Chapter Text
“– you had no idea what you were talking about!” Loki yelled at her. She was staring at him, her black eyes opened wide as she took in his new appearance. He still wasn’t sure whether the impression of should-be-cold inside his veins was reality or a figment of his imagination, but he knew what he looked like, now. When a smile appeared on her lips, he understood he had won. She started walking towards the Frost Giants impeding his movements.
She was doing it. She was attacking. Insignificant little creature, far too weak to stand the cold, and yet she advanced towards her enemies with a steady determination he never thought she would be capable of mustering. But then again, he had worked hard for such a surge of courage to happen in her. She was too clever to be hot headed or brave, but he’d managed to tangle her into her own web, taking time, step by step, watching her create her own illusions about him. Little weaver…
Every one of her steps now indicated she had fallen into the trap of thinking he needed to be understood. Of course she had, every one of his words and actions had been honed, chosen carefully to tangle her in that belief. How he had relished the proud look on her face when he’d apparently let her catch a glimpse of his so-called wounds, winning over her mind and body until she was all his.
And now she was getting ready to wield her unruly power at those who attacked him, even if she didn’t stand a chance, calm and concentrated on the outside but utterly chaotic under the surface of her smile, in the same way she had confronted the Allfather’s power. On that day, he had sensed for the first time the waves of raw power suddenly unleashed from her body, radiating all the way into the semi consciousness he was dwelling in, compelling him to make the extra effort he wasn’t sure was worth the try and open his eyes again. Half-broken purple waves wreathing inside her, he could feel it.
And yet, as she walked towards him, he couldn’t help the nagging impression that she wasn’t fooled anymore. That she had been, at first, but had seen through it all. And still decided to play along.
“I’m not sacrificing my life to protect the world from your anger. I’m not deciding to be the comforting shoulder you can cry on when you’ve been vexed. I was doing this for my own agreement, for the mere satisfaction I felt when I was with you. I’m being selfish; I want you all to myself, I don’t want to share you.”
That was what she’d said, not an hour ago. She made it clear; she was there because she wanted to. Or so she thought.
He couldn’t resist testing her. “This is what I am,” he shouted over the wind. “A monster. I’ve tried to forget it; I couldn’t. I tried to pretend I wasn’t; it was a mistake. I tried to live up to it. I failed. But now I am here and I understand something too. I don’t want you to make me look like anything else. I don’t need you, Eileen Weaver. You don’t have to write my story anymore.” I never needed you.
And still she walked, without a word. The cloak he’d found for her flapped loudly and the wind unclasped it from her shoulders, leaving her in the evening dress with the golden snake neckline. The fabric, covered in ice, clung to her body. She didn’t as much as shiver. Two giants seized her and she absorbed the pain with a slow shudder. Volstagg had complained a lot about the sharp stinging of the burn. Loki knew she didn’t handle pain very well. But she ignored it and her captors struggled to keep her still.
It wouldn’t last very long, now. They both knew it. He smiled. There was nothing he liked more than reading of the resignation in someone’s eyes, when they realized they had just been tools, little pawns on his chessboard. And Eileen added a faint glow of self-satisfaction to her surrender, despite the cold, despite the pain, despite her imminent death at the hands of monsters she couldn’t comprehend.
Again, he congratulated himself at that change in her personality: he had made her ready for self-sacrifice, the very thing she loathed, the very act they both mocked in heroes. For him. Him only. He almost laughed at the frail woman dying of cold under his eyes.
“Get her closer,” the giant said. “Let her see him. Make her feel the cold.” The situation had been much improved compared to its state only a handful of minutes before. These beasts were as stupid as he’d remembered. They placed her just in front of him. “If she kills him,” the giant whispered, “let her.”
Oh, but she won’t kill me, he thought. She will smile at me and turn to you and lash out. She will make you kill her, right under the Allfather’s eye. Odin was seeing everything, he knew. Asgard would have to react, and Loki would be free. Free from Eileen, free from the Giants, free from the promises he’d let her make in his name. Free to attack the humans as soon as Thanos was defeated.
She was still standing there, doing nothing but looking at him. She seemed slow and numb, her eyelids opening and closing unhurriedly as they protected her eyes from the wind.
The most difficult about all this would have to pretend being devastated. The best lies always have truth in them, the sarcastic twist of her mouth seemed to whisper. He would have shrugged if he could. He would have to bear the sympathy of his mother, of his so-called friends, of… of Thor. He repressed the grimace. But it was a small price to pay to earn his place back in Asgard.
“You are an idiot,” he screamed at her. “You should have run away when they told you to. I’ll hold them back, you can still leave.” He waited for the attack his words were meant to provoke.
“Never,” she answered. He saw the power flicker a little in her pupils as she placed her hands around his face. What is she doing? She wasn’t going to fight? The sizzle of her skin being frosted over by his own filled his ears, mingling with the Giants’ insufferable laughter. She trembled and breathed out slowly, looking into his eyes. Nothing to lose, her demeanour screamed at him.
And he understood. “No,” he said before he knew why. “It will kill you.” That wasn’t the plan, wasn’t the idea. She was supposed to fight. To get herself killed. Not –
“I hope so,” was her only answer before she captured his lips. She whimpered in pain, but he couldn’t help the warm triumph in his chest.. Too proud to run away, too weak to defeat the Giants, too far gone into madness to wait for help. So she resigned. In the most beautiful and stupid and satisfying way. The Giants were laughing louder. Let them laugh, her kiss said. You win in the end.
This time she wasn’t ruining the plan, she was improving it, saving him from the responsibility having her fight for him. When she died, it would be her fault, her own bad decision. He felt proud of how their two intelligences had completed each other in that case.
He gave in to the kiss, tasting her one last time before the end, closing his eyes to savour that last gift she made him. A gift she must have known was his to claim anyway. He had been the one to bring her back to life, after all, to offer her so much when she was nothing. He took her last breath as he’d stolen her screams of pain and pleasure, and her tears, and her anger, and everything else. His Eileen. Loki, her voice echoed in his memory.
Confusedly, he imagined he would have liked to hear his name roll on her tongue again. But it was too late for that, her tongue was a ruined mess now. Delicious intensity in the final contact with her skin. But she was falling, her lips were gone. And he missed them already. Instinct made him double over to catch her back. In vain. She was crumpled on the ground, in the snow, motionless, staring at him, her exhausted and empty eyes whispering goodbye. She was dying.
His Eileen was dead.
It came to him sharp as a stab, shameful as a sickness, clear as ice water melting in the spring.
He didn’t want her to be dead.
He wanted her to live. He didn’t know why, he didn’t comprehend why, he didn’t even care why, he wanted her alive and at his side.
He looked at her figure curled up in the snow, at her ravaged face and arms, her blackened throat, and he noticed a faint pulse, a shallow respiration. She could still live, she could still do it, if he moved with sufficient speed. She wouldn’t disobey his will and die, now that he wanted her alive. She would do what he wanted; she died at his command, she fought at his command, she survived at his command. His Eileen.
A Giant had noticed her breathing too and was bending over her, curiously. “No!” Loki heard himself shout at the top of his lungs. He realized he was on the brink of ruining his plan. A split-second later, it was too late already, he had ruined his plan as he conjured up five projections of himself to distract the idiots’ attention and allow him time to steal one of their weapons. He sent a blade into the one bending over Eileen, and the giant fell just next to her. She didn’t seem to register it. Her pupils were still locked on his face, but he couldn’t feel her power anymore. It was gone. And if that was gone… It was impossible; he didn’t want it that way. “Don’t you dare close your eyes!” he ordered her.
Something hit his back with high speed and violence, sending blinding pain throughout his body. He whirled and struck his attacker as hard as he could with the heavy, badly balanced spear he’s stolen, but three others were closing on him. He would never make it back to Asgard in one piece, he realized. The plan had been to wait for Odin to arrive and witness the Barbary of the giants. But now he couldn’t afford to wait. Any other minute of delay would kill her. He cast a quick glance at her and saw her eyes had closed.
There was only one thing to do. “Heimdall,” he called out, “if you can hear me, send for help.” He panted. “Father, I need you,” he added before he changed his mind.
But nothing happened. There was no bright flash, no –. He speared a giant, then another, trying to see where they came from and survey the empty sky at the same time. He sent two blades into the shadows, knowing he was outnumbered anyway, that if someone, anyone, didn’t come to his help soon he would die. He had been wrong, he slowly understood; he was making mistakes again, just like on Earth. The ugly truth dawned on him: they were not coming. Not to help her. Not to help him.
He swore. “What would you do if it wasn’t me? How long would it take you if it was anyone else asking for your help?”
Loki looked at the sky again, blinking away the sting of snowflakes the wind propelled into his eyes, and he considered staying there, letting the giants destroy him, allowing what should have happened all those centuries ago if it hadn’t been for what the Allfather called mercy, a mercy that had caused more pain and deaths than if he’d slit that blue baby’s throat open. Mercy is overrated, he heard Eileen laugh inside his skull.
“Father, please!”
But he couldn’t say more. He couldn’t beg for help, if that was what they were waiting for. He could repent; Thor had done it, believing it could help. But if Loki said he repented, just when his life was threatened, nobody would believe him. They would expect a lie, and they would be right to.
No; Loki would never redeem, he would never regret, he would never even pretend to be sorry. If they wanted him to feel responsible for Eileen’s death, they would have to wait a long, long time. He yelled out in rage. “Watch me die, then. Watch others carry out the death sentence you could never bring yourself to utter. And this time, she will not be there to reproach you with it, I will not be there to make you pay. Nobody will!”
He caught two arm-thick icicles and cast them back in one movement. He couldn’t bring his body not to fight, it seemed. But a third ice dagger struck him in the face; his warm blood gushing melted the pieces of ice away, trickling down his cheek, and he whirled again, trying to see where Eileen was. He had been stupid, reckless, no better than Thor. The woman was dead anyway, and it was all her fault, she should have obeyed his plan. He felt death closing on to him too, the taste of his own blood seeping through his lips overwhelming the smell of snow and ice and giant. If she hadn’t been so insolent, maybe someone would have wanted to save her despite her belonging to the Liesmith.
He heard a deafening crash. A blinding light filled the world, causing the Giants to shriek, and he glimpsed Mjolnir flying through the night. Thor had come. At last.
Loki closed his eyes for half a second to stay concentrated. He needed to process what was whirling inside him or he would die stupidly.
His brother was there. He hated the relief it brought him. He hated hating the relief, because without Thor, Eileen would die and he didn’t want her to die.
He hated that he didn’t want her to die. He hated the idea of her staying dead. He hated the world for not simply obeying his command. He hated everything and everyone, and he didn’t have time to cave in to hate right now. It would have to wait. He buried everything deep inside him and flashed his eyes open, stabbing another giant, drowning the hate in the enemy’s screams.
Thor landed next to him, hammer in hand, ready to fight, ready to kill. “Others are coming,” the blonde god said. Loki nodded and gripped a throwing dagger tighter. Others? What others? Had they been convinced by his speech? How many had deigned speak up to come and help him, once he’d humiliated himself under their eyes?
And all these blue aberrations, coming from everywhere. This would never have happened if Thor had let him destroy the planet. But Thor was helping, he needed his sibling, so he swallowed the biting remark. “This doesn’t change anything,” Loki murmured. “I will not thank you.”
Thor didn’t as much as smile. “I know. She will.”
Oh, I don’t think so. But again, seeing the hammer was spinning in his brother’s hand, Loki kept his lips tightly shut. He darted his eyes left and right, assessing the enemies’ positions, selecting his next target. Both brothers sprung at the same time.
There was another flash of light while they fought their way in the snow, and Loki glimpsed soldiers, many soldiers, more than was necessary, and Balder, the Warriors Three, and Sif who was already running towards Thor, and Odin, gesturing orders with Gungnir. Loki stifled the surge of envy at the sight of this spear, symbol of power he had held for a short moment, and called out. “Father!”
Odin didn’t as much as signal he’d heard. But Loki didn’t care; he had seen Balder hurrying towards Eileen’s limp body. He was there in two strides, as the fair warrior picked her up. “She’s a block of ice, Loki,” he said. “It’s too late!”
Who did he think he was addressing? “It is not too late. I have to take her back at once, we have what is required to treat her. I know what to do.”
“You know how to bring people back to life?”
She is not dead! He closed his hand around Balder’s jaw. “I know of things you wouldn’t dare have nightmares about,” he seethed. “I want her to live and she will live.” The other nodded, and Loki let go of him before his arms grew too weak and he dropped Eileen.
“I’ll take her back, I swear it,” Balder said. “But don’t blame me if you find her dead when you arrive, because she already is.”
Loki had gone too far into this madness now to risk ruin it by slaughtering the very ones he called to, but this other provocation he found difficult to ignore. Fortunately, Thor noticed the strain on his brother’s face and interfered. “Sif, I need you to make sure Balder can leave safely with Eileen.” Loki resisted, but the god of thunder was far stronger than him and he was dragged away from the receding figures, away from the burnt body in another man’s arms. “Brother, look at me!” He obeyed. “You have to stay and fight with us.” Walls crumbled around them, rubble echoing down the deep chasms scarring the planet.
Loki couldn’t stay here another minute. “I’m the only one who knows how to –”
“Manipulate a warming stone? No, the healers can do that too. You can’t flee now.”
I flee if I want to. But his retort was overridden by Odin’s voice, echoing everywhere on the battlefield. “Peace! I command you to cease the fight at once!”
Everyone halted and looked at him as his words worked their magic. He believes saying is doing, Eileen had mocked the Allfather. She didn’t know how just her remark was, and how wrong she’d been to make fun of it. When the god of War and Poetry commanded, the world obeyed. Nothing described the idea of irrevocable better than hearing him say, ‘So be it.’ Performative speech, he called it, and Loki envied that even more than the throne. He shrugged Thor’s hand away and they drew closer to the Asgardian lines.
“This is ridiculous. I have more pressing matters to tend to than clearing the terrible misunderstanding that has triggered this catastrophe, but I fear the peace between our worlds is, once again, at risk. We only came to defend ours, and I will take my army back to Asgard immediately. But I will return, alone. This is not finished,” he concluded
Back to Asgard, Loki was repeating to himself. Back to Asgard, back to Eileen, back immediately. Far from this place.
“But, Father, –” Thor protested.
No, this idiot is not making me stand yet another battle here. Loki steeled himself and laid a hand on Thor’s arm. He swallowed. “Brother.” Their eyes met. Loki thought he might flinch, lose control, smash the other’s face. But he resisted. He could do it, he could lie some more, tell this little lie once again, this one lie that worked wonders and would always work, he hoped, even if at that moment it seemed to cost him so much more than usual to admit he needed his fool of a sibling to get what he wanted. “Please,” Loki whispered. He could feel all the others waiting, both armies poised in between bouts of slaughter, suspended to their silent argument.
Thor looked at his brother’s face, at the slight tremor agitating the hand on his arm, at the blood on his face, and the madness in his eyes. Loki let him observe and even closed his fingers a little tighter, as if in an uncontrolled spasm.
Thor lowered his gaze and nodded. Loki felt his eyes close. He was exhausted. He couldn’t afford being exhausted.
“Asgard will pay for this with more than a few lives,” Helblindi rumbled. “Maybe not today, or even tomorrow. But you will have to answer for our dead.” The red eyes stared straight at Loki, who looked back. He knew they would never have him. Jotunheim disappeared in a flash of light.
They were all back on the Bridge the next instant. Loki didn’t wait for the Allfather to dismiss the troops and cut through the crowd of anxious citizens to reach the healing room and make sure he hadn’t done all this for nothing.
He would never have thought of himself as slow, and yet he felt he was moving in congealed molasses, every step a struggle, a taunt at his hurry, the bridge stretching forever under his feet, ten times, a hundred times its normal size. He had to reach the room. If Eileen died, it would be a personal blow Death was dealing him. And not even Loki could fight Death. He walked faster.
The Palace seemed quiet after the shrieking winds of Jotunheim. “Wait!” his father’s voice echoed in the empty corridor. “We must talk.” Loki cast a quick glance over his shoulder but didn’t slow down. He even extended his strides, somehow hoping the old man would not be able to catch up. Ever. “Even if she lives, Loki, I might not want her to stay.”
Loki froze and waited. No, not again. Wasn’t it enough? Wasn’t it time it ended, that perpetual hindering of his wishes? He had already debased his dreams so much, he wasn’t asking for power or pardon or respect; he was asking for a woman’s life. Was it so hard for them to understand that for once, they could grant him what he desired?
When Odin caught up, he peered into his son’s eyes. “Or she might want you dead.”
Loki’s jaw clenched. “I can take care of her wanting me dead,” he mumbled. “But you must allow her to stay in Asgard.”
“Why, Loki?”
He realized he didn’t know what to answer. No, not exactly. He knew what he wanted to answer, but he wasn’t sure it would serve his purpose. He didn’t know what the Allfather expected of him. “You didn’t give me any reasons when you presented the choice to me the first time, but they existed all the same. I believe they must be valid still.”
“You made your choice at that moment. It was merely a few hours ago. What has changed? What happened?” There was silence. “Is half a night in her bed enough to win you over?”
Loki stared in horror, the controlling forces over him straining under the repeated assault of the hatred swirling inside his head. He took in a little air; he couldn’t let his father make him angry. “That is not why I want her to stay.” Not only.
Odin smiled. “I know.” There was a short pause. “Tell me,” he commanded.
The words spilled out by themselves, extracted from his mouth. “I can’t accept her death or her departure,” Loki heard himself say, for once guileless. “I wish she could remain at my side.” He was surprised; he had imagined these words would sound so much more ridiculous.
“Your wishes might be insufficient reason for her to stay.”
Loki felt a sort of pain that didn’t seem to originate from any of the battle wounds. Why did his father keep reminding him of this possibility? He jerked his chin up to answer, “She will stay!”
“Why? Will you make her?”
If needed. “She said she wanted to.” At one point, she had.
“That was before you took her to a certain death.”
Loki’s head snapped to the side so he could see his father’s face properly. “I didn’t lead her to death. She decided to die on her own. She died for me,” he added, pride streaking his voice.
Odin smiled. “Did she? What do you mean? Her death wasn’t going to serve you, was it? She didn’t fight to free you, Asgardian soldiers did.”
Loki understood his father wanted him to explain. But he couldn’t. If he exposed his plan, he would have to start preparing again. So he walked away.
“Loki!” The voice stopped him. “She would never have died for nothing. She knew you were going to use her death. Why was she so sure her suicide at your… hand would be so useful?” Loki glared. “Tell me, and I will let her stay.” No, he couldn’t be asking that of him. Not yet another choice. There were always choices. “I shall grant Eileen Weaver a place at your side, I swear it, but first you must tell me what your purpose was when you took her to Jotunheim.”
Frustration threatened to overwhelm him again. He looked at the king, wishing he could kill right now and be done with it.
“I beg you not to hate me, Loki.” How can I not hate you? “I’m trying to make sure your sudden urge to keep her does not well from yet another twisted calculation. The probability that I should refuse you is high, and you could wear that disappointment as proof I have never loved you.
Loki smiled slyly, trying his best to hide that even such satisfaction would never compensate for letting her go. “You are putting her life in the bargain. What if I refuse?” Say it, confess that you want her to die, say that taking her from me just as I accepted her seems to be an appropriate punishment.
“I value her life more than she does.” Odin sighed. “I’m just placing her presence among us in the bargain. Your secret plans, or your Eileen with you, at all times. Or until she grows tired of you,” he added.
Loki dismissed the twinkle of malice in that cold, single eye. His plans or his Eileen. Choices. How he loathed choosing.
Which of the two would be the easiest to retrieve if he gave up on it? If he kept Eileen, she would be a liability, a weakness. Or at the very least, everyone would see her as such, and he couldn’t let that happen. They would be right, she already was a weakness: he was considering giving up on his secrets to keep her with him.
And yet, she had power. The Allfather had given her a sort of power, unidentified for the moment, but it could be harnessed, honed, perfected. She could learn. She could become an asset; an asset disguised as a dent in his armour. She was hard and unforgiving; he would only have half the work to do. If she survived.
“Can she live?” he asked.
“Yes, I swear it.”
You swear a lot, today, Allfather. He had planned to save Asgard from Thanos and start anew, with a clean slate.
But that he could live without.
He still dreamed of becoming King.
You will never be King, Loki, he heard Eileen’s voice repeat.
If he gave up on his plans, he would have her to make new ones. If he gave up on Eileen and she had been right about his struggle for power, he would have nothing left.
If she had been right. Could he trust her? Trust her…
He would make her explain why she’d said that. And if she’d been wrong, she would pay for luring him into choosing her. He would make her beg; until I cry for mercy and then start again, she’d said. He would make her plead at least once more. And many other times. He would make her breathless from crying his name.
That he wasn’t sure he wanted to live without.
There wasn’t much of a choice left to make.
He took a deep breath. “I wanted her to fight at my side and die, wanted the Giants to be responsible for her death and force them to repay this debt by serving us for eternity. I also – wanted her to see what I truly was.” I am… I am unable to tell you what I wanted, he almost confessed, realizing as he was voicing the words that his scheming was far below his own standards. What had he been doing? What had crippled his intelligence so much?
“Had you planned all this? It seems to me that you didn’t even want this to work, Loki.”
I had planned everything! He didn’t know how exactly, he didn’t remember, it had made sense at the time, he could have sworn it was clean and clear when Eileen had come back from the garden. “She was angry. Stronger. Thor had told her I didn’t want her here, and she had become uncontrollable. I needed a clean, quick way to dispose of her.” Thor had told her, making her want to leave and I could not accept it. “She had to die,” he added.
“But then you changed your mind,” Odin pointed out. Loki nodded. It hadn’t been the first time he wanted to kill her, it seemed logical. “Loki, you should have understood you didn’t really want that woman dead when you found you were unable to execute her yourself.”
I refuse to grace this with an answer, Loki decided.
Odin clicked his tongue. “She’s proud. You will have to ask.”
“She won’t refuse. This is too big an opportunity for her.”
“You can’t know what is going through her mind…”
Loki looked away to conceal the smile; he had expected the bait. “But you can.”
“Do you want me to pry and tell you? She will not take kindly to it and you’ll have to face her reproach it if she knows.”
Loki hesitated. “I want her to stay,” he eventually said. “I need to know what will convince her, what she expects as it crosses her mind.”
Odin looked at his son for a long time. He was clearly trying not to smile too much when he spoke. “To the healing room.”
Loki didn’t stop to think about saying thank you.