Disclaimer: Nothing from this Marvelous universe is mine.

Summary: "Loki," Odin says. A guess? A hope? Loki watches him, delighting, silently, in his own deceptions. In this game he plays, with life and freedom and fun for the stakes. It's not until twelve seconds later that he realises that it is recognition that burns in the Allfather's eye. || TDW Fix-it fic.

A/N: No warnings here, except shameless self-indulgence and (I suspect) OOCness from more than one Main Character. I am sorry.

Even That, I Could Not Say (mother)

Since Thor's seven-hundredth birthday, when Loki let the goat into the banquet hall, Odin has looked weary.

Today, Loki thinks, the Allfather looks more than weary. Today, Odin looks old.

"There's no sign of Thor, or the weapon, but..." he allows his voice to trail off. Allows hesitation to shine in the blue eyes of this body that he wears.

"What?" Odin says.

Loki gives it a heartbeat more.

He is, perhaps, milking this, just a little.

"We… found a body."

Odin's eye narrows, and Loki stops again. He plays a dangerous game, he knows. All the Einherjar are well aware that Odin does not love his fosterling enough to need to be shielded against news of his death. Odin has made no secret of the fact that his life is his own only because Mo— It matters not. She has nothing to do with this. He's always liked risks, that's all. He likes them, and so Loki is taking one. For a short while at least, he will be arrogant enough, conceited enough, to pretend that Odin does require such a softening. After all, Odin never stopped Frigga from visiting his cell. He could have. Loki knows Odin is more powerful than she.

Liar. It was for her, not for you.

You killed her.

A bubble of mirth rises. Pops.

"Loki."

Grounding, that voice. Odin's has always been.

It drags him back to Now. Slowly, hesitantly, Loki lowers his gaze in silent assent.

Important, at least in the illusion he spins for himself, to allow the King of Asgard time to master his… what? What exactly is it that Odin might feel at the news that his guess is right? That Laufey's son, whom Thor helped escape his just confinement, lies dead somewhere in the blasted waste of Svartalfheim's sands?

Will you ask what wounds I bore? If I died from Malekith or Thor?

Will you ask where that corpse now lies?

Will you hold a ceremony as you did for her? Would you tell me I will join her in Valhalla?

Would you mourn?

A little jest he plays with himself, this is all. Hilarious, actually. Later, he'll laugh.

"Loki. Is ruling Asgard your ambition still?" Odin says, abruptly.

There is a moment of displacement.

"I'm sorry?" Loki blinks, stupidly, because—

Odin's gaze finds his. Holds it, and oh.

Oh.

That was not a guess, that "Loki." Not grief. That was recognition.

Loki's heart freezes. His muscles clench. Laughter bubbles in his throat because actually, it's absolutely funny that he feels panic, now, when Odin is so very old and tired and he could kill Odin, couldn't he? He should. He should attack now, attack first, because he's got no chance at all if Odin does and even if he does fail, he can run, maybe, and even if he can't do that either death can't be more boring than his cell will undoubtedly be without—

"Is it?" Odin barks again, eye fierce.

Loki tilts his head a little to the side. Measures his enemy.

Odin is warded against simple weapons.

A blasting curse? A spell to summon potent venom for his blade? Or perhaps—

"Damn it, boy," Odin snaps, "Stop thinking of ways to kill me and answer me."

"I—what?" Loki frowns.

Odin's eye is fierce. A lifetime of habit makes Loki shuffle uncomfortably beneath it's fire.

"Do you still want this throne?" Odin says, for the—second time? Or is it the third?

Loki isn't sure. Isn't sure that he cares. He's still building castles in the clouds, even when he can see them falling, shattering, to the ground. His gaze strays to the pitted remnants of the golden rock that had once been Hliðskjálf, symbol of the Glory of Asgard. Fitting, he supposes. He looks back to Odin. Drops his illusion, because he hated that form anyway, hated that guard, and if Odin is going to know anyway then he wants Odin to look at him.

"Well, I don't know that I want that one," Loki says, insolence dripping from his voice like poison. "Pointy bits of stone and my backside don't agree as well as they used to, you see. When Asgard is mine, I will make a new one. I may even add cushions to it. Who knows?"

"Done," Odin says, stepping down the dais, Gungnir in hand.

"I'm sorry?" Loki says, stupidly.

"I intend to make a trip, boy. A long trip. You will be ruling Asgard while I am gone."

Which of them, Loki wonders, is insane? One of them must be. He doesn't think it's him. Has the Allfather gone truly mad, after Mo—after Her passing? Grief can do that, he knows, and the madness can last, sometimes, for days. Shelving six different plots to kill Odin, Heimdall and maybe Jane Foster—and a dozen different escape strategies for when they go wrong—Loki tilts his head a bit to one side.

"Are you well, Allfather?" he says. "Would you like me to fetch Eir for you?"

Odin's eye flashes.

"Do not test my patience."

"… Where are you going?" Loki says, meekly.

"Valhalla."

"… Suicide?" Loki frowns.

"I am not killing myself," Odin snaps, glowering. "I miss your mother. I am retrieving her."

Loki sucks in a shallow breath.

For the King of a Realm that preaches that the ultimate honour for any man or woman is to die in battle so that they can live in Valhalla and brawl and feast the days away until Ragnarok, this seems, to Loki, a hypocritical goal.

Odin's baleful eye dares him to say so.

Loki doesn't. He's always thought, secretly, that that teaching had more to do with encouraging warriors to get themselves killed faster because if that hadn't kept the numbers down, Asgard would have been overpopulated millennia ago than it did any real conviction that Ragnarok needed to be prepared for at all costs. Else, he thinks, Odin would have had him properly executed or expelled from Asgard for ergi behavior centuries ago.

Besides, hypocrisy or not, treason or not, Loki wants her back too.

"How?" he says at last, waving a hand and conjuring up a chair.

Two chairs, actually. One of shining gold, upholstered with golden satin, the other poison-green silk over mahogany. Both have memory-foam beneath them for cushioning— a pleasant discovery for which he has Thor to thank. Thor and Stark. He'd tried out most of the mortal's lounge suite waiting, bored, for Thor and his little mob to get to the Tower, and the Voice that lives in the walls that called itself Jarvis had been obliging enough to tell him what was what in a futile effort to distract and delay him.

"Is it possible to retrieve someone from there?" Loki demands, sitting.

"I exchanged an eyeball for infinite wisdom," Odin says, sitting too, and speaking with the careless confidence of an As who has ruled the Nine Realms for more than five thousand years and is currently the most powerful being within them. "I will exchange something for her, or I will steal her."

Loki forgets, sometimes, that there are times he likes his fa—the Allfather.

"And Malekith?"

"Is Thor's problem. The Seers tell me he will handle the matter well enough without me."

Odin waves a hand, conjuring two fluted glasses of mead.

He takes one, and Loki, after a dull moment of staring, takes the other.

"I expect to have an Asgard left to return to," Odin says, firmly.

"Then why choose me?" Loki asks, curiously.

"I have but two sons. Thor is not available," Odin says, bluntly. "I grow to think, watching him, he will not be for some time. I meant to soften his arrogance by sending him to Midgard, but his heart has melted like butter," and here Odin mutters something Loki does not catch that he thinks has something to do with playing favorites with the Realms and Foster. "It will be long before he is fit to rule."

"Whereas I," Loki says, ignoring the sick, pathetic warmth that sparks at two sons, because he's so far past caring about Odin and what Odin thinks of him that it's laughable, "Simply started two wars and tried to conquer Midgard."

Odin shrugs.

Loki waits.

"You… don't care?"

"I care that you challenged my authority," Odin says, bluntly, "And if you commit treason once more so openly and attempt to keep the Nine Realms from me when I return, even your mother will not be able to save you. In the meantime, I expect you to rule justly, to settle disputes fairly, to see that peace is kept and that war is your swift response when it is not, and to make sure there are still Nine Realms shining in the branches of Yggdrasil when I come back. Do you understand me?"

Loki swallows.

"I will not be pleased if you try to blow up Jotunheim again," Odin clarifies.

Memories surge upwards. No Loki. The Void. It claws at him, and Loki thrusts it back, letting out a tiny laugh.

"I… deduced that, actually. Last time."

"I was not sure," Odin says, irritatingly, "After all, I thought, last time, the fact that in five thousand years I had yet to do so would have been a fairly good indication to you that blowing up Jotunheim wasn't something I wanted done. So I thought, but you did not seem to see that, then."

Loki flushes, tugging uncomfortably at his collar.

He's dealt with Laufey; has smiled blowing his birth-father to pieces. He's negotiated with Thanos and the Chitauri and survived. He's stabbed Thor and ripped out eyeballs and he's not even Odin's son and he feels like he's fifty again and he's been caught stealing Idunn's apples again from the orchard, or cheating at dice.

"You will have to swear the traditional oaths, of course," Odin says.

"I am a Frost Giant. My oaths mean nothing."

"True," Odin allows, making an it-can't-be-helped gesture.

Loki waits. Nothing comes.

"They will never accept me," Loki tries, at last.

"You have a clever mind, my son," Odin says, dismissing that, "I am sure you will think of some way to establish your authority without the official ceremony. I doubt I will be gone longer than a decade; how you do it until then matters very little to me, provided that you—"

"Don't blow any of the Nine Realms up and rule well. Yes. You said."

Odin makes an approving noise. The Allfather is mad.

Loki laughs, suddenly, and downs his mead. He doesn't care.

He doesn't care.

"I will be taking your son," Odin adds.

Predictable. There is no steed more reliable than Sleipnir, nor more swift.

"Why me?" Loki says.

"You are here."

"True," Loki allows, "But you must have planned this. You are not given to impulsive decision, Allfather."

You are not Thor. You are not me. You are wise.

"I am when it concerns your mother."

Loki eyes him. Remembers, barely a child, placing scorpions in the bed of the Alfheim ambassador who kept flirting with mother. Remembers Odin giving them a stern lecture, under the Queen's watchful eye, and the promise of a beating if the act continued. Coincidentally, it had been their favourite sweetmeats for dessert that night, and their favourite meats for dinner. Coincidentally, this happened every time they put scorpions in that bed.

"If Thor had come back first…"

"I would have put him on the throne and told him he'd done so well killing Malekith that it was his job now to govern well. After I punished him for High Treason," Odin adds, "Which will now be your job."

Unlimited power.

This is what he is being handed on a platter, because the Allfather has but two sons and misses his wife, and Loki just happened to get back here first.

He should grasp it. He should, but he does not need to.

Why stretch for something that rests already in his lap?

"And yet you blame Thor, Allfather, for putting Foster before the Nine Realms? Are you not shamed, a little, when you are doing the same now for the woman in your heart?" Loki says, drily.

"Jane Foster," Odin says, tartly, "Is a mortal. She cannot be compared to your mother. And putting you on the throne is not like handing the Aether back to Malekith. I have, I hope, raised you to be slightly more responsible than that. Though given that you stood at Thor's side and let him do exactly that," Odin says, darkly, "I suppose, I may be being slightly optimistic."

Not ashamed, then, Loki thinks, and also, true. Mo— she is worth sacrificing Asgard for.

"Very optimistic, Allfather."

Odin only shrugs.

"… You are mad," Loki says.

"I am certainly angry. The Norns have much to answer for, and answer me they shall. I will be leaving in ten minutes. I suggest, my son, that you make now whatever preparations you think that you will need."

Loki eyes him with grudging respect.

"I would also," Odin adds, eying him in a manner equally grudging, "Not object to returning to a throne lined with this," Odin jabs a finger into the firm foam beneath him, "Instead of solid gold and stone."

"Back not what it used to be?"

Odin grunts something unintelligible.

"I found it on Midgard, did you know? They make it from something called low-resilience polyurethane foam."

Silence.

Two minutes later, Odin rises. Passes him—Loki's breath catches—Gungnir.

"Rule well, my son. See to it that your mother and I have a King and a Realm of which we can be proud when we return."

Loki's fingers tighten, convulsively, about Gungnir's haft.

A King and a Realm.

"See to it," Loki says, after a short pause, "That you," both of you, "do return."

OoOoOoOoO

The Seers do not lie.

Thor returns. Kneels, to the Odin who is not.

The Aether resides in Asgard's treasury.

Soon, it will not.

"One son," Loki says, when Thor has laid his bleeding heart at his feet, pleading—pleading? Thor, who once spoke of this with words like right and triumph?—to be spared the job of ruling, as though such power would be naught for him but a burden, "who wanted the throne too much, another who will not take it. Is this my legacy?"

It is, Loki thinks, gleefully, Truly, Allfather, the Norns hate you. Is this why you wanted me?

Because you knew he would not do this for you even if he did come back?

The thought does not sting as much as it should.

"Loki died with honor," Thor is saying now, gaze steady, "I shall try to live the same. Is that not legacy enough?"

Loki eyes him sideways and resists the urge to point out that when people die with honour, their relatives frequently remember to burn them.

And then Thor, damn him, offers up Mjolnir like the noble idiot he is.

Loki let's him keep it. Of course he does.

What choice has he? He cannot pick it up. He cannot summon it to him. He can hardly admit it.

"It belongs to you," he says smoothly, feigning weary pride. "If you are worthy of it."

"I shall try to be," Thor swears.

Try. Such a quaint effect those mortals have had on his brother.

Loki is not sorry for it. It's fun, ruling. Already he has a system worked out. He studies. He sets up alliances, in the worlds that lie in Midgard's galaxy. With the scum who are so much more useful in every way then the people with Ideals. The Collector will be his friend, soon. Loki has promised him Frost Giants for his collection. He's already given him Dark Elves. In return, he learns of Thanos, the Kree and Celestials. A fair exchange. Far more useful than such prisoners wasting the space in his cells, or filthying the executioner's axe. A small gift of gold, and whole crews of smugglers are his devoted slaves.

It is not long before he knows fully half the back-streets of space.

He draws maps in his free time.

In all criminal proceedings and administrative bickering, he makes a point of asking Heimdall to tell him if any correct judgement— murder or no; theft or no; slander or no; real rights to the bazaar stall or no; the list is endless— exists. Heimdall loathes such interruptions. He wants to watch Thor and Odin and mope because they aren't ruling. Loki thinks it a fair repayment for trying to cut his head off. When Heimdall cannot help him, he tosses a coin. Dice, if more than two options exist. The fate the Norns will them is, Loki argues, the one they will receive anyway, so why waste time collecting evidence to decide?

Never have Asgard's plaintiffs been so swiftly addressed.

"If I were proud of the man my son had become, even that I could not say. It would speak only from my heart. Go, my son."

Go, and do not return.

"Thank you, father," Thor says.

Thor, who has handed him everything.

Thor, who would rather be a good man than a great King.

Thor, who by being late has handed Asgard to a monster like him.

Who will you love more?

Will it still be Thor?

If it is, it will not be for lack of his trying. He has her tricks. He wants her trust, too, and he will have it.

He will earn it. He will prove, with this chance, that he can forge this Realm into a gem the Nine Realms can be proud to call their Lord.

He is willing to work. He has no morals; he sacrificed them long ago.

He will be a great king.

And when Odin returns, when death no longer holds her, the whispers of take the stairs to the left in his mind will go, and there will only be triumph.

Loki endures until his brother is safely out of sight.

Then— why? For Heimdall's benefit, perhaps— he smirks, lounging backwards on the golden foam.

"No, brother," Loki says, eyes glittering, "Thank you."

For I will win, Thor. I will have everything, and all of this, dear brother, I owe to you.

OoOoOoOoO

Loki tries to kill Thor, sometimes.

Thor renounces him and threatens to kill him, and swears he loves him and begs Loki to return to Asgard where all miss him by turns. Loki makes bets, sometimes, with Heimdall about which one it will be. Heimdall disapproves of this, of course. Heimdall has always been too serious. Unfortunately for Heimdall, he lost the bet about whether or not Loki was allowed to make bets with him about things like Thor.

Sometimes, when his schemes grow bolder, Thor visits 'Odin' to ask for his advice.

Loki gives it freely.

It's like playing chess, really. Behind Odin, the most amusing opponent to play has always been himself.

OoOoOoOoO

One year passes. Two.

"Is the Allfather alive?" Loki asks, staring out at the void from the Bifrost.

"Yes."

OoOoOoOoO

To fuel a proper anti-magic field requires the life-blood of innocent virgins. Loki is not sure who made the spell, but it seems to be working.

Thanos is fleeing. Midgard stands. Asgard stands.

The families whose sons and daughters fueled the spell— the spell did not discriminate between genders, so neither did Loki— will be honored. If Loki is feeling generous, there may even be statues. A happy ending for all concerned, really. Except that Loki happened to be in the range of that spell, which is Heimdall's fault because if Heimdall just hadn't made that bet, if he had not sworn to give Loki his second helm if Loki managed to actually stay out of this fight and not mess something up then Loki would not have had to enter in order to avoid being given it and he would not now be in the dirt, blue and gasping for breath, with Thor standing above him, Mjolnir raised, radiant with a rage as fierce and terrible as Muspelheim's flames.

"Hello?" Loki tries.

Around him are his companions— the Warriors Three; Sif; his mortals... The green beast growls at him, and Loki let's out a tiny wheeze of laughter.

"You will have to wait your tu—,"

"Where is father, Loki?" Thor cuts him off, eyes flashing. "What did you do to him?"

"What should I have done?" Loki asks, eyes wide, innocent.

Sif shifts, clearly uneasy.

"Thor—,"

"Damn you, brother, tell me," Thor says, cutting her off, and Loki is so envious, suddenly, that he hurts because he watched, he watched, and not once did Thor try to find or bury him.

"Did you think I killed him?" he smiles and his smile is poison. "Did you think I drove a sword through his side and left him to rot in the sand? Is that what you are thinking, brother? How else could I, evil, cowardly, craven little Loki have become King? Do you think I waited until he slept, and drove my dagger into—"

Mjolnir collides with a sickening crunch into his chest and he laughs again because this is absolutely hilarious. Even without Mjolnir's magic, it hurts.

"You lie," Thor rasps. "Stop lying. Brother, please, tell me. What did you do to him? Where did you put him? Where is my father?"

Loki struggles to sit up because he is a King.

"I sent him on to the Queen," he says, and grins again, and feels his teeth soaking red. "He missed her, you know."

Thor's face is so pale it is white. His eyes are wild.

Loki hates. He hates so much it hurts.

"I killed her too. I told the beast where to go, to find her. Did you know? Did father ever tell you that? You might want to take the stairs to the left, I said. Did he tell you? But you were supposed to be there, Thor. You were supposed to be defending her. But you weren't, were you? You were wasting your time seeing if I was escaping, seeing if I was plotting, and you missed—"

The first blow, Loki thinks, is the worst. By the time the fifth falls, he is numb.

Stop it, Thor, someone says, He's unarmed. He's goading you.

His vision spins dizzily. A dark figure looms behind Thor. Heimdall?

"You... owe me..." Loki rasps, struggling to straighten his shattered ribs, "... told you I could... mess..." a giggle, and he should really finish, shouldn't he, only he's falling to somewhere dark and clammy and cold. He's terrified, suddenly, because he does not want to go where the Jotnar go when they die and he's summoning strength he never knew existed and he wants to be warm and wants—wants— "Th... tor."

A whispered rasp, that. Pathetic, really. His hands are reaching. He blinks, dizzily, and he can see Thor's face and he can't remember, suddenly, why it's important to hate Thor.

Thor's face is doing something complicated and furious and Loki's fingers falter.

Words form above him. He can't hear past the ringing in his ears.

The Odinforce sings about him. Has the anti-magic spell ended, then? He thinks, perhaps.

Odd, though, to feel it so strongly. He's never used it. He's been tempted, sometimes, but he's always been worried, secretly, that the Queen will not come back if he borrows Odin's strength.

"What in Bor's name are you doing to your brother?" growls a voice he hasn't heard since— since—

A shift. More light, above him. And then he's being lifted as if he weighs nothing, and his head is being pillowed against something soft and warm and it's jasmine and oranges and sunset and the blue is going and he's burying his face in the soft folds of the darkness because it's a hallucination, must be, but death must have some benefits, after all, and he's safer, suddenly, than he's felt in years.

This will hurt.

The words make no sense, until they do. His nerves are aflame. He bites his tongue, and tastes blood.

It lasts but a moment. Then his vision clears— not totally, but enough— and his throat is choked, suddenly, and it's impossible to breathe.

Frigga holds him, arms wrapped tightly about him, one hand in his, eyes daring any, all, to approach.

None do.

One of the mortals— Stark, Loki thinks— says something. Then Thor. Odin, too, but Loki does not hear. Is not listening.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, because he's terrified, suddenly, that she's going to remember he killed her. That he is not Thor.

"Why would that matter?" she says, and then, "A mild telepathy charm, dear. I didn't think you were up to doing it yourself. I can stop it, if it makes you uncomfortable."

He's not going mad, then.

It is fine, he thinks, and, I did not mean for you to die.

"I know."

I'm sorry.

"I know."

"I... ruled well," Loki says, aloud.

I tried.

It is supposed to be a statement. He thinks it comes out a plea.

"You did," she agrees.

"Mother?" Thor starts, and then breaks off.

Thor does not often allow himself to give way to tears of grief or joy in a crisis. He is not now. Loki knows him though, has always known Thor, and he can hear the rawness in his brother's voice that Thor is trying through pure will to crush. The selfless choice is the practical one. To let the Queen's hand go, struggle free, and ask Odin how Valhalla can be escaped from in case he ever needs to because he's well now, well enough to stand and in no immediate danger of being skewered, apparently, an oddity he'll have to analyze later, and it's Thor is who she probably wants to hold anyway and it's always better to step away first before one is pushed.

"Not always," Frigga says, gently.

"In this instance, however—"

"And since when, my son, have you been either practical or selfless?"

Loki flushes, and hopes the blood masks it, and then remembers the telepathy spell and scowls.

Remembers another time he'd held Frigga. Remembers—

"When I have seen that you are fine and fear Thor dead or injured," Frigga says, grip tightening, "I worry about Thor, and I go to him. When I see Thor is fine, and I fear that you are dead or injured, I worry about you and I go to you. I have not changed, Loki. You are my sons. What mother can choose between her children?"

Loki swallows, uncertain.

He watches 'Game of Thrones', when he's not playing the game for real.

Frigga's voice softens.

"Am I not your mother, Loki?"

The lump in his throat burns him.

He can't say it.

How can he say it? He wanted to offer her a Kingdom. He wanted to show to her a jewel. He wanted to best Thor and be better and—

"You do not need to best Thor to make me love you," she says. When she wants to, Frigga can hug almost as tightly as Thor. Fortunately, the Aesir, and the Jotnar, he supposes, have long since overcome the need to breathe— an evolutionary defense, Loki thinks, against hugs— and so he simply lets himself be held. Lets the warmth seep into him. "You do not need to do anything to make me love you. I have loved you, my son, since the day your father brought you home and you looked at me with your little eyes. Your ears stuck out then, you know, and your fluffy hair never would stay straight, and you used to have a way of looking so innocent when you were biting my cheeks and pretending you were just kissing them—"

He is surrounded by enemies. Odin is here. Thor is watching.

His cheeks burn red.

"Am I not your mother, Loki?"

Loki considers his options.

"Own defeat, my son," Odin recommends. "Think of the tales you could speak of your own children."

Loki's eyes widen in dawning horror.

Will you—?

Frigga's smile widens above him.

"I have loved you from the moment you first—"

Loki locks gazes accusingly, and above him Frigga's eyes shine, devious, remorseless, and relentless.

Loki slumps back.

Own defeat.

And really, what are selflessness, practicality and noble idiocy good for anyway?

"Yes. You are my mother, mother. Yes."