the table and that’s okay for me. Because that’s what DID is. It’s emotional labor division, if you wish, and it’s how my brain works. There’s no need for us to fight it and there’s no need for either one of us to suffer because of it.”

Frigga stares at him aghast as she is trying to process the implications of what he just said and what it means for the future, her own and that of her family.

“What?” asks Loki.

“Honey, you just …” Frigga feels sick to her stomach as soon as her brain caught up with her son’s racing mind. “You just told me that a new alter was created t-to deal with the fact that I have a relationship and to interact with Robert in your stead, which means that y-you just accepted the fact that you’ll inevitably miss more time out here with us than you did before and that I … that I traumatized you.”

The word tastes bitter on her tongue but Loki only half-nods, half-shrugs. “But not on purpose.”

Frigga inhales a long breath and reminds herself that he isn’t supposed to deal with her guilt, he isn’t supposed to deal with her guilt, he isn’t supposed to deal with her gui—

“I told you before, in family therapy, that I lied to you,” Loki elaborates. “That day in the bathroom, when you asked me if I ever considered the possibility that you might date again, I told you that the thought terrified me but that I’d be fine because I have Dr. van Dyne and that I knew she was going to guide me through it. Wow, that rhymed. Anyway. She’s been trying her best and so have you but it’s all been based on false pretenses. If I’d been honest with you or myself or the doc, the answer would have been more like, ‘The thought terrifies me to the point I can’t cope with it and please don’t do that to me because you promised it was just gonna be the two of us from now on and that no one else was ever gonna come home again and please don’t break that promise’. I couldn’t admit it then because I was too ashamed but, as I said, knowing what Loptr went through, I’m not … ashamed anymore.”

He chuckles and, again, Frigga can only stare because she’d almost forgotten the day she told him that she wouldn’t ever bring anyone again to soothe him during a flashback and because this is Loki, her Loki, but then again, he so very obviously isn’t.

“And I’m fairly certain that, had I said this, you wouldn’t have gone on that date,” Loki concludes, addressing her guilt despite her best efforts not to make him feel that he had to. “It’s not as if you thought, ‘Okay, there’s this guy and I really wanna go out with him and I know very well that it might hurt Loki and even cause a split if I do it but I’m falling in love and I just wanna have a good time, so I’ll go. Screw it all. YOLO, haha’. You know what I mean?”

Despite everything and even if she has no clue what ‘YOLO’ means, that does make Frigga laugh. “No, I probably wouldn’t have.”

“See? Besides, and I’m only realizing this now, you always prioritized me over everyone else in your life. Even Thor,” Loki continues, which makes her wince but also initiates the understanding that it’s his brutal honesty more than anything that testifies to the fact that he fused with a toddler. “Sorry,” Loki backpedals. “I’m not blaming you or judging you. I’m just stating facts because, well, you did. But you’re … you’re not doing it right now and that means that relationship must be very fulfilling.”

“I’ve also been in extensive therapy with Dr. Fulla for two years,” Frigga reminds him and tries not to take offense because it’s a legitimate question. Well, sort of.

“True,” Loki acknowledges. “But still. There must be something about Robert that overrides your protective instincts. What is it?”

Frigga can feel the blush creep up her neck and reach the tips of her ears with a hot little tingle. “What do you mean?”

Again, Loki looks her straight in the eye, without blinking. He hasn’t done that since he was in Junior High, maybe even before then. “I know I haven’t really listened before when you talked about him but I do want to know now because Leah told me that Robert showed her the architectural software he’s working with and allowed her to 3D-print her treehouse in the inner world. I know what she sees in him. What do you see in him? What’s the attraction or, uh, the appeal? I really don’t know how to phrase this properly. All I know is that you didn’t contradict me just now when I mock-imitated your inner voice, claiming you were falling in love. So, what is it about him?”

Aand there’s that part of him that would have ensured Odin’s legacy if only the stubborn old goat had encouraged his adopted son a little.

“Honey, do you really think it’s a good idea to talk to me about this?” asks Frigga after she gathered her thoughts back together and her child’s earlier words still sting in a place that miraculously never got stung before over the course of their healing journey. “I mean, you just told me that you created an alter to process my relationship and his presence in my life, so you can’t blame me for wondering if you really want to know.”

“Not to process the relationship itself,” Loki corrects her. “Or whatever you feel for him because it doesn’t really affect me, does it? You tried to tell me that our relationship doesn’t have to change and will not change. You tried to make me see that whatever you feel for Robert, whether it’s love or something less intense, doesn’t diminish what you feel for me and I think I get it now. Because you are here, with me, most of the time. I think my brain just needs the alter to interact with Robert for the time being because I don’t know how to deal with a father figure in my life at this point and we both know that’s what he’s going to be, what he was to Leah yesterday. But I swear to you that I didn’t lie when I said I want you to be happy, I didn’t. Well, I did actually, in a way, but that was because I didn’t fully understand the meaning of ‘fragmented consciousness’ until last night. I do now and I hope you can trust me again even though I lied to you.”

“I’d be a bit of hypocrite if I didn’t, wouldn’t I?” Frigga mumbles to herself and exhales a long breath. “Okay. You’re sure you really do want to know?”

Loki nods. “I do.”

“Well, there’s the physical attraction of course but, more than that, it’s his entire … demeanor,” Frigga begins after a fortifying sip of coffee. “The first thing that came out of his mouth after my receptionist had let him into my office was an apology for ‘taking up my time’ because my client insisted he dropped her medical records off in person instead of mailing or emailing them to make sure I receive them. Which I found very considerate.”

And then he smiled at her and Frigga felt a very powerful, almost giddying ‘Wow, where have you been all my life?’ kind of warm tingle deep in her gut she never felt before—not with Odin and certainly not with the few who came before him—but she isn’t going to tell Loki about that.

“And after he left, I realized that his cousin confided in him that she’d been abused despite the fact that Robert and her husband had been on good terms. She didn’t ask his sister or any other of her friends to drop off her medical records. She appointed him for this task and I just knew then that he must be a very empathetic person to instill such trust in her. It’s that and his calmness most of all that attract me. He is so … admiringly at peace with the world and himself. When we went out to dinner the last time, for example, our reservations got mixed up.” Frigga doesn’t want to swoon over Robert like she did on the phone with Zisa the other day but it’s very hard not to dote on that man. “We’d agreed on six thirty but, when we arrived, they told us they had us booked for seven thirty. Robert asked them if they were sure and they confirmed it, and told us that no table was available at the moment. I tensed instinctively and suddenly felt this very awkward type of second-hand embarrassment because a part of me was convinced he was going to make a scene or throw a tantrum or, I don’t know, insult their incompetence?”

Loki snorts and proceeds to imitate Odin’s voice with an accuracy that sends a horde of little shivers creeping down Frigga’s spine. “You mean like, ‘How hard can it be for you to get a dinner reservation right? If I call you and you assure me that you’ll have a table ready for me and my family at six thirty, I’ll expect you to have a table ready for me at this time. Unless of course your only talent and purpose is to stand here and look pretty, in which case you’d better get me the person who is responsible for causing a paying customer such an inconvenience’.”

Frigga doesn’t recall her ex-husband ever saying something like this verbatim but he is the type of person whose patience thins rapidly whenever he has to wait for anyone or anything and Loki’s faux-cadence makes her want to smack her head against a wall for the thousandth time because how could she have possibly overlooked Odin’s narcissistic traits entirely?

“Exactly,” replies she, brushing her doubts away. “I think my subconscious was prepared for something like that due to my past experiences with Odin and the kind of people we kept company with but Robert just looked at me and said, ‘I was sure I’d booked us for seven thirty,’ to which the girl said, ‘Yes, that’s, uh, what it says here but it’s six thirty now, sir.’ This could have gotten awkward real quick but Robert laughed and apologized for his mistake and asked if we could wait at the bar. That in itself isn’t anything yet, I guess, but that same night, when we finally got our table, two children played tag under the table and one just shot out and made a waiter stumble, and Robert got doused with a glass of red wine. He tried to assure the waiter it was okay when the poor guy apologized over and over and over again and I was just … I mean, I was taken aback by that in the best way because he just doesn’t care. I mean, Robert takes things seriously that are important but he refuses to give any of his mental energy to things that aren’t. He wouldn’t complain about a mixed-up dinner reservation or a ruined shirt or about waiting in line somewhere because that either already happened or is something outside his sphere of influence and he just knows he wouldn’t get anything out of getting himself worked up over it. I think his wife’s death taught him that kind of serenity people pray for, to accept what he can’t change and the wisdom to distinguish between the important things you can sink your teeth in and those that just aren’t worth the trouble wasting any thought upon and much less getting upset over. That’s, I think, what I really admire about him. His calmness, his grounded-ness and his unflappability.”

Men who can hold their temper in check really are sexy, she doesn’t add because she told him enough already.

Loki is chewing on a stripe of buttered toast drenched in egg yolk, processing the torrent that gushed out of her mouth. “When Leah and I were co-con and I realized that she wasn’t even trying to pretend to be a teenager in front of Robert,” he replies eventually, “my heart almost beat out of my chest because I too thought I knew exactly how he was gonna react; that he was gonna yell at us or invalidate us. It was instinctual, like you said, because that’s what Dad would have done. But then he surprised me with how gentle he was with Leah and the time he spent with her distracted her from her grief over Loptr. She needed that and I give him credit for that. I also give him credit for making you smile in a way I’ve never seen before.”

That makes her blush again, dammit. How old is she? Seventeen?

“And if it does two people I love very much some good to have him in their lives, I want him there,” Loki concludes and his next words hit her stomach like a battle ram. “I just don’t want him in mine.”

Chapter Text

Monday, August 15^th, 2022

“And I still don’t know what to think of that,” Frigga tells Dr. Fulla the next day. “I don’t even know why I don’t know because if this was any other person, I’d respect Loki’s decision to eliminate potential triggers and I always have in the past. But with Robert, I just can’t seem to … Well, to be perfectly honest, it hurt when Loki told me he doesn’t want him in his life because I feel so much more alive in Robert’s company and, even though I know it’s not true, it still felt as though Loki almost sort of categorically dismissed a person who always ensures to make me the happiest I can possibly be whenever we are together without trying to get to know him at least a little. Gosh, that sounds horrible, doesn’t it, but I just … I feel so much lighter in Robert’s presence because, as you know, I’ve never experienced any noteworthy emotional support before, not even from my parents. For as long as I can think back, I’ve always relied exclusively on myself and when that stopped being enough, I went ahead and manipulated my own son into co-parenting his younger brother because there was no other adult in my immediate vicinity to ask for help. When Robert came into my life, I finally felt like there was someone I could lean on without making him feel uncomfortable in any way or exhausting the energy he needs for something else. And I feel less burdened because of it, less alone, less as though I have to stay strong for everyone else all the time. It’s like, after a lifetime of giving, I can finally take a little and I really don’t want to give that up again and—”

“Which you won’t have to,” her therapist cuts in with a sharp reminder. “I don’t think Loki could possibly make this any clearer even if he tried.”

“I know but”—a heavy sigh builds in Frigga’s throat—“it just makes me feel so selfish and guilty that I stayed in the relationship and risked something like a fusion with Loptr of all alters, who’s been holding so much abandonment trauma for Loki and now they’re one and Loki has access to all those memories. He talked about remembering being left to his own devices in the dark. And it’s all because of me, because of Robert. I know I’m slipping back into old patterns here but I can’t just shrug that off like Loki does. How does a mother live with knowing that she re-traumatized her child enough to cause a fusion and a split in the same week? I think maybe it’s so hard to come to terms with Loki’s decision because it feels like I’ve caused him so much stress that he had to decide to stay clear of that part of my life for his own safety and still I want him and Robert to just meet and get along because—”

“Mrs. Fjörgyndottir, please,” Dr. Fulla cuts her off again and pinches the bridge of her nose. “I need you to stop right there for one moment.”

“Okay.” Frigga draws a deep, deep breath. As she watches her therapist study her notes, the Billy Joel song that’s been stuck in her ear all morning starts to echo through her head again, almost as if her subconscious decided to mock her.

I’ll take my chances
I forgot how nice romance is
I haven’t been there for the longest time

I don’t care what consequence it brings
I have been a fool for lesser things
I want you so bad
I think you ought to know that
I intend to hold you for the longest time

“First of all, it’s a good thing that you notice you’re slipping into old patterns,” Dr. Fulla begins after what felt like an eternity. “Not everyone always does or realizes it only when it’s already too late. But I also think you don’t fully understand how exactly you’re slipping back into old patterns. Wanting to stay in this relationship because it benefits you emotionally and makes you happy doesn’t make you selfish. It makes you human. If, however, you expected Loki to change his mind because his decision to remove himself from the equation to avoid situations that stress him out hurts or inconveniences you, that’d be a different matter.”

Frigga swallows.

“Do you understand that difference?”

“I do. It’s just … I wish he would give himself the chance to experience what Leah and Thor experienced when they interacted with him, that’s all.”

“You wish he’d give himself the chance to experience what it’s like to have a father figure who isn’t emotionally or otherwise abusive towards him?” Dr. Fulla asks with that knowing look on her face.

Frigga swallows again. “Would it be so bad if I did?”

“Yes,” Dr. Fulla tells her outright and then she smacks her lips in that way she always does it right before she’s about to say something unpleasant or downright painful. “For several reasons actually because, to me, it seems as if your longing for a, in the absence of a more fitting expression, ‘traditional family constellation’ is currently resurfacing along with other patterns of guilt and self-blame for things you don’t have any control over, such as the fusion or the split in Loki’s system.”

Frigga opens her mouth to protest but her therapist silences her with a raised hand. “Please, hear me out. You told me you never fully understood why you stayed married to Odin this long but I think, because of what you went through when you were younger, it was mainly the desire to have a family in the first place that outweighed the looming threat of dysfunction and put you in denial of your ex-husband’s faults. And right now, that desire keeps you from listening to Loki again because he told you in very concise terms what exactly it is he needs from you and, in my experience, that is very rare in interpersonal communication even amongst mentally healthy individuals.”

“Which I should appreciate instead of complaining about it,” muses Frigga.

“Well yes,” affirms Dr. Fulla. “I’m perfectly aware that I must sound like a broken record to you by now but Loki is an adult and if he doesn’t want or need a father figure in his life, yes, it would be bad if you forced one upon him just because you feel obliged to ‘replace’ Odin with someone more qualified to respond to Loki’s needs. Because Loki himself—and I’m not talking about Leah or any of the other children here—doesn’t need anyone else to rely on besides you and Thor and his care team at the center, does he? And if you wanted Loki to have a father figure in his life to rely on not for his own emotional benefit but because you feel like you finally see an opportunity to share the burden of taking care of his DID and BPD with someone you identified as a potential caregiver, that’d be even worse. Given your life story, it’d be perfectly understandable that you arrived in that mindset, especially after watching him interact with Leah in such a constellation, but you wouldn’t do right by Loki if you insisted that Robert could do the same for him that he can do for you or Leah or Thor. Because Thor always had a very different relationship with his father than Loki did, didn’t he? They were close once, from what you told me, and I can imagine that a part of him still mourns the loss.”

“He doesn’t really let it show,” confirms Frigga, “but I think you’re right that he still misses him or having a father in general, yes.”

Dr. Fulla nods. “See? Your sons are in two very different mental places, both at the moment and in general. Can you see how their respective life stories and their experiences with and attitudes towards men at large would affect how they approach a male influence in your life?”

Frigga takes a long moment to process the accusations, well, the implications of what she just heard. “I can, yes,” she begins eventually and takes another deep breath. “So, what you’re saying is that I worry about being selfish for the wrong reasons because what I actually think of as selfish isn’t and what comes naturally to me is?”

With a wink, Dr. Fulla jests that she loves it when her clients are smart but then she turns serious again. “What I’m saying is, well, actually I’m saying a few things. First of all, you aren’t by nature a selfish person. Quite the contrary. You’ve taken tremendous hardships upon you to accommodate Loki through his recovery journey so far and to compensate for whatever mistakes you made or think you made prior to the adoption reveal and his subsequent disappearance. Second, you aren’t to blame for any switches, fusions or splits. The fact that he has DID is. Third, Loki wasn’t honest with you but he owned up to it. He apologized and took responsibility for it, and he is willing to move forward on his own terms. These terms might not delight you, they might even sting a little, but your son is the one who has to manage his system day in and day out and he’s the one who has to take charge of and responsibility for his mental illness and how he responds to triggers, and from what I can tell, slip-ups and drug-hiding aside, he’s doing a fantastic job for someone who has suffered through so many traumas in his young life.”

Tears pool into Frigga’s eyes. “He is.”

“And fourth, if Loki tells you he doesn’t need or want a father figure,” concludes Dr. Fulla, “you’ll just have to respect that because that’s usually how it goes when people with grown children date and, if you ask me, that’s precisely the beauty of it. At our age, when we find a new partner, the partner gets to be just that, no familial strings attached; like you get to be Robert’s new partner and aren’t expected to act as a substitute for the mother his son lost. You don’t have to worry about that kind of responsibility, right, so why should he?”

“Well, that isn’t quite the same, is it?” Frigga snaps on the heels of a little huff. “Robert’s been a widower for fourteen years. Brian is thirty years old, mentally stable and works halfway across the world. Loki gets panic attacks sometimes when I’m late for dinner or don’t pick up the phone! I know I have tendency to baby him and I know that you think I’m not giving him enough credit but he still needs a parent!”

“A parent, yes. I agree.”

That affirmation catches Frigga off guard for a moment. “What?”

“As I said, he needs you and his brother and stable psychiatric care,” Dr. Fulla elaborates. “His friends and his cats too, perhaps. All of which he had access to and benefited from before you met Robert. All of which ensured he stayed stable and functioning most of the time; and one parent, you, was enough for him then, wasn’t it?”

It was.

The scales don’t fall from Frigga’s eyes all at once. It’s more of a gradual sliding that takes a few seconds (minutes?) as she processes her therapist’s words.

((Dr. van Dyne asked me which areas of my life Robert was actually impacting and why his presence was triggering these abandonment anxieties, and I realized that he isn’t really changing a lot.))

((I don’t know how I can assure you that, for me, the relationship with Robert doesn’t change anything whatsoever between us.))

((I’m not really losing you because you’re in a relationship now.))

((Whatever you feel for Robert doesn’t diminish what you feel for me.))

Their mother-son-relationship has always been Loki’s greatest concern and they did take care of that issue and they mostly worked it out, right?

“I think I understand,” Frigga mumbles eventually, “but I’m still not sure whether I could put into words what it is you’re telling me right now.”

“Try anyway,” Dr. Fulla encourages her softly.

“In the simplest terms,” she begins after a long moment of reflection and those terms do sound foolish to her own ears but they’re the only ones Frigga has mental access to at the moment, “Loki was taken care of, by me and his brother and his therapists, before I met Robert. I was the one who wasn’t ‘taken care of’ in that sense by anyone, so I should just enjoy that without trying to ‘force’ what Robert makes me feel upon him because he already experienced it before? I’m the one for whom this is a novel experience?” Finally, the scales do fall from her eyes and her words don’t sound quite so foolish anymore. “Because what Robert is giving me, what I’m currently experiencing, is what I’ve been providing for him all along, so he doesn’t need anyone else. I’m the one who, uh, currently feels like I do or, rather, never realized that I did until I found someone who actually emotionally provides for me.”

It makes sense, doesn’t it?

Or at least it will, given time, and Frigga can breathe a little easier after the session even if things don’t necessarily get any easier right away.

~°~

As if to prove her right, Lilah wakes her up in the middle of the night and, when Frigga goes to check in on Loki, he’s thrashing around in bed with half-closed lids, panicked murmurs stuttering out of his mouth. “Hey, I’m here,” whispers she and sits down beside him. “You’re safe. You can wake up now. You’re—”

“Nooooo,” howls Loki and pounds his fists against her thigh and into her side with enough force that his punches will probably leave a nasty bruise. “Let me out, let me out, let me ouuuuut!”

The throbbing pain in her leg and the intensity of the night terror take her aback for a moment before her mind links the severity of the episode to the recent fusion with Loptr. “Hey, shshshsh,” coos she then. “You’re not locked in, baby. You’re not trapped. You’re in your bed, in your room. It’s 2022 and you are safe.”

She repeats those words, over and over again, until Loki finally calms a little and opens his eyes. They’re not focusing but, thankfully, he recognizes her nonetheless. “Mommy,” slurs he, the word little more than a wet exhale of breath. “You came.”

“Yes, of course,” Frigga forces out and manages to convince her brain that debating what particular trauma he’s reliving right now and whether or not it happened at home with Odin or elsewhere isn’t going to be the best use of her mental resources. “I’m here, baby. You’re safe. I promise you.”

He rests his head onto her lap then and wraps his trembling arms around her waist, clinging tight and drifting off to sleep again. It’s a bit tricky to lie down like this and find a comfortable position to sleep in but, thankfully, she’s had a lot of experience in that arena and eventually manages to tuck in the both of them in a way that doesn’t wake him up again and doesn’t declare war on her aging back, neck and shoulders.

~°~

Leah wakes in the body the next morning and Nikias is out when she comes home from work, offering her a clipped apology that inevitably leads to the unpleasant but necessary conversation about how dangerous it was to take her car while the stubborn protector remains, probably purposefully, obstinate and accuses her of not accepting said apology.

“I do because I understand why you were upset about Robert and I forgive you for the please-break-up-with-her part. That was probably what you felt you had to do as a protector in that moment and, while I’m not thrilled about you trying to threaten someone I care a lot about, I can empathize with you about where you were coming from. But what you did to get there was illegal,” she is trying to tell them for the third time and she can practically feel her recently colored hair turning gray again. “You’re committing a crime when you drive a car across town, let alone across state lines, without a valid driver’s license. You do understand that, don’t you?”

The horrors of everything that could have happened to the body of her child during Hela’s and Nikias’ trip from Vegas back to LA about three years ago still churn her stomach and she swiftly brushes the unwelcome memory under the proverbial mental rug.

“There’s no crime if you don’t get caught,” Nikias replies casually. “Without a cop pulling me over, it’s just a thing I did. That’s what Loki’d say, I’m sure. Where there’s no plaintiff, there’s no judge, right?”

Frigga has to give him that one when she recalls that Loki did tell her something similar a few months before he went missing, something along the lines of Thor cheating during an exam wouldn’t be exposed and thus labeled as such if he wasn’t stupid enough to get caught. She has to acknowledge to herself that it makes sense in a way—like a judge who has the institutional power to proclaim someone guilty and thus inevitably changes that person’s reality—but she won’t engage in this kind of philosophical debate because she’s too exhausted and it won’t take them anywhere. Instead, she decides to change gears in the hope of getting through to Nikias. “What of the people you could have hurt, then? Yourself, the system and others?”

They shrug most impressively. “I didn’t hurt anyone.”

“But you could have,” insists Frigga.

“Not very likely. I’m a good driver. I even drove in LA a few times.”

“How did you even manage to drive to LA in the first place? Thor taught you for one single afternoon.” And the driving lesson spiraled totally out of control and landed you in the hospital with a fractured collar bone, Frigga doesn’t add because the past should probably stay in the past.

Nikias snorts a derisive laugh. “What’s there to teach? You put the gear into ‘drive’ and off you go.”

“Off to the local DMV,” she snaps at them and can’t hold back the expletive, “to apply for a fucking driver’s license! Which, I might add, shouldn’t be very difficult for you if you can drive as well as you claim, so why don’t you just do that?”

Apparently, she is more tired than she realized before.

“Whoa, you dropped an f-bomb there, Friggs.” Nikias flashes her a sly, provocative grin. “I really pissed you off, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did,” she breathes out because it seems as though her patience decided to take a spontaneous, unannounced vacation after the night and the day at the office that lie behind her. “Is that what you want to hear? That sometimes, when you try to make my life harder than it has to be and revel in my misery, you really, really piss me off?”

Nikias shrinks away from her words and if she didn’t know any better, she’d say that their eyes start to glisten a little. The moment passes as quickly as it happened. “No, it’s not,” they defend themselves, chin sticking out defiantly. “What I wanna hear, I mean. And I’m not trying to make your life miserable. I’m only pissing you off because you piss me off first!”

Frigga is suddenly reminded again of all the times she and who she thought of as Loki back in the day fought when he was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. How many times has she really been fighting with Nikias without ever knowing it? How many conversations did they have over the years? “Well, I guess we’re even then,” says she because she can’t think of anything else.

“Hm.” Nikias crosses their arms in front of their chest. “I’m not so sure. What if I do apply for a license? Will you buy me a car?”

That answer comes to Frigga without thinking. “Yes.”

Nikias’ eyebrows hike up, a gleam in the body’s eyes. “Any car?”

“As long as it’s within a reasonable price range, yes.”

“How is that fair?” grouses the protector. “Do you even know what a reasonable price range is? You got Thor a fucking sports car for his sixteenth birthday after all. Loki never got anything.”

“Because Loki never got his driver’s license,” exclaims Frigga and she can feel her nerves coiling tight beneath her skin. “That does make sense to you, doesn’t it?” It has to. They’re just trying to rile her up, she’s sure of it. “That we, or rather I, never bought Loki a car because he wouldn’t have been able to drive it anywhere if I had? Not to mention the fact that driving still gives him severe anxiety and that he never said anything about wanting one. Besides, the Tesla was Odin’s idea, not mine, and he bought it behind my back and despite my objections.”

She can’t tell why she felt the need to add that and Nikias jumps straight at the opportunity. “Oh, boo-hoo. We all know your marriage sucked. That’s not the point here.”

“I’m really not sure what your point is anymore,” concedes Frigga. All she knows is that she needs a time-out as soon as possible because she is stretched to her parenting (and her general psychological) limits.

“What if I want a sports car and Loki still doesn’t care about getting a license?” Nikias asks then. “Would you get me one even though I’m your least favorite?”

Ah.

That’s the point then and Frigga wants to object to the insinuation. She really, really does because this is Nikias’s way of opening up and trying to communicate to her that they do care about her opinion of them after all and because they’re all equal parts of the same whole and because Nikias helped Loki survive during a time when his BPD spiraled out of control without medication. But Frigga also knows she’d be lying if she did, so she doesn’t correct them.

“I don’t know yet,” she sighs instead. “And it doesn’t matter because you don’t have a license yet. We’ll talk about this again once you have it and are legally allowed to drive a car, okay?”

Nikias responds with a half-shrug and grumbles something under their breath.

~°~

The next morning, Thor plunks down into one of the armchairs in Dr. Rhodey’s office and exhales a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “I’m really tense right now,” he blurts out before his therapist can ask him what’s wrong and his voice breaks a little. “Like, wanting to stuff myself until I see stars and can’t breathe kind of tense and I didn’t know if I could’ve gotten over it by myself. Without talking it through with someone.”

Rhodey nods because they both know that Thor wouldn’t make use of the guy’s offer to call him in the case of an emergency if it wasn’t truly bad. “Shoot.”

“I’m really frustrated and I feel helpless and kind of angry with the world because Loki, uh, vanished into the inner world a little over a week ago, I think, and he has a new alter that kept me at arm’s length emotionally. That isn’t a big deal in itself or at least it wasn’t at first but my relationship with Loki itself also started to suffer from … Well, everything. I knew it was gonna be a huge adjustment for my brother that our mom has a new boyfriend now but I didn’t think that our relationship was gonna change, you know, Loki’s and mine, but now everything is just … it feels so different? I took a few days off and flew back to Vegas for a long weekend for my friends’ engagement party and I just got back last night and I stopped by at her apartment on my way back from the airport and I didn’t get a chance to talk to Loki because he was already dozing, which means I haven’t seen my brother in, like, two weeks? And my mom was totally exhausted. I thought she was gonna start crying any moment and she told me that Loki fused with one of the child alters, which means I’m never gonna see Loki-Loki again and I feel like … I don’t know,” sighs Thor and tries to organize his thoughts.

He fails miserably and just goes on with the jumble he’s currently trying to make sense of. “Maybe I did do something to contribute to all this even though I didn’t really realize it was something at first when I approached Robert in a way that made it very easy for him to get to know me. It kinda makes me feel guilty, you know? I actually wrote about that in my journal too. Loki is always so reserved around people that everyone takes a step back to be more careful around him, out of respect or because they don’t want to corner him. I’m not sure Loki gets it, that people are doing it to give him some space and try to avoid making him uncomfortable. I don’t have that same problem, far from it, which always creates the impression that people like me more? And, I don’t know, I guess I’m just worried that Loki is holding it against me that I accepted and welcomed Robert so easily but, at the same time, I’m angry. Not with my brother but with the universe or whoever because my mom is finally happily in love and I haven’t seen her this sort of vibrantly happy since I was a toddler and Robert seems like a really great guy and I’m so glad they found each other but nobody is getting to enjoy that new development because it’s all sort of overshadowed by how Loki reacted to it? I mean, not overshadowed like that, it’s more like … I don’t know. Whenever someone is truly happy and gets to experience great things, Loki suffers and that’s not really fair to either him or my mom or me or Robert and I don’t know what to do or think or … I guess I just want to make sure I’m not blowing this out of proportion?”

“Wow,” whistles Rhodey. “That is quite a lot, isn’t it?”

“Sorry,” gulps Thor.

“No need to be sorry. That’s what I’m here for,” his therapist assures him with an encouraging, fatherly smile that almost waters Thor’s eyes with gratitude. Almost. “And we’ll break it all down in a sec, I promise, but first of all I wanna hear all about that engagement.”

Chapter Text

“Don’t forgive your father. Forgive yourself for believing there is something lacking in you because he wasn’t there.” – Iyanla Vanzant

Thinking back to the party makes Thor smile and eases his apprehension for the moment, which was probably what his therapist intended, and he tells Rhodey all about Rogers and Bucky, starting with his disastrous twenty-first birthday party two-and-a-half years ago during which he outed them because he was drunk and itching for a fight (and because they’d been pining for each other for years and it’d become too painful to watch) and ending with the proposal they described to their friends the previous Saturday. It came as a surprise to Thor at first to hear that they’re engaged because they’re fucking twenty-three years old, barely grown-up just like himself, but, then again, it didn’t because Steve’s always been very traditional to the point where people who didn’t know him well called him “the boy out of time” or straight-up assumed he was some sort of patriotic MAGA bro.

“Did you talk to any of your friends about this?” Rhodey wants to know once Thor finished his tale. “Did you ask their advice?”

Thor shakes his head. “Stark’s the only one who knows that Loki has DID and even if that wasn’t the case, I wouldn’t have wanted to ruin the moment, you know. This isn’t their problem and they can’t help me anyway. That’s why I come to you to talk about this stuff.”

His therapist nods and tells him that he understands but then he drops a fucking bomb without warning. “Did you go see your father while you were in Vegas? I’m just asking,” he tacks on when he sees Thor’s probably very baffled expression, “because of the phrase you used. ‘Blowing your emotional struggles out of proportion’. As far as I can tell, you haven’t been thinking along those lines for a while now and, sometimes, returning to an environment that was once familiar can trigger out old thought patterns even though you’ve been stable for a long time.”

“No, I … I thought about it but just because I thought it’d be my duty as a son or some shit.” Thor tries to breathe away the pain knifing through his chest and gut. “I really don’t want to see him at the moment. I’m still too pissed and too hurt to face him because I just can’t forgive him for the fact that I’m not enough for him to change; that the prospect of having a relationship with me again isn’t enough of a motivator to see a therapist. He doesn’t deserve to see me until he makes an effort.”

“I’m proud of you because that’s a very healthy attitude. But that’s not all, is it?” Rhodey asks then because Thor is an open book as per fucking usual.

He swallows and squirms under the doc’s gaze. “No but I … I don’t know how to talk about the other thing, to be honest.” Thor can feel the rage and the disgust coil themselves tightly around his intestines. “I kind of want to and I know I probably should because it’s been weighing on me for weeks but I don’t know if I can drag the words up my throat and over my lips.”

His therapist looks very alarmed. “I know we’ve dismissed that possibility earlier but did you end up recovering any memories of your father abusing you after all?”

Thor shakes his head. “It’s not about me. It’s not even about something specific Dad did. It’s, uh, something Loki told me.”

((He was so much more violent and calculating and ruthless but he hugged me and he ruffled my hair and I know it was pedophilic and predatory, knew even then that he didn’t truly care about me, but I still put my head on his lap and he didn’t push me away. He preyed on my weakness but he didn’t ... I put my head on his lap and he comforted me. He did so much worse things to me than Dad but he also did things for me, good things, that Dad hasn’t done for me in such a long time.))

Dr. Rhodey nods, giving him all the time in the world.

“He, uh, my brother, he … he told me that he … misses … Thanos sometimes,” Thor eventually manages because he has to get that particular boulder off his chest at some point and once he started, the words slowly splutter out of him. “Despite what he did to him. And it doesn’t really compute, you know. Like, my brain just can’t process that my little brother got emotionally attached to a child porn shooting rapist who burned his collarbone with a branding iron to mark him as his … his property. That’s fucking sick and I …”

“The community argued for a while whether what’s commonly known as Stockholm syndrome is a real condition because it’s not an actual psychiatric diagnosis but, even despite the suspicion surrounding the label, it’s undeniable that some people develop feelings of sympathy or other positive emotional responses towards their captors or their abusers.”

“Yeah, I know,” gulps Thor because here comes the hard part. “That I get and it makes sense to me.” And what kind of shithole world has he been living in that such a twisted fucking injustice actually makes sense to him? “What I’m grappling with is this looming question that feels like a punch into the gut, like, what kind of father makes this happen? How did … How badly must he have treated Loki for him to get attached to a monster that ruffled through his hair and put his head on his lap right next to his fucking dick and …” Thor retches. “I’m sorry. I just … This is just hard because Loki wouldn’t have felt this way about Thanos if Dad hadn’t … I don’t know. It’s been six weeks or so but my brain just stops there and refuses to go any further, to really consider what it means or what it says about the kind of person my Dad really was. Is. Whatever. Because if someone like Thanos managed to actually comfort my brother … I don’t know. I’m just angry and disgusted and I don’t want to speak to my Dad until he’s ready to take responsibility for the damage he caused. Or at least acknowledge it.”

Rhodey is still scribbling onto his notepad when Thor finishes and he doesn’t look up for a few more heartbeats. “I have a few follow-up questions but I won’t ask them now if you aren’t confident your brain can handle them.”

“Thanks,” Thor grits out and wipes away a few stray tears. “I don’t think it can. And, just for the record, sitting here right now and having your full attention, I know for a fact that I’m not blowing my emotions out of proportion because this is some pretty heavy fucking shit.”

“It definitely is,” agrees Rhodey. “This is the kind of pretty heavy shit that buries people.”

Thor nods and inhales a trembling breath. He still doesn’t feel any closer to ready to deal with that particular elephant in the room or whatever follow-up questions his therapist is gonna ask him once he signals him his readiness but Rhodey’s reassurance still helps. It helps a whole fucking lot. “And I just … saying it out loud made me realize again that there’s a whole number of very good reasons for Loki to be stressed out by another man at our Mom’s side because she … She married my Dad and she stayed married to him. She didn’t realize he was abusive. I don’t think Robert’s the same kind of guy but I interacted with him. I got to know him a little. Loki couldn’t because he switched out, so of course he freaked. I do understand that.”

“But?” Rhodey prompts softly.

“As I said, it’s frustrating and I don’t … I just don’t understand. Loki and I have been so close again and I just assumed that it’d last, you know? That our relationship was strong enough again to not be affected by stuff like this. I don’t … how can Loki just go back to avoiding me after everything we did to rebuild our brotherhood? I thought … I mean, I know it’s hard for him to adjust to change and I know our mother overwhelmed him when she started dating again but what the fuck does that have to do with me?!” Thor almost shouts. “I really thought he’d learned to trust me again. I really thought we were solid and I just … I hate it so much.”

Suddenly, there’s a deep, gaping pit in his chest where his heart should be and Thor deflates in his seat like a porous air mattress.

Rhodey assures him that he believes him. “But these kind of avoidant behaviors can be explained by the fact that he is adopted and that he found out about it in the worst kind of circumstance. I know this hurts to hear but adopted children like Loki often don’t experience a stable, lasting psychological guarantee, if you wish, that they belong anywhere. And I do know what you’re asking yourself right now and what you want to ask me but, no, sadly, the love you gave him in the past and all the work you put into rebuilding your relationship to get it back to a place of trust and mutual understanding isn’t enough to keep your brother convinced for all times that he is wanted after he endured sixteen years of neglect and abuse by different adults. That is just not how the world works for people like Loki. The slightest disturbance can rattle the foundations of what he has come to believe about himself and the people he cares about and is emotionally attached to. It all comes back to the messages from adults we internalize as children and that are so very hard to challenge once we’re adults.”

“So, what do I do?” asks Thor around the lump swelling up in his throat. “Do I try to talk to Loki about what our mother’s relationship means to me or should I be patient and give him space and wait until he comes to me? Because last time we’d drifted apart, things didn’t improve until I stopped trying to fix our relationship but I also don’t know if I can just not do something at this point, you know?”

“I do and I think you should definitely talk to Loki at this point. If you don’t, your brain will most likely start to conspire against you if it hasn’t already and eventually read something into what you currently perceive as your brother’s rejection of you that isn’t there. But,” emphasizes Rhodey, “I also advise you not to do it until you feel confident you’ll be able to use I-statements because you don’t want to end up accidentally driving him into a corner, right?”

Thor absolutely doesn’t but confidence isn’t exactly what he feels right now. “What kind of I-statements?”

Rhodey cocks a brow. “Well, what did you write in your journal?”

Thor glances down at the notebook that’s still lying open in his lap and, very slowly, his confidence returns.

~°~

As it turns out, he realizes walking out of Doc Rhodey’s office and checking his phone, his brain already made a huge deal out of fucking nothing.

~°~

When Loki emerges from the treatment center’s sliding glass doors and practically sprints towards him, Thor can already see that Loki’s face has changed since he last saw him. His eyes look a bit larger and his cheekbones and jawline don’t look as sharp as they used to and the whole process is still kind of fascinating to observe after all this time of interacting with Leah, Loptr and Nikias because, while a fusion or a switch can’t possibly change the bone structure or the body fat percentage or the shape of a person’s eyes in a physical sense, different alters must be using facial muscles differently in order to make the change visible for those who know him well.

Loki loops his arms around him and clings tight, mumbling a, “Shit, you look huge,” into Thor’s neck.

“Um … what?”

“You look bigger than you did before,” Loki elaborates when he lets go after a few moments of them just standing there, locked in an intimate embrace. “I mean, that’s probably because of the fusion. When I first saw Mom directly after, it felt like she’d shrunken. It was terrifying but my brain managed to adjust and merge mine and Loptr’s visions or whatever you want to call it at some point. I didn’t expect to see you differently because it’s been four days? I don’t how long it’s been exactly.” He exhales a shuddering breath. “And I’ll take back what I texted you this morning. There’s no ‘luckily for me’, is there? This is just … all kinds of awfully psychologically exhausting.” He tries to laugh but it turns into a sob. “Sorry,” he croaks.

“There’s no need to apologize,” Thor assures him and sweeps him into another hug. “You’ve dealt with a lot.”

“Yeah,” Loki breathes out against Thor’s shirt. “So, what do you want for dinner?”

~°~

They get Chinese take-away, curl up on Thor’s couch with their chopsticks and their paper containers, and Loki tells his brother everything that transpired in the inner world since their last proper conversation, still amazed and slightly unnerved by the fact that the fusion apparently dispersed most of the feelings of inadequacy that still plagued him until recently. It simply feels too good to be true and once he gets to what he assumes the purpose of the new alter is, he can see the same kind of shocked pain flicker across Thor’s features that he saw on his mother’s face when he told her that he doesn’t want Robert in his life at the moment; almost as if Thor is hurt on Frigga’s behalf.

“I did feel selfish and kind of miserable for a while that I couldn’t just roll with how happy Mom is and couldn’t find it within myself to give Robert a chance like you did because I’ve never seen her this happy,” Loki hurries to explain and he still can’t get his mother’s face out of his mind. She tried to conceal her reaction but it was very obvious that he practically thrust a knife straight into her heart and then twisted it. Violently. She apologized the previous night after her therapy session for pushing him but Loki still can’t quite forgive himself and he still feels as if he needs to make it up to her somehow even though he knows that he technically didn’t do anything wrong by communicating his emotional needs. “But that’s just the way it is and we’re different people, right? You’re a man, I’m not. You’ve always been a papa’s boy, I haven’t. It’s only logical that we approach a potential father figure in our lives differently and I get it that having another male—who is, by all appearances, a decent guy for a change—in your life again is probably good for you.”

“Well, yeah. I really like him,” Thor mumbles around a forkful of fried noodles before he remembers to chew and swallow. “He made me feel appreciated when he asked about our jobs and stuff. I really felt like he was genuinely interested in us and that he cares about us because he knows that Mom loves us. I felt seen. I feel like I could come to him should I ever get in trouble, you know.”

Loki doesn’t because he didn’t feel anything except dissociation and dread during that particular conversation but he nods anyway because he thinks he understands where his brother is coming from.

“And I was worried that … Okay, this sounds stupid now, actually,” Thor cuts himself off, “but I was worried that you were holding it against me that I welcomed Robert with open arms the way I did because I was afraid it’d kind of make me look like the more, uh, agreeable of mom’s children. But that’s—”

“Well, you are,” Loki says because it’s the fucking truth. It’s a fact that, for once, has nothing to do with self-loathing. He pushes people away by default, Thor welcomes them. Of course he’s the more likeable person because of it. That’s how social interaction fucking works, right? “And that’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” gulps Thor. “Because it’s not true that other people like you less. They’re just respecting your boundaries because they don’t want to corner you.”

Loki’s instinctual response is to scoff and snort and roll his eyes because there’s yet another confirmation that all people see in him is this breakable, fragile, fickle mentally ill creature that they need to be careful around but he doesn’t really feel it. Not anymore. The realization doesn’t have the same scorching urgency it used to have because he did break many times along the way and then tried to piece himself back together with what little glue he had available growing up. Of course the end result of all those desperate attempts to feel whole again would be a liiiittle more easily breakable than the average person who grew up in a stable emotional environment. It’s been a couple of days but it still scares Loki a little to see himself that way. To truly accept that what has happened to him, what has been done to him by the people who were supposed to take care of him and protect him from harm, was truly horrendous. To stare the terror in the face and get it straight in his own mind that he isn’t a weak little bundle that never learned to grow resilient enough to cope because children aren’t fucking built to cope with adults locking them away in the dark and leaving them to their own devices for hours.

“Brother?” prompts Thor. He’s put his dinner down on the couch table, all his attention zeroed in on Loki. “I mean it. You’re every bit as likeable as I am and I’m sure you’ll see that it’s true if you give Robert a cha—”

“I don’t doubt it,” Loki cuts in. “Not on an existential level, at least. But I’m not yet ready to try and build a relationship with him, okay? And since that’s okay for me as long as no one else in the system tries to sabotage Mom’s relationship, it just has to be okay for you guys. You can’t push me to give him a chance, brother, because if I tried, I’d only end up in shitty mental places and I’ve been to enough of those.”

“I wasn’t trying to push you,” Thor splutters and he looks truly horrified. “I was just trying to take away your fear that Robert might not approve of you or whatever and, jeez, I just keep making this worse and worse, aren’t I?”

“You are,” confirms Loki and they both manage a laugh.

~°~

It gets a little easier after that even if therapy turns out to be an aaawfuuuuul lot of work again. Mainly because of the fusion and the split but also because Dr. van Dyne was actually very serious about Operation Preparing To Live Alone™ and suggests that they should start thinking about scheduling (!!!) one night a week that Frigga gets to spend at Robert’s place from now on.

The mere thought horrifies Loki at first but he knows it’s necessary and it’s not as if he can’t stay at Thor’s or ask Thor to stay at the apartment instead; which he does for the first two weeks because staying alone overnight still freaks him out a little too much.

Because the only night he recalls spending entirely by himself involves a shitty LA motel and him coming this close to electrocuting himself with a rusty hairdryer in a grimy bathtub.

~°~

And then he has that nightmare again; the one in which he and Thor are trying to reach Robert and Frigga jumping from rock to rock through a crumbling city and Odin grabs him by the neck and picks him up, dangling him in the air like a lion cub.

“Quite literally holding you back,” Dr. van Dyne interprets it for him unnecessarily, “and preventing you from reaching a place where you can co-exist with Robert and your mother.”

“Yeah, I know. The symbolism couldn’t be any more obvious if it tried,” snarks Loki.

“The question is why exactly,” says his therapist. “And that isn’t a trick question. I don’t have an answer either yet; except for the obvious explanation that you don’t feel ready to face a father figure because you haven’t processed all the ways in which Odin failed you as one.”

Which sucks because Loki made his peace with Odin a while ago or so he thought and the frustration that he can’t figure it out floods his eyes with tears of rage.

~°~

Well, there is the new alter, of course, and whatever his fucking purpose really is.

As it turns out, Nikias was partly right and the new guy did split off of former inner world Thor and is kind of a reincarnation of who the retired protector was before he began to confuse his identity with Loki’s in-the-flesh brother in the external world. The new guy identifies as male and he is unnervingly chill about everything, and his emotional unflappability flusters Loki even more because a) if he’d behaved like that, Odin might not have rejected him, so why the fuck did this alter have to leave when he was younger??? and b) he behaves in the exact same way Frigga described Robert when she told Loki what made him so attractive to her. Which … yeah. Not to mention that the new-old protector expresses an interest in going to law school, which just so happens to be the only possible future Odin ever envisioned for his children, and demands that Loki adjusts (!!!) his schedule (!!!) accordingly. What in the freaking fuck? And then, a few days later, Frigga returns from the mailbox with a thick envelope sent by Arizona State University in her hands and a sympathetic expression on her face. Loki reaches for it and his heart jerks violently when he sees the name printed on the white address sticker in neat black letters.

Bailey Odinson.

Odinson.

What in the friggety freaking fuck kind of introduction is that?

He never even told any of them his name before!

~°~

“It’s ridiculous,” Loki fumes in his next therapy session, slapping his own thighs in frustration. “I didn’t spend all those nights to write a convincing petition for a name change and suffer through an actual court hearing with a judge who looked at me as if I was a fucking insect just for him to start using it again; even if it’s just to request info material. I just don’t understand his purpose and why he was formed or revived now. I mean I kind of get that Robert has sort of taken Odin’s place and that my Mom having a relationship in the first place flung a match into the smoldering fire of my daddy issues and rekindled it, and but I don’t understand why the alter formed now. I don’t get it. The more I think about it, the more his creation seems like an accident to me; a byproduct of the fusion that should have happened much more quickly. He does step in when Robert shows up, yes, but Leah is really attached to Robert, so she fronts a lot as well. I know I probably shouldn’t say that but, more than anything, Bailey really annoys me. Because he’s convinced in an almost obnoxious kind of way that he can be more than ‘just’ an artist and he thinks that ‘everyone else’ has an important job that helps others in some way—Thor helps children, Mom helps abuse victims, Robert builds houses for people, his son Brian is a doctor who saves lives—and Bailey seems completely ignorant of the fact that art helps people too. Which is Odin’s fucking opinion and it just drives me up the wall because, if Bailey’s a dissociated part of my consciousness, I must have had that opinion at some point in my life and I just … It’s just so uugggghghgh, you know?”

Loki breathes out through his nose and imagines himself as a dragon spewing fire. How satisfying that’d be, if he could actually burn something to the fucking ground right now.

“Maybe that’s Bailey’s purpose,” Dr. van Dyne speculates after a pause. “Because, to me, it almost feels as though he’s holding a mirror up to your face to make you realize that ‘the perfect son’ you strove to be at times in your life wouldn’t be a person you would actually like. He’d only please others.”

“One person, to be exact,” sighs Loki. “Odin One-Does-Not-Simply Borson. He would like Bailey, I’m sure of it, because he’s soooo ‘low-maintenance’.” He makes sure to perform the air quotes in as theatrical a fashion as possible.

Dr. van Dyne nods. “I have two follow-up questions, if I may?”

Of course she does and Loki resigns himself to his fate, gesturing for her to go ahead.

“First, I’d like to know why exactly you’re opposed to the idea of getting a law degree. I mean, obviously you are employed already but hypothetically. Walk me through it. Is law school something that truly wouldn’t interest you or do you reject that career option on principle because it’d make you feel as though you deferred to Odin’s plans for your future? Do you know what I mean? Because I remember that you quoted the penal code at me more than once and I always had the impression that you might be intrigued by the intellectual demands of the profession, and I just want to understand if it’s something you’re spurning solely because there is so much familial pressure and emotional baggage attached to it. Which would be perfectly understandable of course. I’m just curious.”

“I … never even thought about that,” Loki admits truthfully because he didn’t. He now knows that he subconsciously kissed the prospect of a future in law goodbye forever when he was on the cusp of adolescence and realized that Odin didn’t really seem to care all that much about whatever he was going to do with his life because he was too busy trying to knock Thor into shape to carry on his life’s work. Once he does, though, his thoughts take off in a whirl. “But Mom did discuss cases or even some of Odin’s strategies with me when I was younger. She always valued my input and she’s still using me as a sounding board for her closing arguments sometimes. So no, it isn’t something I’m radically opposed to, I guess? I actually used to be fascinated by criminal law and all the details and the pitfalls and the different kinds of evidence and the analytical, logical thinking that you need to build a case and connect years’ worth of documents together. Dad used to sit in his office surrounded by mountains of paperwork trying to find that one itsy bitsy detail that’d cast a sliver of reasonable doubt and he’d use it to unnerve the prosecution and wear down the jury. I used to think of him as bloodhound and, I mean, the mental, intellectual effort is intriguing, yes. Not from Odin’s side of the table though because, if I had to make a guess, I’d say that every single one of his clients over the years was guilty. They were criminals, all of them, and he, uh, he even used to joke about that sometimes. He’d brag that innocent people couldn’t afford him; as if poor, wrongly accused people were beneath him, which he probably felt they were. So, if anything, I’d try to become a prosecutor. I think? If the legal system wasn’t so intertwined with racist and classist ideologies? But, as I said, I haven’t thought about it.”

But Loki knows that he will think about it, mainly because of that one exhilarating scenario that pops into his mind and strikes roots instantly even if it’s purely hypothetical and highly improbable. But … just fucking imagine. Loki Friggbörn-Davis gets a law degree, works his way up to the Clark County District Attorney’s Office and meets the man who couldn’t bring himself to love the helpless child he once was in court, and he wins. They both perform their summations with sharp wit and flourishing eloquence but Loki is more persuasive and more compassionate, and the jury finds the defendant guilty. Odin’s filthy rich client ends up in prison because the weak foundling he so despised beat him at his own game after shedding his name. Loki knows this isn’t ever gonna happen because he isn’t living in Nevada anymore and Odin would very likely be retired by the time he made it up the ranks (or not because not even a fucking heart attack could keep him away from the courtroom for a few days) and Loki’d freak out or switch or faint or vomit or break out in a cold sweat even before the time came to stand and greet the judge but it’s still invigorating because his brain isn’t putting him down for once. His brain is actually fucking considering it a possibility that he could win if he truly put his mind to it.

And that is just  … wow.

The idea of becoming a lawyer simply out of spite.

Just fucking woo-hoow.

Nikias would definitely approve.

Loki’s brain is too fried at this point to think about how exactly any of this truly explains Bailey’s purpose though, which is why he files that particular question away for future consideration for now.

“But you said you had two,” he reminds his therapist instead. “Follow-up questions, I mean. What’s the second?”

Chapter Text

Janet van Dyne hesitates for a moment because there’s a spark of self-confidence in Loki’s eyes she’s never seen glinting in them before when they discussed Odin and a part of her doesn’t want to risk extinguishing it by redirecting his mental focus back towards the current Robert situation that caused him so much emotional stress in the recent past. Which is why she ultimately decides to tell him that the second follow-up question, which will undoubtedly be harder, can wait. He asks her why and she explains that she feels as though she pushed him enough as it is.

Loki shrugs in response. “I feel like I’m stable enough to take it though.”

Janet shares that impression. Despite her patient’s obvious emotional response to all matters concerning his adoptive father, this is the first time after the fusion and the split, the first time in weeks actually, that Loki appears to be approaching what happened and why solely from the rather objective, intellectual, psychological, clinical perspective that fascinated her early on. But even so, she has to be one-hundred percent certain. “Are you sure?”

Loki nods.

“Alright then,” says Janet and eases him into the conversation with a question she already knows the answer to. She’s entering morally gray territory at best because this isn’t the most ethical approach to respond to any kind of utterance that encourages favoritism when it comes to alters of a DID system but never once in the three years since she first saw him in her private Las Vegas practice has he given her an opening like that and she simply can’t ignore it. She’d kick herself over and over if she did. “What about Thor and your mother? How do they get along with Bailey?”

“They accept him but they do like me better,” Loki tells her unsurprisingly, with a little smirk tucking at the corners of his lips.

Janet rewards him with a smile before she turns serious again because she knows she needs to proceed with caution. “And you said Robert’s been interacting with him too. Do you know if he likes him?”

“What?” As expected, Loki tenses a little at the subject change. “Why … Why are you ... asking me that?”

“Because you just told me you weren’t sure what Bailey’s purpose actually was when it comes to Robert and because you and Frigga both told me that you were worried that Robert isn’t going to like you,” Janet explains. “Not necessarily because you have DID, if I understood you correctly, but because of who you are as a person and you told me many times that your mother deserves a better, more stable son and you implied, too, that her relationship with Robert and your relationship with her would benefit from it if you were. That she would have it easier. That her life would be less stressful, less emotionally taxing. And now your brain has revived this alter, who seems to be emotionally stable and who’d qualify as ‘the better son’ according to the standards Odin set for you when you were young, but you don’t actually like who Bailey is as a person and Frigga and Thor also prefer your company over his. So, again, I am curious, more than anything. And you don’t have to answer right away, of course, but do you think Robert would prefer Bailey’s company over yours like Odin would or is there perhaps a slight chance he might find you more likeable?”

“I …” Loki’s lips part and, for a few heartbeats, he merely stares at her, processing. “I don’t know? Because I don’t even know him. I …” And then her patient sits up wired all of a sudden, his shoulders practically vibrating with tension, and Janet’s heart sinks just a liiiittle. “Why are you asking me that? You said it was okay that I’m not ready to start interacting with Robert, so why are you telling me that I should now?”

“I’m not telling you that you should interact with him,” Janet assures him. “I know that it’s hard for you to do so due to your history with abusive male father figures. I’m not pushing you.”

“Then what are you doing instead?” Loki all but hisses.

“As I said, I was just wondering how much it’s been bothering you that Robert is interacting with an alter whose personality you just described to me as annoying and obnoxious instead of interacting with you.”

Loki stares at her then, his eyes widening with every heartbeat. “Um … what?”

“You said you were worried that Robert isn’t going to like you—”

Loki cuts her off with a yelp then, his green eyes blown wide open, his mind racing on at a hundred miles per hour as it is wont to do in such moments of psycho-emotional revelation. “And here I am, sort of ‘allowing’ an alter even I find annoying to interact with him. That’s what you’re getting at, isn’t it? That I’m … That the perfect son I thought I wanted my mom to have isn’t someone I actually want her or Robert to like because that person isn’t me, that’s not who I am or ever will be, that’s not … Shit, that’s not …” He sits up even straighter then. “If Robert thinks Bailey is ‘the grown-up Loki’ my mom was talking about all along whenever she mentioned me … I don’t want that. I don’t ...” A grim chuckle builds up in his throat. “Are you sure you weren’t gonna try to push me to interact with him? Because I really feel like I have to now.”

“Have to?” echoes Janet. “Or want to?”

“As if there’s a difference,” sighs Loki.

“There absolutely is. ‘Having to’ implies that you feel obliged to act a certain way because of external social demands,” explains Janet. “It means that you are basing your future actions on what you think other people expect of you. Me, your mother, Robert; or whoever else. ‘Wanting to’, on the other hand, means that you’re making that same decision based upon your own needs and what you want for yourself and how you want yourself to be seen; regardless of what you think other people might expect of you.”

Loki is staring at her, his lips slightly open, and Janet decides to push onwards. “And I’m not expecting or pushing you to act either way. I’m here to point you towards possibilities for future action that you might not have been able to contemplate by yourself.”

Loki swallows and he’s still staring at her, as if he can’t quite believe what he just realized. “I … I think … Well, if this is serious … The relationship, I mean … If this is … if it’s permanent, and it looks like it’s going to be, I want Robert to meet me eventually because I don’t want him to think of Bailey when he thinks of ‘Frigga’s grown-up child’. I … I think I’ll eventually want him to like me. Not that I don’t want him to like my alters too, of course, but it kind of doesn’t count if he likes everyone except for my current state of identity. I just don’t know how to make it happen without freaking out or ... or how to get over everything that’s keeping it from happening.”

“Well, that’s what I’m here for,” Janet assures him with a smile.

~°~

One thing that always manages to sound the alarm bells in Loki’s screwed little born-drugged-and-drunk head is Robert’s physical presence and the … the masculinity he exudes. From what Loki can tell, it’s not toxic or violent or over-powering or in any other way reminiscent of the kind of masculinity Odin broadcasted to the world during all of Loki’s childhood but it’s still so undeniably male. Which shouldn’t be triggering at all because, dammit, let the guy enjoy watching sports and cooking a good steak on his BBQ and having monthly poker nights with his friends and hiking difficult trails in the desert and the mountains all by himself. None of that makes him a bad guy and Loki knows it. Rationally, he knows it. Knows too that none of what he thinks of as inherently male behavior based on previous experience is reserved for any particular gender—women and enbies love poker and demanding exercise too and real life isn’t sororities versus fraternities after all, that’s so two-thousand-fucking-five Hollywood movie—and nothing Robert ever did in his presence or with Frigga poses an imminent threat to Loki’s psychological well-being. Except for the sight, smell and sound of a juicy, well-seasoned medium rare steak sizzling in a pan or on the thin metal bars of a BBQ grill, of course. If he exposed himself to that, he’d risk being slingshotted straight into a flashback of Thanos’s kitchen; which is why they’re only ever sitting outside when they’re going to the Steakhouse Thor loves so much.

Anyway.

The fact that Robert is a man shouldn’t be such a huge fucking problem in and of itself.

~°~

“Or so he keeps telling himself,” Nikias grouses and spears Janet with their intense gaze a few sessions later. “But just the other day, Loki asked Thor what he was doing this weekend and Thor told him that Robert was gonna take him to the Phoenix Avengers kick-off game on Saturday. Apparently, a client got him the tickets as a thank you or whatever and he did ask Frigga first but Frigga seems to be over it since Thor stopped playing and told him to ask Thor instead. Which, surpriiiise, threw Loki right back into that dark, exhausting downward spiral of ‘He’s inevitably gonna like Thor more than me because they can bond over lame ass manly sports shit and I won’t ever be interested in that’ for a while and I fucking hate Robert for digging that crap back up. We were over that!”

Janet forces herself to count to five in her head before she answers. “I know you’re worried about the system but these reactions are born from previous, deeply internalized experiences that Loki can’t just fully eradicate; even after years of therapy. By his own admission even, Odin always liked Thor more because, among other things, Thor measured up to the cultural standards of male physicality and athletic prowess while his—yours, the system’s—body didn’t. It’s bound to become an issue again when he’s reminded of how he was previously neglected just because of who he is as a person. But it’s not Robert’s fault. These are the kind of standards Odin imposed on him and Loki is trying to deal with them, and I think it’d be very unfair to blame Robert for Odin’s shortcomings or assume that, just because the man likes to watch a football game every now and then, Robert is inevitably going to judge Loki by the same standards as Odin did.”

Nikias merely huffs in response.

“Besides, you can bond with one person over one thing, let’s say sports, and with another person over something completely different, let’s say graphic tablets and brushes and drawing techniques, and you can like two people the same even though they’re polar opposites. And last but not least, watching football is a national pastime,” Janet cannot resist adding because she has some very fond memories of Sunday afternoons spent in the bosom of her family. “Just because millions of Americans enjoy something doesn’t mean it’s lame.”

“Okay, okay, I get it. A penchant for archaically brutish ball games doesn’t make anyone a jerk, noted,” snaps Nikias. “I still don’t like the way he’s treating Leah though.”

The way their nostrils flare as they continue and the tone of their voice put Janet on immediate alert. “What do you mean by that?”

“She was sick a few days ago. Physically, I mean. She wasn’t feeling very well and she got stuck in the front, and Robert watched her for a bit because Frigga … Well, I don’t know where she’d actually run off to but, hey, what’s new?”

Dread claws up the walls of Janet’s stomach when she realizes where the alter is going with this.

“Leah was really drowsy and a bit feverish and she was lying on the couch, painting in an app on our phone. Robert sat down and asked how she was doing and what she was drawing. She showed him the different brushes and then she put her head on his lap and he stroked her hair! Can you believe it? That’s so disgusting!”

Janet doesn’t often need more than a fleeting moment to mentally plan her next conversational moves but right now, language has momentarily deserted her because nothing could have made her see this coming. “Nikias, are you implying that Robert assaulted Leah? Because that is a very serious accusation.”

“He didn’t assault her. But it was still creepy. You don’t … just do stuff like that to children in a grown body.”

Janet scribbles that down, and she can’t quite keep her stomach from churning. “Were you co-con with Leah? Do you know if she put her head on his lap voluntarily, out of her own motivation? Or did he guide her movements? Did he force her or—”

“No, she did that because she wanted to cuddle but still. He should’ve pushed her away and told her that she shouldn’t get so cozy with him.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s a grown-ass man! He shouldn’t touch her and he shouldn’t flounce around naked and broadcast his manliness when she’s around either. That’s inappropriate, isn’t it? Please tell me that’s inappropriate because Frigga sure as shit didn’t seem to care.”

“What do you mean by ‘naked’?” Janet asks back, her throat tight. “Was he entirely bare, including his genitals?”

“Not entirely. They were at the pool,” grumbles Nikias and the unease Janet felt creeping up the walls of her stomach, lungs and throat when she heard that Robert disrespected the body’s boundaries while he was alone with a sexual abuse survivor melts away instantly. “But that doesn’t mean he has to run around in such super tight swim shorts. They’re not even shorts, really, they’re more like tiny pants or whatever. Doesn’t matter. You can see everything through them. Everything. Especially when he comes out of the water. Why does he feel the need to do that?”

“Because that’s proper swim attire,” Janet tells the overwrought alter, almost frantically biting back a sigh because how could Nikias possibly know? Loki never goes to the pool. He never even takes his shirt off because he’s still too ashamed of the burn marks on his torso and the scars on his back to expose himself. “That’s what people wear when they go to the pool. It’s one of the few places where it’s culturally accepted to wear next to nothing. I’m sure Frigga was wearing a bathing suit.”

“That’s different,” splutters Nikias. “She’s a woman. She’s not threatening in a bikini.”

Ah.

“Is Thor threatening when he’s running around shirtless?”

“That oaf doesn’t count,” Nikias pffts. “He’s Loki’s brother and he isn’t an adult. Well, he is but he isn’t, like, an old man. You know what I mean?”

Not yet, thinks Janet but she can feel that she is on the cusp of understanding and changes gears. “Did Leah feel threatened or unsafe in any way when Robert touched her hair or by the pool?”

“No.”

“But she did feel threatened in the past when adults behaved inappropriately towards her, right?” Janet asks carefully because she knows she’s always skating on very thin ice when she’s interacting with Nikias. One wrong word and their cooperation will crack and leave her with a heap of frosty debris at the end of a session.

“You know she did.” They’ve already assumed a defensive stance and glower at her with their arms crossed. “What’s your point, doc?”

“Do you stroke Leah’s hair sometimes? To comfort her?”

“Of course I do but she knows me,” Nikias snaps at her. “I’m safe, Robert isn’t.”

Janet mulls over her next words for a moment but eventually decides to push a little. “Do you know how Leah feels about that? Do you know if she thinks Robert is safe to be around?”

“She’s a child,” blusters Nikias. “Children trust people on principle.”

And here comes another push, this one ten times more likely to chase Nikias out of the room. “Did she trust Thanos?”

“What?” the alter growls at her, a scarlet blush spreading up their pale neck. “Of course not. What are you … Why would you fucking ask me that?”

“Because this isn’t about Leah, is it?” Janet tries in a soft voice. “She might be a child but that doesn’t mean that Leah is unaware of the cruelty some adults are capable of.” Janet pauses again, assessing the conflict potential of every word, every intonation. “She doesn’t just ‘trust people on principle’. Now, I wasn’t present in your head when what you described happened but based on what I’ve gathered from you, from Leah herself and from Loki so far, all the girl sees in Frigga’s new partner is a caretaker who is capable of providing comfort and safety.” Another brief pause, another breath for courage. “Can I ask how it made you feel when Leah put the body’s head on Robert’s lap or when he walked around in his bathing briefs?”

“This isn’t about me,” Nikias chews out.

“I think it is,” Janet objects because if they really didn’t want to have this conversation, they would have fled ten minutes ago and that realization fuels her with confidence. “The act of stroking someone’s hair isn’t predatory by nature. It can be a very nurturing, comforting, supportive and fatherly gesture, and not every external person who touches a child or a minor that way has sexual intentions. That’s probably what you’re assuming based on your past experiences and I think it’s why Robert makes you uncomfortable in that specific way. And if that is the case, I’m here to help you figure out—”

“There’s nothing to figure out,” Nikias cuts her off in a whirl of anger but the fact that they haven’t stormed out of her office yet goes several hundred miles to show the fragile trust they placed in her along the way. “And I’m not attracted to him or whatever else you just implied, okay? That’s not what this is! It’s not like … Fuck!” They spring to their feet then. “Forget it.”

“I wasn’t implying that you are attracted to him,” Janet assures them but upon hearing those words, the last piece of the puzzle slots quietly into place, leaving her with the soul-jarring memory that just bubbled up to the surface; a memory of Leah telling her that Nikias was happy whenever Thanos visited Hela’s apartment and then, suddenly, when they were in bed together, Nikias just wasn’t happy anymore. “Did anyone else accuse you of that?”

Nikias stops halfway to the door. “No.”

Their voice is teary and trembling and her heart goes out to them. “Can you tell why you are so upset right now?”

“Because,” fumes the protector. “I … No, forget it! No one will ever understand. I’m fucking cursed!”

“You aren’t cursed and you have my word that I’ll try my best to understand.”

“Oh, you’re wrong! I am so fucking cursed,” cackles Nikias and furiously wipes at their eyes. She has never seen them in this much of a turmoil and, hurtful and soul-crushing as it may be at times, watching the mask someone has always been so careful to wear around her crumble to nothing is ultimately a very rewarding experience because it means she managed to guide yet another patient to take their first step on the path towards healing. “Because you’re fucking right, okay? I do find Robert attractive. Not in the I’m-going-to-act-on-it kind of way but, like, I have eyes in my head and I can see that he’s attractive. I can see why Frigga wants to … You know. I can see what she sees when she looks at him but it’s … Like an objective assessment? It’s nothing more than that. It doesn’t mean that I … I’m not gonna … Shit, it’s not like … like it was before but I still feel like this horrible creep who … Shit.” Their expression crumbles into wide-eyed panic and they tense like a bowstring. “Did Leah … Did she ever … What did she tell you about LA?”

Janet inhales a calming breath. “Not much and, even if she did, I wouldn’t feel comfortable sharing what she confided in me with you because I promised—”

Nikias barks a desperate laugh and fresh tears are welling into their eyes. “Don’t give me that ultra-correct, diplomatic doctor-patient-confidentiality crap! Just tell me if you know about”—and here their voice breaks a little and they gulp as they stab the air with their index finger—“about … Tell me what you know about me and Thanos!”

“I know that you had a somewhat intimate relationship and that he abused you,” Janet tells them very carefully and Nikias growls and snarls like an angry dog. “But I can’t tell you any more than that because I’m trying to treat all the alters of a system as individual patients to the best of my ability as long as it won’t obstruct system communication. I won’t disclose anything Leah confided in me to you. But that also means,” she tacks on when Nikias balls their hands into fists, their knuckles standing out white and bony, “that I won’t disclose anything you confide in me to anyone else in the system. This is a safe space for every single one of you. Whatever you wish to talk to me about, I won’t pass it on to anyone else, be they external or internal. I promise you that.”

“What if I confess to a crime?” Nikias counters quick as a shot and Janet tenses a little.

“I wouldn’t report you if you confess to a crime you committed in the past. If you told me or if I had reason to believe you were planning to hurt someone or yourself, though, I would alert the police.” She swallows and moistures her lips. “Why? Have you committed a crime?”

“It kinda … feels like it,” Nikias admits eventually in a low voice crushed by guilt and embarrassment.

“Take your time,” Janet encourages him softly, hoping that this is the day the former persecutor is finally going to bare his soul in her presence and allow her to help. “I’ll listen whenever you’re ready.”

They start pacing, huffing to themselves that she can’t possibly ever be ready for what they’re about to share with her.

“Why not?” Janet prompts gently.

“Because I fucking crushed on Thanos, okay?” Nikias howls and slumps back into the armchair, shaking all over. “I … I fell for him hard and I don’t know how I could possibly do that. What does that say about me, huh? That I had the hots for a fucking child rapist? For the longest time, I accused Loki of hurting the system in all kinds of ways but I … I did that unspeakable thing and it hurt Leah and I … I can’t forgive myself and I don’t think Loki has forgiven me either because he threw it in my face again that I haven’t dealt with it and it’s driving me fucking insane because I don’t even understand my motivation anymore!” The words are gushing from their mouth now, sprouting everywhere like water spurting from a broken basement pipe. “Was it the bright lure of freedom that drove me to him? Was it Loki’s daddy issues that bled into me? Did I just want to get back at Hela for hurting Loki so badly? Because I sure as hell enjoyed the look on her face when she realized that Thanos was flirting with me and I with him. It made me dizzy because it was the first time ever that I felt powerful! Or is there maybe something inside of me, something filthy and disgusting and dark, that will forever be attracted to older guys? I just feel like this … this monster sometimes that can’t be … trusted.”

Janet glances up from the notes she jotted down when the alter pauses long enough to draw a shuddering breath.

“What did you write down just now, hm?” Nikias snaps at her. “That I’m a fucking creep who can’t be cured? I swear if you tell anyone about this, I will rip your tongue out!”

“I won’t. I was just making a note of how your past experience with Thanos is the reason you do not trust and feel uncomfortable around Robert in the present,” Janet explains. “Because you’re obviously worried that finding older guys attractive is a character flaw by default.”

Which also explains their frequent ageist comments and jokes, she adds in a quick scrawl. It’s a defense mechanism.

“And let me guess,” huffs Nikias. “You’re gonna tell me that it isn’t?”

“I am, yes. Because the rules of attraction aren’t exactly straightforward. They never have been and, even though some people act as though they have figured it out, there are a lot of complexly intertwined reasons that determine why we fall for someone or have a specific type. There’s the physical attraction, of course, and the way our senses respond to another person’s smell, but there are also factors like proximity, similarity, reciprocity and familiarity. And I don’t think this list is exhaustive by any means.”

Nikias is staring at her with wide-open eyes. “What the fuck does any of that even mean?”

“It means that people cannot be faulted for being attracted to someone,” Janet explains in simpler terms. “Whatever it was that you felt for Thanos for whatever reason, it doesn’t make you a monster because it wasn’t your fault. We do not choose to find someone attractive and we don’t actively decide whether or not we develop a crush on someone or fall in love with them. It’s something our bodies and brains do entirely without our permission, unfortunately.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I know it’s not easy to believe that,” Janet tries again. “But one thing I have no doubt about is that you care about the system. You always did. You’re sitting here right now and you’re beating yourself up because your crush on Thanos hurt Leah. A monster wouldn’t think that way, Nikias. A monster wouldn’t care.”

Nikias makes a sound half-way between a sob and a scream and buries their head in their hands.

“And, even though it can be a bit of a slippery slope sometimes, in my experience, it’s common to find all kinds of people physically attractive; whoever they are and whatever their age might be. And that’s okay as long as we’re not preying upon vulnerable groups or actively sexualizing people just because of certain characteristics such as their ethnicity or their age. It doesn’t mean we’ll inevitably crush on that person or want to pursue a relationship with them. It’s perfectly normal to recognize a person whose physique or appearance ticks all of your boxes. That’s happening to all of us on a fairly regular basis and it doesn’t mean all the other factors that typically make us fall in love with someone are ever going to enter into the equation. Acknowledging that Robert is an attractive man isn’t going to make you fall for him if the rest doesn’t fit and it doesn’t mean you’re morally corrupted either. It means you’re a human being.”

“Of course you’d say something like that,” snickers Nikias as they look up at her with red-rimmed eyes and a sly smirk. “I bet that approach makes it easier to justify your little crush on Thor.”

Dammit, Janet curses inwardly.                               

“Well, I wouldn’t go as far as calling it a crush but, yes, that was my whole point exactly,” she says outwardly, trying to breathe through the sting of embarrassment. “Thor is an attractive young man. I’d have to be blind in order not to notice it but that’s all there is to it because he doesn’t possess any other qualities that’d make my brain consider him a potential partner, so I don’t feel the need to justify myself and beat myself up about it.”

At least not anymore, she pointedly doesn’t add.

“Do you really not find me disgusting?” Nikias asks, his tone almost pleading.

“No,” says Janet, infusing the two-letter word with every ounce of conviction she can muster.

“Thanks, doc. I, on the other hand, still think that you finding Thor hot compromises your professional honor or work ethic or whatever the fuck it’s called,” Nikias snarks, reverting back to their usual prickly self for a second before turning serious again and reminding Janet van Dyne of what’s she’s been wanting to discuss with the alter ever since they fronted in therapy a while ago. “What do I know though? It’s not like I have the skills and the knowledge it takes to work an outside-world job.”

Chapter Text

“You’re welcome to report me to the medical board,” Janet defies them with a wink and moves on to the next subject when her patient huffs out a dry laugh. “But I’d rather go back to what you just said about not having any particular skills. Do you think that the whole system would agree with that if I asked them?”

Nikias shrugs.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you this for a while now, actually. Do you ever question your place in the system or feel as though they don’t need you anymore?”

“Oh, I don’t just feel that,” Nikias snaps back. “I know it. They’re not exactly subtle about it.”

“How so?”

“Nobody ever cares about what I have to say because I’m a loose fucking cannon and my methods are too drastic,” Nikias blurts out, for once an overflowing fountain of spluttered words and bubbling emotions. “Nobody ever approved of what I’ve been trying to do to keep the system safe. Everybody always acts as if I’m still the same unhinged bad guy who went with Hela and they all ganged up on me because I took Frigga’s car and told Robert to break up with her. Magnus told me the others were worried I was actually gonna try to hurt either of them, Frigga or Robert, I mean, which still fucking stings, and Loki called me selfish—Loki of all fucking people—and accused me of doing it solely for myself and not for the whole system’s well-being. He said that Leah had to go out there to meet Robert utterly unprepared and that it’s my fault we got exposed as a system due to my inability to process what I’ve felt for Thanos. He said I’ve been doing a lousy job. ‘Fucking protector, my ass’, he said, and, yes, I get it, I was a lousy protector. I threw myself at Thanos and he took the body’s virginity with brutal force and then I just left Leah and Loki there to clean up the mess when I couldn’t deal with it. A real protector would’ve called Frigga and if I had, Robin wouldn’t have ever split and maybe Hela would still be alive if she’d gotten treatment earlier. I get it. A lot of what happened is my fault.”

“You were carrying a lot of pain and trauma,” Janet tries to soften the blade of his self-loathing.

“That’s not the point! The point is that I know I fucked up but it’s all in the fucking past and they still don’t trust me,” fumes Nikias, their rage frothing up and chasing away everything else. “Okay, yes, I could’ve called a cab instead of taking Frigga’s car, I know, I could have hurt someone, blah blah blah, but, in the end, it all worked out, right?”

“How do you mean?”

“Exposing Leah and our DID didn’t hurt anyone. It turned out to be a good thing because it made Loki realize that Robert’s not gonna judge him in the same way his fuckwad adopter always did and you just told me that Leah is well taken care of by the guy and I got the impression it made Frigga’s and Robert’s relationship stronger too, so, yay. Win-win all around. Who cares if my methods are a little radical sometimes? I take action and I shake things up when everybody else just tries to shush and coo, and it gets shit done.”

That’s one way of putting it, yes.

“But the others don’t see it that way?” Janet prompts. “Or were they perhaps just reacting out of emotional instinct because it was a stressful situation when they realized you’d trapped them in the jungle to confront Robert all by yourself?”

Nikias shrugs. “Maybe but there was this moment when I met Loki and Bailey in the inner world shortly after. Loki bolted before it could happen but the entire encounter had a weird feel to it, as if we were about to blend, and I can tell Loki’s been thinking about it ever since. How it’d benefit him if he fused with the two of us specifically. And the amnesic walls separating us are very thin now, barely existent in some places, and stuff keeps bleeding through almost constantly. Loki has gained access to ninety percent of the time I spent with Hela in LA; except for what happened with Thanos. And I know I’ll get to hold on to this particular experience for a liiitle while longer because it’d be too disturbing for Loki’s delicate ace brain to deal with sexual abuse but it still feels like … my days are kind of numbered? That I’ve served my purpose and am gonna disappear any time soon, whenever Loki is ready or, rather, whenever Jor decides he is?”

“That must be very scary,” Janet acknowledges.

“It’s not scary, it’s fucking infuriating,” hisses Nikias. “We’ve dealt with Loki’s shit for so long, shielding him from all that pain, and as soon as he’s ready to cope with whatever we endured it for him, fucking Jörmungandr just snaps us out of existence! I was there when it happened to Robin and I was there when it happened to Loptr, and I just know I’m gonna be next. I just know it and you won’t do anything to stop it because y’all think that a full integration is the ultimate step on the path towards healing as if Loki truly is the only one who ever mattered and I fucking hate it! I fucking hate it!”

“And that anger and that hatred is completely valid,” concedes Janet and gives them a moment to breathe before she continues. “But I’m on your side.”

Nikias eyes go wide. “You are?”

Janet nods. “I don’t think a fusion with you and Loki would benefit the system at this point. You’ve learned to understand and respect each other most of the time but you’re still two separate identities who see the world in a very different light, not least of all because of your sexual identities and your relationships with Thor and Frigga. If you two merged in the near future, it’d be endlessly confusing for the newly blended alter and you can tell your gatekeeper that I’m begging him to consult with me if he disagrees with that assessment.”

“You’re serious.” Nikias all but gapes at her.

“I am. I also think you’re underestimating your skills because there is one thing that you can do that no one else in the system can, right?” Janet encourages him.

“Oh yeah, what is that?” scoffs Nikias. “Stabbing people in the ribs and miraculously missing their major organs?”

“Driving a car.”

The alter blinks then, their lips hanging open for a few heartbeats. “What?”

“You’re the only one capable of driving a car. Loki doesn’t trust himself to get behind the wheel. The children can’t do it and neither of the other active alters like Killian or Magnus ever learned how to drive. You’re the one who has a chance to extend the system’s independence by making sure you have the possibility to get from point A to point B whenever you want or need to without having to rely on either Frigga or Thor or your driver or public transport to pick you up. You said you didn’t have the skill or the knowledge to build a career but you undoubtedly have the skill and the knowledge to apply for a driver’s license and ensure that the system takes another very important step towards adulthood and autonomy.”

“Are you fucking serious? That’s my new purpose? Becoming Loki’s chauffeur?” snarls Nikias. “The designated driver of the jungle system? Now that’s really alluring.”

“Well, I think you are intrigued by the idea of owning a car and being able to drive around town by yourself,” Janet counters. “In fact, I think the only reason you’re not getting a license is because you’re worried you’ll be giving Frigga any kind of satisfaction if you do what she asked you to do; which, if we’re being honest, inconveniences you more than it does her at the moment. I’m fairly positive she wouldn’t gloat if you ‘caved in’ and she wouldn’t revel in ‘having been right’ because she just wants all of you to thrive, individually and collectively.”

Janet didn’t mean for it to sound quite so confrontational but it’s been a long day and, in the end, she can forgive herself because it propels Nikias into action and gives them a goal to work towards.

~°~

Later that night, Loki stares at Nikias with wide eyes and sky-rocketing anxiety levels as he listens to the protector’s cheerful summary of the conversations they had with Frigga and Dr. van Dyne about getting a driver’s license. A fucking driver’s license!!! What the … They’ve been sitting on the ground in the jungle together, backs against the mouth of the cave because Leah seized control of the front to have dinner with Frigga and Robert in their apartment, but Loki jumps to his feet all nerves now, heart pounding, mouth dry.

“What? Are they out of their fucking minds?!” he splutters, his voice shrill, his thoughts spiraling at the very thought of the body behind the wheel of a car. “That’s impossible! What if we switch or have a flashback or … Just no! It’s too dangerous, okay?”

“Well, that’s your opinion but Dr. van Dyne said it’s not impossible for a system to learn how to drive,” Nikias counters. “She said it’s safe because we’re all here to protect your stupid ass and none of the others is gonna randomly switch out behind the wheel because they don’t want the body to fucking die in a car crash!”

They have a point, Loki has to admit, but still.

“And you can’t just do that thing again where you decide all by yourself what’s best for all of us just because you’re fucking scared!”

“I’m not scared,” yells Loki. “I’m being reasonable!”

“You are scared,” huffs Nikias. “I can practically smell the fear on you but I’m gonna do it no matter what you say. I’m just informing you that I am because I don’t wanna be the asshole anymore.”

“Okay fine,” Loki grits out when two things occur to him in rapid succession. One: Chances are that this wasn’t the last time Nikias decides to get behind the wheel of a car and if they keep doing it, they’ll get pulled over eventually because no one can stay this lucky forever. Suddenly, going through the ordeal of obtaining a valid driver’s license certainly looks a lot more attractive than the prospect of having to pay a fine or do community service or, if worst came to worst, spend a few months in jail. None of them would survive a fucking week in jail, that’s for sure. Two: His strong-headed protector won’t be able to just strut into the local DMV and walk out with a license. Bureaucracy would never allow it to happen this easily. Bureaucracy is a pain in everybody’s fucking ass all the time but, today, it plays into Loki’s hands. “But just so you know, you’re required to pass a written test and a road test, so I suggest you start studying right away.”

Nikias eyes him suspiciously. “What kind of written test?”

“A whole list of multiple choice questions,” Loki tells him. “I don’t know how many. Let me look it up.” He struts into the cave and comes to at the dining table with a half-eaten slice of homemade pepperoni sweetcorn pizza in front of him and a particularly nasty switching headache knifing into his temples.

“... discussion with Milo the other day,” Robert is currently saying with a pensive expression stamped across his face. “I still can’t figure it out and I refuse to ask Google for the answer because it doesn’t count if I don’t understand it by myself, right?”

He chuckles; a clear, genuine sound.

Odin’s genuine laughs were always few and far between.

Hey, I wanna go back, pouts Leah.

“Loki could probably help you figure it out,” Frigga tells him with a fond smile and Loki’s heart almost pounds out of his chest and up his throat, and he has no clue why the realization that they’re talking about him sometimes when he isn’t there hits him so hard because that’s what people do, right? Gush over all the ways in which their children are allegedly gifted or talented or beautiful?

Just a minute, says Nikias.

“He took AP philosophy in high school when he was fifteen,” elaborates Frigga.

“Fifteen, huh,” Robert whistles with appreciation and Loki doesn’t fucking know what to do with that because he is smart, yes, but he’s also a fucking high school renegade who got kicked out of that particular class by his homophobic teacher because he showed up plastered at eight thirty in the morning and then got beaten up for exposing his class mates as intellectually far beneath his level.

Those were the days, snarks Nikias.

Leah keeps pushing for control.

Loki sucks in a breath and slowly rises to his feet. “I’ll be right back.”

Before Frigga can ask him if he’s alright, he darts into his room, closes the door behind him, reaches for his phone and does a quick search. “There are thirty questions and you’ve got to score eighty percent or more.”

Thirty multiple choice questions? asks Nikias. Are you fucking kidding me? What do they wanna know?

“Hm, let me see.” A few more clicks and swipes, and Loki reads from the screen with a vicious smirk pulling at his lips. “You can help keep the driver behind you a safe distance away from your vehicle by a) driving ten miles per hour faster than the car behind you, b) driving ten miles per hour slower than the car behind you or c) maintaining a steady speed. Any idea?”

What the fuck? Are you serious?

Loki puts the phone away and their youngest protector kicks his butt straight back into the cave.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Do you know the answer to that?” Nikias demands to know.

“My money’s on c) because if you drive faster, you’ll probably end up speeding and if you drive slower, you’ll probably end up pissing off the person behind you and unwittingly obstructing traffic and endangering lives but I’m not really sure. Because I never thought about getting a license,” Loki concludes, chest filling with glee.

“Fuck you,” growls Nikias.

“What was that about?” Loki hears Frigga ask in the external world.

“They’re talking about questions with multiple choices about driving fast and slow,” answers Leah.

“Look, I’m not saying it’s entirely impossible,” Loki concedes after giving it a few more moments of thought because if they succeeded, that’d be at least a small weight off Frigga’s shoulders and she deserves that more than anything. “It’s just not as easy as you probably thought it was gonna be and I … I mean, I can see why you wanna do it and I’ll admit that it makes sense. And I’ll help you, with the studying, if you agree to apply for an instruction permit first and take a few driving lessons to make sure we’re actually gonna be able to pull it off without imperiling innocent civilians. If not, you’re on your own. How is that for a compromise?”

“Driving lessons?” Nikias echoes. “With who? Thor?” A desperate cackle. “I’m sure he’d be thrilled to teach me again.”

“Your choice. You can do it with whoever you think is the person who’s least likely to freak you out,” Loki tells them.

“You can be such a manipulative little shit sometimes, you know that?” hisses Nikias and that stings a whole fucking lot because of the unspoken ‘just like your father’ accusation that Loki’s mind adds unbidden but unsurprisingly. Ever since Dr. van Dyne asked him about law school, Loki has been secretly battling the realization that, while Thor and Odin always appeared more alike on the surface due to their intimidating stature and their temper and their over-powering physical presence, Loki has learned a lot more from his adoptive father in terms of linguistic prowess and manipulative arguing than he ever cared to think about until now.

“I do,” sighs Loki. “But I’m only trying to keep us safe, okay?”

~°~

Nikias can’t argue with that and, in the end, the lucky soul who gets recruited for the task of giving Nikias driving lessons is, druuuum rooooll, please, Darcy Lewis.

Loki didn’t see that one coming at all because Nikias has always despised his nurse’s bubbly personality (or so they claimed) but she agrees without hesitation and Loki can see why Nikias picked her because she truly is that one person in their immediate social orbit who is the least likely to either freak out or freak anyone else out.

And it works.

Nikias gets the hang of it pretty quickly while Loki tries to get the hang of … all of his other issues, basically.

Like dealing with Bailey and the part of his consciousness that this specific alter represents or coming to terms with why he can’t just let go of how his emotionally constipated bastard of an adoptive father treated him all his life even if he was previously convinced he was ready to move on. Or trying and failing to hold on to consciousness in Robert’s presence or even relax one tiny, little muscle. Or accepting the fact that his mother is undeniably and irrevocably very much in love with a guy who makes her so happy that she’s either humming or singing schmaltzy allo ballads from the seventies in the shower almost every morning. Or vigorously beating himself up because his own idle lizard brain is basically making sure that Robert isn’t getting a chance to get to know, let alone, like him. Or mentally preparing for Arizona ComicCon in Tucson because he agreed to attend a few months ago to sign autographs in a mad rush of confidence in his underdeveloped social skills he hasn’t felt since.

~°~

When that day finally rolls around, Loki almost vibrates out of his skin with nervous energy and squirms on the passenger seat of his fellow writer’s car to stop his agitated brain from buzzing. Unfortunately, they don’t have their license yet and Loki asked the guy to carpool because, entranced by a sudden, powerful adulting spell, he realized that it’d make more sense to ask Keith than to ask Frigga or Thor to take a day off to drive him up there even if he died a little at the thought of spending two hours on the I-10, locked in metal cage he can’t escape with a guy who rarely ever talks.

“’s gonna be okay,” Keith assures him, sparing with his words as per fucking usual. “Fun even. You’ll see.”

Yeah, right.

As it turns out, once he gets over himself with Killian’s emotional support and encouragement, Loki does have fun. And interacting with fans of his work (!!!) reminds him that Bailey is so, so wrong when he claims that he wants to do something that ‘truly matters’ because what Loki has created matters a whole lot of people too and some of those are there now (paid a lot of money to be there, actually) and they’re approaching his table and they’re asking him to sign their issues of Antenna Girl and other personal items, and they’re telling him that his art is powerful and made them realize that they don’t deserve to get bullied.

It’s electrifying.

He’s dizzy when he leaves the venue, high on an overpowering sensation of pride and achievement he never experienced before.

He’s impacting teenage lives, creating a refuge for them.

That girl Sigyn, she called him an inspiration.

A fucking inspiration!

Loki finally is someone who has something to give instead of just taking up space as a son or a patient or a little brother whose only responsibility in life it is to manage his mental illnesses and stay sane, sober and alive. He’s an actual member of society now instead of just leeching off the health care system and his family’s emotional resources.

See? We don’t need to go to fucking law school, Bailey.

We’re doing great.

~°~

Unfortunately, Loki can’t let go of the idea entirely, no matter how hard he tries to carve the seed out of his brain. It’s like a very persistent weed, that image of him performing in the courtroom, and no matter how many times he digs it out of the cracks, scraping and yanking and clawing at it until his nails break and he draws blood, it strikes down its nasty roots and sprouts again. And again. And again.

In the beginning of October—shortly after he finished the first run of Antenna Girl, Nikias finally passed the road test on their second try and they spent almost three hours in the car dealership together with Frigga, may the fates have mercy on her poor, poor soul, before finally deciding on a shiny as-good-as-new black Celica; one Mark above the model Hela’d been driving—Loki has tired of trying to pull out the obstinate weed every day and decides to water it instead. He signs up for a part-time undergrad law degree online and breezes through the first two courses on a particularly sweltry Sunday afternoon with no sweat at all.

~°~

“And guess what,” Loki sighs and throws his weight against the backrest of the armchair in Dr. van Dyne’s office in defeat with all he’s got. He’s down to one session per week on Friday mornings because despite various role-playing scenarios in DBT and hand-written ‘He’s Likely Gonna Like The Following Things About Me’ lists and tireless encouragement from everyone including Nikias (who took over once and, radiating their famed charisma, asked Robert out of the blue why he never invited them to a football game and deemed the answer along the lines of “Because your mother said neither of you would enjoy yourselves in a loud stadium full of people” acceptable enough), they’ve kiiiind of reached an impasse with his mother’s new partner due to Loki’s persistent cognitive inability to figure out how his past abusive relationship with Odin turns his brain into a fucking bag of cats whenever Robert enters the room. Which sucks a whole fucking lot because the pressure to reveal himself to the guy just builds and builds and builds while he stays thoroughly blocked and he’s so, so exhausted and even more tired of his own psychological drama. Tired of being afraid, tired of being the victim, tired of being enslaved by his past, tired of denying himself good things because he’s too damn scared they’ll be snatched from his loose, undeserving grasp as soon as he dares to open up and expose the real Loki. But hey, such is the nature of complex trauma. If you aren’t ready to deal with it, your brain won’t fucking let you.

Boo-fucking-hoo.

“What?” asks Dr. van Dyne, ballpoint at the ready, always prepared to note down anything that spews from his mouth at the speed of light.

“I started studying and Bailey vanished,” Loki tells her and pauses for dramatic effect only. He has no clue why he’s being so extra whiny today but he can’t shake it off either. “Into the jungle. Without a trace. Nobody has seen him in six days. What do you make of that?”

“I’m not sure yet.” His therapist flashes him a little smirk and throws the ball right back into his hands, making him stumble as he catches it. “What do you make of that?”

Chapter Text

Friday, October 28^th, 2022

“If I knew what was going on in my maze of a brain, I wouldn’t need a therapist to guide me through it, now would I?” gripes Loki, still unable to deep-six the whiny.

“Fair enough,” says Dr. van Dyne and then proceeds to ask him if he liked studying. How it made him feel. If he had fun.

Loki tells her that he did even if those first courses were just introductory stuff that wasn’t particularly challenging for him but it reminded him of how much he always enjoyed the act of studying itself. High school might have been his own personal sliver of hell but he’s always been intrigued and intellectually stimulated by the process of learning everything about a particular subject and memorizing all the details because he could quietly recite the information to himself during moments of mental anarchy when nothing made sense and it would calm him as a small child. Name all states and their capitals in alphabetical order. Name the highest mountains of the world by elevation. Name all prime numbers between zero and a hundred. Later, he loved to craft arguments and write research papers because the act of organizing his ideas into a coherent, eloquent, persuasive whole forced at least a semblance of structure upon his chaotic thoughts and he loved to solve mathematical equations because they had an inherent logic to them that was so easily discernible and so effortlessly simple and pure in its reliability. But most of all he enjoyed to ponder over philosophical riddles and paradoxes, to prod at a problem from every possible angle until the explanation revealed itself to him in a flash of bright, rainbow-colored light. Basking in the certainty that, if nothing else, he was at least highly intelligent was the only time in his childhood he felt like he could do something right and was finally worth something; and it never lasted long.

They don’t get very far with the Bailey issue that day because they end up talking through some of the bullying memories that kept bubbling up ever since his mother mentioned AP philosophy a while ago but the following week, Dr. van Dyne asks him if he thinks he’ll stick with it even if the alter who wanted to attend law school in the first place might have gone dormant again for good.

Loki can only manage a half-shrug. “Maybe? I don’t know. Why? Because of Odin?”

Of course she’s asking because of Odin.

What else is fucking new?

Daddy issues anyone?

Because Loki got them in fucking spades.

“Well,” says his therapist and looks at him with the kind of empathetic, motherly ‘I’m sorry I’m doing this to you but in order for you to heal we need to deal with your most painful memories’ expression that manages to infuriate him and validate his struggles at the same time. “I don’t think we’ll be able to ascertain why Bailey pushed you in that direction if we completely disregard your adoptive father and his very successful law career.”

“He pushed me in that direction because I was always fascinated by what my Dad was doing and how he was doing it,” sighs Loki. The thought occurred to him for the first time weeks ago but it’s been slowly morphing into an understanding over the past few days. “When Thor and I were younger, Odin always talked about how he’d want us to carry on his life’s work but then, when I got older, I realized he didn’t really want me to or maybe he did but he made it very clear that he was way more invested in preparing Thor for the path. My mom insists that was because Thor needed more preparation but that didn’t occur to me as a kid. And then later, he always complained about my looks and blathered on about how I wasn’t ever gonna be respected by anyone—which basically meant him—dressing like this ‘gay emo kid’ with ‘absolutely no regard for’ existing dress codes, and I finally understood the message. It’d always been like this. He’d always been like, ‘Look, I made this mold cavity for you, now please liquefy and change your very essence so that I can I pour you in and watch until you harden into the form I want my children to have.’ This is an odd metaphor, I’ll give you that, but the point is that I understood the message when I was like thirteen, maybe? It must have been right around the time Nikias was born, actually. Afterwards, I really didn’t want to be impressed anymore. I started to tell myself that defense attorneys are cruel and cormorant, and that I hate Dad’s job for various reasons and that I never want to be like him or work for him.”

The very thought makes Loki’s throat tight.

“I guess Bailey just made me aware of the fact that I’ve been doing the splitting thing. The BPD one, not the DID one,” he tacks on, which makes her smile. “Odin was horrible to me but he’s good at what he does. He’s sharp and intimidating and impressive. I can admire him for that and still … It doesn’t have to mean I think he’s a good person, you know.”

“Absolutely.”

“Besides, there are a million other jobs in law but I just moved on from it because I wouldn’t have been able to deal with it if I’d failed to impress him or make him proud; if he’d looked at me with scorn or disappointment as he so often did. I wanted to please him but I knew I wouldn’t, so it seemed safer not to try. And I was fine with not trying until Robert showed up and raved about his son, who graduated summa cum laude from med school, and now I’m suddenly not so fucking fine with it anymore. It’s like a flashback almost,” Loki muses and the proverbial lightbulb slowly goes on as he continues. “For over two years now, I’ve been living alone with my mom without any paternal influence and I was able to put those experiences aside for the time being once I understood that she doesn’t care about success and splendor and popularity, and that she’ll love me no matter what I do. The ‘perfect son’ dilemma wasn’t relevant anymore because, to my mom, I am the son she wants. She doesn’t want anyone else. To her, I am ‘perfect’; whatever that actually means. But as soon as a father figure showed up, boom, my brain went, ‘Oh heeeyyy, here’s this chunk of unprocessed data that I found, deal with it!’ And it sucks because I really thought I’d put it behind me but apparently it isn’t that easy to digest the fact that you could never please your father or make him proud. And I don’t get it! Which fucks me up the most. Why wasn’t my intelligence and my academic performance enough to please him? If I hadn’t had a mental illness, I would’ve graduated college at eighteen, probably. My IQ is way above average, for fuck’s sakes. That’s stuff parents brag about and he never did and I don’t fucking get it. Because I know now that I’d be good at it if I stuck with it. I no longer doubt my intellectual abilities.”

“But he does?”

“He doubts everything others like about me,” Loki grumbles, indignation and despair and one-and-a-half decades’ worth of a twisted kind of longing to finally hear praise from the man who put him down so many times crowd together in his throat in a big, sour lump.

“Did he ever tell you that you aren’t smart enough to go to law school?”

“Not that I remember but he wouldn’t have made it about my intelligence. Couldn’t have. He would’ve said that I was too emotional or too psychologically unhinged to compose myself in the courtroom or whatever.”

“Do you think he’s still seeing someone who is too mentally unstable to follow in his footsteps when he thinks of you now?” Dr. van Dyne asks then, her voice calm and neutral.

“It’s likely, isn’t it? Thor said he didn’t really change, so why would he suddenly appreciate me as a person?” Loki challenges her, tasting the venom on his tongue. “Name me one good reason.”

“I can’t,” admits she. “Not in good conscience.”

Tears spring to Loki’s eyes in response to such brutal honesty. “See? And let me tell you, it still fucking hurts.”

“I’m sure it does.”

“But it also makes me angry because I feel like I’m caving in or crawling back, as if I’m doing it for attention and not for myself—I haven’t even told Mom and Thor yet because I’m so conflicted about it—and Dad always hated it when I did something for attention. And it’s kind of a paradox too because he wanted us to follow in his footsteps but if I did it now, he’d still misinterpret my intentions. Or not because I do crave ‘revenge’ of sorts. I do want him to acknowledge that I’m worth something and that I can excel at something other than ... Oh, no. Hell to the fucking no,” Loki exclaims and slaps his thigh in eye-scorching frustration.

“Drawing?” Dr. van Dyne suggests.

Le grand fucking sigh.

The grandest sigh in the history of le grand fucking sighs.

“Just shoot me,” uggghs Loki because seriously. Can his brain just turn itself off for one fucking day?

“Did he ever tell you that your art wasn’t good enough?” Dr. van Dyne wants to know after joking that she obviously wasn’t going to shoot him.

Loki shakes his head and heaves a sigh from the bottom of his wretched, twisted little soul. “No, last time I painted the portrait that showed Thor in his football jerseys for his birthday, he called it ‘astonishing work’ and then he went ahead and framed it and hung it up over the mantelpiece.”

Dr. van Dyne clucks her tongue in a way that instantly puts him in defensive mode.

“But he only did that, so he could brag about Thor’s future to everyone who set a foot in the room!”

His therapist scribbles that down. “I know you haven’t talked to him in a long time but do you know what he thinks of your current employment? Did he mention it to Thor, perhaps?”

“No one knows what’s going on in that notoriously stubborn head,” snaps Loki and crosses his arms for good measure. “But I’m sure he never read a single issue.”

“Well,” sighs Dr. van Dyne and clicks her pen. She does that sometimes before she speaks. Loki guesses that it helps her focus. “I hate to sound as though I was taking his side but you’re assuming a lot of things right now. You don’t really know if that is how he still thinks of you because you cut off all contact two years ago. Now, I’m not saying that he changed but a lot of what your brain is currently trying to process is still purely hypothetical.”

“So what?” scoffs Loki. “Are you saying I should talk to him to stop making mountains out of mole hills in the confined space of my brain? Or text him, maybe? Let’s see: ‘Hey Dad, I just enrolled in law school. Have I made you proud? Btw, what do you think of Antenna Girl? You likey?’ Something like that?”

Dr. van Dyne can’t hide a smirk in the face of his snippy attitude but then she turns very pensive. “Something like that, yes. But only once you feel ready and are one-hundred percent confident you’re stable enough and wouldn’t end up harming yourself if you did.”

Harming himself, huh?

What a nice euphemism for ending up in the ER with alcohol poisoning after passing out in the park.

Unbidden, Loki’s mental focus shifts towards the image of Odin’s liquor cabinet in their Vegas living room and the mere thought of downing a glass of scotch makes him dizzy as cravings he didn’t think he’d ever experience again erupt inside of him like an erratic electric pulse licking along his nerves.

Shit.

Loki moistures his lips. “I’m not.”

“Then no,” his therapist tells him. “Not right now, not this week, not this month even. I’d like to get back to your concerns of caving in or crawling back for a moment, if I may?”

“You may.”

“A lot of people struggle with that same issue actually. Parents do tend to influence their children’s career decisions early on, either actively or by unwittingly endorsing one thing and condemning another even if they don’t consciously intend to, and that creates some kind of shadow that follows you around and makes you second-guess your decisions sometimes. But, every once in a while, embarking on a career path that your parents envisioned for you just so happens to match up perfectly with what you want for yourself and what you really enjoy doing. If that happens, there is no shame in it. It’s you finding something that you love to do and deciding to go with it not to please your parents or gain their approval and recognition but because you want to do it. And sometimes,” Dr. van Dyne concludes, “unfortunately, it’s both and you have to put in some more work into figuring out your motivations.”

Right.

Ri-hiiiiight.

His motivations and his emotions and everything else are all over the fucking place. He really, really wants a drink right now but knows he shouldn’t have one because look what happened last time he stole a bottle of a liquor and he really, really wants to keep drawing comics for the publishing house and go to Comic Cons again to hear from his fans (!!!) but he’s also intrigued by the law school material and he really, really wants to see if he could pass the bar and perform in a courtroom and maybe work for Frigga and help her get justice for abuse victims like himself but it’s all tainted by this sick yearning for Odin’s attention he hasn’t felt in so long and he’s dreading Odin’s reaction too if he ever told him and it’s all one big stinking, smoldering, suffocating mess.

“Yeah and I know we will,” Loki sighs because he knows they won’t put that particular fire out today. It’ll probably take them weeks, if not months or even years, to extinguish the last tiny spark. “What about Robert though? I still don’t get what he has to do with any of this. I mean, I get the whole father-figure-stirring-up-unresolved-issues thing. But he’s … Robert seemed impressed when my mom told him that I took AP philosophy in high school. I heard him whistle in that unequivocally appreciative way and I know that he likes my art because Mom told me he commented on the drawings she put on display in our apartment and Leah told me that he read an Antenna Girl issue when she showed it to him because she still gets so adorably excited that the character is based off of her. Robert might actually really think along the lines of, ‘Yeah, Frigga has a smart and talented kid’ but still I’m afraid to interact with him. He might be saying stuff to me that Odin never did. Encouraging stuff. Thor told me that Robert made him feel seen and appreciated, and that he felt like he could come to him if he ever got into any kind of trouble. So, why am I so fucking blocked whenever he shows up? It doesn’t make any sense because nothing, literally nothing, suggests that I have anything to fear from him! So why?!”

Dr. van Dyne chews on that for a moment before she replies. “We almost exclusively focused on your fear of abandonment so far but you also never resolved the loss of identity that stems from not knowing who your biological father is or was. This used to be a source of insecurity, pain and self-flagellation for you, and perhaps it’s simply too painful to accept that kind of treatment from someone who walked into your life as a stranger a few months ago because it might remind you that your birthfather didn’t stick around at all and your adoptive father couldn’t find it within himself to show you some basic human decency. That angle is probably worth exploring in the future.”

Poleaxed, Loki nods.

“Speaking of, it just occurred to me that your biological birthday was yesterday. How are you feeling about that?”

“My presumed biological birthday,” Loki reminds her grimly but for once he can’t be bothered by the fact that Hela didn’t look at the clock while she was giving birth. With a bit of hindsight, the part of him that slept away entire days on whatever opiate Thanos fed him understands that time probably wasn’t of vital significance to her. “But I’m okay with that now, I think. Because Hela was just a fucking kid and she never had any help from anyone.”

~°~

Back at home, Loki paces to shake off that unpleasantly throbbing sensation he felt deep in his gut when Dr. van Dyne mentioned his birthfather earlier as well as the realization that last time he got shitfaced in order to forget, he recovered deeply buried memories instead, slivers of Odin’s brutal outbursts of anger he’d never had access to before that day. If he drinks again, maybe he’ll loosen up a little instead of remaining so thoroughly mentally blocked about fucking everything.

But if he started, he might not know when to stop because he was probably already an alcoholic when he was born (Hela told Nikias straight to his face that she still drank every day of the pregnancy), which is why he got addicted so quickly when he ‘started’ drinking at thirteen.

Yeah, better not think about that.

Loki keeps on pacing and the cats glare at him accusingly because his nervous energy disrupted the quiescent state he found the furry little devils in when he came home.

03:07 p.m.

Frigga is currently in court. She reminded him several times that the hearing might take the whole afternoon and even left a note on the fridge this morning (Please remember that my phone will be on silent after 2 pm. Love you and see you tonight, Mom xx) just in case, so she won’t be waltzing in any time soon.

He’ll be alone for another couple of hours.

It’s the perfect opportunity to get a few drinks into him.

And if he drank wine instead of hard liquor, he’d drink more slowly, right? He’d savor every sip instead of gulping it down like the last time when he was in such a hurry to forget and he’d …

No.

No, no, no.

Loki tries to remind himself that he can’t possibly fucking meddle with his medication regimen again only a few months after he got back on the right track.

He can’t, can’t, can’t.

Shouldn’t, shouldn’t, shouldn’t.

No way in fucking hell.

It’s just his treacherous mind thinking treacherous thoughts.

Loki keeps on pacing.

((You don’t know who your ... the man who had sex with Hela the day you were conceived, you don’t know who he was.))

((He was obviously a filthy, randy, spineless asshole.))

((You’re just some pathetic drug whore’s little bastard child.))

Loki keeps on pacing.

((It just hurts to think about it. That I’m a crisis to him.))

((I apologize, Loki. I never meant for you to fear me.))

((Well, if you truly think so little of me …))

Loki stops pacing and throws himself onto his bed with so much force that one of the slats breaks in two under his right knee with a loud, nasty creak. He screams into his pillow until his throat aches and his vocal cords protest.

Unfortunately, he still wants a drink.

Unfortunately, he still can’t fucking have one.

He fetches himself a lime soda from the fridge instead (look at him TaKiNg ChArGe Of HiS rEcOvEry™ like a good triple A), curls up on the couch with his notebook and begins to burn his clusterfucked cravings out of him with words.

Dr. van Dyne mentioned my birthfather today. It felt like being punched right in the solar plexus and I think it made me realize something but it’s hazy and amorphous, and I have to write it down to actually put it into words. I’d locked all of that painful shit away in a heavy steel box in the basement of my mind with three iron padlocks and convinced myself to accept that I couldn’t earn Dad’s love (because he has only rudimentary emotional skills, not because I’m unlovable but it still sucks) and move on with my fatherless life—which was a lot better in many, many ways. I’m still pretty sure that I don’t need a father figure because my life was fine but Robert’s fucking here now and he’s going to stay. I can’t possibly ignore him any longer, so I have to drag that heavy steel box back out again in order to understand why Robert’s presence triggers me so badly.

Thor and I worked out long ago that Odin victimized us very differently. My brother is hurt and angry because he misses the father he once had. He told me that he trusted him as a kid, that he made him feel safe. A part of him still refuses to believe that he lost Odin forever because he feels in the deepest reaches of his soul that he has the right to a father who cares about him—which is probably also why he has no problem whatsoever taking what he feels entitled to from Robert; even if that sounds awfully frigid and transactional. Anyhow, Thor distanced himself from Dad because he believes if he avoids him long enough, Odin will miss him eventually and make an effort. Because he loves him. That’s who Thor is, always trying to see the good in everyone, including himself. But I … I never got to experience that same luxury of being graced with a bone-deep conviction to be worthy of fatherly love. I don’t fully believe that I have the right (?) to a father figure in my life because the guy who impregnated Hela probably didn’t even know he’d fathered a child (and I still don’t buy Thor’s ridiculous story about the brilliant space engineer who came to Vegas with his buddies, thank you but no thank you) and my adoptive father told Thor that he couldn’t bring himself to love me because I wasn’t his by blood. I never had a real father before and I think I was never meant to have one. I think Hela was meant to abort my fetal ass but she decided to give birth anyway (and I still don’t know why and I’m not sure Nikias does) and flipped the universe the fucking finger. I understood a while ago that Dad never made me feel safe and that he wasn’t ever gonna be able to give me that feeling of safety and protection Thor remembers; the kind of certainty that I have nothing to fear from him, that there is no need to be afraid of him. Because there were tons of reasons to be afraid. He fucking locked me in my room and in his car. He hit me and grabbed me and choked me and he yelled at me to shut up when I was falling apart. Theo exists because of him. Robert, on the other hand, is a good guy. Everyone is vouching for him, even Nikias. He’s nothing like … okay maybe not nothing like Dad because he’s strong and athletic and very assertive too but in a non-threatening way. He is very gentle and patient with Leah, he even taught her how to swim. He fulfils Mom’s every wish. He gives Thor the kind of healthy life advice Dad couldn’t give him because he was too obsessed with what people might think. He seems genuinely invested in my mental well-being and very motivated, actually, to understand DID. He gave me zero reason to be afraid of him, so maybe it’s because I don’t feel entitled to ‘take’ anything from him like Thor does because I learned long ago that I’m not allowed to, was never meant to.

Do I really hate myself that much still?

I thought I was doing alright on that front.

And thinking of Dad now, thinking of how it’d feel like if I had to talk to him again or see him again or even tell him that maybe I do want to study law after all, of how his voice would sound and how his eyes would narrow at me … I’m actually still scared. That’s why he still has this much power over my subconscious and why he appears in my dreams. I’m still worried he’ll be able to hurt me in the future if I ever see him again because … I don’t actually know why. He hasn’t been in my life for two years and he hasn’t been in Thor’s either. He’s not a threat anymore in that immediate sense but it still feels like he is.

It still feels as if—

Loki’s hand stills mid-sentence when a memory finally begins to hatch from its thick amnesic cocoon. It breaks through slowly enough for him to watch, a dark creature struggling covered in thin wisps of larval silk, and he stares at it until a giant black leech with red, monstrous eyes emerges and glares at him with malicious glee.

His heart leaps up into his throat.

What did you think would happen, the nasty memory creature seems to snarl at him, if you push yourself so hard to remember?

What indeed.

Chapter Text

The memory takes Loki back to their Vegas home and into the mind of Theo, who is sitting on the couch with a blanket on his shoulders, staring at the TV screen where the animated version of Mowgli is playing when Daddy clomps into the room. This isn’t the Daddy he knows though. He’s so furious, his anger is like a second person that marched into the room with him. His footsteps are like thunderclaps and Daddy’s cheeks are flushed red and his glassy eyes are narrowed and his neck veins are a dark, throbbing line between the collar of his shirt and his jawbone. Theo’s stomach tightens and he hugs the blanket tighter around himself. His heart is pounding against his ribs like the sticks of a big marching drum because Mommy went upstairs to take a shower. He can hear the water running.

“You had fun with your mother today, hm?” Daddy barks and his speech is slurred, his breath sour. “Because I sure as hell didn’t and it’s all because of your little aches and pains. I had to go that gala she was supposed to accompany me to alone, just so she could fuss over you here and I’m tired of your meltdowns!” His index finger is stabbing into the air right in front of Theo’s face. “This needs to stop! You’re almost ten years old, goddammit, not some fucking toddler! I’ve been very patient with you, my boy, but enough is enough.”

Theo swallows and tries not to move. He is nauseous and dizzy from leaving the jungle, and he doesn’t know what a gala is or what happened with Mommy earlier. He doesn’t know why Daddy is so mad either. Daddy never yelled at him like that before. It’s scary.

He tries to apologize but no sound comes out of his mouth when he opens it.

“Has it ever occurred to you that she isn’t just your mother?” Daddy asks. “She’s my fucking wife and I’m actually entitled to spend a little time with her every now and then, don’t you think?”

Theo nods frantically, fear lodged tight in his throat, choking him.

His pulse is racing.

Daddy’s face is almost purple now. “Good, then stop it with the goddamn theatrics because you’re ruining my fucking marriage and I won’t let you! Do you hear me, boy? I won’t let you take her away from me! You were never even supposed to …” He cuts himself off with a roar. “Shit.”

Theo nods again, trying to breathe without making a noise.

“Answer me when I’m fucking talking to you,” barks Odin. “Did you hear me?”

Yes, Daddy, Theo wants to say.

I’m sorry, Daddy.

He says the words but they don’t make a sound and Daddy slaps him across the cheek.

Theo’s eyes fill with tears because it stings so badly and Daddy freezes, his features crumbling into shock and disbelief. The red flush bleeds from his cheeks, leaving behind a ghastly pallor. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean to slap you. I … I’m sorry, Loki. You just … You make me so angry sometimes. I promise you it won’t happen again. Come here.”

Daddy tries to hug him but it doesn’t feel very nice because he smells and sounds so weird.

Upstairs, Mommy turns the water off.

Theo’s relief is almost palpable.

Odin holds up his index finger again. “Promise me you won’t tell her.”

Theo won’t tell her because Daddy apologized but he doesn’t know if he should nod or shake his head to tell Daddy that.

Mommy, please hurry.

The memory ends there but Loki can’t return to the present.

He’s trapped somewhere in between both living rooms; a cold, dark sliver of reality that is neither past nor present, neither jungle nor floaty land nor external world.

I won’t let you take her away from me.

The threat plays in his mind over and over and over again.

Because he did, eventually.

He took Frigga away.

He …

Loki can’t move, can’t think, can’t breathe.

All he sees is Odin’s face, twisted and darkened by an unpredictable drunken rage.

He’s going to throw up.

His heart is going to beat itself to death with its frantic pumping to the rhythm of terror.

I won’t let you.

“No, Dad, please,” pants Loki but he can hardly speak. “I didn’t mean to … I didn’t …”

His throat is too tight and there’s no air in his lungs.

Dread claws up his back and he starts gasping for breath then, clutching at his chest, twisting his shirt between his fingers, heart still racing.

If it doesn’t stop, he won’t make it.

This time, he is gonna die from the panic.

He’s sure of it.

He needs an ambulance.

He won’t make it otherwise.

“Loki?”

Wait, is that …

“Mommy?”

Oh please …

“Yes, baby, yes it’s me. Can you hear me?”

His mother sounds close and yet so far out of his reach.

Still no air.

“I’m right here. You’re safe, Loki. Follow my voice. You’re in the present. It’s Friday, the twenty-eighth of October, 2022. You are grown-up, you live in Phoenix and you’re safe and I’m safe too, I didn’t have an accident or anything. I’m home now but I need you to breathe. It’s okay to breathe, baby, okay? Can you breathe with me?”

He fucking can’t.

A hand lands on his leg and he flinches and yips.

“It’s me, darling, it’s Mom. You’re safe, I promise.”

No, he’s not.

He’ll never be fucking safe again.

A moment later, something soft lands on his lap and Loki feels for it, his fingers recognizing George’s ears and trunk. He presses the elephant to his chest. The memory’s hold over him loosens a little and he hugs the plushie tighter. “I-I’m stuck,” he rasps. “I-It’s s-so hard to … c-come … back.”

The effort it costs him to speak completely exhausts him and sends a chill through his entire body, like a shockwave erupting in his core and traveling outwards.

Frigga asks if she can hug him and he nods.

Her arms loop around his shivering back and he finally reaches the front again, trembling all over and weeping salt into his mother’s golden curls.

“Shhshshsh, I’m here. You’re safe with me.”

It takes too much strength to get his breathing back under control and hold himself upright at the same time, so he sags against her and curls up with his head on her lap. “It’s … not because y-you were … late,” Loki explains because it wouldn’t be fair if she blamed herself again.

“That’s good to know but I’m not technically late. It’s only five,” Frigga tells him and begins to card her fingers through his hair but then her hand stills again. “Is this okay?”

Loki nods and a particularly nasty shiver creeps down his spine. His mother pulls a blanket over him, rubbing some warmth into his arms and back with one hand and massaging his scalp with the other.

((Has it ever occurred to you that she’s not just your mother? She’s my fucking wife!))

Another shudder rocks through him.

“This is a really bad one, isn’t it?” murmurs Frigga and hugs him tighter, rocking him instinctively as she has done a million times throughout his life.

((This needs to stop!))

“Sorry,” Loki croaks out.

You’re too old for this shit.

You only ever take.

“Don’t be sorry, my love,” soothes Frigga. “It’s not your fault. You wouldn’t choose to do this to yourself. Nobody would.”

You have no right.

Yes, I do, Loki tells the nasty voice that only ever feeds when his deeply buried, subconscious feelings of lack, self-loathing and general not-enoughness rear their ugly heads. She’s my mother.

((She didn’t give birth to you but she chose you, Lo, over and over again. She loves you and she’s going to stick it out no matter what you do, believe me.))

Overwhelmed by the stress of the intense flashback and soothed by his mother’s touch, Loki dozes off like a fondled feline.

~°~

“How did it go in court?” he asks her when his lids flutter open again. It comes out hoarse and he’s really, really thirsty but he still can’t move a limb and he doesn’t want her to move either. Right now, he still needs the anchor she provides.

Frigga groans. “Ugh. The judge is a misogynistic prick and I’m fairly certain I will lose this one.”

((I’m actually entitled to spend a little time with her every now and then, don’t you think?))

“Speaking of misogynistic pricks,” Loki dares because if he doesn’t talk it out right da fuck now, the memory he uncovered and all of its explanatory potential regarding the current Robert Predicament™ that is finally starting to disclose itself just below the surface of his conscious mind will either torment him for days to come or just go up in smoke. “Were you ever afraid of Dad?”

It’s clear from the way she smacks her lips and how her caressing movements halt for a moment that she did not see this question coming. “Why are you asking?”

“Because I want to know if you ever felt at his mercy,” Loki explains and she ponders over her answer for a few moments.

“I’m not sure ‘afraid’ is the right word,” Frigga tells him eventually, twisting a strand of his hair between her fingers. Thankfully, it almost never leads to flashbacks anymore when she touches him like this. “Thinking back, I realize now that I was tense on some days. There was this knot of apprehension in my chest when I was thinking along the lines of, ‘Oh, please let him be in a good mood today’ or ‘Please, don’t let there be any temper tantrums’. I think, ultimately, that’s why I worked so hard; to keep him happy and make sure he wouldn’t bring his frustration home to you and your brother. It seems ridiculous now that I never considered that a problematic mindset at all but, anyhow, I was never afraid that he was going to hurt me. Tyr asked me if he had, in Norway last year, and your uncle seemed really anxious to hear the answer too. There were a few times shortly after you went missing that I think he was close to hurting me but he always turned away. And in those moments, it wasn’t fear I felt because he couldn’t have really done anything to me. Of course it’d would have hurt physically if he’d hit me but I wouldn’t have felt at his mercy because, ultimately, Odin and I were equals. Even if I didn’t use it for the longest time, in the back of my head I always knew that I had leverage. I had a choice to terminate the relationship; to tell him that if he went one step further, I’d kick him out of my life and never look back. You don’t need a spouse to survive emotionally. Children don’t have that same luxury when they’re younger. Children can’t just break up with their parents when they get hurt by them because they need them to provide for them in all sorts of ways. He couldn’t have truly hurt me in the same way he hurt you and your brother, so I wasn’t afraid in the same way. Does that make sense?”

It does and it doesn’t because Thor never seemed afraid either. His big hunk of a brother positioned himself between Loki and Dad when Odin tried to hit him and the murderous gleam in his eyes screamed, “Come at me, old man, let’s beat the crap out of each other!”

But that’s an issue for another time, another therapy session.

He’s sure there’ll be plenty.

“What about now?” Loki brings himself to ask. It’s terrifying and so, so hard but it fucking needs to be said and he will say it. He will. Just watch him. “What if he ever finds out that you and Robert are serious? I mean, have you thought about what he’ll do if he finds out?”

“Not really, no. It’s been over three years since I filed for divorce. I think he swallowed the bitter pill by now. Besides, I’m pretty sure Thor already told him,” Frigga tacks on and Loki’s nerves coil tight. “Because I know he likes to rub Odin’s nose in my happiness. It’s his way of retaliating and striking where it really hurts.”

“Yeah but … what if he didn’t? What if he’s been trying to swallow it and shove it down but it all just piled up inside of him and he’ll blow up eventually?” Loki’s voice shatters against a sob and breaks. It finally makes sense why he was so worried about his mother getting married again in the first place despite his rational knowledge that marriage is, by nature, a patriarchal institution that ensured women were passed as property from their fathers to their husbands and does nothing to change the quality or intensity of a relationship. It has no bearing on daily-lived reality (his least of all), except perhaps that she and Robert would get to file a joint tax return. But it’d mean something to Odin if Frigga remarried, if another man were to legally wed her and be allowed to call her his wife, to call her ‘his’ as if she’s a fucking trophy he can parade around. “Thor says he still loves you. What if he won’t accept it if you get married or move in with another man? What if he only tolerated it as long as it wasn’t serious and when he learns that you’re deeply in love and want to start over with someone that isn’t him, he’ll just snap and boil over with anger and jealousy?”

((I won’t let you take her away from me.))

Loki’s breath hitches and the panic rolls back over him like an avalanche. Frigga inhales a long breath and expires tremulously. “Honey, i-is that why you’ve had so much trouble adjusting to the relationship? I-is that why you’ve been so worried?”

Loki sees Odin’s face again, drunk and dark and eerily distorted, and another sob wrestles itself free. He burrows deeper into her and another tremor rocks through him. “Why are you saying it as if I don’t have every reason to be worried?”

“Loki, that’s not going to happen. I know your father hurt you but he never laid a hand on me and he isn’t going to hurt me now,” Frigga assures him. “And if he tries, I’ll have him arrested. You don’t need to worry about him coming down here to threaten me or …” She trails off when he sucks in a sharp little gasp. “Wait, you’re not worried about me, are you?”

Loki swallows. He never wants to confront the real world again. He’s just gonna sit here with his face buried in Frigga’s blouse until judgment day.

“Baby, are you …” She trails off again because Loki’s brain has never cooked up something this unfathomably ridiculous before and even Frigga Fjörgyndottir’s capacity for understanding has to reach a limit someday.

“He always blamed me for fucking everything,” howls Loki and it all comes spluttering out then, what’s been holding him back ever since he heard that there might be a new man in his mother’s life half a year ago. The whole ugly truth of it breaks through the barrier that separates his conscious from his subconscious mind, like a roaring wave tearing through a dam and just as loud and strong and disorienting. “You said it yourself. That he made me feel as if I had no right to or don’t deserve your comfort and that I absorb too much of your time and leave very little for him … That’s what you said and you were right. He accused me of ruining his marriage. One day, he staggered into the room drunk when he came home, heard that you were in the shower and used the opportunity to vent his frustration that you’re spending so much time with us on Theo by yelling at him and smacking him across the face. He apologized immediately but he also threatened him not to tell you and Theo was fucking terrified. I’m pretty sure he blamed me for the divorce and for you moving down here too. And if you’d never moved here, you wouldn’t have met Robert and you wouldn’t have fallen in love. I took everything from him even though I was never supposed to be a part of your life. It’s all my fault and I don’t … I can’t … I can’t be the reason, Mom. I can’t … If Robert’s getting along with everyone else, that’s fine because at least I’m not enjoying it that you’re so happy with a new family down here. At least I’m not part of it or having the … the blood of taking something I was never meant to have on my hands!”

“Baby, no,” soothes Frigga, tears creeping into her voice as she tightens the hug. “You deserve the world after everything you went through. After everything he put you through. You have every right to enjoy your happiness and that of the people close to you and you were absolutely meant to have a family. I never told you that because both our therapists insisted that I didn’t bring up the subject unless you signaled me you were confident talking about it by asking me about it but it was pure luck or coincidence or whatever one wishes to call it that I found you on our doorstep that day. Thor was spending the night at Tony Stark’s for a sleepover and Odin was working late. I was in the middle of preparing dinner when I suddenly remembered that I’d ordered a book and dropped what I was doing to check the mailbox if it had arrived. That’s when I found you. You were already unconscious, barely breathing, half-frozen. If I hadn’t been expecting that delivery so eagerly, you wouldn’t have survived because Odin would’ve entered the house through the garage later. We wouldn’t have checked the mailbox until the next morning or even noon. Actually, I think you wouldn’t have survived the next hour. It was such a close call, my darling. Fifteen, thirty minutes later and I wouldn’t have been able to get you to the hospital in time to save your life. I choose to call that fate. And if I was supposed to find you, you were supposed to be found.”

Loki imagines the scenario for the first time considering her perspective, the terror she must have felt deep in her gut while holding a half-dead infant and reading that vitriolic note Hela left her.

((You gave me your child because you hoped I would pick up a fucking corpse!))

“That must have been so terrifying,” whispers Loki and fresh tears pool into his eyes.

“It was very traumatic, yes.” Frigga’s voice is shaking as well. “I had nightmares in which I picked up a dead baby, over and over again, for years. That’s why I was so protective of you because I loved you so much. From the moment I picked you up, I loved you, Loki, and I’ve loved you every day since. I love you more than I ever loved Odin and that pathetic bitter old bastard ruined our marriage all by himself. He can go eat shit and die for all I care!”

Loki snorts a laugh that metamorphoses into a sob on its way out.

“We built a new family here, honey. You, me and your brother. Odin doesn’t deserve to be a part of it anymore. It’s he who doesn’t belong anymore and it’s he who was never supposed to be a father in the first place because he’s clearly extraordinarily bad at it and inflicted a lot of harm. He doesn’t get a say anymore. If you don’t want Robert in your life, I’ll accept your decision, sweetie, but don’t deprive yourself of a chance to meet someone I truly care about because Odin begrudged you the love you deserve. You’re no longer at his mercy and he’s downright pathetic. You’re stronger than he ever was. Just think about it.” She hisses an incredulous laugh. “He’s a grown man who blamed a child for his problems, who got jealous of his own son. Odin had his chance. He may not be capable of fully understanding why I left him because he never learned to take accountability for his own actions but I’m positive that he understood that I’m gone and that I won’t be coming back. We’re safe here, Loki. And if, against all odds, he does snap and boil over with anger and jealousy, if he dares to come here and threaten you or hurt you again, I’ll rip his head clean off.”

~°~

Loki is still sobbing into Frigga’s lap when the key is being turned in the front door a few minutes later and the cats leap up to greet Thor, who calls out to them with an exuberant, “Hey!” followed by a quieter, “Oh hi, Fenrir. Nooo, not my laces. No-hoo. Leave them alone! Fen!!”

There was a time Loki would’ve been deeply ashamed if his big brother had found him in a crumbled heap of tears and misery on their mom’s lap, a time he would’ve had to deal with the embarrassment over exposing his vulnerabilities or even having them on top of all that gut-twisting pain. Thankfully, the fusion with Loptr took that away and he can simply be glad that his brother is here too now to help Frigga tether him to the present and far away from Odin.

“Oh, shit. Bad day, huh?” Thor asks when he finds them entangled on the couch, no trace of judgment in his tone. He simply bends over and kisses them both on the head.

“Fucking awful,” rasps Loki. “Since you’re still standing, can you get me a bottle of water and some Tylenol? My throat is sore and my head is about to explode.”

Thor tells him sure and asks what happened when he comes back with the remedies.

“I had a flashback.” He’s so fucking tired and his lids and bones are so heavy but he’s parched and he can’t drink any water with his face pressed into his mother’s belly. He heaves himself into a sitting position, wipes away his snot and tears, takes three large gulps from the bottle, washes down the pain meds and hugs the blanket tight around himself. “A fucking awful flashback.” His eyes dip to the black smears on Frigga’s light pink blouse. “Sorry about the mascara.”

She decides to opt for humor, bless her. “Last I checked we owned a washing machine.”

The couch sags beneath Thor’s weight as his brother sits down beside him and squeezes his leg. “Are you feeling better now?”

“I feel fucking awful,” Loki says, repeating the words for the third time because it all feels just so fucking awful. “Sorry for all the f-bombs, Mom.”

“It’s okay. I know you’re upset and you have every right to be,” their mother says, stands and kisses both their heads just like Thor did a moment ago. “I’ll go change, my loves.”

“So, let me guess?” asks Thor. “This is about Dad?”

Loki chuckles dryly. “What gave me away?”

“A wise kid once said, ‘There is usually only one person who can fuck us up like this’. And right now, your eyes are so puffy, they’re practically swollen shut. Can you even see anything right now?” Thor jests and softly pokes him in the cheek.

“Shut up, you big oaf,” croaks Loki. His bones and muscles are still so heavy and at the same time feel almost liquid, and he lies back down on his brother’s lap. Thor seamlessly picks up where Frigga left off, complete with the hair ruffles and the back rubbing and everything.

He belongs here, Loki tells himself. He belongs with the woman who pulled him away from the brink of death and the strong, beautiful, loving son she raised. And he didn’t steal anyone’s family, for fuck’s sake. The thought alone is ridiculous. Frigga and Thor are both adults with the capacity and the ability to choose unimpeded. They chose him. Odin lost them and Loki didn’t because Loki pulled his screwed head out of his skinny butt and put incredible efforts into therapy to learn to manage his disorders and to repair his broken relationships. Odin is a narcissistic prick, a shitty father and a rotten fuckwad of a husband who didn’t lift a finger except for writing a letter and recording a video message. He blamed his own marital problems on a hurting child he’d previously robbed of a voice and then slapped as punishment for not speaking. He promised Thor he’d go to therapy to save their relationship because he allegedly loves him so much and then gave up after one session because it’d felt too awkward. He didn’t go back even when Thor made it clear that they’ll never have a relationship again if he doesn’t bite the bullet.

It’s not incredibly hard to see why they chose to move forward with Loki instead of staying behind with Odin, is it?

And yet …

If only it sank in all the way into his subconscioussness.

If only that visceral fear that Odin will barge in and loom over him and beat him to a pulp again dissolved.

“Dad can go fuck himself,” Thor murmurs in his deep, soothing baritone. “I’m honestly so fucking done.”

Loki hums his agreement and snuggles closer, drinking in the warmth of his brother and drifting off into sleep.

He’s safe now, after all.

Everything else can wait.

Chapter Text

Absentmindedly stroking through Loki’s hair, Thor’s brain decides to once more ambush him with the memory of what his brother said about Thanos a few months back; that this child-abusing piece of shit had been so much more violent than Odin (and I know you’ve got the scars to prove it, Meat Loaf roars into his inner ear) but that he’d still been capable of comforting him. A man like that—not a man; a black-hearted monster who whisked children off the street and hooked them on drugs and handcuffed them to his bed to whip them and burn them and fuck them and who got off on their helplessness and their vulnerability and his dominance—knew how to fake enough of a semblance of fatherly affection that Loki stayed with him. Meanwhile, Odin just … didn’t know how to and simply couldn’t be bothered to learn. Refused to learn even and still does. The fact that Loki still misses that pervert sometimes is still making Thor fucking sick, no matter which way he looks at it, and the fact that Loki simply refuses to let Robert—who doesn’t even have to fake anything at all because expressing affection comes naturally to him—into his life makes sense regarding how he was treated before but it also means that Loki still can’t trust and maybe even that he’s afraid of being happy or of being treated right. A tiny part of Thor can’t help but think that Loki’s subconscious is forbidding him any contact with Robert because it remains firmly convinced to this day that he doesn’t deserve a sliver of basic human decency from anyone outside of his small social bubble.

You’ve been through the fires of hell, Meat Loaf continues to sing in the confines of Thor’s head. And I know you’ve got the ashes to prove it

I treasure your love
I want to show you how to use it
You've been through a lot of pain in the dirt
And I know you've got the scars to prove it

“Hey,” Frigga greets him again as she comes back into the room in shorts and a baggy plain white shirt, wrapping her arms around his chest from behind. “How are you holding up? How was your day?”

“Shhshsh,” whispers Thor when a soft moan escapes Loki’s lips on his lap. “He’s asleep. Don’t speak. Don’t move.”

That makes her chuckle. “You sound like the parent of a newborn. For the first couple weeks after I had you, I swear I was afraid to move once you’d fallen asleep because I was scared you’d wake up if I as much as breathed. But it’s okay, honey. You can talk. If he’s asleep, he’s asleep.”

“If you say so,” whispers Thor, still unconvinced.

“Yes, I say so,” says his mother and sits down beside him, holding out her phone. “How about ordering some dinner? I’m starving.”

~°~

“I think I’m holding up alright,” Thor tells her after they’ve placed their orders and relocated to the balcony to let Loki rest. “I’m spending a lot of time thinking about what Dad must have done to Loki to make him grow so emotionally attached to Thanos and so afraid of interacting with Robert right now but also how well Dad must have hid it from us. Because if he’d, like, hit him in the face in front of either one of us, we would’ve done something, right? It’s not even that I still feel a lot of guilt because I was a child myself and Doc Rhodey made it very clear that maybe I wouldn’t have done anything because I was still dependent on him too emotionally but I also don’t remember him ever being that violent with Loki when we were kids and I’m not sure it’s because it didn’t happen when I was there or because I blocked it out.” He swallows because that next question is tricky given all the accusations of neglect he hurled at her in the past. “Do you remember anything like that?”

“No,” sighs Frigga. “As far as I recall, he never hit him in my presence and I’d like to think that I would’ve intervened if he had. But then again, I just stood by and let all the verbal abuse happen, so.”

“No, you didn’t. You always disagreed with him. You always took Loki’s side and softened Dad’s words. That much I do remember.”

“That wasn’t enough though, was it?” mumbles Frigga and chuckles; a sharp, grim sound.

“No but you didn’t know that at the time,” Thor insists. “And if you start with the self-blame again, you won’t get any dinner. You hear me, Mom?” He waggles his index finger in front of her face. “You’ll go to bed hungry.”

“Oh, stop it already with the parenting.” She slaps his finger away and laughs, and the sparkle in her eyes chasing the guilt away is everything.

“I mean it, though. We’re, um, psychologically educated now, right?” Thor continues, delving deep into his thoughts. “We weren’t back when all of this was going down. If we went back in time now, armed with the knowledge we gathered in therapy for the past three years, we wouldn’t let Dad get away with anything. Before therapy, we didn’t know what actually constitutes abusive behavior or how harmful yelling can be or that anything can basically be a traumatic experience for a child. We had no fucking clue and sometimes I’m still struggling to mentally straighten out my own interpretations of Dad’s behavior, especially when I compare how he treated me to how he treated Loki. My instinctual response is still to insist that he didn’t really ‘hit’ me. Because I do remember the times I caught a bitchslap and I look at the situation and, while I know that no parent should ever lay hands on a child, I still think I deserved it; like the time I took his boat and everyone just started puking all over it or when I lied to you and spent all that money at a casino on New Year’s Eve when I was still underage. I was such a jerk in High School and it doesn’t bother me when I think about it now. My mind still goes, ‘It was just a box on the ear’, you know. I don’t hate him for doing it to me and I don’t think along the lines of, ‘How could you do this to me? How could you hurt me like that?’ Because it didn’t hurt me.” He gestures towards the inside where his baby brother lies curled up on the couch. “Not like that. Not enough to have nightmares or flashbacks and I’m not scared of him. I’m just angry and sad and disappointed.”

Frigga is sitting across from him, taking it all in, her teeth worrying at her bottom lip.

“And I’m very baffled too how he managed to always pull himself together when we were there,” Thor goes on and the puzzle pieces itself together in his brain while he’s speaking. “He never laid a hand on him when we were in the room, meaning that he always had it in him to control his temper but then, when they were alone … It’s like someone flipped some kind of switch and Loki just sort of became his punching bag for every kind of frustration he experienced. And I hate it so much that he wasn’t enough for Dad to develop the same scruples that held him back from harming us physically and that he always made sure to keep it from us. Which makes it even worse because it means he knew how wrong it was and that he’d face the consequences if you specifically ever found out that he was redirecting all his anger towards his own child.”

His voice is fucking trembling by now and Frigga takes his hands into hers, squeezing gently.

“But it’s also … a relief in the ‘It’s not our fault we didn’t see the signs because he always made sure there were no signs to see’ kind of way, isn’t it? I mean there were but not, like, glaringly obvious ones.”

“I honestly never thought about it that way,” admits his mother. She’s looking at him incredulously, her mouth slightly hanging open, a flicker of pride gleaming in her eyes. “But it’s true. Every traumatic memory Loki recovered of Odin abusing him, everything he told me, everything that led to a severe flashback or a relapse … I was never in the room or even the house when it happened because if I had been, it wouldn’t have happened. We never spoke of it and I’m not sure whether Odin even knew that your aunt had told me about his and Tyr’s childhood but he knew that I didn’t approve of his father’s violent ways, and you’re absolutely right. Odin wouldn’t have crossed that line in my presence, the flaming coward. He always controlled himself right up until it was becoming more and more obvious to the both of us that our marriage had been going down the tubes for a while.”

Just like Amora, thinks Thor and pushes the bile rising in his throat at the comparison back down, Odin picked a defenseless target and waited until the coast was clear and he could do as he pleased with him to vent his frustration. He shoves the nauseating thought away because dinner will be here soon and the smell of meaty tacos and the mental image of CSA don’t exactly go very well together. “Which means you weren’t blind, Mom, and I’m still so awfully sorry that I ever accused you of allowing any kind of abuse to happen to Loki just because I needed someone to vent my own frustration on.”

“You’re forgiven,” Frigga replies and brings his hand to her lips to brush a gentle kiss against his knuckles. “Gods, I love you so much.”

Outside, the delivery guy rings the doorbell. 

~°~

In the early hours of the morning, Loki’s consciousness stirs and, for a few moments, he can’t tell if he’s awake because his surroundings are entirely blurred and tinged strangely red. He blinks, trying to orient himself. He can feel a mattress under his hands, so he’s inside somewhere, in an actual physical room and not in floaty land or that cold, dark sliver of reality that is basically floaty land’s antithesis and that he couldn’t escape from by himself until his Mom came home and her voice lured him back into the present. But is it a wooden cabin in the jungle or is he back in the external world?

He can’t tell but if he’s wondering that, he probably isn’t awake, right?

No, this is a dream.

Has to be.

Loki blinks again and the mattress under his butt is gone.

He doesn’t feel it anymore, doesn’t feel himself anymore, and when he lifts his hand, he doesn’t feel an arm and all he sees instead of a limb is crimson particles of dust held together by an invisible force. It’s like his body is dissolving or liquefying and Loki panics and tries to scream but he’s voiceless just like Theo and then Odin looms over him, purple-faced and huffing, and he raises his hand and Loki ducks down, arms crossed in front of his face for protection, but the blow goes right through his cloudy, shadowy form.

It doesn’t hurt at all.

Before Loki can marvel at that, he’s in his Vegas childhood bedroom and Odin is holding Theo in his arms, balancing him on his hip, calling him his big boy. He even boops his nose and presses a kiss against his son’s temple. Theo is smiling at him, eyes awash with gratitude, but then the dream shifts again and Loki finds Theo lying on the couch, a shivering bundle rocking himself back and forth, arms slung around his drawn up knees, crying tonelessly.

Why was Daddy so mean to me, he’s thinking and Loki can hear it as loudly as if he’d spoken. He wasn’t ever mean to me before. What did I do wrong?

Another memory bleeds into the dream. Odin had spent the better part of the afternoon bellowing into his phone and he was still burned up with anger when they all got into the car to drive to a restaurant for dinner where they’d meet their mother. “What’s gotten into you today, hm?” he snapped when Theo only communicated with nods and headshakes and flicked an icy glance into the rearview mirror. “Cat got your tongue?”

Loki’s gut clenches with seething fury because Theo might have been created to shield the system from Odin’s wrath but his mutism still incurred the old bastard’s ire on at least two occasions and how is that fucking fair?

“Hey, shshshsh,” soothes Loki and sits down beside the child to rub the boy’s shoulders, fighting back his own sobs and tears. “I’m sorry, Theo. I’m so sorry. You did nothing wrong. Dad was … a mean and dissatisfied person. You didn’t deserve this.”

Neither did you, says Dr. van Dyne’s voice. You were that child once.

Theo swallows and he curls up on Loki’s lap and loops his arms around his waist. Loki tries to calm the aching alter with his touch and his words and, for a long while, they both sit there locked in a tight embrace and they weep from the bottom of their scarred souls.

After a while, a hand lands on his shoulder and squeezes, gently shaking him.

The dream starts to slip away and Theo clings tighter.

“I know you’re exhausted,” his mother’s voice comes from very far away, “but you missed dinner yesterday and you slept for almost fifteen hours.”

Fifteen hours? Is she kidding? Why is he still so fucking exhausted if he slept this long?

Loki groans because it’s so fucking unfair that his illness won’t even grant him the small favor of letting him sleep for as long as he needs to recharge his batteries.

“You need to take your meds and eat a bite, okay? Come on, darling. You can go back to sleep right after.”

Loki slowly struggles awake and sits halfway up, blinking. He can see the room but, apparently, he hasn’t made it all the way back to the front and is still sort of welded to Theo’s consciousness and Theo is the one who’s currently in full control. It’s very disorienting and confusing and it’s giving him the precursor of a migraine. As if he headache from hell he suffered yesterday wasn’t enough.

Loki tries to speak but he isn’t far enough out to make use of the body’s vocal chords, so he just nods. It occurs to him, as he reaches for the glass of water with one hand and those tablets that keep him sane and safe and stable with the other, that he’d probably suffer from selective mutism if he and Theo ever fused or would’ve suffered from it all his life, really, if he hadn’t existed in a fragmented state of identity. The very thought terrifies him because what if they’re in the process of fusing right now and what if he ends up mute??? and the clunky antipsychotic gets stuck in his throat and refuses to be swallowed. He leans forward and clumsily spits the pill back out and into the body’s hand. Loki can feel the smeary, dissolving coating against his skin.

“Am I speaking with Loki?” asks Frigga, understanding dawning on her face.

Yes, Mom, I’m right here, he wants to yell but he can’t and it’s driving him insane. It’s almost as though he’s piggyback-riding Theo’s consciousness; attached enough to get stuck but not attached enough to influence the entire body himself.

He reaches for his phone, opens the notes app and types, Co-con with Theo. Can’t speak.

They’ve considered taking an ASL course many times but Theo has never fronted regularly or long enough in the past to make any progress learning sign language and even Dr. van Dyne hasn’t had a sparking idea so far how to further improve their communication; apart from the obvious solution to help the mute alter overcome his trauma and regain his voice.

Need 2 take another Tylenol & go back 2 sleep.

“But you need to eat a bit first,” Frigga instructs and holds a muffin out to him. Chocolate chip blackberry, with a molten core, still warm. It smells heavenly and the first bite is delicious. Loki chews and the antipsychotic goes down with a mouthful of sugary brown goop. 

She’d made plans to go hiking with Robert today, Loki remembers when it registers with his overwrought brain as he eats that she has her hair up in a braid and is wearing the teal gym leggings and the light pink tank top she recently bought, all sporty and adventurous and ready to go.

Which is fine with Loki really—all he wants to do is go back to sleep, pinky swear, he isn’t in the mood for a drink anymore—but Theo is still a bit disoriented and panicky and doesn’t want their mother to leave because he’s still reeling from the memory Loki uncovered and the nightmare it unleashed. He’s tense and on high alert and he’s scared too that he’ll say something wrong. It fucking breaks Loki’s heart and then it fills him with terror because even if Frigga hides it well, it always sucks a little when one of the child alters gets stuck near the front during the night and their presence in the body wreaks havoc with all of their plans for the day and she must be disappointed and the fact that she and Thor are used to it doesn’t mean it’s not fucking annoying every time it happens and if Theo asks Frigga to stay, they’ll be ruining her day and it’ll be Loki’s fault and he can’t do that to her.

“Hey, hey,” murmurs their mother. “Deep breaths, baby. I’m here.”

Loki pours every last ounce of strength into the effort to calm his lizard brain because he’s too tired for these kind of thoughts and his head is already fucking threatening to explode.

Just fucking no, okay?

Abandonment anxiety, I say thee nay!

It’s ok, Mom. U can go. I know u got plans, types Loki. I’ll just go back to sleep.

Frigga cocks a brow. “Are you sure?”

I’ll b safe. If not, I’ll call u.

“Alright, my darling. I love you.” Frigga kisses his forehead and Loki curls up on the couch with George again.

He’s asleep before she even returned with the Tylenol and, while he thankfully regains control over his voice on Saturday afternoon, he still sleeps away the better part of the weekend.

He doesn’t fully recover from the ordeal until Monday morning just in time for Halloween and his social birthday (as opposed to his assumed biological birthday—which, you know, have to be terms the shrinks coined exclusively for him) the day after. Both of those proceed rather uneventfully compared to recent years partly because, much to Loki’s cowardly relief, Robert flew halfway across the world to visit his son in Asia on Sunday night.

~°~

In the days that follow, one thought lingers persistently.

Theo didn’t deserve this.

Loki makes sure to secure the memory of this dream in a box and carry with him at all times the image of his mute alter on the couch, forlorn and alarmed and distraught because he just couldn’t understand why his own father had hurt him like this.

And, finally, for the first time in years, Loki doesn’t feel like a helpless victim when the traumatic memories poke at him because his anger finally stirs again. It’s almost as though a river of lava razed all of his fury to the ground at some point in LA or shortly after perhaps, leaving only a cloud of volcanic ash that engulfed him and clouded his thinking and enshrouded him in this constant, paralyzing fear of his adopter. But after the flashback, the dust began to clear gradually and now the first plants are poking through the soil and unfurling their bright green petals and his anger is sprouting one leaf at a time.

Odin could get so nasty and cruel and cold when he was disgruntled and he didn’t even realize how much pain he inflicted. He told Theo he was sorry right after he hit him but then he implicitly threatened him that he’d be punished if he told Frigga the truth and he even implied that it was his own fault, and he never realized how flawed that argument was.

((I’m sorry, Loki. You just … You make me so angry sometimes. I promise you it won’t happen again.))

But it did happen again and again and again; until Odin grew so frustrated and impatient with Loki’s mental illnesses that he didn’t even bother to hide his transgressions from Frigga or Thor.

((I’m sorry that my anger scared you. I never meant for you to fear me.))

Loki didn’t realize it back in the day but what kind of a hella fucking manipulative apology was that, actually? Odin didn’t own up to a single fucking thing. He made it sound as if his anger was beyond his control, that he couldn’t be faulted.

((Thank you, Loki, for giving me a chance to speak. I really appreciate that. Goodbye.))

Those were the last words his adopter ever said to Loki himself before Nikias took over the communication to block him and delete his number two years ago, and, again, they were brimming over with egocentrism.

((What I did to Loki was terrible in its own right but you, my boy, had to watch sometimes.))

And those were his words he spoke to Thor in the self-pitying video message he sent before he went on and talked about his own childhood memories; as if having hurt Loki didn’t bother the old bastard as much as putting his trueborn son, his own glorious flesh and blood, into the same position Bor put him in.

Odin spewed toxic messages at Loki his whole life. He manipulated him and made him feel worthless every step of the way. He shamed Loki and his mental illnesses and blamed them for every single issue that went sideways in his own relationships or his life as if he wasn’t the chief architect of the family’s dysfunctional plight. He never took any criticism and he ruined Loki’s self-worth and he laughed at Loki’s pain and belittled his traumas. He paralyzed him with a bone-deep terror that Robert was inevitably gonna hate him and his mental illness even though Robert already interacted with Leah several times and has seen DID up close, for fuck’s sake! He made him feel as if he’s undeserving of being loved just because he exists as the person he is. It’s Odin’s fault that Loki doesn’t feel entitled to take anything from Robert now even though Robert is offering it freely! For months now, Loki suffered under his mother’s new relationship and it’s almost exclusively Odin’s fault!

And by reminding himself of all of that, Loki’s anger grows and grows and grows, like the enchanted beanstalk that soon towers over the village and swiftly reaches up into the clouds in the tale of Jack Spriggings, and it’s truly amazing and empowering to feel safe enough to replace fear with anger and to scream, “How fucking dare you?” into the air at the top of his lungs.

~°~

And then, a few days later, Dr. van Dyne talks about that one dream again—the one where Odin picks him up by the neck and dangles him in the air like a cub—and suggests that perhaps they haven’t been able to interpret its symbolism satisfactorily because they haven’t looked at it from the right angle. “You said you were worried that Odin will snap and boil over with anger and jealousy if he ever finds out that your mother is happily in love,” says his therapist, “and you and I both figured that Odin was trying to prevent you from co-existing with that new relationship because he still loves Frigga and still wants her back and still feels somewhat entitled to her attention. But then I realized that Frigga and Robert are together in that dream, right? Their relationship doesn’t seem to be in any danger. Odin isn’t dragging her away from Robert.”

Loki’s heart gives a lurch that inflames his cheeks and ears and throat.

“So, I’m thinking that maybe your fear isn’t exclusively rooted in what might happen if Odin finds out that Frigga pursued the relationship. That’s part of it, of course,” Dr. van Dyne concedes and dutifully employs air quotes in order to mark Loki’s inner voice as ridiculously mistaken, “because ‘you dragged her down here’ and ‘you took everything from him’ or however else Odin might be framing what happened in his own twisted mind because he is incapable of realizing that Frigga divorced him because he’d been abusing all of you for years. As a narcissist, he is, unfortunately, pathologically incapable of self-reflection and we talked about how he’s always been primarily motivated to protect his own twisted version of reality in which people love and admire him. That’s why he reacted with anger every time someone took away the admiration he needs to thrive and uphold his view of the world. In Odin’s skewed version of the world, I assume he believes that he tried his very best to be a father to you but it’s not his fault that he couldn’t do better. It’s always been your fault because you were either too loud or too quiet. You weren’t trusting enough, you were always crying, you didn’t let him in, you didn’t love him enough, you preferred your mother’s company over his, you ruined his marriage and so on and so forth. The list is probably endless and it convinced you that you will inevitably be responsible if any sort of relationship with Robert fails because you internalized that you’re the bad son and the father figure never bore the blame.”

“Yeah,” huffs Loki because he’s beginning to grasp that if Theo didn’t deserve such invasive, deprecating treatment, he himself didn’t deserve it either. If he can be angry with Odin on Theo’s behalf, he can be angry with him on his own behalf. He can be flaming fucking mad and he doesn’t owe his adopter shit. “So?”

“After brushing up on my narcissism 101 and remembering that you educated yourself on the topic a while ago, I think you might have been subconsciously worried too,” his therapist replies after a short pause, “that Odin will snap and boil over with anger and jealousy if he finds out that you dare to try and build a relationship with a new father figure here while you ‘refused’ to love him or make it easy for him or give him a chance; just like your birthmother before you.”

And those words?

They hit Loki harder than a meteor but they finally, fucking finally, blow a hole through his prison door.

~°~

When Robert rings their doorbell the next time, to pick Frigga up for dinner after his return from Myanmar, Loki persuades himself to leave his room and truly look at the guy.

Chapter Text

Sunday, November 20^th, 2022

Robert and Frigga are reuniting after three weeks of physical separation and, as soon as they lock eyes, the chemistry and the longing between them are almost palpable. Loki watches, mystified, as their bodies and lips move towards one another in the doorway. Drawn by an invisible, magnetic force, they melt into a kiss Loki has seen countless times on screen but never witnessed anyone perform (exchange?) in real life before; not even his Casanova of a brother with his legendary reputation. Loki always assumed that kisses like the one he’s currently witnessing were a part of the cultural myth that is romantic love, perfected over the years by generations of actors in order to satisfy the paying customer’s desires, but here they are and Robert is gently holding his mother’s face in both of his hands, the tips of his index fingers tracing her cheeks. She is clasping his wrists with her hands and her eyes are closed, her lips curled upwards in pure bliss. She never kissed Odin in a way that radiated this much love or vulnerability or, as some allo writers might phrase it, passionate abandon. Odin’s and Frigga’s kisses never looked soft or tender and, in the months or even years before Hela showed up and plunged their lives into chaos, Loki hardly remembers them kissing at all; except perhaps for the occasional pecks on the temple or the lips out of marital obligation. It’s fascinating (and yes, terrifying, sue him) to watch Frigga give herself over to her emotions and her needs and her own happiness like this, and immerse herself so arrantly in the moment that she remains completely oblivious of her kid’s ogling presence.

When their kiss finally breaks, they stare into each other’s eyes, breathless and, try as he might there really is no other word for it, glowing. Robert is looking at his mother as if she’s the source of all the warmth and light in the whole entire universe.

“I missed you so much,” he murmurs, still refusing to let go of her but holding on to her face in a non-possessive, non-creepy, non-demanding way that stings Loki’s heart because if romantic attraction can truly take such a beautiful shape, it’s almost a pity that he hasn’t experienced it yet and probably never will.

“I missed you too,” whispers Frigga and leans against his chest, tucking her head under his chin.

It didn’t sink in until now (because Loki was too dissociated to fully pay attention before, duh) but he and Robert are the same size. They’re almost exactly at eye level, which means that, if Robert is taller than Odin (it’s been quite obvious from the first time he saw him because Odin never towered over Frigga when they stood next to each other like Robert does), Loki must be too. And he was probably taller than his adopter already when Odin peeled him out of his shirt to inspect the carnage Loki’d inflicted upon his own body with his razor blades or tried to smack him for stealing the scotch his clients had gifted him in exchange for saving their guilty asses from the state pen. As far as Loki recalls, he’d been sitting both times, physically inferior, and all the other memories of the littles that have bled through since then further blurred the picture to a point where Loki doesn’t remember ever being taller than his adopter. He doesn’t remember how tall he was during Thor’s birthday when he complimented Loki’s painting either. He doesn’t remember himself any other way than cowering before Odin and his burning, unpredictable rage. But if he ever came face to face with him again, his adopter wouldn’t be looming above Loki huffing and panting and angry with a red face and his fists at the ready as he is in nightmares.

It’d be the other way around.

Odin would be shorter than him.

If Odin materialized out of nowhere, if he tried to grab him or pick him up, he wouldn’t be able to because Loki isn’t a toddler anymore and he isn’t a lion cub or a broken toy either. He’s a grown man of six feet two.

He’s no longer weak and defenseless.

He isn’t even currently underweight.

He wouldn’t have to physically shirk from Odin like the child he once was.

That realization fuels him and helps him vanquish his fears and doubts because if Loki doesn’t gather up the courage now, Frigga and Robert will be leaving and who knows when he’ll next feel courageous enough to speak to the guy.

Before he can say anything though, they finally notice they’re being gawked at and they swing around in perfect unison. It’s the scariest fucking thing in the entire world to try to hold Robert’s gaze for the first time after avoiding him for almost five months and to not shy away from the flicker of disappointment and frustration that briefly flares up in the guy’s eyes the second he spots Frigga’s kid lurking in the hallway and staring at him with what must be a strained, over-anxious expression.

Robert waves awkwardly and Loki’s heart climbs into his throat.

“Is everything okay?” asks Frigga, her voice straining a bit. They’re probably assuming the worst, both of them, because Loki himself never came out of his room when Robert picked her up in the past, much less in such a flustered state, and they just want to spend some time together because their love is real and goes deeper than Loki thought possible and they missed each other, and here comes he, throwing a wrench in the works again with his theatrics and his drama and his abandonment anxiety.

Well, not today.

“Yeah, I just …” Fuck, this is so, so hard and Loki has to take a deep, trembling breath because this is one of the scariest fucking things he ever did in his life but the expression of disenchantment settling on Robert’s face is far, far worse because Loki just sensed for the first time how much his mother means to that man and he doesn’t want to hurt anyone who’s so good to her. His hand is shaking worse than it did when he was in opioid withdrawal when he finally manages to extend it to Robert. “I just wanted to, uh, introduce myself.” He has to moisture his lips. “Properly, I mean.”

A smile tugs at Frigga’s lips and lights up her cerulean eyes as Robert hesitantly reaches for Loki’s hand.

Guess what? The gates of hell don’t burst open and the skies don’t fall down upon him when he shakes it with his firm grip.

“I, uh, I’m Loki,” he soldiers on over the maniacal thump thump thump thump of his heartbeat. “I mean … I’m the host of the system or the alter my mother talks about when she refers to Loki but we’ve never properly met, so, uh …” He trails off and his heart continues to do jumping jacks in his chest but no alter is coming to his rescue because this is his trial and his alone, and Loki tries to breathe through the fear because he survived so much worse and seriously, fucking seriously, he wasn’t even this afraid of Thanos, who could have killed him with his bare hands, so what’s the worst that could happen to him right now? Odin isn’t going to show up out of nowhere because that’s a ridiculous notion to begin with and even on the off chance that he did, Loki would be able to enjoy the spectacle of Frigga calling the cops on his abusive ass. And if Robert truly ends up not liking him, he won’t ever have to speak to him again, right? So what’s his fucking problem???

“I, uh, just wanted to say that it’s nice to meet you and that I’m sorry I was so dismissive and gave you the impression I don’t want you in my mother’s life. That was uncalled for.”

“Don’t be sorry. It wasn’t uncalled for and you don’t owe me anything, kiddo.” Robert’s smile is warm and genuine. “You don’t owe anyone anything. But I’m glad you changed your mind because it’s really, really nice to finally meet you too.”

Tears of gratitude pool into Frigga’s eyes and she swiftly wipes them away.

Before she can fuss over him and his courageous move (haha, riiiiight), Loki tells them to get going and enjoy their dinner.

When the door lock clicks shut behind them, he sits down on the couch and tucks his legs under his ass. Fenrir and Lilah curl up against him instantly, demanding to be pet, and Loki cards his fingers through their obsidian and anthracite furs. “I talked to him and the world didn’t end,” he tells his cats, still bewildered by Robert’s words and the solemn manner in which he’d uttered them. “He doesn’t seem to dislike me either, right? What’s your impression?”

Fen chirps in response, Lilah just purrs.

You don’t owe anyone anything.

Dr. van Dyne told him the same thing a million times when they discussed Odin but, somehow, coming from a fifty-seven-year-old man, the words took him completely by surprise and struck a chord with him on a much deeper emotional level and just overall seem to carry that much more weight.

Over and over, that statement echoes through his head, along with what Charlie and Sam learned in ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’.

We all accept the love we think we deserve.

~°~

That same night, after they return from the restaurant, Robert invites them all to spend Thanksgiving with his family at his place—which, aside from his perpetually absent Samaritan son (who Loki can’t help but hate a little), currently consists of his old but healthy-for-their-age parents, his cousin (the one through whom he met Frigga), his sister and her husband, their daughter and her husband and their two little boys (who he mentioned to Leah)—but the idea of having to meet a whole bunch of new people all at once after just getting over himself to speak to one Linton gives Loki the creeps, so he declines but tells Frigga it’s okay for her to go and ends up spending a lovely afternoon with Thor, Vis and Wanda. See? He doesn’t need his mother around on a special day like this in order to believe that she’ll always love him and won’t walk out on him just because she’s in a relationship now and wants to get to know Robert’s family. It’s only natural that she is curious who shaped the man by her side into the person he is today, right? That she wants to meet the woman who brought him into this world?

It doesn’t mean that she cares about Loki and his system any less or enjoys his company any less, goddammit. It’s sinking in very slowly but it is sinking in at long last.

And Robert isn’t holding his answer against him either. Apparently, he was almost certain Loki wouldn’t be interested but wanted to extend the invitation out of politeness all the same.

~°~

When Frigga invites Robert over for dinner with Loki’s blessing for a much smaller gathering the week after, he yields the front to Leah at first but he doesn’t fight it when something pulls her back inside and he recovers consciousness at the table. He just listens to their conversation for a moment, trying to soothe his switching headache and his pounding heart as he forks up a potato wedge and dips it into the little pool of BBQ sauce on his plate, and learns that Robert was caught smoking by his father when he was sixteen and that his old man made a deal with him that if he stopped right now and didn’t touch a cigarette again until he was eighteen, he’d buy him a Harley for graduation.

“And can I ask if he smacked you for that?” Thor blurts out because his brother is still wearing his heart on his sleeve and no amount of growing up managed to change that yet. Loki tenses mid-chew and flicks a glance at Frigga, who opens her eyes wide and shakes her head at her eldest son in mild exasperation.

“No, he didn’t,” replies Robert with a compassionate look on his face that goes right to his and his brother’s core, judged by the sudden shine in Thor’s eyes. “He’s always been a very calm person.”

“And did you persevere?” asks Loki in order to change the subject and kill the awkward silence that arises. “Did you get the bike?”

“Absolutely,” says Robert. “That was a very powerful incentive that saved me from succumbing to peer pressure and ever developing a habit.”

“As I’m sure was his intention,” speculates Loki.

The earth doesn’t open and swallow him then either and, in the weeks that follow, Robert slowly ceases to be this giant unknown variable lurking at the periphery of Loki’s life and threatening to wrench his mother from his grasp and slowly morphs into a human being with a personality that Loki isn’t averse to; mainly because he’s a good listener and doesn’t interrupt and talk over people or have an opinion about everything or find discriminatory jokes funny. One day, he even shook his head in incensed disbelief when he talked about a client who’d complained about the parking privileges of disabled people in his presence. 

Slowly, the prospect of having to exchange a few words with Robert becomes less and less daunting with every time they cross paths.

~°~

A week before Christmas, Loki comes across the tweet of a trans teen who’s asking for retweets because they’re searching for legal counsel regarding a family matter and Loki’s heart begins to flutter at the sudden prospect of using all his knowledge of the law and his critical thinking skills and his intelligence in order to defend this very specific group of people that Odin ridiculed and derided and maybe even detested all his life. Loki opens up his laptop and the web portal of his law school degree, giddy with glee and fueled by a newfound sense of determination because that career path would kill two birds with one stone: To assist people like him whose identities have been questioned or threatened or erased in the past (and help them in a more potent way than by ‘just’ drawing fictional worlds into which they can flee in order to feel safe) and to spite his adopter.

~°~

Said adopter cancels his Norway trip the day after, by the way, without giving Tyr a specific reason except that he unfortunately won’t be able to make it (apparently he can’t even be bothered to waste any of his mental recourses on maintaining the semblance of a relationship with his own brother after he got divorced), so Loki, Frigga and Thor are spontaneously flying to Trømso early on the 24^th while Robert stays at home to celebrate with his Sonoran-Desert-born-and-bred family on the morning of the 25^th—much to Zisa’s dismay. Their aunt is so heartbroken that she will not meet “the man her sister-in-law wouldn’t shut up about” in the flesh (which makes their mother blush and Thor laugh while Loki’s heart twinges a little) that she insists on an introduction via Skype at some point during the vacation. They’re meeting Leif’s boyfriend Magnus—the artist from Narvik who he gushed over last Christmas and got together with earlier in the year—and Vidar’s and Isolde’s newborn daughter Freyja, who is only seventeen days old.

It’s the first time Loki sees a real, human baby up close in the external world and it’s … a lot to deal with. It constantly triggers Leah out because she assisted Sigyn with helping taking care of the baby alter (and Loptr, prior to the fusion) in the inner world and Loki keeps asking himself how Hela could have ever hurt a creature so small and defenseless, addiction or not. Freyja is so tiny and so sweet and the way her entire infant hand curls around one of Isolde’s fingers and the way her nose crunches up when she yawns or smacks her lips arouse a powerful protective instinct he didn’t know he had in Loki. It’s also simply adorable and captures everyone’s attention, constantly making them oooh and aaah.

They also learn that Bjørn—who didn’t show up this year—got voted out of the company he co-founded because his partner caught him stealing and took his frustration out on his family by calling Leif a fag when he caught wind of his little brother’s sexual orientation and by trying (and failing because he’d already shown up stumbling drunk) to physically assault his father when Tyr demanded an apology on Leif’s behalf.

All that change and growth is overwhelming, yes, especially that one instant in which Luna’s consciousness awakens and Loki gets welded to it in the same nasty way he got welded to Theo’s in the hours after his last severe flashback; which is even worse because it fucking makes English sound like gibberish to his ears from one second to the next. Loki tries to remain calm but Luna’s panic surges through him and it’s a biiit too much of a terrifying sensation to breathe through and so he clutches at his chest, gasping for air. Frigga asks him something but what comes out of his mother’s mouth is just weird, foreign sounds strung together in a way that doesn’t make any fucking sense whatsoever.

Holy fuck.

“Baby?”

“Jeg kan ikke forstå dere lenger,” shrieks Loki because this is so much worse than not being able to speak and Thor’s mouth gapes open. “Beklager. Jeg …” He gestures towards the guest room upstairs because he needs a long fucking moment.

Frigga follows him and tries to ground him with a breathing exercise but even though his command of English returns shortly after, the anxiety doesn’t abate for the whole day and causes a particularly unforgiving migraine as the evening approaches.

But all in all, this year’s vacation felt a lot less stressful than it did a year ago with significantly fewer switches and blackouts, and Dr. van Dyne tells him that she too can see a lot of progress once he returns to Phoenix; especially regarding how grateful he is that he didn’t relapse and sink back into that miserable state of existence in which addiction forces him to sabotage his own life day in and day out as it currently does his cousin.

~°~

The Norway trip also gets it through to Loki’s lizard brain with ever-increasing clarity that Frigga didn’t fully enjoy traveling halfway across the world this time because she missed Robert terribly (as she did when he flew to Asia) and that she wouldn’t mind if she got to spend every day of the rest of her life with the man she loves.

It’s still terrifying and it’s giving him several anxiety attacks inside and outside of therapy but eventually, Loki gathers all his courage and talks to his brother whilst his heart is violently thumping to the familiar rhythm of a deep-seated, thrumming panic that stems from his primal fear of rejection.

As it turns out, he needn’t have worried at all.

As it turns out, they’ve both been thinking the same thing for a while.

~°~

The day before Valentine’s Day, Frigga is standing at the stove, roasting sliced, salted-and-peppered carrots in garlic butter, when Loki walks into the kitchen, tense and pale and fidgety. He takes a deep breath and, before she can get a word out, asks, “You do want to move in with Robert, don’t you? I mean, you would move in with him if it wasn’t for me, right? Honest answer, please.”

It’s a question she didn’t expect at all and her heart flutters a little as soon as her mind betrays her for the millionth time in recent weeks and conjures the hypothetical scenario of waking up next to Robert every morning and breathing in his scent and brushing her lips against his and showering with him after they’d spent one or two nights every week together since Dr. van Dyne suggested she and Loki should spend some time apart a few months back.

“I probably would, yes,” Frigga concedes because she’s still trying to abide by the no-lying principle her conscience imposed on her whenever she can even if she feels rather foolish admitting as much because she is way too old for this kind of crush that’s still making her giddy with joy on some days. “But that’s because we’re still in the honeymoon stage of the relationship and everything is just …” She trails off, scrambling for words. “Everything just feels rosy now but I do know from experience that falling in love can jumble your priorities and that this isn’t going to last forever. It never does and I’m not going to risk your mental well-being over this, uh, initial euphoric excitement. I’m perfectly capable of making a compromise without harboring feelings of bitterness or resentment, and I swear I will not break the promise I made you.”

“But you do want to,” Loki insists, tears welling into his eyes. “You do love him.”

Frigga switches off the stove to save the vegetables from a fate of being scorched to a black, impalpable mess because this is a conversation that requires every shred of her mental focus. “I do but there’s no guarantee that we can always have everything we want from life and that’s okay. I’m happy.” She is. “I’m really, really happy. You don’t have to worry, okay?”

“It’s not that I worry,” he objects and wipes at his eyes, his lips quivering. “It’s just … I want you to …” He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I hereby absolve you from your promise.”

“What?” blurts Frigga, thoughts eluding her for a moment. “What are you talking about?”

“I hereby give you permission n-not to keep it,” snuffles Loki.

“I-I don’t understand.”

Loki takes another breath. “I talked to Thor and he, uh, he told me he’s been driving past this property on his way to work every morning for a few months now. It’s really cheap but no one wants to buy it because, while the house itself is in an okay-ish shape, the yard is totally overgrown and it’d take a lot of work and money to fix it. Thor said he’d been thinking about buying the house and fixing it himself. He knows nothing about gardening, obviously, but when did that ever stop him?” He laughs hoarsely, tracing the countertop with his index finger, avoiding her gaze. “He, uh, said it’d be nice to cut down all those trees and build something with his own hands instead of just renting an apartment with no backyard.”

“Okay?” Frigga prompts as Loki swallows, not daring to hope that he’s going where it sounds he’s going.

“But he also said that an entire house would be too big just for him alone,” continues Loki, “and, uh, we … talked about the possibility of moving in there together because, well, Thor said that living alone has been starting to get really lonely and that he spent as much time as he needed all by himself, with himself, to figure out who he wants to be and what he wants from life. He also assured me that, when he said he needed to live alone, he basically meant he needed to live without a parent; not necessarily without me. And you … You want to move in with Robert and I want you to have your own life. You deserve it.”

Loki is all choked up by now and Frigga’s chest is trembling with something she can’t name.

“It’s been so hard and difficult for you and you sacrificed so much for me and I-I want to be able to give you the same g-gift that other children are able to give their mothers after she raised them,” sobs Loki. “I want you to live the happiest life you can live and to not have to schedule your whole life around me anymore. I … I mean, the thought of moving out of here still scares me but Dr. van Dyne is on board—she said that taking that step towards independence would help my abandonment anxiety a lot—and I’d be with Thor and he’s … He never mentioned it to me until I asked him because he thought he was gonna put me under pressure. He figured I wasn’t ready to contemplate not living with you, which I wasn’t before, but Thor and I talked about it for a long time and we both think it could work. I even talked about it internally because Leah was somehow convinced that, if you were ever going to move in with Robert, we would move in with you and she was heartbroken when she found out that this wasn’t the case but now she’s looking forward to moving in with Thor and even Nikias thinks that moving in with my brother is better than ‘being tied to mommy’s apron strings’ for the rest of my life, so there is that. And I saw the property yesterday. It could look amazing and the cats would have a lot more space too. They could even go outside if we built a large enough fence and I … I’m scared, yes, but I’m also actually kind of excited?”

“I … I don’t know what to say. Are you s-serious about this?” stammers Frigga, still drawing an emotional blank as his words sink in. “Because I don’t want you to push yourself to—”

“I am,” snivels Loki, tears streaming down his beautiful face as he pulls her into his arms for a change and hugs her close. “I swear. I’m not pushing m-myself. Happy V-valentine’s Day, M-mom.”

His voice breaks and Frigga holds on tight, her mind flashing back to how she found him on their Vegas doorstep over nineteen years ago, to how she cradled his frozen, almost-lifeless body to her chest, then to the day she picked him up from the High School infirmary and met Leah for the first time without yet knowing he had child alters and finally to how she found him in a state of heavy dissociation in the lake cabin with a broken collarbone and no recollection of the accident he and Thor got into and then it all just comes pouring back in. All that blood seeping through Thor’s fingers; the empty house; the endless sleepless nights that followed; the press conferences; the begging him to come home; the divorce; the day Hela finally did return him drugged and starved, a brittle shell of his former self with no hope for a better, healthier future, no desire to live and no recollection of her; the call she received from the center after his suicide attempt; seeing him in that hospital bed blue-lipped and beaten and small; his cutting words; “If you leave me here again, I’ll try again, Mom”; all the pain and the nightmares and the guilt tearing her apart; finding him in the park drunk and barely conscious; all those hours of listening to him thrashing and screaming and whimpering in his sleep.

He’s grown so much since then, both mentally and physically.

He’s so brave and so courageous, and tenaciously fought to find his place in life.

He ventured out into the world and made himself vulnerable and learned that good things like friendship and happiness come to those who trust.

Despite what Loki temporarily believed, he and his system have padded towards adulthood and independence one tiny step at a time.

Out-patient treatment, becoming a cat parent, the job at the publishing house, enrolling in law school, getting a driver’s license.

And now he’s … actually contemplating to move out and divest himself of the one thing he couldn’t seem to live without only a few months ago?

“I-I still don’t know what to say,” confesses Frigga because the prospect of no longer living together intimidates her too and her guilty conscience rears its ugly head again, reminding her how she robbed Thor of a carefree childhood by forcing him into the role of a co-parent, and she can’t help but wonder, albeit briefly, if she’s been pressuring them without intending to, if she’s to blame that they feel an obligation to make allowances for her feelings, and whether her eldest is truly ready for that kind of commitment and whether he’ll be able to pay attention to his brother’s diet like she is and whether she is capable of letting go and dealing with the empty nest syndrome in the first place. But then her therapist’s words echo through her head again and she realizes that Dr. Fulla has been right all along—her sons are adults now and they made a choice she needs to, and is allowed to, respect—and what emerges then, bursting through all those negative emotions when she understands that she is not being selfish, is a profound sense of gratitude and happiness and pride and a relief so powerful she too begins to cry.

“M-maybe you can make me a new promise,” her beloved child weeps into her hair, “that you’ll keep the apartment for a while just in case it doesn’t work out and that we’ll still spend some time together without Robert? That you’ll come to dinner w-without him sometimes or that we can just ... That you won’t turn into this couple that always has to show up everywhere as … as …”

“Of course, baby. Heavens forbid I turn into that,” exclaims Frigga and they both laugh through their tears and they hold each other for a long moment, savoring the strength of their bond that they just know the future will not sever, come what may.