Work Text:
"It's not too late to back out," Mr. Stark says, smile gleaming beneath his sunglasses as he leans in the doorway of the office he's loaning her. "You're a peach, but Loki--"
She smiles at him. "I'm sure. Kyle?"
Kyle sweeps the room, coming up with four or five bugs. Mr. Stark doesn't bother to look abashed. "Information is power," he said. "And the guy did try to kill me and all my friends. And take over the world, although I don't think his heart was really in it."
"Yet you're flying me in to give him therapy. Which you won't even get yourself."
Mr. Stark shrugs. "Drama club literally saved my life in high school," he says. "You know what they don't even have on Asgard?"
"Drama club?" Kyle suggests. "Are you sure they don't? Surely some form of--"
Mr. Stark pushes his sunglasses down his nose to regard her over the top of them. She thinks he was wearing them solely in preparation for this moment. He does have a very piercing gaze. She hides a smile. "Do your best to help them, Ms. Trager. The world will thank you."
"Nicole always does her best," Kyle says, an edge in his voice.
He laughs delightedly. "Everything that's worth doing is worth doing better than everyone else, that's my motto. Come on, you want to see my lab?"
"If you need anything, call me," Kyle tells her seriously on his way out the door. "I'll hear you."
She's actually a little nervous about this. She saw the news footage. But she's had plenty of violent clients before. Kyle and Mr. Stark are nearby if she needs them. She pulls out a pad and waits.
###
She's startled by how ordinary they look.
She takes that back. They don't look ordinary. They're stunning young men. But if you saw them on the street, that's all you would think. You wouldn't think they were gods, or dangerous. Thor is tall and broad and golden with a beaming smile. With his long hair and beard and his t-shirt and jeans, he just looks like an athletic young man on an impromptu Australian roadtrip. His brother is slighter and darker but still very tall, with fair skin and pale eyes. He has an easy grace and charm she didn't expect. There is absolutely nothing about him to suggest that he tried to take over the world in an uncontrollable rage. "Thank you for seeing us," he says as he shakes her hand, sounding almost too sincere. His smile is intimate and slightly self-deprecating.
In Nicole's experience, boys that charming usually have big problems.
She has three chairs set up, one by itself and two facing. She takes the one by itself. Thor sits first, making Mr. Stark's chair look tiny. Loki moves his chair a little farther away from Thor and sprawls. He's very careful not to look at Thor. He keeps his eyes on her.
She knew this wouldn't be easy. "Before we start, I have a few ground rules I like to establish with new clients."
Thor frowns intensely at the floor. "Should I have removed my boots?"
She smiles. "It's a metaphor. Ground rules mean rules that will be at the basis of everything we do here, the solid foundation we'll build trust and honesty on."
At the words "trust" and "honesty" Loki practically releases a burst of sarcasm rays into the atmosphere. The edge of malice in his open, willing-to-learn smile is palpable. His charm didn't last long. She thinks that's promising.
"One: what is said here stays here. That's a rule for me, not for you. I will not discuss anything you tell me outside this room, with anyone, for any reason. I will be taking notes, but they are completely confidential, for my own reference, and I will keep them safe. I made sure there are no recording or listening devices in this room. There's only one exception to this rule: I'm legally obligated to notify the authorities if you tell me of your intent to commit a crime. Do you have any questions about that?" They don't. "Two: when you talk, talk about yourselves. That means, don't tell me what you believe each other feels or thinks. Tell me directly about your own experience. Three: I reserve the right to interrupt. In family therapy, I prefer to stop escalating situations sooner rather than later. There's no point in you spending Mr. Stark's money just to do what you do at home. Four, I'd prefer you didn't keep secrets. Don't try to hide things from me or each other. But if it happens, we'll deal with it."
They don't have any questions about that either.
"I have one last rule. No violence. Don't get physical with each other, and definitely don't get physical with me. If you think it will be difficult for you not to assault me, Mr. Stark has offered me the use of body armor and an office with a force field. This is a more comfortable way to work for me, but if it would be easier for you not to have to worry about my safety, I'm happy to accomodate that."
Thor looks at his brother. "Loki?"
Loki rolls his eyes. "I promise not to unleash a devastating attack on our therapist," he says in long-suffering tones.
Nicole smiles, hoping he means it. "So why don't you tell me why you're here?"
"The Man of Iron said it would help us."
Consistently pitches voice to carry, she jots down. "Help with what?"
"Loki is angry with me."
Loki gives her a limpid, innocent smile. "I don't know where he gets these ideas."
Thor frowns. "You sent the Destroyer after me! You--"
"I think Loki was being sarcastic," Nicole says. Loki--lots of sarcasm. Thor v. literal. Communication mismatch, she writes. "Remember, one of our ground rules is that you should speak about yourself. Can you rephrase that to tell me how you feel, instead of how Loki feels?"
Thor opens and closes his mouth several times.
"So for example, you might say 'I feel unhappy when I believe that Loki is angry with me,'" she suggests. "But if 'unhappy' isn't right, you can choose another word."
Thor mutters the sentence obediently, but it's very clear he doesn't see the point yet. He looks extremely uncomfortable with the word unhappy, but apparently it's better than choosing his own.
She's been counseling aliens, superheros, and supervillains for a couple of years now. Everyone seems to think they have bigger, different problems than the clients she dealt with before. But really, it's all exactly the same. "Loki, do you think Thor's belief reflects reality?"
Loki smiles insincerely. "Oh, no one could stay angry at Thor for long. Just look at that face."
She leans towards him. "Do you want to be here?"
"Loki," Thor says warningly.
"I'm talking to Loki." Thor shuffles his feet and hangs his head mutinously.
"I'm learning to surf," Loki tells her. "The waves are supposed to be awesome today."
"So you're only here because Thor asked you to?"
Loki nods.
"But you were willing to come, because Thor asked you to. You didn't say no."
Loki looks startled.
Nicole smiles at him. "That's a choice, too."
Loki's eyes dart to Thor. He looks slightly panicked by this idea.
"Maybe at some point, you'll find that you want to come here for you. But in the meantime, are you willing to stay here and fully participate in this process, because Thor asked you to?"
She thinks he wants to stay. But he obviously doesn't want to admit to wanting to stay.
"You don't have to. Loki, do you think words matter?"
"Oh, no," Loki says. "Only actions matter. Just ask Thor."
"Therapy isn't a game or a contest." She's told Mr. Stark that a million times. When he's ready to believe it, she'll be happy to do some sessions with him. "I'm not trying to outwit you. No one wins or loses. We're working together to help the two of you understand what's going on between you a little better, that's all. Sometimes it does feel like a struggle, but we're all on the same side of it."
"Like comrades in arms," Thor says. There's a pleading note in his bluff voice. Loki looks so searingly sarcastic Nicole almost laughs.
"If you're willing to stay, it's important that you said it out loud. But you can leave. The door is open." He glances at the closed door. "Metaphorically."
Thor shifts in his seat as if he's about to object. She gives him a warning look.
Loki crosses his arms, looking mutinous and trapped. He shoots another glance at Thor. She can see that he doesn't want to disappoint his brother. She can see, actually, that he cares very much about what his brother thinks, which is a little surprising considering everything she's read in the files. That doesn't mean he'll stay, though. She waits patiently. "Yes," he spits out, finally.
She smiles, feeling warm and proud. She loves her job. "I can see the two of you have a lot of work to do, but it's also pretty obvious you care a lot about each other and about your relationship. I want to warn you, sometimes it seems like relationship counselling is making things worse, because you're openly discussing and sometimes fighting about problems that were there all along, but that you didn't talk about. This process might be scary or painful, but it's important to go through it and really feel everything. Sometimes people don't have a lot of experience resolving conflicts directly and that can make this seem bigger than it really is. How did your family deal with conflicts and problems growing up?"
Thor frowns. "We were a happy family. There was no need for--"
"And he thinks I'm a good liar."
"Please don't interrupt," Nicole reminds Loki. "Thor?"
"Odin was always fair with us," Thor says. He glances at Loki, face darkening. "Until recently."
Loki smiles. This one looks real to her. She guesses that Thor is being protective.
"Loki, how do you remember your family dealing with conflicts?"
"Odin hates raised voices," Loki says drily. "When they aren't his."
"So anger wasn't something you were encouraged to express?"
"No children are encouraged to express anger," Thor says.
T--protective of parents/childhood. L doesn't like that. "That's fair," she says. "But anger is a natural part of life, too."
"A good warrior never acts in anger, and neither does a good king," Thor proclaims. Loki presses his lips together until they're white.
"Loki, do you agree with that?"
"Oh, absolutely."
"I wish you'd say how you really felt. Sarcasm is fun, but it creates distance. The more straightforward we are, the easier this process will be."
He looks startled--that she called him on it, maybe? He says nothing.
"I don't believe anger is good or bad," she said. "If we're open to it, and if we express it in constructive ways, it can be a very helpful emotion."
Neither young man says anything to that. Talk about how to be angry, she jots down. But she wants to get a better idea what she's dealing with before diving into that.
"How about sadness?" she asks. "How did your parents react when you were sad or cried?"
"They would comfort us," Thor says.
"I don't remember Odin comforting you after your first battle," Loki flashed. "What did he tell you, again?"
Thor looks embarrassed.
"Remember to talk about yourself," Nicole says. "Can you share a story about yourself?"
"Father was only teaching me to be strong," Thor says. "A boy may weep, but a man must learn to bear his pain in silence. A king cannot show fear or doubt."
Loki looks venomous. Nicole feels sorry for both of them. They don't look more than five or six years older than Kyle or Lori, although Mr. Stark told her time passes differently where they're from.
It's easy for adults to forget how much children have to deal with. S.H.I.E.L.D. is always telling her to remember how big everything is. You've probably never dealt with someone who's killed so many people and He's a god, he faces pressures we can't even imagine. But Nicole knows growing up is big and terrifying for everyone, and it breaks her heart every time.
"What about a brother?" she asks gently. "Can a brother show fear or doubt?"
"Oh, he shows plenty of fear and doubt as a brother," Loki mutters.
Thor surges to his feet. "I have never feared you, brother!" His voice rings in the small room. He's very, very large.
Loki's eyes glint with unhappy rage. She can tell things are about to get nasty. "Loki, please don't respond to that. Thor, please sit down."
For a moment she thinks he'll refuse. But he settles back into the chair. It creaks under his weight.
"I'd like us to take ten seconds to calm down. Just breathe in and out and focus on what you can see, hear, and touch." Even Thor's breaths are heavy and loud, asserting his presence in the room. Loki just takes the opportunity to look around the room nosily, but since it distracts him, she doesn't object.
"It sounds like both of you have learned to be very brave in battle," she says when her count is over. "But battle is all about keeping yourself from getting hurt. In a relationship, if we want to be close and open with someone, we have to be vulnerable. It's healthy to protect yourself and set boundaries, but you also have to be willing to take off some of your armor. I believe it's the bravest thing a person can do."
Thor straightens in his chair. T responds to a challenge, she writes. Loki looks sarcastic, and a little nervous.
"Thor, I'm going to ask you to do something very scary, but the potential reward is huge. Do you think you can do it?"
He squares his shoulders. "I am ready."
"Now Loki, it's going to be your turn next. But Thor, I want you to honestly tell Loki something you feel about him that makes you feel weak or vulnerable. It can be something small. It's just a beginning."
The brothers eye each other warily. The clock ticks.
Thor looks at the ground. "I fear I have failed you." Even for that, he projects his voice.
Loki's eyes widen.
"I know you, brother," Thor says. "You lie, but you see truer than any. We grew up together. Surely if I were worthy of your love and your loyalty, I would have them."
Nicole keeps her face serious, but inwardly she's doing jumping jacks. That was huge. Thor's a great kid, and she's really proud of him.
Loki's lips part. He looks stunned. He blinks. His eyes are wet. He has an amazingly expressive face. "You must know you have them," he says in an attempt at lightness that doesn't come off at all. "That's why--" He breaks off, breathing hard. Moments pass. Thor watches him as if he has absolutely no way to predict what Loki might say.
"I--" Thor begins.
Nicole shakes her head. "Loki, can you finish the sentence?"
Loki clenches his jaw shut. He fidgets with his hands. He looks absolutely terrified.
"You could even just say 'I love you,' if you wanted," Nicole suggests. Thor perks up hopefully. Loki's mouth twists.
His skin starts to turn blue. For a second Nicole thinks it's a medical emergency of some kind. But Loki's eyes stay open and while his body is stiff, it doesn't look as if he's seizing. She has no idea what's happening.
All of Loki's visible skin is blue, now. Strange lines and markings have appeared on his face and hands. Thor stares at him, but he doesn't look particularly alarmed.
Then Loki's features start to stretch and change. His nose grows and curves, his chin points, his ears change shape. The lines in his face deepen and his eyes change color to a strange reddish yellow. His sleek dark hair turns the same blue color as his skin and molds itself to his skull. His t-shirt stretches and bulges oddly. All that's left of the Loki she's been looking at is the tilt of his mouth and the sharpness of his chin.
Sure, Tony Stark had told her Loki was adopted, but she hadn't thought that meant adopted from another species.
Thor is pressed back against his chair, his face frozen. Nicole wonders if she should ask for an explanation or just let this play out. "Brother?"he says at last. His voice booms with rough intensity.
"Am I?" Loki asks. Thor reaches out to touch his face. "Don't." Loki's voice is different too. It is low and rough and echoes in places, as if there is curved hollow brass in his throat. "I might hurt you."
Thor touches his face anyway. He draws his hand back sharply, sucking on his fingers.
Loki laughs. There are odd harmonics in it. "You never learn."
"Why don't you explain to me what's going on," Nicole says calmly.
"I am a Frost Giant," Loki says. "I was a cuckoo's egg in Thor's precious Asgardian family." He seems more comfortable now that things are openly antagonistic.
"Thor, have you seen this before?" she asks. Thor shakes his head. Wow. "Loki, did you take this form because it was your way of showing Thor something that makes you feel vulnerable?"
"Words don't matter," Loki says. "Only actions."
"Words do matter," Nicole counter. "Saying something is an action. How do Asgardians and Frost Giants get along, usually?"
Loki gives Thor a miserable sharp blue smile. Thor looks extremely unnerved. "They don't." His words are quiet, but they reverberate in the room. His new voice was designed to call attention to itself. This voice, she thinks, is a good match for Thor's..
Interracial adoption, call Cindy, she jots down. Resources? "This is a big topic," she says. "But I've counselled adoptive families before. Sometimes when kids are adopted across cultures it can be pretty tough, especially when those cultures have a loaded history. We'll have a lot to talk about. For right now, what do you need from Thor? Is there anything you're afraid he might think, that you want to test the accuracy of?"
"If this face called you brother and told you it loved you," Loki says, desperate sarcasm in his voice, "could you feel anything but revulsion?"
Oh, God. Nicole underlines her last note four times and adds next to it, e-mail Mutant Brotherhood?
Thor doesn't answer. He looks to her for help.
"Be honest," she says gently. "It's all right if you're feeling disturbed. You've known Loki almost your entire life, and his face just changed shape. And apparently you have some history with people who look and sound like that. The important thing is to stay here and work through this together."
Thor swallows. "Would it be a lie?" he asks Loki.
"They say Frost Giants have no hearts," Loki tells Nicole. "And Thor has always believed me incapable of sincerity."
She's watched plenty of sword-and-sorcery movies with Josh and Stephen; she gets the pull of metaphors and legends. She knows that when they're done right, they can feel truer than reality. In that growling bell of a voice, Frost Giants have no hearts sounds pretty darn meaningful. Sure, it's obviously bullshit, but it's also obvious that he half-believes it. Maybe Thor does too, deep down.
"They bleed," Thor says heavily, and Nicole can guess how he knows that. Shit. "They have hearts. But I have reason to doubt. The last time you said you loved me..."
"Was five minutes ago," Loki snaps.
"Before that, then."
"Loki," Nicole says, "I know this is very difficult for you. Our session is over in five minutes. Can you do this one more thing and answer your brother's question with a simple yes or no? If you can't, it's all right."
Loki's eerie red eyes slide back to his brother. "I have always meant it," he says. "Unlike you, brother, love does not make me kind."
Nicole makes a note of that too, for a future session. This is what always makes her the saddest, how people think the most ordinary feelings are terrible and strange.
Thor's face lights up. "You have been kind to me," he protests warmly. "Many, many times."
"And I will be again, no doubt," Loki says. "But I will be cruel, too. Many, many times."
Nicole takes some more notes. There are a lot of assumptions here they need to talk about.
"I will learn to love this face, brother," Thor says firmly. "Since it is yours."
Loki shifts back into his original, human-looking shape. He laughs. "It can't be any harder than loving that great ugly mug," he says, reaching out to tweak Thor's nose. Thor laughs, too. They both sound extremely relieved.
Sometimes Nicole has a hard time not crying during sessions.
"We have five minutes left," she says, keeping it together. She can always cry later. "There's something I want you both to think about. It seems like you're disturbed by how different you are from each other. But really, every person is different from every other person. Even identical twins and people with telepathic bonds deal constantly with distance and conflict in their relationships." She flips a few pages in her pad and draws two interlapping circles on it.
"Every person is a complete whole," she says, showing them the picture. "And the things we share, the ways we're alike, that's the overlap. Over the course of a relationship, it's natural for these circles to move away, and back, as we grow and change in our lives. Sometimes they do it at the same time, and sometimes they don't. Sometimes one person tries to chase after the other person. A lot of people believe that the overlap is what makes the 'we,' the 'us,' out of two 'I's. So it's scary when they feel it shrinking, or even disappearing. But really, it's when you acknowledge that you are two separate people that you're strongest."
She draws a big squiggly circle around the picture. "That's the 'we.' Both of you together, no matter how similar or different you feel in that moment. Instead of making the relationship this tiny, fragile little thing, you can let it be big. Your 'we' can be stronger than either of you on your own. And when you don't worry so much about that overlap, you're both free to be who you are, and to support each other in being who he is, without feeling threatened by your differences. That's when you can really be intimate and honest with each other."
Thor nods. "Like battle."
Loki laughs. "That's my brother."
Nicole smiles at them, even though it still disturbs her how comfortable most of her S.H.I.E.L.D. clients are with violence. "I imagine it is similar. What if you only let yourselves use moves you could both do? You wouldn't win very much, would you?"
Thor shakes his head. Loki darts a resentful glance at Thor. Apparently this is a sore spot. Oops. Well, you can't win them all. "Some do battle, others only do tricks," he says.
Thor turns plaintively to her. "He remembers everything--"
Loki grins nastily. "Mind like a deep-freezer."
Nicole stands up. "Our session is over. You both did really, really well. Think about what I said, and try not to fight on the way home, okay?" She gives them the number of her answering service and sets up a follow-up appointment in two weeks. She can hear them arguing down the hall.
Tony Stark appears in the doorway. "So, is it a hopeless case?"
She grins at him. "I've seen worse."
"Really? Worse?" He waits hopefully for an anecdote or two. He's the nosiest person she's ever met, which is saying something.
She rolls her eyes. "Confidentiality, remember?"
"Thank you," he says. "I mean really. The world thanks you." He hands her a check. It's far more than she asked for, but she hates small planes and Josh wants to study abroad next year, so she doesn't argue.
"Thanks for the referral," she says instead. "I like them."
His eyebrows go up. "You like Loki? No one likes Loki."
She laughs. "You do."
"All right, you caught me, but I'm widely considered very eccentric--"
"Jessi thinks he has style," Kyle says, popping his head in the door. Nicole tries not to worry about that.
"Jessi has style herself," Mr. Stark says. "Is she considering that internship I offered her?"
"It conflicts with Magneto's electromagnetics workshop," Kyle explains. Nicole tries not to worry about that, too.
"Then I'll have to change the dates," Mr. Stark says promptly. "Bruce and I are going to that workshop too. JARVIS, why isn't that in my calendar?"
She never imagined herself as the kind of therapist who flies halfway around the world at the personal request of billionaires, but then, she never imagined a lot of things, and they all turned out pretty great. She puts an arm around Kyle and plants a kiss on his temple. Unlike her other children, he doesn't act like she's embarrassing him. Yep, pretty great.