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Chapter Text

ONCE UPON A TIME, there lived an old man, for whom being a good king was more important than being a good man, or a good father.

ONCE UPON A TIME, there lived two princes in a castle. As the elder was bright and beloved, the younger was dark and despised; and both were feared and revered for their impressive feats – one for his strength and the other his magic.

ONCE UPON A TIME, there lived a beautiful young woman who loved books and science but whose inquisitive mind had been curbed by the ones who raised her.

ONCE UPON A TIME, there lived a sassy young woman, who studied political sciences but chafes under the whims of those she works for, slowly giving up her dreams of making the world a better place.

ONCE UPON A TIME, there lived one of the smartest minds of this planet, as close to a prince as his world could have, who had faith in little else but his own worth, yet did not seem to care much about that either.

ONCE UPON A TIME, all those people came together, hoping to use one another to achieve their goals. And yet…

Chapter Text

The water ripples, colors swirls. They are faded, a second effect of the shadows he hides inside, but Loki still recognizes his brother riding in a forest as the picture solidifies. There is no sound, for the shadows can only bend the light to his eyes; but he needs none to know that Thor is following the trail of a hunt — a bear or a boar, going by his smile and mannerisms. His father sits on the throne at the heart of the palace, looking both timeless and weary with age, his gaze settled on the ‘decorative’ waterfall. Odin, Loki knows, can project his eyes and ears across the world, as long as a liquid surface lays before him, and one of his loyal corvids — Hugin and Munin — remains on the other side of the connection. While Loki inherited the strength of his seidr from him, his mastery of it lies elsewhere, and any more intrusive spying would be detected. Odin has always seen through his illusions and his shapeshifting.

The king lifts a hand, and Loki knows from experience that he is about to dismiss the spell. Still, he waits to dismiss his own, but the hand does not come down. Loki stares at the waterfall, looking for what must have ticked off his father. Nothing. Thor has stopped. His face wears an odd expression, but he does not look worried. Intrigued, maybe. However, such is not unusual, and little cause for concern. Not for the first time, Loki curses the limitations of this spell.

Thor is speaking, now. He must have met someone; Loki doesn’t remember any of his sycophants joining him on this hunt. He looks back to his father, whose face is as impassive as always. He knows those eyes—they look the same when he narrates tales of defeated enemies and conquered territories; as cold and as burning as ice.

Loki curses. He must find his brother.

***

“Thor!” Loki does not raise a hand as his brother lifts his gaze from the saddle to look around. There is a crowd around the palace stables, from rogue hunters and grasping petitioners to fawning noblewomen, but they give him a wide berth and he stands out. He grins, smile as sharp and cutting as his knives, and people hastily look away.

Thor grins and waves, and Loki waits for his brother to come meet him. He watches as Thor drops his vambraces — the left first, then the right one — along the way, only for a bird to sweep in and catch it before it hits the ground. The cape follows, and two other birds — red and yellow, typical — catch it and fly toward Thor’s window. And in Loki’s experience, right through it.

It’s a handy trick, he must admit; people are much more impressed by a prince followed by delicate birds than by one who is followed by menacing snakes. Also, the snakes cannot carry clothing above the grounds, which Loki finds much more inconvenient than the opinion of lowly peasants. The clothes teared and got soiled, and his rooms are at the top of a tower: the snakes had to be repurposed.

He lets Thor clap his shoulder in greetings, and falls into step two feet behind him, slightly to his right; textbook royal protocol when they are out together in public.

“Why are you here, brother? You usually prefer the dampness of our dungeons to the crispness of the inner courtyard.”

“Thor.” Deep breath; Loki swats an incoming bird aside. “Last I was aware; you do not appreciate my potions when they explode into your stomach. You know what light exposure can do to them.”

Thor just look at him, his large grin holding strong, and Loki rolls his eyes. He spies Hugin, Odin’s smallest crow, perched atop the lowest spire of the palace.

“I have finished developing a new potion,” Loki admits with reluctance. “Come with me.”

Thor squawks — “I am the crown prince of Asgard, not your test subject!” — but changes direction toward the dungeons, and Loki is happy enough to keep the banter going until they are in the safety of his study. The many spells that layer the walls couldn’t keep Odin’s eyes away from here, but he would be detected, should he try to infringe on their privacy.

As soon as the door closes, they both drop the pretense. Thor loses his constant grin, and Loki can feel his smirk vanish from his face.

“Again?” It’s not a question, not really, and Loki does not answer.

“Who have you met, brother?”

“It’s not fair! Father cannot keep me from the throne forever, I have been ready to take up my mantel for years. I am more than ready. I won’t accept his interference, not this time.”

“Brother. Who?”

Thor loses his angry scowl to a besotted smile as he answers, “The fairest lady of this realm; Jane is her name. She is the daughter of a wealthy merchant, and well-versed in the arts.” He spins and grabs Loki by the shoulders. “It’s True Love, brother.”

“Thor.” Loki tugs free. “Thor, no!”

“Loki, yes. Father wants me wed before I inherit the throne? I have found my True Love, and we shall marry immediately! Tomorrow, at the latest.”

He strides toward the door, and Loki attempts futilely to grab hold of him. “Thor, you can’t-”

But it’s too late, Thor is ready to leave, and imparts one last terrible advice — “It’s amazing, brother. It’s everything mother said, and more. I have faith you’ll find yours someday as well.” — before the door closes, the sound reverberating ominously across the dungeons. Loki doesn’t even try to restrain his groan.

***

He is not surprised when he hears, less than two hours later, that poor Jane has fallen into a vortex toward some unknown world, and that Thor has foolishly and unilaterally elected to follow her and bring her back.

He strides toward the throne room and kneels before his king, swearing, when asked, to bring back the both of them immediately — Thor, safe and whole, and Jane…

Her head on a silver platter.

After all, Thor may be the golden prince, but Loki is the hidden dagger cloaked in shadows. They both have their role to play; Loki merely hopes that this time is not the one that will break them apart irremediably.

Chapter Text

Loki recoils from the stench assaulting his nose before he even realizes he is underground and sitting upside down on the vault of a cavern. He reaches out to the round iron plate embedded on the, well, ceiling before him and hurries to remove it. Thankfully, it was the only barrier separating him from the outside and he exits the cave with relish. He comes out in the middle of a large street, odd metallic carriages pulled by some sort of magic rushing on both sides of him, and a wall of grey buildings squished together beyond that. There is a stream of people — humans, according to his father — walking between the road and the buildings. He inhales deeply. The air, while not stinking anymore, still feels stale and stifling, and brings him little relief.

This assignment is definitely off to a superb start. Loki is going to hate it.

“Err, excuse me, sir?” The man asking for his attention has the most awful fashion sense, wearing a flashy orange jacket on top of a stained blue overall, along with a white helmet fitting awkwardly atop his head. He is holding a large hose in his right hand and is surrounded by four other people wearing a similar attire — if sometime with a jacket yellow rather than orange. They are the only ones with Loki in the middle of the road.

Loki debates demanding retribution for failing to present the proper respect for one of his station, but the peasant is oblivious he is addressing a prince. Loki having better things to do than correct the abysmal education of the people of this realm, he lets it go and answers with a curt, “Yes?”

“Are you looking for a princess as well?”

Thor already came this way, then. Loki considers correcting the man — primarily, he wishes to bring his brother home — but. He might as well follow the path of least resistance: eliminate the princess first, kidnap the prince later. “Yes, I believe I am. Would you know which way she went?”

The man points shakily to the left side of the avenue, toward a row of primitive, clunky grey buildings — painfully plain; most of them under 20 stories high, barely the size of the statues that frame Odin’s throne. Loki nods his thanks to the man and strides away, electing to ignore his mad ramblings about holes and men. As he crosses the road, the square metallic contraptions screech around him and careen widely off-tracks to avoid him. Aside from one, the drivers of those odd carriages are skilled enough to let him continue his way unimpeded. The one that hits him, he stumbles inelegantly and carves the face of the driver into his memories for later retribution, before pushing away the carriage, leaving a leg-shaped hole in the front. Once on the other side, he continues walking in the direction indicated, looking for a place away from the pleb that fills the avenue.

He finds one, a dirty alleyway where garbage accumulates, and walks until he cannot be seen from the main street. Waiting no longer, he scries for Jane. He has little more than what his brother and father told him of her to go on, but he is Loki and such a spell is nothing against his might. He could do this with less information, has done more with less. He has a direction now, but it’s slow, so slow, and sweat beads on his forehead, his top sticks to his back-

He stops everything, heart in his throat.

He closes his eyes and centers himself. He extends his senses, feeling for a ley line but…

Nothing.

His stomach drops, his throat constricts. It’s not damaging, and he isn’t powerless. But no magic runs through this primitive, rotten realm; none that he can harness as an energy source for his spells and enchantments. He still has most of his natural reserves, gathered while on Asgard. Even crippled like he is, he remains more powerful than any other warlock of his realm, short maybe of Odin and Frigga. But once he empties it…

It’s over. There is nothing here that could let him replenish. He doesn’t dare imagine what being dry feels like, what it could do to him.

He shakes it off. For now, he must travel North, North-East. The spell is vague and without a source to sustain it, short-lasting. He must hurry; he refuses to stay in this forsaken realm any longer than he has to.

***

The spell gives way before Loki can reach Jane. He finds himself stranded on uncharted territory, with no idea where to go from there, and unwilling to attempt another scrying spell.

Loki decides to do what he usually does when he is lost (besides using magic to teleport away, get un-lost, or do anything else): he looks for a snake.

Unfortunately, this realm appears to wage a war against nature –

The few trees still surviving despite the disgusting amounts of concrete and metal are caged behind a flimsy net; which is amazingly stupid. For one, trees are lazy clods and more than happy to remain standing where they are for centuries, Groot being the odd exception; for another, should trees choose to walk away from this hellish place, such barriers won’t stop them.

– and as such, what he finds are: leashed dogs (stupid, and useless besides), ratty cats (much too aloof; Loki likes them fine, but he wasn’t willing to use his seiðr to ensure their obedience), catty rats (no respect whatsoever; they won’t be coming back so soon) and hellish and ugly birds (loyal only to Thor, and Loki bets that his oaf of a brother hadn’t even tried using them to find his lady). And a fucking crow. Of course, there is a fucking crow. It was hard to say whether it is one of Odin’s, but Loki wasn’t willing to risk it. Better suppose the crow is his and be mistaken, than not to and spend the next decade sleeping in Asgard’s deepest pit.

In the end, he asks a passing peasant, who shakily informs him he must go to a ‘zoo’ at the center of a park (or is it that the park is at the center of the city?) Said park is as insipid and artificial as the rest of this realm, and the ‘zoo’ consists of little more than putting animals behind fences and glass in a space barely big enough for them to move.

Absurd.

But he does find the snakes, three of them — two females and one male; none belonging to species that exist on Asgard. They are several feet long and ill-suited for the work Loki has planned for them. One female in particular is a bright emerald green with a thin white dorsal running across her back, which will clash horribly against the greys and blacks that paint the city. But Loki isn’t rich with possibilities, so it must do.

“Sssnakes,” he hisses as he crouches to eyes level with a slitted, glazed pupil. The tail twitches at his words. Loki can see her heart beating wildly against the thin skin, just below where he would put his hand should he want to hold her. “For what terrible crimes where you imprisssoned?”

The snake rears back, mouth opened and tongue twitching. She hisses words Loki doesn’t—cannot?—understand, but he has been around enough snakes to know when one of the prideful creatures feels insulted. The little divas are more easily offended than even Thor, and Loki is seldom the most tactful being.

He cocks his head. If the animals of this realm lack the ability to be understood by humans, it would explain quite a lot. Still, “Apologies, I did not mean to offend. This place differs greatly from where I come from, and we wouldn’t have dared lock up any of your kind in sssuch way without great offenssse having been committed. I have been a long-standing friend of sssnakes; from the tiniessst of them to Jormungandr the Great, and they would vouch on my favor. Would you be interesssted in ssstriking a bargain?”

The snake settles but does not back down, and he fears for a second that his word wasn’t believed- but no. Snakes are free to travel the World Tree, if not physically, and Loki’s words hold more sway on their kind than he would receive trust from humans—or Ases.

He swallows the bitter resentment and focuses on the sharp hiss from the snake before him. This, he knows even if he cannot understand it, is agreement. The other two snakes have emerged from the rocks they were napping on, and while they do not appear enthusiastic, they do not protest.

“I shall free you from your gilded cage and ensssure your continued essscape from the humans. In repayment for your debt, you will find the one of my kind who lossst herself on this plane. Female; she sssmells of earth and old magic.” The portal, if anything, will have marked Jane during her descent. Those kinds of magic often left a trace. “You will avoid the Ase of Thunder at any cossst. Do we have a deal?”

Another sound of agreement, more a huff than a hiss this time. Had they been venomous snakes, Loki would have been wary of any stray bites to his ankles when releasing them. As they are, plump with ill-fitted food and inaction, there is little they can do to him, and Loki releases them with a wave of his hand.

(It takes everything he has not to stagger against the pull on his magic, his soul. He grits his teeth.)

The glass disappears, and all three snakes weave between his legs on their way out. Loki observes as they all go their separate way, and settles in for a long wait. This city, while far below the might of Asgard, will be quite huge to search in their serpentine bodies.

***

The sun is setting, yet the city does not slow. The noise, the lights, the smells are as present by night as they are by day; and give Loki a headache. He had little hope of getting everything done in under 24 hours, but he still feels frustrated when the snakes fail to show. And while he wouldn’t usually mind sleeping under the stars, has done so on innumerous hunting trips, the blasted crow is still perched on the tree above him, and Loki knows he isn’t imagining its disapproving stare.

He has no magic to waste on turning Odin’s eyes away.

He wanders out of the park, following the flows of humans when his fancy takes him, or ambling down the streets aimlessly. Some human stop and stare at him when he walks among them, a thin black rectangular object held foolishly in front of their faces. More than once, his hands twitch with the urge to rip into them, make them kneel until they show him proper respect-

But no. As killing orders do, this assignment requires the utmost discretion from his part. Loki cannot spare magic on transforming his clothing to suit the tastes of puny mortals, but he takes off his helmet and stores it in a pocket dimension. The unwanted attention he receives does not stop completely, but it lessens enough to settle him.

The night has fallen when he stops in front of a large and illuminated square building, several copulas overhanging from the rooftop. It is three stories high, and while the second and the third are dull, the first one does its best to improve the building. Four dented pillars stand strong on the podium, holding up a pediment inscribed with an intricately carved fresco. Leading to it, a red velvet carpet covers a majestic stairway from the street to the large glass doors. Metallic carriages stop every few minutes in front of the entrance and one or more humans step out, climbing the carpet under flashes of light and the screams of admirers.

As subpar as the building is compared to even the lowliest tavern of Asgard, Loki figures it’s the best he’s going to find tonight and steps on the red carpet. It is ridiculously easy to redirect attention from the humans to the object of their zealotry — barely a drop of his magic, yet so strongly felt — and he enters the reception unnoticed.

He tours the room for a moment, fleeting invisibly between influential people, ascertaining the unspoken rules of this place, who holds the most power in this room, which guests are the most controversial, what are the dynamics that let them decide between a smile or a knife in the ribs at each salutation. Who came here for work, and who came for pleasure.

He settles on a pair of brown eyes standing by the bar, nursing a golden drink in his right hand. Alone, yet the center of everyone’s attention; powerful, but too obnoxious to care much about networking. Loki has often been the target of such behaviour.

He is drunk, as well, and drunks are always easier to charm and manipulate.

He lets the spell drop and ambles toward the closest group, an older couple and a young debutante. He introduces himself as the son of a dignitary from a faraway country, who arrived recently to the city. His atypical attire? Oh, merely the newest fashion from the northern areas of his lands; don’t you like it? Humans are brainless creatures, much too easy to fool and Loki, while knowing little of their realm and even less of them all, still spins webs of tales around them, until the sycophant debutante is panting for his attention and the couple has extracted from him a promise to join them over dinner.

Dim-witted simpletons, the lot of them. Even the snakes had known to corroborate his words, before putting any weight behind his promises. But the boring conversation was worth the sacrifice of his time, for he now has what he wants: three people who would vouch for him should anything happen, and the eye of his target on his back.

Let Thor be the intrepid hunter; Loki was always more suited to the snakes who keep him company, lying in wait until his prey steps inside his mouth of its own free will.

In the past half hour Loki spent charming his interlocutors, the man at the bar has noticed him. As Loki moves on to the next group, and the next again, so does he weave his way through the room; until they both meet in the middle.

Well, they are actually standing aside from the middle of the room; to the left, next to one of the large glass windows. But it’s the spirit of the letter.

Loki adopts the same practiced smile he has worn through the earlier conversations, warm without warmth, and holds out his hand. “Loki Odinson.”

“Enchanted, I’m sure.” The man takes his hand but doesn’t shake it; rather, his smile turns sharp and mischievous, and leaning an inch forward, his gaze not leaving Loki’s, he brings his hand to his lips. There is no contact, both skins barely a hair’s breadth away. It is more of a mark of respect than an insult, and yet it is separate from any other greetings the man gave to the rest of the guests. Suitable when courting royalty, but improper in this context.

Still, retribution shall come later. As it is, Loki uses the hold the man has on him to grab his hand and bring it to his arm; then, he saunters around the room, his prey in his thrall. He makes his voice playful. “What, no name? Surely this country is not arrogant enough that its inhabitants assume to be recognized by their looks alone.”

Shock; an amused curl of the lips. “Apologies. Anthony Edwards Stark. But please, call me Tony.”  

“Tony?” Loki smirks, “how plebeian.”

The man, Tony, throws his head back and laughs. “Unfortunately, we can’t all be named after Norse deities. My father showed a terrible lack of imagination for any matter outside of his chosen field. So where are you from? You have a strong British accent, but I don't believe any stuck-up British diplomat would call his son Loki.”

Curious, for Loki has mentioned nothing of the sort yet. Tony must have listened in on his earlier conversations, somehow. He looks at him from the corner of his eyes, and Tony notices and throws him a saucy wink; but neither of them mention it aloud.

Loki leans his head close to Tony’s, puffs of breath hot on his ear with every word he says. “Alas, I do not relate my life’s story before at least the third date.”

A shiver runs through Tony’s back to his neck, and his grip on Loki’s arm tightens. “Truly terrible, we should correct that at once.”

“Oh? And how would we do that?”

Tony taps his chin thoughtfully, sweeping his gaze across the room. “Candelabra, expensive alcohol, a private concert and delightful conversation: I would wager this makes a very good first date.”

Loki’s eyes size Tony up, head to toe. Soft hair, warm brown eyes, mischievous smile, confidant stance. A little small, maybe, but, “You shall do, I guess.” All in all, it mattered little: he would have access to expensive food, a comfortable bed, passable companionship; and most importantly, he would be out of Odin’s sight for a few hours of rest.

Tony snorts. “Be still, my heart. Your skilled tongue will make me fall for you head over toes.”

“Oh, trust me.” Loki leans in, mouth hovering over Tony’s, and his voice drops to a deep whisper. “My tongue is very skilled, in a variety of arts.”

Tony gulps, licks his lips. Loki smiles and says, “Shall we go?”

“I thought you’d never ask!” Tony exclaims, and they exit the building together. Loki steals himself before entering the metallic hazard (a ‘damn good car’, he gets from Tony’s boastful chatter) but he is rather certain he can survive anything this primitive tech can do to him. Though he does wonder how humans made them work, if there is no magic to fuel it.

The car starts up, an odd hum beneath Loki’s feet, and takes them away through the lights of the city.