Chapter Text
Sometimes it hit him, on a day like today, just looking out at a sunset in a smoggy sky; something was missing.
He couldn’t say what it was, exactly, just that there was something he knew should be there, and it wasn’t. He worried at the feeling, but it gave up none of its secrets. It was like an expectation, maybe, or an anticipation, but for what…
He couldn’t say.
He retreated from the window at the beep of the microwave, and padded over to remove the ready-made meal, peeling back the plastic overwrap and sitting down to eat alone at the small table in his apartment. The food was almost tasteless, but it was hot. He turned the radio on low, the classical station, the music just loud enough to fill some of the silence.
He didn’t sleep well.
He woke from terrible nightmares, choking on a scream that didn’t want to emerge, clawing at his own arms with the feeling that there was something burrowing under his skin. He only remembered fragments of whatever it was that terrified him so much, a few glimpses of something he thought was the aliens from the attack on New York. Flashes of other things.
The dark pressed in on him and made it hard to breathe when he woke up from those dreams.
Taking the pills he’d been prescribed helped, but also left him feeling blurry and confused for much of the day, so he didn’t take them often. More often he just turned the lights on and stayed awake, eyes mapping the irregular patterns of the ceiling. He supposed he could ask for a different set of pills, but it was money, and time, and some small part of him murmured that he wasn’t worth it, anyway.
It’s just bad dreams.
He ate breakfast alone at 5:30, listening to the low murmur of the show hosts on NPR.
“Good morning, Lucan,” Dana said as he locked the door, her little dog yapping at him as always, loud and shrill. “Did you have a nice holiday?”
“Yes,” he said politely and without feeling. “Thank you. Yourself?”
“Oh, busy,” she said, with a light laugh. “The whole family trooped over, you know…and yet I’ve still got more leftovers than I know what to do with. Would you like any?”
“No,” he said, smile thin and tired. “Thank you.”
“Are you sure?” She looked so worried. He didn’t really understand that, why she should be so concerned about someone she didn’t know. He’d only been here for three months, maybe, if that. It was hard to remember, sometimes, further back than a couple weeks.
A function of his disease, the doctor had said. It might get worse. It might not. He tried to keep a record, just in case, but whenever he sat down to write nothing came to mind that was important enough to remember.
He took the bus to work, letting his mind wander into the middle distance. The sky was clouded over today, thick, dense, low-hanging things that promised rain, or maybe worse. The old men across the aisle from him were discussing snow, old blizzards they’d seen.
He half listened, not truly paying attention. “’47 was the worst,” one of them was saying. “I still remember. There was a storm. Cold enough to freeze hell.”
He wasn’t sure why a faint shiver ran down his spine. He looked down at his hands and found them clenched in his lap, just a little too tightly.
He looked at the sky as he got off the bus and found himself wishing he had his umbrella. He pulled his coat more tightly around himself, huddling into it, though he didn’t feel cold, exactly. Or not the way he expected to. It was more like there was something at his core, a hollow place that meant he was never warm, either.
He stood still for a moment, gazing up, and something swelled up in his chest. For a moment it was right there, behind his eyes, pushing on his mind, and then it was gone, and all he had was a vague buzzing feeling.
The thunderstorm caught him by surprise, and he ducked hurriedly under the sheltering overhang of a nearby building, a small shudder running through his body at the mutter of thunder overhead, the flickering light on dark clouds that followed. He could feel his heart speed up, breathing hitching a little. Of the fragments he remembered, he knew he’d always been afraid of storms.
He jumped when the metal man landed heavily on the sidewalk, not ten feet away. “All right,” he heard, “I’m grounded, Jesus, where’s Thor when you need him…”
Thor. For a moment, that name hummed in his blood like the lightning overhead, but a moment later it was gone and he was staring wide-eyed at Iron Man, not sure what he was supposed to do in this situation. As if he felt someone watching, the man turned, and he could have sworn he saw Iron Man startle, his arms starting to lift.
Unconsciously, he took a step backward, into the building, feeling his eyes widen. A moment later the mask on the armor flipped up and Tony Stark was staring at him, eyes narrowed. “Who are you,” the man asked, loud and sharp.
“Ah – Lucan Gosforth,” he said, swallowing hard and suddenly powerfully nervous.
“Lucan Gosforth,” Tony Stark repeated, with slightly peculiar emphasis. “Uh huh. Sweet name.”
He blinked. “I…thank you?” This seemed very strange, and he was frightened, wanting suddenly to press himself back into the stone and disappear into it. His mind screamed that Mr. Stark was a threat, but that made no sense. Everyone knew- knew…
His nervousness increased. Whatever it was that everyone knew, he couldn’t reach it. He felt his breathing quicken and his vision blur. No. Oh no. Not now.
“You live around here?” Mr. Stark asked, eyes still narrowed. He nodded, throat too tight to trust himself to speak. He tried to focus on taking deep breaths. Stress can trigger an attack, his brain reminded him helpfully. He rubbed his thumb over the bracelet on his left wrist. Mr. Stark took a step nearer to him, frown deepening. “Are you freaking out? You look like you’re freaking out. This is weird, right? I think you should come with me and-”
“No!” He said, sharp and sudden and absolutely desperate. “No, no, please-” His vision blurred around the edges again and he closed his eyes. “I need you to – stay there. Please. I have a – a-” He felt sick. “—a condition, stress can set it off, can you please just-”
This hadn’t happened in weeks, he thought in despair. It hadn’t been this bad since the attacks had started. But thankfully, Mr. Stark stopped.
“A condition,” he said, sounding, of all things, skeptical. Shame made his stomach twist. You can look at my medical records, he wanted to say, or just keep pushing and see for yourself.
“Yes. I can give you my doctor’s number if you need it but I don’t – what do you want from me?” His voice sounded shrill. Stay calm. Stay…
(Kill him. Kill him and run.)
His heart was pounding hard enough to hurt. He couldn’t draw a full breath. Mr. Stark took a step forward, his eyes narrowing. “Whoa. Okay, this is – this is weird. Are you okay?”
Don’t touch me, he wanted to scream, but his vision narrowed to a tunnel and then blurred out as his brain lit on fire.
He woke up on the familiar discomfort of a hospital bed. He felt his whole body slump as he remembered. Tony Stark, Iron Man, and he’d…
He could hear voices, he realized. Dimly. “—what, we just let him wander off and do whatever the hell he wants?” He heard, in a voice that seemed vaguely familiar but not quite recognizable.
A lower voice, strident, that made him want to shiver. “I will take care of this. It is my responsibility.”
“Yeah, sorry to say, Thor, but…”
Were they talking about him? It was tempting to sit up, see if he could hear more, but his whole body ached and he still felt sick. He knew from experience that it was better to stay flat after an attack. So he stared up at the ceiling, wondering where Dr. Phenh was.
A door slid open somewhere he couldn’t see and craning his neck he made out the man walking in, vaguely familiar. He felt his stomach do another nervous flip, the pointless urge to run rising again. Was that new? Was he going to be scared of everyone and everything now? “Hi, Mr…Gosforth,” said the man who’d come in. “How are you feeling?”
He swallowed to work some moisture back into his mouth. “Where is Dr. Phenh?”
“That’s your, uh…personal physician?” He felt a twinge of alarm. He could feel his bracelet on his wrist, and that would have said… “Right. I’ll call her in a minute. Tony – Mr. Stark – panicked a little when he brought you here, and we weren’t sure…” He trailed off. Here? The man must, he realized dizzily, mean that he was in Stark’s tower.
Something wasn’t right. Stay calm. Do you want to set yourself off again?
“Her contact information should be on the bracelet on my left wrist,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. “I – appreciate Mr. Stark’s concern, but I need to inform her…”
“Right,” the man said quickly, interrupting him. “Right, of course, just…can you answer a few questions for me first?”
He squeezed his eyes closed. At least his lungs were filling now. “I don’t know who you are.”
“Don’t know who I – okay. Right. I’m – Dr. Bruce Banner.” It took Loki a moment to register the name, and then he decided that it wouldn’t be tactful to say, oh, you mean you’re the Hulk. He couldn’t remember if he’d ever seen the man in public looking like this, but his head felt fuzzy enough as it was, so he didn’t try to push it.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said, politely, because it seemed like the right thing to say. “What questions? I’d really like – to talk to my doctor and get home.”
“Completely understandable,” said Dr. Banner. He looked…nervous. Why would he be nervous? Perhaps he thought he would sue the Avengers, or attempt to sue Tony Stark. The idea was laughable. He wanted nothing less than the kind of media circus that would ensue there. “So…Tony – Mr. Stark – said you said you had a…condition, before you collapsed. What is it you’ve been diagnosed with?”
He hated this. Hated the feeling of being bared to the scrutiny of strangers, being reduced to a medical curiosity. “It’s a rare genetic disorder,” he said, closing his eyes so he didn’t have to look at Dr. Banner as he said this. “Neurological and…likely degenerative.” The words came out mechanically. “It’s difficult to know for certain. For the moment, the seizures are the main symptom.”
“And high stress can cause these seizures?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“When did you…” Dr. Banner hesitated, and then went on. “When did you start showing symptoms?”
“Relatively recently.” He remembered it. Waking up in his apartment, panicked and groggy and confused, his memories foggy and indistinct. He’d driven himself into another attack and it was only sheer luck that one of his neighbors had heard him and called emergency services. “Three months ago, or so. You can ask Dr. Phenh for the exact date, if you want.”
“All right.” He opened his eyes, slowly, to find Dr. Banner eyeing him with a strange expression. “You know that information – all of this information – is confidential, right? You didn’t have to tell me.”
He blinked, once. “Something is clearly wrong. I don’t know if you suspect me of something or…what, but…you’re the Avengers. I figure it’s nothing you couldn’t get if you wanted to. Might as well be me who tells you.”
Dr. Banner’s eyebrows furrowed. He clicked the pen he was holding once. “What kind of care do you usually get after one of these episodes?” He asked, after a moment.
“I call Dr. Phenh and give her whatever details I can. Sometimes she wants to have me in to check my vitals. Usually I just go home and rest.”
“Okay.” Dr. Banner nodded, and then straightened. “Give me just a minute. Your phone…cracked, when you fell, but I’ll get you one of Tony’s. You can call your doctor and we’ll get you a cab wherever you need to go, all right?”
“Thank you,” he said, and Dr. Banner nodded with an awkward smile and then turned and walked out. He heard the door open, and just before it close caught his low voice saying, “…don’t think he’s lying about…”
He lost the rest. What did they think he would have been lying about?
He hoped the other Avengers believed Dr. Banner. He wanted to go home. He supposed he might think of this as an adventure, but he wasn’t really cut out for those anyway.
Dr. Banner came back a few minutes later, accompanied by another man who looked almost like he shouldn’t fit through the doorway. For a moment his heart galloped into overdrive and he felt the overpowering urge to run, or else to fling himself on the floor and beg for mercy. “Uh – hi again, Lucan,” Banner said, while he was still staring. “This is Thor. He wanted, to, um…”
“I will escort you back to your home, if I may,” the man – Thor, and this was all getting more and more surreal, was he going to meet every Avenger in one fell and bizarre swoop? “I – we – are very sorry for the trouble, L-Lucan.” He seemed to stumble over his name, for a moment, and he stared at Thor, blankly.
“It’s fine,” he said, and his voice sounded just a little strange. “I can get home all right. I’ll just call a cab…”
“Please,” said Thor, and his head snapped around at the strange desperation in the – god’s? – voice. Though a moment later he was sure he’d imagined it. “I insist. You would not be in this difficulty if it were not for us-”
“If Mr. Stark had listened to me,” he said, under his breath, and when both Dr. Banner and Thor looked at him sharply, felt his face heat. “I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you.”
“It is no inconvenience,” Thor said, and there was a kind of cast to his features that made him think that this was something where the Norse God wasn’t going to budge.
“All right, fine,” he said. “But I still need to call my doctor and if she wants to see me…”
“Right,” Banner said, suddenly fishing in his pockets and pulling out a phone nicer than he thought he’d ever owned. “Here’s a StarkPhone. You can keep it as a replacement for your old one.” He stared at Dr. Banner, and then at Thor, and slowly reached out to take the phone.
“Thanks,” he said, cautiously. “But you know I’m not going to sue or anything. You don’t need to…whatever it is you’re doing.”
Thor seemed to relax, and lifted one hand, though he let it fall. For a moment, he’d thought Thor meant to clap him on the shoulder, and was somewhat glad that he hadn’t. Something about Thor’s nearness made him feel tense and claustrophobic. “Tony Stark has many of these devices to spare,” Thor said expansively. “It does not cost him, or us, much of anything to give you one in return for your trouble.” His expression flickered oddly, for a moment, and Banner patted his arm.
“We should go out,” he said. “Give Mr. Gosforth some privacy.”
Thor hesitated before retreating, seemingly reluctantly. His eyes lingered over his shoulder as he left, making his skin feel prickly and tight.
He called Dr. Phenh and told her he’d had an incident, though for some reason he found himself hesitating to tell her the whole story. Instead, he said that he’d been startled by someone during the thunderstorm earlier. He answered her questions dutifully, agreed to rest for the remainder of the day and to move his appointment with her up a week, and hung up, faintly relieved. He was tired, and all he really wanted to do was sleep.
He stood up slowly and carefully and felt a twinge of discomfort at finding his feet bare. Someone had taken off his shoes and socks. They were sitting at the foot of the cot on which he’d been lying, though, and he pulled them back on, making a mental note to drink a Gatorade when he got home. He still felt a little sick.
Thor re-entered alone, this time, and he had that oddly nervous look again. He lifted a hand in a half-hearted wave. “A conveyance has already been summoned for you,” Thor said, his voice low and rich, vibrating in a register that shivered oddly through his bones. “It shall be here shortly.”
He pushed his hair off his forehead. “Can we take the elevator down to the lobby? I’m still not in the best of shape.”
Another of those strange flickers crossed Thor’s face. Guilt, maybe? He couldn’t tell, and it didn’t make sense. “Of course.”
He started for the door, and Thor fell into step with him, standing just a little too close. He moved politely a little further away, feeling that strange smothered feeling creeping up on him again, and Thor gave him a quick look of – hurt?
Just get home and you don’t have to deal with strange superheroes probably ever again. “Thank you,” he said, carefully formal. “For escorting me. If you wanted to go once the cab comes, I get it, I’m sure you have a lot of important things to do-”
“No,” Thor said, firmly. “I will see you safely home. It is the least I might do.” A tinge of something entered his voice, there, but it was gone before he could pin it down.
He let out a little bit of a strained laugh. “It’s not your fault I was born wrong,” he said, and then wanted to swear. He shouldn’t have said that. What kind of idiot… and now Thor was looking at him with something that was unmistakably pity. He quickened his stride slightly, but of course Thor kept pace with him easily. Thor was a god. Thor had probably never been sick in his life.
The bitterness in his own thoughts surprised him. This was – bizarre, but it wasn’t as though the Avengers hadn’t been nice to him. They stepped into the elevator and Thor hit the button for the lobby.
“Sorry,” he said, at the same time as Thor said, “You were not born wrong.”
“Sorry,” he said again, after a pause. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not your fault or anything and I don’t need to whine.”
Thor shook his head. “You are not – no. And you were not born wrong, Lucan,” he repeated, again with that strange emphasis on his name.
He smiled crookedly. “That’s nice of you. But I think you’re misunderstanding the idea of a genetic disorder.”
Thor shook his head. “No. I-” He stopped, suddenly, and then shook his head again, mouth setting in a stubborn line. “It does not seem right. There must be a cure, or…”
“They haven’t quite worked out how to rewrite DNA code yet,” he said, and his voice came out a little caustic. He tried to moderate it, edging over a little further from Thor. He seemed to take up more space, somehow, and the elevator felt too small. “So no, not really. But it’s fine. I’m managing, and everything. It could be a lot worse.” It’ll probably get a lot worse, his mind helpfully reminded him. They’d gone over the list of worst case scenarios when this had started.
Thor’s frown was – haha – thunderous. “But it is not fair.”
“Is anything?” He said, a little bleakly, and then shook his head. “Sorry. I need to get home and take a nap, clearly.” Thor sighed, his face falling, as they stepped out of the elevator.
“Yes,” he said, and then did lay a hand on his shoulder, but only lightly. He startled, then froze, not quite sure what to do. “You are brave, Lucan Gosforth.”
He let out a stuttering laugh, torn between pulling away and feeling oddly comforted by the warmth radiating from Thor’s hand. It was, he told himself, probably a god thing. “Me? Brave? I don’t think-”
“This – illness,” Thor said. “It cannot be easy. But you have not let it defeat you. That is bravery.”
He stepped out from under Thor’s hand, feeling tense, awkward, uncertain. “I’d like to go home,” he said, glad, at least, that he was too tired to feel jittery. Thor’s shoulders seemed to slump.
“Of course,” he said, gesturing toward the front doors and a cab waiting outside. “I will not keep you.”
Thor escorted him to his door. He was deeply, deeply thankful that none of his neighbors were on their way in or out at the time. He had a feeling Thor wanted to be invited in, but as (a) that made no sense and (b) he was beginning to get another headache, he shut the door with one last polite “thank you for your trouble.”
He took his prescription and a few Advil to boot and then retreated into his bedroom and crawled under the covers without changing.
Once there, however, he lay awake, going over the events of the day. In retrospect, they made no more sense than before. Why hadn’t Mr. Stark just called a hospital? What had they thought he was lying about? Why had Mr. Stark reacted the way he had to begin with? And Thor…
He closed his eyes. That had maybe been the weirdest part. That Thor had acted like he knew him. Or should know him, maybe.
He rolled over again, looking at the bracelet on his left wrist, rubbing his fingers over the engraved letters. He was probably just being friendly. Kind.
He wondered what Christie downstairs would think if he told her Thor had said he was brave. He coughed a laugh just at the thought. She’d call him a liar. And then demand the details.
He fell asleep eventually. Thunder chased him in his dreams, and a vast shadow looming down to squash him like an ant.
In spite of still feeling somewhat unsteady, he went to work the next morning. He needed the money, and it was just stockroom duty. Nothing he couldn’t manage. He considered telling the story of his peculiar day, and decided against it. It seemed…too weird. Improbable. So he stayed quiet during lunch and listened with half an ear to other peoples’ conversations.
No one said anything interesting. It was strange, and vaguely surreal, listening to them talk about new tolls and the price of a slice of pizza and what they’d done over the weekend (very little), against knowing that less than twenty-four hours ago he’d been in the Avengers Tower and then escorted back to his dingy little apartment by Thor.
It seemed like two separate lives that didn’t belong next to each other, but he knew which one was really his.
Rebecca seemed to notice his quiet and sidled up to him during lunch hour. “Hey, Luke,” she said. “How’s it going?” He didn’t know why she took such interest in him. Pity, perhaps; he seemed to attract that. Dana had told him once that he looked half-starved. He’d smiled wanly, not sure how to take that.
“Fine,” he said to Rebecca’s question now, and knowing that a one-word answer would only provoke more questions, he added, “It’s been a pretty boring few days.”
“Uh huh.” Rebecca was watching him sidelong. “I think you said that last time I asked you how were things.”
“I don’t lead a very interesting life.” He said blandly. Rebecca eyed him, and he was suddenly very conscious of the bracelet hidden under his sleeve, but a moment later she was telling him about some movie that he apparently needed to see.
So far, he’d been lucky and hadn’t had an incident at work. He dreaded when things started to get worse and he inevitably did end up collapsing on the floor and twitching while his co-workers stared. If he didn’t lose his job, he knew they’d treat him differently. Like he was fragile, or else like he was dying.
Sometimes he wondered if it would be better if he were. No one could tell him for sure. It’s possible, the doctor had said, that over time, there will be physical effects. Eventually, neurological activity might deteriorate to the point that vital functions begin to suffer.
So it’s a long term death sentence, he’d said.
Remarkable things can be done with gene therapy, the man had said, with patently false cheer and pity in his eyes.
He’d considered, once or twice, making it a shorter term death sentence, but in the end he couldn’t do more than think about it. Those weren’t things he mentioned to Dr. Phenh, or to anyone. The business card she’d given him for a therapist went untouched in his junk drawer.
His insurance policy wouldn’t cover the visits anyway.
Two days later sipping a mocha at the Starbucks near his apartment (“moderate amounts of caffeine should be permissible”), his eyes snagged on a bench across the street and he froze.
The next minute he was on his feet and hurrying across the road, glancing briefly left and right and darting across the street. “Are you watching me?” He demanded, breathless.
For all he seemed to be attempting to blend in – he wasn’t wearing armor, anyway – the Mighty Thor still stuck out like a sore thumb, even in a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up and slightly hunched as though that could mask his massive shoulders. Thor looked up at him from the bench with his very blue eyes.
“I am sorry,” he said, which was as good as a yes, and what was he supposed to do with that?
“God,” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “Jesus. Why? What did I do to get the Av- you guys interested in me?” He didn’t want to draw a whole crowd, not when people were already looking curiously at Thor, and then curiously at him. It made the hair on the back of his neck prickle uneasily, being looked at by all these strangers.
Thor shook his head. “Not the – not my friends. Just myself.” Bizarrely, he sounded completely earnest about that. “I did not mean to distress you.”
“I’m not ‘distressed,’” he said, shaking his head. “Just…confused. Very confused.”
Thor shifted, casting a look around them both. “May we walk?” he said. “I fear I am attracting attention.”
“No kidding,” he said, under his breath, but by the way Thor glanced at him he must have heard it. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Sure, we can walk.” Much of his memories might be hazy, but he was still fairly certain this was the weirdest week he’d ever had. And now Thor was stalking him. Did it count as stalking when they were a superhero? Probably not.
He just followed Thor, and they wound up in a vaguely grassy corner of some park or another. It occurred to him belatedly that this would be the perfect set-up for a murder, and then he remembered that this was Thor. “So,” he said, shuffling a little. “What is it? Why are you watching me?”
“I do not think that you are up to anything suspicious,” Thor said, after a moment. He made a face.
“I think your friends do.”
“Well, that is not why I am here.”
He waited, and when Thor said nothing more, asked, “Well?” Thor looked surprised.
“What question are you asking me?”
“You said why you’re not here. You haven’t said why you are.”
Thor frowned. “I thought that obvious. I wish to be your friend, Lucan.”
He stared at Thor for a moment, and then started to laugh. He couldn’t help it. It was just so…ridiculous. “What the hell,” he said, and then shook his head and started laughing again. Thor looked somewhere between annoyed and worried.
“I am afraid I do not see the joke.”
“You wanting to be friends with me isn’t enough of one?”
Thor crossed his arms, beginning to look more annoyed than worried. “I was not jesting.”
“Okay,” he said, looking up at Thor with a crooked smile. “So what is this, then? Am I – like – your manic pixie dream mortal, or something? Here to help you unlock the joys of Earth living? Or do you just go around deciding to be friends with every puny Earthling who crosses your path?”
Thor looked like he didn’t know what to address first. “I do not know what you mean by – no, I do not, but I do not think of any mortals as ‘puny Earthlings’ either.” Annoyance was definitely winning out, and that made him want to laugh more. He’d always been good at pissing people off. Or at least, he had been lately, and he had a feeling it was an ‘always’ thing. “Stop trying to put words in my mouth, Lucan, and merely accept-”
“Accept that for some reason the Mighty fucking Thor wants to be buddies with me?” he said, more than slightly incredulous. “What if I say no?”
Thor’s face darkened and for a moment he thought that was it, he was going to get struck by lightning and turned into ash, or maybe just squashed. For a wild moment, he wished Thor would. Maybe then he’d feel like something worthwhile instead of the pathetic thing he was.
Then the moment was gone and he just felt like an ass.
“Right,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking away. “Sorry. It’s just…I don’t know. This has all been really weird, and I honestly don’t know what you think I can offer you.”
Just like that, the annoyance evaporated, and Thor’s hand landed on his shoulder, surprisingly warm and not as heavy as he’d thought it would be. He almost jumped, at first, and thought don’t touch me but it passed quickly. “Lucan,” Thor said, his voice and face both so intensely earnest it was almost terrifying. “Is it not enough that I think you worthwhile?” There was something odd in his eyes for a moment, a kind of yearning, desperately hopeful, that he had to fight not to shy away from. “I have said. I wish to be your friend. I would be honored if you would accept.”
Really, though. How did you turn that down?
“Sure,” he said, awkwardly. “Fine.”
Thor beamed and it almost took his breath away. He wanted to see that expression again, wanted Thor to be happy and in equal measure felt a surge of hatred so fierce and intense that he almost staggered, and then both feelings were gone, and he was reeling inwardly as Thor squeezed his shoulder. “Thank you, friend Lucan,” he said. “I will see you again soon.”
And then he strode off, leaving him standing alone in the middle of a park, shaking a little. His mouth tasted like copper, and for a moment he thought he was going to have an attack, but then it passed.
“I’m worried about some of your results,” Dr. Phenh said.
“Worried how?” He sat with one ankle crossed over his knee, keeping his expression neutral. Dr. Phenh just looked at him until he dropped the mask and looked down.
“Your condition is progressing faster than it was when we checked in last. I’m concerned that the recent…stress in your life has been affecting you adversely. I’d like to advise-”
He groaned. “I can’t. You know that.”
“I’d like to advise cutting back on your work hours. There are programs you can apply to that would help you financially. I know you don’t want to do that, but at this point…it may be risking your life to push yourself too hard.”
He rubbed his forehead and sighed. “I don’t think it’s work that’s the problem.”
Dr. Phenh narrowed her eyes. “Your recent incident…there’s something you’re not telling me. What happened, Lucan?”
“I don’t know.” That was honest.
“You said someone startled you. That hasn’t been a problem for you before.” She sounded worried. He grimaced, and gave up.
“Maybe it’s only a problem when it’s Iron Man who accosts me and starts getting in my face.” Dr. Phenh blinked at him, and he shrugged. “Yeah. That happened.”
“Why would he…” She sounded as bewildered as he felt.
“No idea. And then he dragged me back to Avengers Tower like a sack of potatoes and Bruce Banner aka the Hulk asked me some questions. And now Thor…” He shook his head. “Wants to be my friend, or something. I think that’s what’s stressing me out.”
He’d had weird dreams for the last three nights running, vague and awful things about ravens eating his tongue while Thor looked down at him impassively. About falling, and Thor screaming a name that wasn’t his. About a warm hand on the back of his neck that seemed to promise everything would be fine.
Dr. Phenh’s eyebrows skyrocketed. He couldn’t blame her. “Thor? The Thor? Why?” She winced, and added quickly, “no offense.”
“None taken. I have no idea.”
Dr. Phenh regrouped admirably. “Well,” she said. “Either way. As your doctor, I have to state categorically that your health may be in danger. If you’re on the same trajectory next visit…I might recommend checking into a clinic. I can recommend a few.”
So I’m dying already. He stood up, a little jerkily. “I get the picture.”
“Lucan…” Dr. Phenh sighed. “I think you should call Daniel.” The therapist whose card she had given him. “He’s really good, and I think he’d be very helpful to you.”
Can he fix me? He almost snapped, but there was no reason to be rude to his doctor. She was just trying to do her job, after all; it wasn’t her fault he was doomed. “Yeah,” he said, noncommittally. “Maybe.”
He walked home. It was cold and clear, and there was a feeling of expectation on his tongue.
Maybe it was going to snow.
Thor was standing outside his apartment door.
He was talking to Bridget – Bridget who lived down the hall and who tonight had her boyfriend in tow. He was staring at Thor with awe, looking a little starstruck, a fact of which Thor did not seem to be aware. Loki was almost tempted to turn around and leave them to it, but he wasn’t sure where he would go.
And then Bridget saw him. “Lucan!” she said. “Is it true Thor is here to visit you?” It was a friendly question. Bridget had always been friendly, though he’d rarely returned it in kind.
“I don’t know,” he said, stopping a few feet away and putting his hands in his pockets. “Is he?”
“I realized belatedly that I had left no means of contacting me,” Thor said, turning and smiling at him in that way that made him itch all over. “So I thought I had best come by and rectify that error, only to find you were not here. However, it has been most pleasant speaking with the Lady Bridget and her consort Eddie…”
Eddie seemed to shake himself out of a stupor and stammered something. Looking down and away, his eyes seemed to catch on his face, and he tensed, but Eddie looked away again quickly, now frowning.
“Pleasure’s all mine,” Bridget said, and she seemed to sense that she was no longer welcome, because she gave her boyfriend’s hand a tug. “Come on, Eddie. Let’s go make dinner.”
“Yeah,” Eddie said, “right,” and it was probably just his imagination that the man was looking at him over his shoulder and not Thor.
Thor, who was still standing on his doorstep.
“Uh…sorry I wasn’t here,” he said, after a moment, hoping Thor didn’t ask where he had been. Thor just shook his head, beaming.
“It is no trouble. I had a most marvelous conversation with Bridget and Eddie. He works for SHIELD – do you know SHIELD?”
He blinked. “Uh…yeah. I was kind of under the impression we were all supposed to pretend that we didn’t, though.” Thor blinked, and then looked a bit embarrassed.
“Oh. Perhaps I was not supposed to know. Perhaps I should not have said…” he looked embarrassed. “You will not tell anyone?”
He laughed, a little mirthlessly. “Who would I tell?” When Thor frowned, though, he added, “yeah, I won’t tell anyone. Anyway. Glad you had…a good talk.” He hesitated, a moment, finding himself reluctant, but…it would just be rude now. “Did you, uh. Want to come in?”
Thor’s face brightened and he smiled in a way that just lit up his face and made his chest do something funny. “I would be honored. Unless – you do not mind?”
Maybe. Yes. “No, course not,” he said, fishing out his key and opening the door, letting himself in. At least everything was clean. “You saw it already, it’s not that exciting.”
“It is magnificent,” Thor said, which was definitely more than a bit of an overstatement, but Thor did seem to be that kind of guy.
“Don’t say that too much, it’ll go to my head,” he said dryly, looking around his apartment with a god’s eyes and feeling like he was just seeing now how shabby it all was. Thor gave him a look that was uncomfortably discerning.
“Perhaps it should,” he said, after a moment, and then straightened. “Before I forget, I have written down my telephone number for you, and I would very much like if you would give me yours, as it seems the best way Midgardians have of keeping in touch.”
He blinked, a little taken aback by the way Thor had phrased that. “What do you use at home, messenger pigeons?”
Thor gave him a startled look, and then seemed to realize something. Oddly, sorrow flickered over his face, though it was gone quickly. “We have not used anything like this technology on Asgard in several centuries.”
He felt almost embarrassed. “Oh.” He rubbed a hand through his hair and laughed, awkwardly. “So we must seem kinda backward then.”
“It is not a bad thing,” Thor hastened to say. “There is something fun about the challenge.”
“Uh huh,” he said, a little dryly. “Sure. Like me trying to learn how to use a sextant.” Thor gave him a bit of an odd look, and he shook his head. “Never mind. Do you, uh, want anything? I don’t have a whole lot of food but…”
Thor’s eyes narrowed. “Why not?”
Oh, don’t you start, he thought, because having his middle-aged neighbor fuss over his diet was one thing but a god-like alien was another thing entirely. He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know. It’s just not a thing. I buy food when I need it.”
Thor frowned, not looking wholly satisfied, but at least he didn’t go poking in the fridge to find out that all that was in there was some wilted spinach and a half a case of beer he couldn’t drink anymore. He had a feeling Thor wouldn’t be pleased. “Perhaps I shall make you dinner someday,” Thor said, sounding thoughtful, and he nearly choked on air.
“You don’t have to do that,” he said hastily, but Thor just smiled at him.
“It would be my pleasure.”
What the hell was he supposed to do with any of this? He rubbed his eyes and tried not to feel like he was losing control of his own life. More. “I guess if you want to…I mean, I can’t stop you. Sure. Why not.” How much weirder could this get, anyway. “So…you were going to give me your phone number?” he prompted, when Thor seemed to be distracted by looking around his apartment.
“Yes, of course,” Thor said, but instead of giving it, he paused a moment and then asked, “how long have you lived here?”
“Um.” He scratched the side of his head and made a face. “A while, I guess.”
“You do not seem to have added many personal touches,” Thor said, and he felt himself tense up.
“No, I guess not. I don’t have a whole lot of disposable income. Most of what I do have gets eaten up by medical bills.” That came out a little more snappish than he’d meant, but he couldn’t really feel bad about it. “So yeah. I don’t collect a whole lot of stuff.”
Thor blinked, and then looked guilty. “I did not mean to be insensitive.”
“Are you going to give me your number?” He asked, knowing it was rude and not quite able to care. He was tired and he could feel the start of a headache coming on. “I’m not feeling great and I want to go to bed early.”
Thor opened his mouth and then closed it. “Very well,” he said, though now he sounded unhappy. Way to go, you made Thor sad. Thor read out his phone number and he scribbled it down on a piece of paper. Thor hesitated and then cleared his throat. “If you would like me to go…”
“I think I would like you to go.” He felt itchy, tense, and the longer Thor stayed in his apartment the worse it got. “You can come back later, okay? Just…call first.”
“Of course.” Thor looked disappointed, though, and he had to look away before he felt bad. “I understand.”
You do? Cause I don’t. He sighed, and raised a hand in a halfhearted wave. “Yeah. Thanks. And, uh…have a good afternoon. Hope no supervillains cause you any trouble, or whatever.”
Thor gave him a smile, and though it wasn’t much of one it still managed to light up a fair amount of the room. He bet that people just fell over themselves trying to make Thor smile, wherever he came from. Here too, probably. “Thank you, my friend. I will hope to see you again soon.”
“Yeah,” he said, “yeah, you too.”
You just kicked Thor out of your apartment, a part of his brain thought, after the door was closed. Do you know how many people would probably kill to be BFFs with Thor? A lot.
Yeah, maybe he just wasn’t one of them.
He ran into Eddie twice in the next two days, both times watching him like Eddie thought he had something stashed under his jacket, or (the second time) like there were worms crawling out of his eyes. The second time he called him on it. “What’re you looking at me like that for?”
Eddie looked quickly away. “No reason,” he mumbled. “You just look familiar.” Then he turned and headed out the front door in a hurry. Thor didn’t call, which probably had something to do with the alien invasion in Brazil the news was reporting on. He went to work and slept and ate and dreamed weird, disconcerting dreams of a dark void and horrible monsters that left him dizzy and vaguely nauseous in the mornings.
But there weren’t any more attacks.
Wednesday he was walking home from the bus stop when he somehow managed to run smack into some woman. “Oh god – sorry,” he said hastily, stepping back with his hands up, and blinked. The woman was with someone else: a man, fair bit shorter than he was and sturdily built with a nose that looked like it had been broken at least once. The man was eying him with intense hatred. He faltered and looked to the woman for help, but she was just plain hard to read, red hair somewhere between ears and shoulders and her eyes narrowed at him. “Sorry,” he said again, suddenly having the sinking feeling that he was about to be on the wrong end of a beating. Looking at both of them made his stomach churn. “I didn’t, uh…”
“It’s fine,” said the woman, coolly, in a way that suggested that it wasn’t, in fact. “You might just look where you’re going.”
He winced. “Yeah, I know. Was just heading home from work and…” he trailed off, eyes flicking back to the man, who looked a little familiar, but not quite. His stomach did another flip and he swallowed hard as the world blurred a little around the edges.
It subsided, though, as the woman stepped forward, expression shifting to concern. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” he said quickly. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little – yeah, fine.”
“You don’t look fine.” The man, his voice blunt and a little terse, but he couldn’t hear the hatred there he’d seen in his eyes. Maybe it had just been on behalf of his girlfriend and now he was over it? Something didn’t feel right here. He shook his head.
“I’ll be fine. In a minute.” He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to his temples. “We haven’t met before, have we?” he asked, and at the pause added, “I mean – you. Do I know you?”
“No. Why would you say that?” There was something in that bland tone that made him think the man was lying, though he couldn’t be certain and he had no idea why he would be.
“You seem to really not like me.”
The man opened his mouth, but his companion interrupted. “Don’t mind him. Are you sure you’re all right? You do look a little…ill.”
He let out a kind of coughing laugh. “I just ran into you, lady. Why are you being so helpful? I told you I’d be fine.”
“Bullshit,” muttered the man, and he lifted his head to glare at him, drew himself up.
“Sorry for running into you,” he said again, to the woman. “I’ll be going now.”
She caught his arm. There was surprising strength in her fingers. “Wait.” He stared at her, and she gave him a small smile. “My husband and I are a bit lost. Do you know of a good place to get dinner around here?”
“I…don’t eat out much.” He extricated his arm from her grip. “Sorry. Uh. Good luck.” He turned his back and hurried away, though he thought he could feel them watching. He threw a glance over his shoulder a block later and they were still standing there, heads bent together, talking.
He was left with an uneasy, twitchy feeling for the rest of the day, and kept glancing out his windows, half expecting to see the pair of them watching the building.
It wasn’t until he looked up press pictures on a hunch that he put it together. Black Widow and Hawkeye. The lower profile Avengers. And Hawkeye hated him for some reason. Not abstractly, something – something personal.
His head started to throb and he shut down the computer and popped a couple painkillers. Why is this happening to me?
He played solitaire until dawn, too tense and twitchy to close his eyes.
Thor invited him out to dinner, which was a weird sentence just to think let alone to agree to and schedule a date for. “Do you even have a schedule?” He had to ask, itching his nose as he paced back and forth across his apartment. “I mean, supervillains attack on Thursday at five, stop asteroid stride Sunday at noon-
“Well – no,” Thor admitted, though he chuckled a little. “But there are appearances that we are supposed to make, and meetings to attend. The others are…difficult to plan for.”
“I promise I won’t get mad if you have to ditch me in the middle of dinner to stop the world from ending,” he said dryly, and Thor laughed again. It was a little rewarding to get that. Norse god thinks you’re funny; he supposed it wasn’t surprising that might be an ego boost.
“I am relieved,” Thor said. “I will come and meet you at six this Friday, then?” He sounded eager and hopeful, and everything about this just got weirder by the day.
“Yeah,” he said, “sure.”
Thor excused himself, sounding regretful, and he just stared at his phone for several moments, his stomach doing strange twisting things within him. “What the hell is this,” he asked the screen, but it unhelpfully went dark without answering.
His head was starting to ache, so he paced over to the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet, popping two Advil dry, making a face at his expression in the mirror. He looked sallow-skinned and tired in the reflection. Not much of a companion for a god, he thought dryly, and made himself laugh. Are you honestly feeling sorry for yourself because the Mighty Thor wants to hang out with you? What’s your problem?
Well, that was a question with a long list of answers.
Friday evening, Thor buzzed at the front door. He hurried out, doing one last check for keys and wallet and everything else he might need. It was maybe five minutes, and yet by the time he’d reached the street there was already a small group gathered in a clump around Thor, towering over the rest of them, chatting amiably.
He slowed down, wondering what it said about him that an alien with superpowers made friends easier than he did. Then Thor turned and caught sight of him, and his expression lit up with a grin that made his heart do flips. “Lucan!” he said with delight, and for a moment he almost drank in the jealousy he could feel radiating from the others as Thor extricated himself from the crowd. That’s right, he’s mine.
Then the moment was gone and all he wanted was to be invisible. It was too many eyes, watching him too closely, a few with downright hate. He hunched his shoulders and took a step back. “Uh – hey, Thor.” It felt like he ought to be bowing. Groveling, maybe.
“My friends,” Thor said, to the gathered little flock of gawkers. “I’m afraid I must take my leave.” Thor slung an arm over his shoulders. “It is not a long walk. Is that acceptable to you or shall I call another means of transportation?”
“Walking’s fine,” he murmured. He could see a few smartphones stealthily held up, trying to catch his face, and glanced down and away, wondering if he’d be showing up on the internet tomorrow. Thor’s boyfriend. Ha. “You really – um – draw a crowd, don’t you?”
“I thought I was not being so conspicuous,” Thor said, sounding rueful. He didn’t have the heart to say that Thor in dress clothes wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. “My apologies for all the fuss.”
He shrugged. “It’s not a problem.” Thor’s arm around his shoulders, though…it seemed rude to pull away, but it was making his skin prickle uneasily. At the same time, though, its weight felt comfortable, right, which just made him more nervous. “Must get tiring, though.”
Thor shook his head. “I do not mind. I like to meet new people, even if it is only once.”
He felt himself twitch, a little. “Yeah? Do you stay in touch with any of them?”
“No,” Thor said blithely. “Not usually.”
The uncomfortable tightening in his stomach surprised him. He swallowed and slipped out from under Thor’s arm, taking a few steps to the side. The look Thor cast him was startled and a little hurt, briefly, and then he seemed to realize the trouble. “But you-”
He smiled tightly. “I’m different? Yeah, I bet you say that to all the girls.”
Thor looked briefly puzzled, his eyebrows drawing together. “I am sincere,” he said, sounding surprised that he had to declare it. His face probably did speak for him most of the time. “You are not…you are a friend.”
He put his hands in his pockets and kept his distance, though he felt stupid for feeling stung. Thor was immortal and he was already dying. What did he expect? “Never mind. Don’t worry about it.” Thor looked like he was still worrying about it, so he changed the subject. “Where are we going?”
Thor didn’t seem distracted, but he took the bait, anyway. “It is a restaurant with food from a place called Vietnam,” he said. “A country in-”
“I know what Vietnam is,” he interrupted. Thor’s head swiveled to look at him, several expressions flashing over his face in quick succession; surprise and then regret and something else he couldn’t quite identify. All of them were replaced with a smile.
“Of course. Forgive me.”
He shrugged. “I mean. I guess it’s all new to you.”
“But not to you,” Thor said, with a strange note in his voice. Then he seemed to shake himself. “It is a nice place. I hope you will find it to your liking.”
When Thor said ‘nice place’ it turned out he meant ‘nice place.’ He didn’t think he could’ve afforded the paper the menu was printed on. He tried not to stare too much, reminded himself that of course Thor was a prince, he was probably used to this shit.
Thor, however, seemed almost…nervous. Worried, like he wasn’t going to be impressed enough or something. “Wow,” he said, when they were alone, keeping his voice low. “This is kinda – more than I was expecting. I feel underdressed.”
Thor did that thing again, where he blinked like he’d expected something else and then smiled ruefully. “I should have informed you. I suppose I simply assumed that – no matter.”
“This isn’t a date, is it?” he said, summoning an awkward smile. “Cause the tabloids say you have a girlfriend and I don’t want to be the other woman.”
Thor shook his head, almost vehement. “What? No, no, I am not – intending to court you. Though of course you are very handsome,” he added, almost hastily. He just stared at Thor, who glanced down. “I hope I have not…discomfited you.”
“No,” he said, which was kind of a lie. “No, not at all.”
Thor seemed relieved. “This is not…a date,” he reaffirmed. “I do have…Jane Foster is her name.”
That might have sounded vaguely familiar. Something about the gooey fondness in Thor’s eyes when he said her name made him itch, though. He made his face look politely interested. “Must be pretty special.” Now he sounded jealous. Fuck everything.
To his relief, Thor didn’t seem to notice. “Yes,” he said fondly. “She is.” The expression faded quickly, though, and his eyes focused back. “What of you? Is there any…woman in your life?”
He laughed, a little dryly. “Seems unfair, doesn’t it, getting involved with someone when I could keel over any minute?”
Thor looked upset again. “That you are – ill does not mean you do not deserve to be happy.”
Oh, he thought, my happiness is pretty much fucked already. He shrugged, and Thor’s frown deepened. “Besides,” he added quickly. “I’m more of a loner anyway. I don’t…really do people. Most of the time.”
The concern didn’t ebb. “That must get lonely.”
I’m used to it, he thought, but that sounded too much like self pity. “Being alone doesn’t mean you’re lonely,” he said, parroting words he’d read once. Thor still looked unconvinced.
“You do not sound as though you are satisfied with your life.”
“Maybe I’m just not the kind of person who’s ever satisfied,” he said, feeling his shoulders hunch a little. Thor shook his head a little.
“And what of your family?” He asked, after a slight pause. “Where are they? Do you not speak with them?”
He closed his hands around the water glass, trying to ground himself in the cold of the condensation. “They’re dead,” he said, bluntly. “My parents a few years back in a car accident. There’s my sister, I guess, but she went crazy like six years ago and I haven’t seen her since.” He didn’t look at Thor’s expression. “It’s fine,” he said, at the silence. “We weren’t really all that close.” What are you doing, part of him wondered, spilling your guts to a total stranger, and Thor to boot?
“Still,” Thor said, sounding almost heartbroken. “It is – a terrible thing, to be alone in the world.”
“I guess.” He looked at the ice in his water, trying to figure out patterns in the way the cubes settled, and then made himself look up. “Don’t feel sorry for me, okay? I don’t need anyone’s pity.”
Thor smiled, a little crookedly. “You do not seem the sort to accept it. Will you take my sympathy?”
“Yeah,” he said, after a moment. “If you twist my arm, I guess.”
Thor laughed again, though there was something sad in his eyes. “I am glad you let me be your companion, at least,” he said. He made himself laugh.
“Yeah,” he said, “right, friends with the Mighty Thor. I bet everyone passes that one right up.”
What are you doing, murmured something soft and poisonous, back in his head where dark things slept. What are you pretending to be? This isn’t you. You don’t deserve it.
But he wanted to. Being near Thor was like being near the sun. Warm and bright and sometimes he thought it would burn him up. He wanted it. It terrified him.
The food was excellent. Loki ate until he was stuffed and wished he could keep going.
Halfway home he started to feel dizzy. “Thor, wait,” he said, breathless, and stopped, leaning against the side of a building. His heart started to pound faster and he tried to focus on breathing deeply, knowing that fear or panic would only drive him over the edge. Thor turned around and then looked alarmed.
“Are you sick?” He asked, urgently. “What is-”
He felt a flush of hot shame. You know, he wanted to snap. You know what this is. Don’t make me say it. But knowing wasn’t the same thing as seeing and a part of him felt a stab at realizing that Thor was going to see him like this. He wanted to crawl into an alley and hide.
“It’s my – thing,” he forced himself to say. No benches, nothing but concrete, and everything was closed. Dark, too. It was a good thing he wasn’t alone, he tried to tell himself, but the stricken look on Thor’s face almost made him wish that he were.
“What do I do?” Thor asked. Loki focused on taking deep breaths.
“There’s a chance I can get back to my house,” he said, trying to keep his voice even. The fear on Thor’s face was infectious and it was making it hard to stay calm, hard to stay focused. “That would be – be better.”
“I can carry you,” Thor said, taking a step toward him, and he jerked back.
“No,” he said sharply. “No, don’t – shit. Shit-” He could feel his heart start tripping and his vision blurred, every sound sharp and loud and then far away. He dropped to his knees, still holding on to the building. “Thor, listen, I-”
It hurt. He could taste sour vomit in his mouth and felt a pang of regret at the waste of a good meal. His thoughts drifted vaguely like clouds and his body felt heavy and exhausted. Thor was bent over him, speaking urgently.
“Lo- Lucan? Lucan? Answer me!”
“Thor,” he said, though his tongue felt sluggish and thick. Worse, he thought, than usual. Definitely worse. Maybe he was deteriorating faster than Dr. Phenh had believed. “I’m…back.”
“Thank the Norns,” said Thor, and hauled him up into a hug. His head spun and his closed his eyes to keep himself from throwing up again. “You were – twitching and you felt cold and then you vomited...” He sounded…freaked out. He wondered if aliens had seizures or if it was just a human thing. At least Thor seemed to have known enough to keep him on his side so he didn’t choke on his own puke. “I thought…”
“Yeah,” he said, letting his head drop onto Thor’s shoulder. “Pretty disgusting, isn’t it.”
Thor let out a shuddering exhale. “I thought you were dying.”
“I am,” he said, before he could remember not to, and felt Thor go still. “You knew that, right?” He added, after a moment. “I mean. I told you it was incurable. Incurable diseases only go one way.” He shouldn’t be talking like this. Blame it on the fit, he supposed. His scrambled brain.
“Lucan…” Thor sounded pained. He pushed at his shoulders, trying to get him to let go. “I did not understand. When you said…I did not understand.”
“Yeah,” he said, feeling suddenly awkward, but still mostly tired. “Now you do, I guess. Fun, huh? Sorry for…ruining dinner. I think I’d like to go home now.”
“Yes,” Thor said, sounding worried and troubled all at once. “Yes, of course.”
His legs felt wobbly even thinking about standing. He figured his pride was already shot and it couldn’t get much worse. “You can carry me now if you want,” he said, into Thor’s shoulder since Thor still hadn’t let go.
“I think that would be good,” Thor said, voice gentle.
He fell asleep somewhere on the way to the splash of rain on his neck and the distant mutter of thunder.
He woke up to Thor’s voice. “Father,” he was saying. “I know you can hear me. Please, I beg of you to reconsider. This is not justice, it is cruelty. Perhaps you do not know what is happening but now that you do – stop it. Please.”
His eyes felt full of sand and his mouth still tasted like bile. He was lying in his bed, tucked under the covers and – naked. Huh. Awkward.
He pushed himself up and got gingerly to his feet, going over to the bathroom and bending over to drink from the faucet. When he straightened, Thor was visible in the mirror. “You didn’t bring your dad over, did you,” he said, not turning around. Now that his head was a little clearer, the shame was back.
“No,” Thor said, looking a little startled. “No, I…he has ways of hearing words spoken to him.”
He considered that, then shook his head. “Creepy.” He took another long drink and reached for the towel. “You don’t have to stay. I’m fine now.”
Thor’s expression darkened. “You are not fine.”
His teeth clicked together and he felt whatever remained of his good mood evaporate. “Yeah,” he said, voice dragging over his throat, which felt a little sore. “I’m entering a slow, inevitable decline that will end in me as a vegetable, if I don’t get lucky and lose control of my own lungs first. Thanks for reminding me.”
Thor’s face fell, but the stubbornness remained. “You should not be here alone. You need care.”
He turned his back and pushed past Thor. “Like I need you to undress me for bed? Way too personal, by the way, and very creepy. Next time just leave me on top of the covers in my clothes. I’ve slept in worse. Actually, maybe don’t let there be a next time. My physician says you’re bad for me anyway.”
Thor reared back. “Your healer – physician – says what?”
“You’re bad for me,” he repeated ruthlessly. “Too much stress and excitement. Can’t handle it. Weak invalid like me.” He smiled with all his teeth.
“I am not saying you are weak,” Thor said, sounding frustrated.
“That’s exactly what you’re saying. You’re saying I can’t take care of myself when that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.” There was something ugly in his stomach, this is why you hide it, this is why you pretend to be normal, healthy. “I know how to manage this better than you do. So you can take your patronizing attitude and get out.” He could feel himself shaking and knew he should be calming down, but it was just-
How dare he. How dare the Mighty Thor act like he knew anything about this, anything about his life and what it was like, how dare he pretend to want to be friends only to turn around and treat him like some broken thing after all his pretty words about bravery and you are not broken-
Thor looked astonished. He wondered if anyone had told him to get out before. “I…” He trailed off, starting to frown. “—I am sorry. I did not mean…”
“Fuck that,” he ground out, and pointed at the door. “Out. I need to take a shower and if you’re still here when I get out of it I’ll-” He searched for a suitable threat. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter, just – don’t be here.”
He shut the door of the bathroom, hard, and leaned against it, taking several deep breaths before he turned on the water and stepped under it. He washed himself thoroughly and slowly, letting the water pound out at least some of the aches in his muscles, and when he turned it off and stepped out his apartment was empty again.
He sat back down on the bed, feeling like crying. He needed to call Dr. Phenh, needed to take something for his headache, needed to pull himself together and call into work.
He lay back down and went back to sleep, pressing his face into the pillow.
Thor didn’t call.
Didn’t call, didn’t drop by, and he told himself it was a relief. His life went back to normal, sort of. Work was dull and easy and left him exhausted at the end of the day. His apartment felt small and empty and shabby. He listened to NPR in the mornings and classical in the evenings.
He slept poorly when he slept at all, his dreams full of Thor.
Eventually, Thor called him. Lucan, the message said. I wish to speak to you again. That was all.
They met at the south end of Central Park. He stayed standing, hands in his pockets and keeping his distance, even if a part of him craved something else.
“I am sorry,” Thor said, breaking the silence before he had a chance to say something sarcastic and careless. “I should not have…it frightened me, to see you…seem so sick. But that is no excuse for insulting you. I hope you will accept my apology.”
He blinked, taken aback. It sounded awkward, formal, and entirely sincere. “Uh,” he said, after a moment. “I guess. I mean. I get how it must look to you. You’re…” He made a gesture, vaguely in Thor’s direction. “You. I guess you probably aren’t used to less than perfection.”
“That is not…” Thor stopped, and shook his head. “It does not matter. It was rude of me.”
“Yeah,” he said, to see what Thor did. “It was.” Thor winced, but didn’t object. He sighed and put his hands back in his pockets. “Okay. Apology accepted. I guess.”
“Thank you.” Thor looked…uncertain. It was an odd look on him, and it made him feel vaguely nervous, like something was off about the world. “May I…may we continue to spend time together?”
He swallowed and grimaced, kicking against a tuft of grass. “That depends. Are you going to treat me like I’m made out of glass now? Or pity me, or…”
“No,” Thor said, quickly. He just looked at Thor, flat and dubious, and after a moment he sighed. “I will – I will try not to.”
“That’s more honest, at least,” he said, dryly.
Thor hesitated. “What you said about your doctor,” he said, eventually. “About me. Was it true?”
“What I – oh. About you being bad for me.” He shouldn’t have said that. Shouldn’t have said anything, probably. It was easy enough to take it back with a lie. “No. I was just pissed.” Thor looked so completely relieved it almost took his breath away.
“I am glad,” Thor said, smiling a little. “I am – good.” He straightened up, a little, regaining some of his confidence. “I would like to take you to lunch, if I may.”
He hesitated, but…he’d missed Thor, he realized. Felt his absence like a hole. It didn’t matter if it was bad for him, he wanted to be around Thor like he hadn’t really wanted anything since the diagnosis. Weird, complicated feelings and all.
“Yeah,” he said. “Sure, why not.”
It was like being friends with – well, a big, enthusiastic Norse god. There wasn’t really anything else he could compare it to.
Thor took him to the zoo, to the Met, on walks, to a little diner he’d walked by once and thought looked interesting. It was like he had a whole list of things he wanted to share, and had just been waiting for some hapless mortal to wander along.
But that wasn’t right. It was like Thor had a list of things he wanted to show him, specifically. Lucan Gosforth.
It was easy to get caught up in that.
He ate better than he’d eaten for months, his appetite better than he could remember it being. He gained back some of the weight he’d lost. Dana commented that his eyes were bright. Rebecca commented that he looked happy.
It was Thor, he thought, but didn’t say. Thor did that. Sometimes being with him was overwhelming and exhausting and felt like he couldn’t breathe, but in an exhilarating, erotic asphyxiation kind of way more often than it was like an attack coming on.
It was good. So good, more than you deserve something in his head whispered but he ignored it, stubbornly. Ignored Dr. Phenh’s concerned warnings that while his prognosis hadn’t worsened it wasn’t getting better, either.
Things were okay, which meant, of course, that they couldn’t last.
It was mid-February and Thor wanted to go to ice cream, because Steve (Rogers, he realized, Captain America Steve Rogers) had recommended it.
He ordered a single scoop of chocolate because too much dairy didn’t tend to agree with his body. Thor got a sundae, rich and enormous with a puff of whipped cream on top. Thor dug in with relish as he delicately licked his own ice cream, the corners of his mouth twitching a little.
“Here,” Thor said, pushing it across the table. “Try it. Just a bite.”
“You sure you want to share that masterpiece?” He asked dryly, but Thor pushed it a little more to his side of the table.
“Yes,” he said, firmly. “Food is better when shared.”
He took a bite of the sundae, careful to get mostly whipped cream – and it was delicious. Almost too much. He started to push it back, but then Thor leaned forward and said, “here, you’ve got,” and swiped his thumb over his upper lip. “Some whipped cream,” he said, with a bit of a grin, and licked the little bit of white off his thumb.
He felt the jolt, somewhere between chest and belly, when Thor touched his mouth and then again as he sucked his thumb clean. He felt his eyes widen and his spine stiffen, and then he could feel his face heating up.
Oh god. Oh god.
“Excuse me,” he said, hastily, and stood up in a hurry, almost tripping on one of the table posts. “Bathroom,” he added, by way of explanation, and only realized halfway there that he was still holding his ice cream cone.
He went to the bathroom anyway, closed and locked the door, and took several deep breaths, wondering how long he’d been nursing a goddamn schoolgirl crush on Thor.
Idiot idiot idiot. He remembered the look on Thor’s face when he was talking about Jane Foster. Thor wasn’t flirting with him. Thor wasn’t interested and he was fooling himself if he thought this was anything other than stupid, stupid-
“Lucan?” Thor’s voice, and he felt his heart start pounding. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” he said hastily. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Just a total motherfucking idiot who thinks – who thinks what, that Thor likes you? That he cares about you? Grow up. He could feel himself trembling and wasn’t even certain why.
You can’t, something in him gibbered. You can’t. He’s not yours. He’s never going to be yours. Something hysterical bubbled up in his throat. What do you think this is? Love?
Do you love him, Lucan?
He was close to hyperventilating, his stomach churning. He tried to force himself to calm, to settle. He threw the rest of his ice cream away and unlocked the door.
“I think I should go home,” he said to Thor, not standing. Thor’s face fell and he had to look away, instincts warring in him to stay and to leave, right now, because he was scared. He didn’t know of what. Scared of something, scared that Thor would leave if he knew, he was just a pathetic dying mortal anyway, why had he ever thought-
“Are you sure you are well?” Thor sounded concerned, standing up, sundae abandoned. He nodded, quickly.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, fine.” His voice sounded rough and strange, and he tried to regulate it. “Just a little sick. Probably the flu, or something.”
“I will help you,” Thor said, at once, and he took a sharp step back.
“No,” he said quickly. “No. That’s fine. I’ll be…fine.”
He turned his back and walked out of the diner without waiting for a response. Thor didn’t stop him. He took the bus home, something screaming at him the whole way to turn around, to turn around and go back.
He shoved his phone deep in a dresser drawer and curled up in bed, eyes closed. He could hear it buzzing and didn’t pick up, his heart pounding hard in his chest. He squeezed his eyes closed.
This has to stop, murmured the voice at the back of his head, and this time, he agreed. You have to stop pretending. Time to wake up.
Thor found him after he’d been ignoring phone calls for three days. Work made it easier. He threw himself into it and tried not to let his thoughts wander. He took long routes home and used the fire escape instead of the front door.
He should have known Thor wouldn’t give up.
He should have known Thor would find him eventually.
He was there when he got off work on Thursday, standing outside with his arms crossed and his expression furious. He stopped dead the minute he saw him there, but it was too late by then, his coworkers clearing quickly out of the way and he too slow to move.
“What do you think you are doing?” Thor demanded, his voice a rumble. He felt himself tense.
“I’ve been busy,” he said, trying to stay calm, to keep from feeling the eyes staring at him. How was he going to explain this to his coworkers?
“You are avoiding me! I do not understand why.” Thor sounded upset and it hurt but that just made it clearer, didn’t it? Thor shouldn’t be getting attached to him, he shouldn’t be getting attached to Thor, they were different and nothing could change that, that he was a broken fucked up mess and Thor was – a god. “Have I done something wrong?”
“No,” he said, feeling all his muscles bunch up together. “You didn’t.” And then, spilling out of him, “you couldn’t. You’re too perfect for that,” and he almost didn’t recognize the bitterness in his own voice. His heart was pounding again.
Thor jerked back, looking startled. “You are angry with me.”
“No,” he said, flatly. “I’m angry with me. For being stupid enough to – believe this shit. That you want – that you want to be my friend.”
Thor’s eyebrows drew together. “I do.” He did not seem to be aware of everyone watching them, but he was, could feel them staring, hear them murmur. So be it, fine, it wasn’t like it mattered anymore. Nothing mattered. Anger and hate burned like bile in the back of his throat.
“Why,” he demanded.
“Will you please tell me what is the matter?” Thor sounded genuinely concerned and it was like claws in his chest. He squeezed his eyes closed.
“Stop it,” he said, and heard his voice crack, just a little. “Stop it.”
“You are going to hurt yourself-”
“So what if I do?” His voice rose, sharply, eyes snapping open, and he could feel his breathing getting short and uneven but that didn’t matter either. “Why do you care?”
“Lucan…” Thor stepped toward him, and he took several quick steps back.
“What do you want from me?” He asked, urgently. “I don’t get it. I don’t – you’re fucking Thor and I’m nobody, I don’t understand. It doesn’t make any sense!”
Thor’s face darkened. “You are not nobody. You are-” He hesitated, just for a moment.
“Who do you think I am?” He hissed, feeling wild-eyed and unbalanced, unsteady on his feet. “It’s not me. You look at me like – like – I’m somebody else, I don’t know. Like you think you know me. I don’t know what you want-”
“I want nothing,” Thor said, his voice trying to be soothing. “Only your company, and perhaps your friendship.”
“But why,” he demanded. He could feel himself getting worked up, knew it was stupid, knew he was only building himself into an attack and couldn’t stop. “Why would you? I’m a fucked up freak with a long term death sentence hanging over my head. It doesn’t make sense. Tell me, tell me-”
“Lucan,” Thor said, too gently. “You need to calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down!” It came out shrill, almost a scream. He knew people were staring, that his coworkers were seeing him like this, but he couldn’t make himself pull back. He raked a hand through his hair. “Tell me what’s going on! Tell me what you really want from me, I’m not your, your, pet, your charity project-”
“Of course not,” Thor said, taking a sharp step forward. “I would never consider you that way.”
“So what do you consider me?” His breathing was short, coming in gasps. “Get out,” he said. “Get out, leave me alone.”
“You are not well-”
“Go!” He yelled, with all the force he could summon from his tightening lungs. “I don’t want – I don’t want you here.” The world was starting to spin. “I’m not your friend. I’m not your – whatever you think I am. Get away from me, get away-”
Sir, he heard distantly, sir, what’s going on here, and then he needs help, Thor, almost pleading. Please, I don’t want to make it worse.
Then nothing, and for once it was a relief.
He woke up in a hospital bed, feeling absolutely wretched.
“Thor is here to see you,” one of the nurses said, looking awed. Loki shook his head as firmly as he could, and looked away.
It had been a stupid idea, whatever the idea had been. He was done with it. The nurse hesitated a moment longer, then left. Thor didn’t come, and some part of him was surprised, almost disappointed, but it was a small part. A dull part.
They talked at him a lot, about poor nutrition and living habits, asked him what he did, scolding him for sleeping too little and working too much. They pushed pamphlets on him about options and alternate living situations.
He just wanted to go home.
When they gave him his phone back, there were ten missed calls and five voicemails. All from Thor, of course. He deleted them without listening. He didn’t know what Thor wanted from him, but he’d move on. Forget.
He was nothing and Thor was…Thor, and nothing was going to change that.
They released him eventually because they couldn’t keep him. He took a taxi home and climbed the stairs up to his apartment, feet heavy. He half expected to see Thor waiting for him at his door, but there was no one there. He let himself in and wandered over to the couch.
His chest felt hollow. The missing feeling was back. Thor had made it go away, for a little while, but there it was again. This is your life, he reminded himself, brutally. This is your life. Remember it.
He curled up on the couch and fell asleep.
Thor did turn up on his doorstep again. He ignored him, just stepping around and letting himself in and closing the door behind him with as much finality as he could muster, even if his stupid treacherous heart wanted to do something else. He ignored the messages and the letters and the calls, all of it, and focused on the simplest things.
Eat. Work. Come home. Eat. Sleep. Repeat.
He slept heavily, and his dreams were vague and fantastical, but he never remembered enough for them to make sense. A man with one eye and a rainbow bridge and his whole body turning to ice only to shatter under Thor’s iconic hammer.
He knew he was waiting. Something was going to happen. He just didn’t know what.
He came home from work on Friday afternoon and found Eddie pacing back and forth in front of his door fit to wear a groove in the carpet.
“Eddie?” he said, puzzled. Eddie’s head snapped around, and then the rest of him. His fists clenched. It wouldn’t take a genius to read the anger on his face.
“You,” Eddie said, voice full of venom.
His mouth felt a little dry. Run, a small voice at the back of his mind urged him, but he didn’t. It was just Eddie, Bridget’s boyfriend Eddie. “Is everything okay?” he asked, stupid, meaningless question, because clearly it wasn’t.
“You bastard,” Eddie said. “Living down the hall, acting like nothing happened-”
“What are you talking about?” He took a step back, carefully, wondering if he could make it to his apartment door before Eddie snapped. “I don’t know-”
“Don’t you dare,” Eddie hissed. “Don’t you dare – whatever you did, I remember, I was there and I saw you, you son of a bitch, I saw everything you did, I watched my friends die that day, good people-”
His heart was pounding, but he didn’t understand. He took a careful step forward, toward his door, and Eddie’s hands whipped up and he was holding a gun. A handgun, pointed straight at his head. His hands were shaking.
“Who the fuck do you think you are,” Eddie said, voice trembling like his fingers. “How did you think you could get away with it? I saw you with Thor and I started to – what are you planning? What are you planning!”
“What are you accusing me of?” He asked, trying to stay calm, stay calm. Maybe someone would hear the shouting, call the police…
Down the hall, the door opened. Bridget poked her head out, and then the rest of her. “Eddie? I thought I heard you, what’s going – oh my god.”
“Bridget,” Eddie said, his voice steadying again. “Stay away. Stay away from this – this thing. He’s dangerous.”
“Eddie,” Bridget said, and at least she still sounded normal, sane. “That’s Lucan. It’s just Lucan, my next door neighbor. Can you lower the gun?”
“Lucan? That’s Loki!” The name reverberated in his ears and he blinked, hard, at the explosion of light and pain behind his eyes. “He led the aliens that trashed New York, it was him, and now he’s here, he’s right here-“
“Eddie,” he started to say, though the edges of his vision were starting to fuzz. He fought it, his mouth suddenly dry as bone, and took a step forward without thinking.
The bullet thudded into the drywall just to the left of his head. He felt the pain a moment later and raised shaking fingers to his head to touch the graze above his temple, a thin groove sliced in his flesh. “Stay right there,” Eddie said. “Stay right there, you motherfucking bastard. I’m – I’m going to call SHIELD command, I’m going to call the Avengers-”
“Eddie, listen to yourself,” Bridget said, edging slowly closer to him. He wished he could tell her to stop, but he didn’t want to die and right now she was his best hope. “Thor knows he’s here. I’ve never heard of this – Loki person. And this is Lucan. Does he look like some kind of supervillain to you?”
“I know his face,” Eddie said, and his hands steadied. It was as though he could see, with sudden, perfect clarity, what was going to happen. “I know who he is.”
It was just a lone firework going off. Someone starting their New Years’ early. He could almost see the trigger finger tighten. Maybe he could have stopped it, done something, but he didn’t.
His chest exploded.
He felt his back hit the wall as he staggered. The bullets punched through his body like paper and suddenly there was blood everywhere, on his hands and his clothes and spattered on Bridget’s boyfriend’s face, who stared at him in perfect surprise. He blinked at the man, and then felt his knees give and fell clumsily to the ground.
The pain was overwhelming. His nose was pressed into the carpet, and it rasped on his face. Doors were slamming and someone was yelling somewhere, but for some reason all he could focus on was the bizarre pattern of the carpeting. What was it supposed to be?
You’re probably dying, a small voice reminded him. Someone just shot you.
It didn’t really seem to matter that much. He’d been dying little by little anyway.
Maybe, he thought, as the world started to grey out, this was what he’d been waiting for all along.