Chapter Text
Agent Coulson does not take days off. But when director Fury tells him to, ‘get out and not show his face at HQ until after the weekend’ Coulson has little choice.
Not that Coulson is opposed to having days off, not at all. He enjoys free time just as much as the next agent. But the thing is, when you know the world is perpetually stuck on the brink of destruction, you tend to get fidgety when you can’t keep an eye on it.
But he tries. He tries really hard to have a pleasant evening. He has opened a bottle of wine that he can tell from the wrapping was a Christmas gift from Maria Hill from two years ago. He doesn’t know if wine can survive this long without growing legs but he’ll give it a shot anyway.
He went grocery shopping and has prepared a meal that is almost luxurious by his standards - which means it contains a side dish that is not potato wedges.
When he sits down in front of his TV he is sufficiently relaxed.
That is, until the doorbell rings.
---
“Not a single word,” Loki growls, looking like death warmed over in a Care Bear t-shirt.
Coulson feels like he’s being pranked, which is not so far fetched when you’re talking to a trickster. He peers down both sides of the corridor to see if anyone’s watching and having the time of their lives, but there’s no one there. When he looks back at Loki, for some reason he’s still there; no hallucination then. Odd.
Coulson gives his unexpected visitor a onceover. The t-shirt is washed out and crinkly but that is definitely Cheer Bear in a cape adorning Loki’s chest. Funny, Coulson didn’t know they made them in men’s sizes.
“In that case it will be a very short conversation,” Coulson replies. The fashion faux-pas continues further downwards with a pair of linen trousers that may have been gray at some point but are now veering towards the muddy end of the colour range on account of being soaked through and clinging to Loki’s legs like tin foil.
Come to think of it, the entirety of Loki is drenched, which means he is leaving little puddles on the floor the longer he stands there.
Loki rolls his eyes and still somehow manages to look dignified when he tries to squeeze past Coulson.
“What are you doing?” Coulson stops Loki with a firm hand against his chest. His t-shirt is soggy and smells like fish.
Loki raises one eyebrow - the other is apparently done with today and refuses to respond at all. “Coming in. I assumed you were going to invite me in,” he says.
Normally, there is nothing wrong with this assumption, but Loki is dripping wet and Coulson doesn’t know what is going on, and he’ll be damned if he lets the God of Mischief into his home without an explanation.
“I’ll consider it once you’ve told me what you’re doing here.”
For a moment it seems as if Loki is going to choke on his own tongue, but then he deflates until he looks positively miserable. Grumpy Bear would have been a much more fitting choice.
“I appear to... to...,” Loki searches for words, which is alarming considering that linguistic contortions are his strong suit. “It seems I have lost my magic.”
He gives Coulson a look that is nothing short of pained and waits like, well, like a normal person would.
If the mere fact that Loki is standing in the hallway, voluntarily using the door, dressed in something that looks like he has nicked it off a homeless person, and dripping onto the floor while waiting for Coulson to make a decision weren’t already unsettling enough, the mere expression of misery on his face would be.
Besides, Coulson is in no way certain that a God of Mischief without magic is any less dangerous than one with his skills still intact.
“Fine.” Coulson steps aside. “But take off your shoes.”
“Really?” Loki frowns, a few clicks closer to his old self. “You are going to make me take off my shoes. Out here.”
Coulson nods. “You make squelching noises. You either continue to make them out here, or you take off your shoes.”
Loki blinks and Coulson gets ready to go for the taser. But then Loki sighs and toes off the pair of Nikes. He turns out to be sockless.
Coulson has been in a lot of situations that he reckons regular people would either run from screaming or just plain go insane from, but even he has to admit that the current display is surreal.
Loki trudges inside and stands in the middle of the room looking indecisive.
“Wait here,” Coulson orders and is shocked to find Loki obeying, albeit with a scowl.
He grabs a towel from the rack in the bathroom and rummages through his closet for a shirt that is big enough to fit Loki. The guy might not have Thor’s stature, but he is tall as a tree and Coulson is... well, not.
He winces when the only XL t-shirt he can find is one of his precious Captain America tees. But he supposes Cap would approve if it served to help someone. Even if it’s Loki.
He fishes a pair of sweatpants from the bottom drawer, a pair of socks too, and briefly wonders if he should offer underwear as well, but then refrains from it because that would be a discussion he feels can only go wrong. Loki will just have to make do.
“Here you go.” He shoves the pile of clothing at Loki who in turn gives him a questioning look.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Wear it.” Coulson puts the towel on top of it and indicates the bathroom as a potential place to change.
Loki, on the other hand, only gives him a pitying smile. “I do not get cold, agent Coulson, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“So I’ve heard.” Coulson nods. “But you are not sitting down anywhere in this apartment dripping like a half-baked sponge cake.”
Loki frowns; he is probably trying to figure out what a sponge cake is. Then he glances at the clothes in his hands, scrunching up his nose in disgust. “I do not want these.”
Coulson shrugs his shoulders. “Fine. But if you so much as brush against my couch in this state, I will chase you back out into the rain naked. And, I will call the cops on you.”
Once again Loki is awfully amused. “You think I’m afraid of your law enforcement?”
“No, not particularly,” Coulson amends as he wanders off into the kitchen, leaving the god behind. “But given that you can’t magic your way out of it right now, it will be one hell of a hassle.”
There is silence for a moment but then he hears Loki start to pad towards the bathroom. It’s funny to actually hear Loki move about. Normally, the only warning Coulson gets is a shiver down his spine and a sudden drop in temperature - and even that is probably just a courtesy on Loki’s part.
“Your reasoning, agent Coulson, is, as always, wondrous,” Loki purrs as he passes by the kitchen on his way to the bathroom.
“I’m going to pretend that was a compliment.”
“Please do.” Loki’s voice is muffled by the bathroom door but he still manages to convey a smug grin through his tone.
While Loki is supposedly busy wrestling into his new street clothing, Coulson dedicates his attention to preparing some tea. He has no idea if tea is even a thing on Asgard - or anywhere else in the universe, for that matter - but he figures he needs to do something, and it always seems to help on TV. If nothing else it’s a non-aggressive way to pass the time.
Loki’s magic is powerful, but that does not mean he is defenseless without it. Coulson has seen Loki fight in hand-to-hand combat and he would rather not agitate his guest any further.
Loki is unstable on the best of days. So, Coulson would hate to contemplate what losing his magic has done to Loki’s state of mind.
And then, after all of that, there is still the pressing question of whether or not this is a scam because Coulson distinctly remembers something about Loki looking quite different when he’s not making an effort - and it’s not just bed-hair.
Coulson is carefully wrapping his dinner in plastic when Loki emerges from the bathroom. His hair is uncannily fuzzy from being dried off in a non-magical way and he looks utterly unhappy as he wordlessly points to Cap’s shield prominently adorning his chest.
“If you do anything funny to that shirt I will lock you in a room with your brother and throw away the key,” Coulson warns and Loki sends him a death glare in return before rounding the corner and taking a seat in the living room beside the pass-through.
Coulson considers pouring himself a glass of wine but then thinks better of it and goes with the tea since he figures he will need to be sober for this. “You know, I hate to ask this, but if your magic is gone then why does it have zero effect on your appearance?”
Loki’s lips are a thin red line of silent defiance.
“Look,” Coulson continues. “You can tell me you’ve lost your magic all you want, but as long as you’re sitting here all flesh-colored and human I’ll have to assume you’re lying because it seems to me you’re using your magic to alter your appearance just fine.”
The wall of determined silence holds for another moment or two before Loki lets out an exasperated sigh. “Did Thor tell you that? It sounds like something he would say.”
“He may have... hinted at it.”
Loki rolls his eyes. “Naturally. Because everything I do has got to be magic. Clearly.”
“Yes, all right.” Coulson motions for Loki to get on with it. “I get it. No love lost there. I think we’ve established that. Moving on.”
Loki glares at him but seems to come to the conclusion that offering Coulson an explanation will get him further than bad mouthing his brother.
“Well, it’s not magic,” Loki says as if he expects Coulson to defy him on that. “At least not in a traditional sense.”
“I doubt anything about you is traditional,” Coulson mutters.
That calls Loki’s trademark smirk back onto the plan. “Oh? I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Please do.”
Loki gives him a contemplative look as if to say, ’Nicely played.’ and continues with a little less glaring, “It’s a reflex. A physical reaction to my surroundings. Nothing at all magical about it.”
Coulson squints. He doesn’t want to mention chameleons.
“So it’s a defense mechanism?” He ventures instead.
“If you will.” Loki’s nod is hesitant. “There is a saying you have here, I believe. ’When in Rome do as the Romans do’? Well, I have never met any Romans but it seems my body is taking this piece of advice quite literally.”
“It’s meant to keep you safe.” Coulson thinks it’s pretty nifty. Except, maybe, if you land in a pit of slugs.
Loki snorts. “I’m certainly not doing it for fun. Well, not right now anyway. Obviously, I can control it with magic but at the moment...”
He spreads his arms as if to show that he’s unarmed - which he more or less is. “If you put me in a room with a Jotun or a Jotun artifact I would most likely shift back and it would be the last thing you ever see.”
“Then I’m glad I don’t have a Jotun.”
“This is no laughing matter, Coulson,” Loki growls.
“Am I laughing?”
There is a small crease that forms between Loki’s eyebrows as he tries to determine if Coulson is making fun of him.
“Good,” Loki concludes eventually.
“Any other forms you may randomly shift into that I should know about?”
Loki wordlessly glares at him.
“Great. Glad we talked about it.” Coulson is willing to accept this biological SNAFU for now and move on to the next problem. “Now, tell me what happened.”
“I would,” Loki replies. “But I cannot tell you what I do not know.”
“Okay...,” Coulson makes a mental note to research temporary amnesia in Norse gods. “Then what’s the last thing you do remember?”
Loki shifts uncomfortably. He probably thinks Coulson didn’t see it on account of turning around to retrieve the kettle from the stove but Coulson does and his concern grows. That’s a nervous gesture, a human gesture.
Loki has a pretty good grip on his facial expressions and posture - there’s a fantastic poker player lurking in there somewhere - so slips like these speak of great inner turmoil. And Loki’s inner turmoil has a nasty tendency to become exterior turmoil.
“I followed this group of rebels, as you requested me to in our last meet,” Loki explains while Coulson swirls a bag of chamomile tea (since he didn’t expect to entertain an eccentric Norse god tonight he neglected to buy any other) back and forth in the steaming water. “And for the record, I could have put an end to your problem right there and then-”
Coulson shoots him a warning glance and a fraction of Loki’s regular smirk returns.
“-but I kept my distance. I tracked them into the mountains in... what was it?”
“Armenia?” Coulson ventures as he goes through his cupboards in search for some sugar, or honey, or whatever else Asgardians might use to sweeten tea.
“Ah, yes. Armenia,” Loki affirms and waves his hand uncertainly. “I think I even sent you a report, did I not?”
Coulson sighs but nods anyway. “I remember a dozen text messages that I received at four in the morning informing me of how bored you were, and how this task was beneath you, ultimately culminating in a question about what I’m wearing.”
Loki hums as if recalling a fond memory. “Right. You never answered my question, by the way.”
Coulson puts the mug on a tray, along with an assortment of sugary accessories, and sets it down in front of Loki. “What does my silence tell you about asking people questions like that?”
“That you sleep in the nude?” Loki muses and gives the mug in front of him a perplexed look. “I’m confused. Tea? You are serving me tea.”
“Any objections?”
Loki hesitates for a second and then smiles in a way that could almost be described as sheepish. “You wouldn’t happen to have any alcoholic beverages I could add? I feel like taking up a bad habit.”
---
The story goes like this: Loki was tracking a small group of rebels who S.H.I.E.L.D. suspected of having stolen a few artifacts from a small museum in Sofia. They were C 1 classified artifacts which was the only reason why S.H.I.E.L.D. even allowed the museum to keep them. No use in quarantining a couple of items that can turn orange juice into lemon at most. Their storage facilities are full to the brink as it is.
But since they were dealing with something magical, Coulson sent Loki. One might argue that Loki has exhibited great attraction towards catastrophe-inducing artifacts, but Coulson also knows that Loki is clever enough to keep his hands off of something that might end his own existence. Loki is very fond of it, after all.
Also, Agent Romanova was incommunicado and Agent Barton refuses to go near anything magical on principle. He claims it makes him feel icky.
Loki it was then. Needless to say, he was being a pain in the ass about it and Coulson has a grand total of 48 messages in his inbox to prove it. Some of them depicting, in great detail, his gruesome death at Loki’s hands should this mission get any more tedious.
According to Loki, the rebels made their way into the mountains where they scoured a set of caves with the help of, ’a doctor whose profession it is to find ancient rubbish in the dirt’, a.k.a. an archaeologist of unknown identity. Said doctor was presumably not a happy camper, but if Loki is to be believed, the man was left little choice.
They found something in the caves. It caused a considerable amount of cheering; then the lights went blindingly bright for Loki before they went out entirely. When Loki woke up he was without his powers, which Coulson is willing to admit must have been a shock. But Loki is a resourceful guy. He managed to make it across the big lake somehow. He does not mention how he came by the atrocious Care Bear outfit, but Coulson figures there is a tall guy with a taste for old children’s TV shows now frantically searching for his luggage.
It would be funny if Loki’s misery wasn’t so tangible. Coulson tries not to get too emotionally involved in cases but Loki’s pain is oozing all over the place and all Coulson can do is mop up the mess and hope for the best.
“When I woke up I was like-,” Loki gestures as if he’s afraid that once he acknowledges his condition it will become real, “-like this.”
The mug on the counter now contains eighty percent rum and twenty percent tea, and Coulson wonders if he should be concerned about Loki’s alcohol consumption. Coulson has yet to assess how much god is still left in him.
Coulson doesn’t want to find out what a drunk God of Mischief is capable of in his woe, so he subtly pushes the mug out of reach. “And you didn’t get a good look at what they found.”
It’s not a question but Loki shakes his head no anyway.
“The doctor,” Coulson ponders then. “Would you be able to describe him?”
Loki’s eyebrows knit together in confusion. “Of course. But what good does that do you?”
“I’m not sure yet.” Coulson takes a sip from the bottle of rum, now that the brunt of the problem has been revealed. “But somewhere somebody is missing an archaeologist. They might like him back. It’s not much. But it’s a start.”
---
“Do you have a place to stay?” Coulson asks when the rum supply is depleted. Loki presses his lips together and says nothing in return.
“I’ll take that as a no.” Coulson sighs and walks over to the couch to fold it into a bed while Loki watches him with curiosity in his eyes.
“An interesting piece of furniture,” Loki muses, but his tone implies that he is about to be difficult. “What do you expect me to do with it?”
Coulson pulls a pillow and a blanket out of a cupboard and tosses it onto the mattress. “I suggest you sleep on it.”
As predicted, Loki gives a derisive laugh. “I do not sleep, agent Coulson. Least of all on this.”
“I know. But I do. And if you want my help I urge you to keep quiet and let me.” Coulson gestures vaguely. “We’ll figure something out tomorrow.”
“Will we?”
“We’ll need to.” Coulson bids his guest good-night. “Because whatever happened to your magic, I don’t want anybody stumbling upon it by accident.”
“You think it’s still out there?” Loki’s tone is low and resigned. He sounds like someone who hasn’t hit rock bottom yet, but has a pretty good idea how much it will hurt when it happens.
Coulson turns around. “I simply don’t think you can make that much magic disappear entirely. Everything needs to go somewhere. We just need to find out where.”
Loki’s lips twitch into a half-smile. “That’s a very simple way of thinking, Agent Coulson. I’m afraid the workings of magic are a bit more complicated than that.”
“Maybe. But that’s what we’ve got you for, isn’t it?”
Loki makes a face and Coulson smiles because that is as close to Loki’s old self as they are going to get tonight. It’s not much. But it’s a start.
---
Loki is a horrible house guest. It’s not that he makes a mess or leaves his dishes in the sink or doesn’t put down the toilet seat - hell, Coulson isn’t even sure Loki needs to pee at all. No, Loki is terrible because silence follows him around like a goddamned black hole.
He is aggressively quiet.
Coulson tries to fall asleep for hours, but his overactive brain keeps listening for movement in the other room. There is no sound, but Coulson can practically feel Loki brooding. It is seeping through the walls like alien goo and creeping through the crack underneath the door.
Eventually, Coulson has enough and stalks into the living room where he encounters Loki sitting in the dark and staring out the window - as expected.
Loki turns around and opens his mouth to say something but Coulson waves it off. He heads into the kitchen and retrieves the half-finished box of Ben & Jerry’s from the freezer. When he walks back into the living room Loki eyes him as if he’s carrying a bomb.
Coulson sits down next to Loki, puts the box of ice cream in his lap, sets a spoon down on top, and switches on the TV.
It’s either late night shopping or porn on most channels but Coulson figures everything is okay to make the silence go away. He settles for a commercial about steam cleaners that will probably last all night and leans back.
Meanwhile, Loki takes turns staring at Coulson and then at the ice cream in his lap. He’s a god, Coulson thinks, he’ll figure it out.
And indeed, a few minutes later Loki is tentatively prodding at Cookies & Cream, which should be hilarious, but is oddly depressing.
If anybody had told Coulson that he would be sitting next to a melancholic Norse god who is having his first encounter with ice cream while watching teleshopping at three in the morning, he would have laughed in their faces. Or, tasered some sense into them.
But alas, he is doing just that and it feels alarmingly less awkward than he thought it would. They are both strange in their own ways. Being strange together seems to be the only natural progression at this point.