Title: The Worst Laid Plans

Author: Omnicat

Unofficially Adapted From: Alan Taylor & co's Thor: The Dark World.

Spoilers & Desirable Foreknowledge: All of the above.

Warnings: Canonical character death, staunch denial of canonical parental cruelty.

Characters & Pairings: Loki & Odin & talk of Frigga

Summary: Fix-it fic. Some pretty awful things happened in Thor: The Dark World, and much as we all undoubtedly love our angst, no fannish experience is complete without the occasional bout of staunch denial. So here we go. :)

Author's Note: What it says on the tin. Enjoy!

II-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-I-oOo-I-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-II

The Worst Laid Plans; Odin

"Forgive me, my liege. I've returned from the dark world with news."

"Thor?"

He raised his eyes. Odin's face was inscrutable. "There was no sign of Thor, or the weapon. But..."

He waited a beat.

"What?" Still Odin's expression revealed nothing. The old man might as well be looking through him.

"I found a body."

"Loki," Odin whispered, standing very, very still.

No crack, no tremor in his voice. Not a muscle twitched or loosened. Of course not. Of course not. He had known; now he had proof.

More proof. The final proof.

"Loki," Odin repeated, voice suddenly haggard. He took a staggering step toward him.

What?

"My lord?" he asked, tensing up, resisting the urge to flinch back, maintain their distance.

"Loki. My son. My son," Odin babbled as he unsteadily descended the steps.

No, he wanted to say. No, stop this! he wanted to scream. "My lord, are you well?"

Gungnir slipped from Odin's hand and clattered to the floor. It did not thunder with command, it rang like a cry, and Odin didn't spare it a glance but he could not tear his eyes, wide and incredulous, away from it.

"Loki," Odin breathed, and suddenly his weathered hands cupped his face, both hands, and the illusion shattered.

Loki's gaze snapped to Odin's.

"My son," Odin said.

Loki jerked away. A heartbeat too late; Odin's arms were already around him.

"Heimdall saw you die," Odin rasped in his ear. "Heimdall heard you say –"

"Let me go." Loki's lips barely moved. "What are you doing?"

"I dared not hope for a second miracle, not now, after everything I've done to you, fate would not allow it –"

There was no knife in his back, no spear through his still-aching chest to finish what the elf-monster had started. One hand was tight in his hair, the other flat against his spine. The cheek pressed to his ear was warm. Wet.

"What?" he managed, the whole of his being thin and croaking along with his voice.

"Did you think I would not know your voice from any throat? My own boy?"

I am not your boy!

Loki tore free, summoned his dagger in a flash. There was a fierce tremor between his ribs, where the blade should have slid. "What sick game is this?"

"No game," Odin said, hands raised to surrender, to placate, to deceive. "Only the mistakes of an old fool."

"No." There was a bottomless reservoir of hatred and rage within him, and Loki needed it now, but he could not find it. He was a little boy lost in the woods, and his father was calling for him. "No, you do not get to start the lies all anew." He was a little boy lost in the woods, and his father had thrown him to the wolves. "Last time was not a mistake."

"I did not think so then. I have learned better."

"You told me to die!" he screamed, because the tears always came when he least wanted Odin to see them. "You told me you regretted every breath you've given me to take!"

"What Frigga told you – that a true king admits his faults – so she said to me."

"Don't you talk about my mother."

Loki could not remember at what point he had stopped seeing, but suddenly he was no longer just looking.

Odin. Odin with tears streaming and bent shoulders. Odin contrite, Odin grieving, Odin hurting and broken and sorry as Loki had been above the abyss, on the black sands, Odin seeing him at long last. Odin sorry. So, so sorry.

How dare he.

"'YOUR BIRTHRIGHT WAS TO DIE AS A CHILD, CAST OUT ONTO A FROZEN ROCK.' 'YOUR MOTHER IS THE ONLY REASON YOU'RE STILL ALIVE AND YOU WILL NEVER SEE HER AGAIN.'"

Odin quailed, Odin bent, Odin crumpled. No blow of fist or blade or blast could have been more satisfying.

"I could think of nothing crueller," Odin whispered. Ragged, eye shutting against his own shame before he looked up as if to implore. "And since that day you've hated me with every fibre of your being, haven't you? There was no more conflict in you. None of that despair I saw when you let go, always wondering, always second-guessing, never sure. I could think of nothing crueller – nothing better to make you let go of me and embrace life instead. And it worked."

"No, I..." Loki lowered the knife.

It hadn't worked. That was the worst of it. His ire would not have been so great if he had not been so hurt, if it had really worked. How could he forgive a wound such as that?

The same way I forgave you, his mother's ghost whispered in his ear. Every time. Every single time.

Once, his father would have claimed he had Frigga's soft heart. Frigga's tricks, Frigga's tongue, Frigga's daft, unshakeable love.

"Your mother's doings were no secret to me," Odin revealed. "I know what you and she spoke of. I think, perhaps, she understood my plan. I know she did not agree."

"It was a terrible plan."

"No more terrible than starting off an invasion by inviting the fury of all the realm's mightiest defenders."

Loki's laugh was brittle like an old man, and Odin's smile little more than a twitch.

Loki looked away and breathed deep. "If this is to be a new punishment I cannot stop you. But with mother gone I beg you – no games. Make it quick."

He extended the knife, hilt flipped.

For a long moment: nothing.

At last, Odin took it. Loki began to shake all up and down his spine, but he did not look.

Then –

His head yanked back, a hand tight in his hair, the cold caress of the blade against his neck. His heart stopped.

Shnick.

"I recall overhearing some thousand complaints on the lack of barbers down in the dungeons," Odin murmured lightly.

Loki stumbled forward, tried to remember how to breathe.

Odin put a hand on his shoulder. "No games. No punishment. I only hope one day you can believe that. I thought it would be best to push you away. I was wrong. If you are willing, I should try. But it took your mother's... it took her to make me see that."

His voice was thick with tears. Somehow, that was all it took to make Loki's shoulders heave.

From the sobs, he wrenched "I want – "

my mumma

"I know." The hand on his shoulder turned into an arm across his chest, pulling him into papa's warm bulk. "I know."

They mourned as they should.