Chapter Text
Shapeshifting was a power that he had avoided touching on with Dora, despite the fact it was his specialty. Despite how she begged him—‘oh, but please could we try,’— eyes gleaming with all the reckless enthusiasm of someone who thought magic was supposed to be fun.
At first it had been because the girl was too brash, too uncontrolled. How in the nine realms was he supposed to teach such delicate magic when bulbs exploded with every adolescent tantrum. Then, after their visit to the Oracle, his focus had shifted to sharpening her offensive and defensive skills—ensuring that, at the very least, she could keep herself alive if she ever found herself in a situation where he wasn’t there.
The closest he’d come to shapeshifting with her was a quick overview of transmutation basics, and that was only because it was applicable to her training. There were some things that could not be blocked by a shield, or even dodged, but they likely could be transformed. But that was as far as he would delve into that subject with her.
He was firm on that. One hundred percent firm; nothing would change his mind.
He’d been so sure.
How she’d managed to wear him down, he had no idea. One minute, he was rejecting her request for what felt like the hundredth time, telling her it was far too advanced. The next, they were on their way to the safe house, coffees abandoned on the shop table. Whatever happened in between, he must have blacked out.
He began exactly as his mother had all those years ago, explaining the basics with a careful, practiced tone. “Generally, all practitioners of magic have a preferred form—one that is easier to attain. For myself, for example, I find changing into a snake the easiest transformation. Naturally, creatures like lions or dogs, require a much more sustained effort. Knowing that made it easier when I first started learning—it gave me a place to begin.”
“How did you find out which form was easier for you?” Dora asked.
“There’s a ceremony for that, but it requires a seer,” Loki said, voice firm and final, so she didn’t even get the chance to ask—to beg. There was no world where he’d allow her near Ysili again.
“And we’ve burnt that particular bridge,” she replied, offering a tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes. The shadow of Vanaheim still clung heavy no matter how he tried to shield her from it, to reason away the vision—reassure her that nothing bad was going to happen.
“Indeed,” Loki agreed, though he kept a subtle eye on her—he’d eventually have to address this before her curiosity and guilt over something that hadn’t happened, and might never, propelled her into yet another reckless expedition. “So, as we do not have access to a seer, when you do eventually learn, it will be a process of trial and error.”
“And by eventually you mean today, right?” Dora said, eagerness rushing back, and those fierce, dark eyes were getting harder and harder to refuse.
He half suspected she’d slipped some enchantment over him. It was the only explanation he could bear—far easier to accept than the truth that he was softening. Saying no to her had never been this difficult before, but lately, it was like trying to hold back a tidal wave. Then again, he told himself, perhaps it wasn’t magic at all, but the long shadow cast by her recent entanglement with the Veil—a ghost neither of them could shake.
So there he was, perched on the arm of the battered, stained chair, watching from the sidelines as she wrestled with her own form. Offering pointers when he could, though his patience was thinning, and he was having to try exceptionally hard to not let it show. The child had taken to the discipline like a cat to water. As in, she hadn’t. Abysmal barely covered it. Hours passed, and progress was microscopic at best.
The closest she’d come was growing a few whiskers. A small victory, one he almost allowed himself to celebrate—grateful for any break in the monotony. But before he even been able to throw some vague positive reinforcement her way, she was spooked by the sensation and lost focus. The whiskers snapped back like a taut elastic band, leaving her flushed and frustrated.
He’d never seen her stuck on anything like this before. The girl could hardly be called a prodigy, but she was usually a relatively fast learner.
“You can’t just ‘think’ cat and hope the universe gets the memo,” Loki said dryly, watching her with a growing suspicion that his educated guess had been wrong. A cat was not the essence her magic sought to embody. “You have to be the cat. Feel the weight, the movements, the grace.”
“Well, I can’t feel it. That’s kind of the problem!” Dora replied, her tone dangerously close to snappy. “I’ve never been a cat.”
He blinked, taken aback by the sudden edge—the bordering impudence to it. He hadn’t even wanted to teach her this. She had begged and begged him. And now she was getting snarky with him? When all of this actually came down to her own inability to regulate a single impulse that flashed through her mind. He opened his mouth to throw a scathing reply at her but he caught the way her face had dropped—crestfallen, deflated. He felt the annoyance drain out of him.
Glanced up at the clock hanging above the boxy television, nearly nine o’clock, he said, “Why don’t we call it an evening?”
She turned those fierce, determined eyes on him and for a heartbeat, he braced for defiance. But the fire flickered out fast—fast enough to be concerning—and she nodded. He cast his gaze over her: the bowed shoulders, pale skin, dark hollows under her eyes—an overall picture of someone that was not sleeping.
“That was a good first attempt.” No, it wasn’t—but he wasn’t mindless enough to point that out. If he had learnt anything from Odin, it was to not flaunt a child’s failures in their face. “We’ll pick up on this next time.” Then, wanting to chase away the shadow clinging to her, he added, “Is it not that time of the week where you try to drag me into Midgard’s finest entertainments? What’s on the menu tonight?”
His gambit worked.
“Ermm…” She glanced to the ceiling, finger resting thoughtfully on her chin, her aura lightening. “Inside Out, Star Trek, or the first Harry Potter film. I’ll load up the trailers,”
Loki settled back and chose Inside Out. It looked charming, hopeful—a small thing to lift her spirits…
A few weeks passed and the safe house bore the unmistakable signature of her presence: a horribly crooked plastic tree, gaudy tinsel tangled in every conceivable corner, and fairy lights flashing with little regard for subtlety.
In that time, there had been little to no progress on the shapeshifting front. They’d tried cats, owls, snakes, foxes, otters, pandas—even dogs, at her insistence; subservient beasts utterly unbecoming of her—but none fit. He’d watched as her bright eyes dimmed to something more subdued. Withdrawn. It was like she’d tied her entire sense of self to mastering this complicated, technical skill. And that didn’t sit well with him.
So, he decided it was time to call it off. Back to simpler, more achievable goals. Practice defence. One could never have too much of that.
She wasn’t ready. And the stubborn little hellspawn was going to hate hearing that. If there was one thing he’d learned about his offspring in the short time he’d known her, it was that she was fiercely determined. When that determination was wielded wisely, it could be inspiring. When stubbornly bent on the impossible, it was devastating. It had been his greatest challenge with her thus far because Dora’s favourite goals to set were the most impossible ones.
He drummed his fingers on the metal table as the meeting drone droned on—missions, people of interest, the usual.
“Loki?”
All eyes snapped to him. Clearly they had asked him a question. Rather than ask them to repeat and look the fool, he was going to assume it was about his own progress.
“There has not been a large amount of activity this past week. I’ve caught on to some minor tremors but they’ve been far too feeble to be traced,” he explained. “My plan going forward is to start weaving detection spells across London’s suburbs, but it will take time.”
The reason the Avengers believed he was in London was because he had sold them the story that the city was a potential portal hotspot…or, well…rather they had come to that assumption after the one measly portal his spawn had opened and he’d never corrected them. Instead, not being one to shun an opportunity, he had volunteered himself to be the overseer of London. It’s protector. They had laughed at him at first—reminded him they still did not yet trust him—but then they’d realised there was no-one else for the job. He had not been lying when he’d said Thor was not going to be of much use with such things; the oaf just didn’t have the finesse required to tap into the deeper energies of Yggdrasil.
“How’s the safehouse treating you?” Natasha asked, leaning forward.
It took all of his political and royal training to not visibly react to that statement.
“Hardly a palace, but I survive,” he replied with a grimace and practiced pretension. He avoided her gaze—she was too sharp—and rocked the chair lazily.
“Could always send you back to jail…” Clint quipped from further down the table, eyes hard.
“You could,” Loki agreed diplomatically, “but then you would be missing out on the wealth of knowledge I bring, the strategical mind I am famed for, and—if I may say so myself—the absolute joy that comes from my company.”
“The only joy I get is when you leave,” muttered Clint.
“Alright, alright…let’s stop bickering like children,” the Captain said before Loki could throw back a scathing reply. “What sort of timeframe are we talking, Loki? Weeks? Months?”
In truth, weaving those tracking spells would take mere days, but he wasn’t about to let them in on that. No, better to let them think it would drag on for months—plenty of time for him to be ‘stuck’ in London, far away from their prying eyes. Honestly, it probably didn’t bother any of them; he was fairly certain they were just as relieved to have him out of their hair as he was to be rid of them.
The only potential hitch that could come up was Thor.
Loki glanced at the oaf out of the corner of his eye. The man in question had a very basic level of training in Seidr, but was it enough to recognise that the spells he spoke of were rather basic and not particularly time-consuming?
Now, that was the question.
“That is yet to be determined,” he said vaguely. Thor didn’t so much as flinch—confirmation of his ignorance. He was safe for now.
“Okay,” Rogers said as he slapped his hands on his thighs, signalling the meeting was finally about to finish. “That’s everything. Unless anyone else has anything to add, I say we close this here and meet the time same next week. Remember: stay in touch and don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it.”
Loki could still feel the spider’s eyes burning into him so he quickly took his opportunity to escape, fluttering his fingers—a mocking goodbye—at the group before that familiar pulling sensation overtook him and the world around him disappeared into a green glow.
Chapter Text
When Loki materialised, he found himself in the narrow, dreary hallway of the safe house—walls scuffed, paint flaking, the air heavy with its usual sense of defeat. He was about to call out, see if Dora was lurking somewhere, when a sudden scuttling noise came from the kitchen—too erratic to be the usual drone of an appliance. Like a panther stalking prey, he dropped into a ready stance, moving close to the wall without brushing it. His steps fell light and soundless as he edged toward the doorway. There, on the counter, perched a creature unlike any he’d seen before. Plump and compact—roughly the size of a cat but twice the width—with thick fur mottled grey and black, a bushy tail banded in dark and pale rings, and dark markings about its eyes, like a bandit caught mid-crime.
The creature turned, eyes fixed on its own hands as it mapped out a route along the surface, tottering back and forth. Pacing, he realised. Loki frowned at that thought; whilst he was not over-acquainted with the fauna of Midgard, he didn’t know of many that paced anxiously. Then, it spotted him. The creature startled, jumping back a few inches but it faltered in the action, stumbling on its own tail. Loki stepped further into the room, clenching his hands as he prepared to conjure a spell to shoo the thing outside where it belonged—only for it to sit back on its haunches and wave tiny, nimble paws frantically in the air.
That definitely didn’t seem like normal animal behaviour.
Loki took another step forward, tentative this time, as he peered down at the round little creature sat on the countertop. It had stopped waving, now it just stared at him with familiar chestnut eyes.
Oh, Norns.
“Dora?” His voice came out higher than intended—half accusation, half disbelief.
The creature nodded so violently it nearly toppled backward.
Loki pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course. What did you do?”
Not that he needed the answer. The girl was a host unto herself, and she had done what she always did—exactly what she wanted. Never mind his clear instructions that, in the absence of an emergency, she was not to play with seidr unsupervised.
His wayward progeny launched into a rapid-fire flurry of squeaks and frantic paw gestures, a torrent of sound and motion so absurdly animated that he almost—almost—laughed. The sight of this rotund, masked rodent trying to pantomime her explanation was ridiculous enough to soften even his ire.
“Dora,” he cut in after a few seconds of unintelligible squeaks. The Allspeak didn’t work so well on animals. “You’re even more incoherent than usual. I can’t understand a word.”
The girl—well, rodent—paused, clearly unprepared for communication to be a problem. She looked up, one paw thoughtfully cupping a furry chin. A moment later, inspiration struck—her eyes brightened, and she tottered upright on her hind legs, pointing emphatically at her small, rounded form.
He understood immediately.
“No,” he said flatly. “I’m not fixing it.”
That earned him another barrage of shrill chittering, ears twitching, tail lashing like a whip.
“Mind your tone,” he said evenly. “You’ve made this mess yourself; I’d suggest you not snarl at the one person capable of helping you.”
She stilled, paws frozen mid-squawk, catching the sharp glint in his eyes. A moment later, she dropped back onto her haunches in surrender.
“Better.” His voice softened by a degree. “Now—as I was saying—you will fix this. If you insist on playing with seidr behind my back, you can learn to unmake your own chaos.”
The reprimand rolled off his tongue too easily, and he bristled inwardly at it, faintly appalled. This was not his domain. He was meant for mischief, chaos, elegant ruin—not standing here like an overqualified babysitter, delivering a lecture to a child with more curiosity than sense. Yet the words fit him with worrying ease. The little creature ducked her head with a pitiful squeak.
Loki’s annoyance thinned, giving way to reluctant amusement he had the sense to hide. Best not to encourage her. “Very well,” he said, motioning toward her. “Let’s see if we can restore you to something vaguely human—rather than whatever this unfortunate creature is meant to be.”
If only it had been that easy.
Apparently, Dora suited this absurd little creature far better than she ever had a human. No matter what they tried, she refused to shift back. She strained, twisted, willed herself—but the change held stubbornly. And the longer it went on, the worse it became. Her magic frayed, pulses of raw frustration erupting in small bursts. The casualty list was mounting: three lightbulbs shattered, a handful of houseplants incinerated, and a dining chair reduced to kindling.
Loki crouched, slipping a hand under her furry chin. He froze for a heartbeat, surprised at the instinct, then pressed on. “You know what it feels like to be human. Remember that. If you can do it for this… creature you’ve become, then you can do it for the form you’ve always known.”
She stomped her tiny foot and tried to shove him away, fury radiating off her in waves.
“Really?” His voice stayed quiet, immovable. “Pouting and stomping? That is your grand strategy? No, little demon. I have told you: you will undo this yourself.”
A high-pitched whimper escaped her and, for a moment, his resolve wavered. Almost. Except the concept of her experimenting and shapeshifting into something infinitely more dangerous flashed through his mind. What if, say, her whims had her shifting into an aquatic animal that could not survive outside of water? What if she were to change into a mouse and, by some incredible streak of poor luck, the feral looking feline from next door got in? There were a thousand different ways she could get herself hurt using this power without knowing how to reverse it, and that was enough to steel his resolve.
He leaned in until they were eye-level, elbows resting on the table. His voice dropped, calm and sharp. “Magic is not a toy. If you cast a spell, you must be able to undo it. Better you learn that now than through catastrophe.” His gaze held hers, unwavering. “Refuse to take this seriously, and I will bind your magic myself. And believe me—you do not want that.”
For once, her defiance faltered—ears flattened, tail flicking hesitantly, the weight of his words settling over her. A flicker of doubt passed through him, and he allowed himself the faintest acknowledgment of it—just enough to remind himself that he was in unfamiliar territory. But perhaps this was his role now—to make her pause, to plant a seed of reason before she leapt headlong into disaster. The child was reckless in a way that could not be allowed to continue unchecked. It was amusing, really, that he—Loki, master of mischief and trickery—had been drafted into the thankless task of curbing a teenager’s chaos. Fatherhood, he decided with thinly veiled scorn, was a preposterous concept. Sentiment? Overrated. Comfort? Pointless. And yet here they were, with her subtly trying to coax something soft and human out of him.
The truly terrifying part was that it was working.
“Now,” he said, straightening, shaking off the strange tangent of thought. “Try again. Focus. No stomping. No flailing. Breathe. Think. Do it with control—or don’t do it at all.”
Her shoulders hunched at the cold precision in his tone, ears dipping just enough for him to notice. Such a small gesture—so fleeting—that it might have escaped him, if he weren’t watching. But it was enough to remind him: she was not him. Not forged under the same unyielding hand. She was softer. And if he pushed too hard, she might break where he had only bent.
His voice eased, quiet and sure. “I’ll be right here with you.”
The nod was slight, almost imperceptible, the fluff of her head dipping before she returned to the task. He could feel the tension in her magic, taste the strain in the air. Frustration still lanced through her efforts, sharp and jagged—but beneath it, focus sharpened, determination threading through the chaos.
Nearly an hour passed before any progress showed. She had not yet transformed, but on a few occasions her tail shortened by inches—a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
And then, finally, it happened.
Loki felt it before there was even the slightest sign of change—a subtle shift, as if some invisible lock had clicked open. The final piece of a puzzle slid neatly into place, and he knew she’d found it. What happened next was so swift he might have missed it had he blinked. One moment, the strange plump rabbit-rodent hybrid was shedding hair over the countertops; the next, it had stretched and shifted back into the familiar form he knew.
Relief coiled through him, slow and steady, easing muscles he hadn’t realised had been taut. His concern, long-simmering, finally unspooled.
“Well, hello there,” he said, voice low, a faint, reluctant smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“It worked?” Dora whispered, hopping down from the countertop. Her hands flew to cup her own face, as if to confirm the change.
“It worked,” he confirmed, voice steady, carrying more warmth than he cared to admit.
She startled him by stepping close, arms twitching upward as if to wrap around him. The motion faltered halfway; her forehead brushed his chest for the briefest instant before she yanked back, masking it with a cough and a shuffle. Her arms crossed tightly over her chest, as if to prevent themselves from betraying her again. The ghost of the almost-touch clung stubbornly, far warmer than it had any right to be. His hands twitched at his sides, betraying the absurd urge to catch her before she could retreat further. Against his better judgment, they lifted—hovering, hesitating—before settling lightly on her shoulders. Not pulling her in, not daring it, but refusing to let her drift fully away. The smallest anchor.
“How long were you stuck?” he asked quietly.
Her eyes flitted to the clock on the wall. “Three or four hours,” she said, meeting his gaze for just an instant. “I really thought I’d be trapped like that.”
“Perhaps, next time, you’ll think twice about going behind my back,” he said dryly, a faint grin tugging at his lips.
“You could’ve just turned me back yourself,” she shot back, voice defiant.
“I could have,” Loki said, shifting his stance slightly so the weight of his hands on her shoulders steadied her just a fraction. “But then what would you have learned? If you’re going to get yourself into these situations, I need to know you can get out of them. If that means I have to stand by and wait for you to change yourself back from whatever that thing was, then so be it.”
“It was a raccoon,” she muttered.
“Right,” Loki replied, glad to have a name to put to the creature that apparently best embodied his child. “And, pray tell, what is the purpose of a raccoon?”
That clearly struck a tender spot because the lights flickered. “They rummage through garbage,” she wailed.
Loki bit back a laugh. It didn’t matter; the contact meant she felt the vibrations of his amusement. She pulled back and locked eyes with him, her expression fierce and scolding.
“Don’t laugh!” she barked.
A few hours later found them both in the sitting room, slumped on a couch that was all lumps and springs, in dire need of replacement. The television murmured something in the background—an inane Spanish drama that Dora seemed fond of—but neither of them were paying attention at the moment. The room was dim, lit only by the flickering screen. Shadows pooled in corners, growing quietly familiar over the course of the evening. Dora sat stiffly beside him, hands clenched in her lap, silent in a way that made him frown. Something was off. She wasn’t sulking, wasn’t angry—just… distant.
Apparently, it was because she wasn’t finished airing her frustrations…
“What if I hadn’t been able to change back?” she asked, head flicking toward him. She tried to hide behind a neutral mask, but he saw the tension flicker behind it. “Would you have just left me like that?”
“I had no doubt you’d manage,” he said dryly, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“But what if I hadn’t?”
Loki sighed. The point was moot—she’d already succeeded—but clearly the girl wanted an answer. And it was probably about more than just the raccoon mishap, he realised. “If it came to it, obviously I would have helped. Do you think me completely negligent?”
“Well, you did just leave me stuck as a raccoon for like two hours to play a game of will-she-won’t-she!”
“And now you know how to change back,” Loki said, voice calm, unwavering. He leaned back slightly, arms stretching over the back of the couch, letting her simmer if she wished. “Personally, I think that was an exemplary bit of parenting on my part.”
“You couldn’t have just helped me and then told me off like a normal parent?” Dora slumped further down into the couch, arms crossing over her chest.
He arched a brow. “Normal? That’s never been my ambition. I prefer memorable.” Her pout deepened, but before she could retort, he added smoothly, “Though if it comforts you, grounding remains an option.”
That little taunt landed precisely as intended. Whatever biting remark she’d been ready to launch fizzled out mid-breath as his words sank in.
But the silence was short-lived.
“Okay, first of all,” Dora said, narrowing her eyes, half offended, half incredulous. “How do you even know what grounding means?”
Loki gave a faintly scholarly tilt of his head, wholly amused by her evident discomfort. “Ah. A little light reading on Midgardian parenting. Dull, but informative. The Asgardian equivalent would have levelled the house by now, so really, you should be thanking me. Consider this a cultural compromise: Asgard meets Midgard, with a touch of Loki’s refinement.”
“Right… well, thanks, I guess?” she muttered, trying to salvage her dignity. “But, for the record, I’m eighteen—an adult—so those books don’t exactly apply.”
Loki’s smile sharpened. “Eighteen. A milestone celebrated across Midgard, I understand. How charming. Where I come from, the journey from childhood is far more… prolonged. Perhaps your mixed heritage has granted you a touch of that longevity.” His tone softened to something almost teasing. “Regardless, I remain unconvinced that a number grants you the right to ignore my rules.”
Her nose crinkled. “I didn’t ignore them! You make it sound like I staged some grand rebellion. I just… forgot for a second.”
“Not the first time,” he observed, giving her a pointed look. “You have a remarkable talent for selective memory.”
“My memory’s fine,” she shot back. “You just need to stop treating me like a kid. I have a job. I pay bills. I cook. I clean. I can take care of myself. This—what happened today—was an accident.”
A faint, dangerous glint flickered in his eyes. “Very well. If you insist on adulthood, on independence… then I suppose binding your seidr might be the only responsible course left—before there are anymore… accidents.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, come on! You can’t just throw out the ‘I’ll bind your magic’ card whenever you’re losing.”
“Well, why not? It’s an excellent card.”
“Because it’s not fair.”
Loki tilted his head, studying her as though she were a curious insect pinned under glass. “My dear, I’ve lived far too long to entertain the notion that the universe is fair. It runs on power, not parity.”
Dora huffed at that, folding her arms and sinking further into the couch, clearly done with his needling.
Loki let the silence stretch a moment, then spoke, voice low, measured, carrying the weight of something he seldom allowed himself to reveal. “Listen to me. I am not here to coddle you, nor to fuss over every mistake. But there are some things I won’t ignore and some things I will never allow. Not because I enjoy telling you what to do, but because some things are far more important—too important to be gambled. Your impulsive, foolish curiosity—whilst entertaining on occasion—is something that I cannot allow to run riot. If that means having to be the one to stop you, I will. That is something you would do well to remember.”
Dora’s chin jutted out in a very familiar display of false bravado. “Was that… concern I just heard? That’s either a trap or a new low.”
The comment cracked the tension that had hung heavy between them.
A faint smirk brushed Loki’s lips, but his eyes remained sharp. “Always assume trap,” he said softly. “Safer that way.”
Dora’s eyes drifted to the floor, and Loki let her linger there. The room felt smaller now, more intimate, charged with the quiet gravity of what had passed. He did not reach for her, did not push, only allowed the silence to mark the boundary—sharp enough to make her think, soft enough to not provoke her pride. Some lessons, he thought, had to sink in on their own. He could only hope that when that happened for her, it did not come with a cost she could not—or was not willing to—pay.