Final steps

[st_ratagem]

Loki had spent the last hour or two before sunset preparing, and the first hour afterward. He’d taken ruthless advantage of the fact that the Inn staff was desperate to give people towels and had carefully interwoven the. On the floor such that there was no chance of getting at the actual carpet below without effort. He’d selected a dagger from his collection - a very old one that he hadn’t actively used since childhood, one of a pair given to him by his mother - and sharpened it to an almost perfect edge. He’d opened up the balcony door to let the early-winter night chill in. He’d even out together a little aid kit (disinfectant, pads, bandages, needle and thread) for afterward.

In many ways, the hardest part was settling on the towels with the in-etched staff resting in front of him and forcing Odin’s enchantment away, knowing that he wouldn’t be allowing himself to go back to normal possibly for hours. And that, as soon as Thor arrived with a bowl and his hands, it would all have a witness.

Comments

[st_ratagem]

Translation: yes, itching. Loki stepped back, away and out from under Thor’s frozen hand, then let Odin’s enchantment come back. “We’re done. You really would go until you’re permanently crippled, but I don’t need that right now. Go back to my room and warm up.”

Loki would have gone already, but he wanted to see what happened with his brother’s ice-sealed feet.

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor huffs, but moves to head back inside --

-- except he can't seem to pull his feet up off the ground. Thor looks down. In his frozen state he hadn't noticed the ice growing on his feet and up his legs.

His eyes flash from his feet over to Loki. He frowns and attempts to dislodge one of his feet with more force. His leg doesn't immediately pull up, but the ice around it begins to shatter from the force.

[st_ratagem]

Loki smiled his sweetest smile, the one he always used when he was not just enjoying the commission of mischief but also taking immediate ownership of it, a thoroughly joyful and not-innocent expression. "Having a little trouble, brother?"

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor scowls at Loki. "Seriously?"

He pulls one of his legs at full force; more of the ice crumbles. It takes three attempts for him to pull his leg free and the leg of his slacks still has shards of ice stuck to it.

"That's not very nice of you," he says, attempting the same with the other leg.

[st_ratagem]

“It’s just a bit of fun.” And somewhat more harmless than several other ‘bits of fun’ in their past. “You were already freezing!”

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor grumbles and finally manages to pull his other foot loose. "So you thought you'd freeze me more."

Thor shivers, then makes his way inside his brother's room. His shirt is wet and cold -- much like the rest of him, so he sets the dagger on the bed and pulls off his shirt. He drops it on the ground then sits down, next to it. Back hunched, arms folded in front of him, Thor sulks.

[st_ratagem]

“I did! I also wanted to see if I could, and if you’d notice.” Yes and no, respectively.

Loki followed his brother into the room, no less wet but not suffering from cold at all. After Thor hunched to sulk, he collected a few of the not-bloodied towels from the ground and settled behind him. On knees rather than sitting so he was elevated enough to throw a towel over his head and start chafing him dry. Starting, of course, with his hair.

[st_ormbreaker]

"Well, I didn't notice." He'd been too cold to -- not that he'd admit that to Loki.

Thor offers no protest as his brother begins to towel him off. He just sits there solid and sturdy like a brick. "When father told me you were Jotunn, I was shocked. I couldn't believe he kept that from us."

He could understand maybe keeping it when they were younger, but they had been adults. How many years had Thor gone on about slaughtering Ice Giants and his Odin watched while his brother stood nearby?

"I don't hate what you are," he says. "I don't hate Ice Giants, either."

[st_ratagem]

“I’m working on it.” It had driven one more wedge between him and the world he’d known (and he hadn’t needed one more), it had rewritten almost everythInn, wiped out an identity and replaced it with question marks. And then, of course, for someone who prided himself on his body doing what he told it to, finding out that that had never been as true as he’d thought had been deeply unpleasant.

But trying to own it did seem to be helping, maybe, a little. So that was something. “You know it wasn’t Odin’s decision, don’t you? He’d never have said a thing if I hadn’t forced him.” And somehow that was worse, knowing that Odin - the father he had in fact loved, then - would have been perfectly happy to keep him ignorant and crippled forever.

[st_ormbreaker]

"I know that now," Thor says. With great force, he pulls off one boot. "He had so many secrets." Too many. "I used to want to be like him. I don't feel the same way anymore."

Then he pulls off the other.

[st_ratagem]

“Good. You’re mostly terrible at secrets anyway.” And the thought of how Thor might go from over-sentimental idiotic (beloved) ass was genuinely painful, as well. Thor staying Thor was definitely best.

Loki left the towel he’d been using around Thor’s shoulders and shifted so he was sitting in front of his brother with another towel held out a little. “Hands, now.”

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor holds out his hands like an obedient child.

"I don't understand why he hid so much from us."

[st_ratagem]

“Hmmm.” Loki started to rub Thor’s hands with the towel, not to dry them but to push things around, make sure blood was flowing well instead of frozen sluggish. “Knowledge is power, I suppose. And I think Valkyrie is right: he preferred looking good and thinking well of himself to actual responsibility.” There had to have been reasons people so readily accepted grapes-and-bad-plays Odin, after all.

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor's hands start to warm up when Loki massages them. The sharp pain that permeated through the upper surface of the skin down to the bone begins to subside.

"I didn't want to talk about the Statesman at first," he says, looking at his brother. "It felt like another failure on top of all the others."

It wasn't the only reason, but it was part.

[st_ratagem]

“What, because Thanos happened?” As if the Mad Titan was just some event, some force of nature... well, in fairness it wasn’t a bad descriptor. Thanos was a thing that happened. “I’m fairly sure that’s on me, not you. You’re not the one he wanted to kill and who also possessed one of the six things he wants more than anything.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"I wasn't able to stop him," Thor says, quietly. His hands shift in Loki's as the life begins to return to his fingers.

[st_ratagem]

“Of course not.” Thor wanted an advisor, it sounded like time to advise. Past time, probably, if Thor really had been stewing this whole time. ”Thanos annihilates worlds, who knows how many, maybe for longer than we’ve been alive. You said yourself that you needed Stormbreaker to face him, and creating it nearly killed you. Why should you think you had any chance before that?”

For a moment, Loki stopped rubbing and just held his Thor’s hands. “Father’s sin wasn’t keeping secrets, brother. Everyone has secrets, even you. No. Odin took and held tight to control of things that weren’t his to judge or deal with. Our sister, my identity, your power.” What else had Mjölnir been, really, but a control? A necessary one for a while, yes, but no one would ever know how long it had been unnecessary. A long time for sure, given how precise Thor’s control was now. “If you really don’t want to be like him, you’ll see when things aren’t yours and let them go.”

He went back to rubbing. “Thanos is a horrible and unstoppable thing that happens. He happened to your Statesman. The best you could do at the time was survive, which you did, and buy time for your people, which you also did. The best you could do after was find a way to stop him later, which you did, are doing, and will do.”

[st_ormbreaker]

Thor feels something catch in his throat at his brother's words, but he swallows it down.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you had faith in me," he says lightly, joking. He hooks his fingers around Loki's to stop them from moving.

[st_ratagem]

“Heavens no. Perish the thought.” Loki’s tone was equally light; this sort of joking was a good way to say things without actually saying them. A must, for the two of them, especially because Loki did, in fact, have faith in his brother. “It’s good to hear you know me better than that.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"That's good," he says, relinquishing his hold on Loki's hands. "Because I'd have to tell you that faith was probably misplaced."

[st_ratagem]

Loki shrugged and snagged another towel to start drying his own hair. Being a completely drowned rat palled quickly, especially when Thor was more or less unfrozen. “You do tend to win eventually. To someone who’s lost nearly every fight to you, faith might not feel like a stretch.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"You're not Thanos," Thor reminds him. His tone is still light as always, and he pulls himself up and onto his knees and pulls the towel out of Loki's hands before he can stop him. He's always been the physically stronger of the two, so Loki has to rely heavily on his other talents.

"Here." He towels Loki's hair off as Loki toweled off him. "We could just get a hair dryer, you know."

[st_ratagem]

“I prefer towels.” Loki closed his eyes to enjoy the feeling, and also to ensure he didn’t get towel in his eyes. He loved hands in his hair, and toweling wasn’t that, but it was... close. “I deal with less, you know,” vague gesture at his head, “poof this way.”

[st_ormbreaker]

"We don't need a hair dryer to make your hair poof," he says. As children, Thor had done it unintentionally all the time.

And sometimes intentionally.

[st_ratagem]

“I didn’t say there weren’t other ways, but don’t you dare.” Loki didn’t twitch, though. If Thor decided to zap, he’d just have to deal with it. “You know how long it takes to fix after that.”