Work Text:
“Hermione! It’s lovely to see you again.”
Hermione Granger looked around and saw Loki, the God of Mischief, strolling toward her.
She didn’t know Loki very well; he was in and out of their lives. She knew he was thought to be dead several times, and now he was doing some weird timeline jumping thing. Honestly, she wasn’t paying too much attention to it. All she knew was he was her boyfriend’s brother, and they had a contentious relationship.
“Loki, it’s lovely to see you again.” Hermione was fairly certain the smile on her face wasn’t as natural as she hoped it would be.
“What brings you here?” Loki gestured around him at New Asgard.
She felt her smile falter. “What do you mean? I live here.”
It was Loki’s turn to have his smile falter. “Live here?”
“Yes. Thor asked me to move in with him a few months ago, and I agreed. We felt it was best for the children.”
Loki’s smile slipped completely off his face. “Children? Plural?”
Hermione frowned. “Yes. Children, plural. Loki, it hasn’t been that long since we last saw each other. None of this should be news to you.”
Loki tried to force a smile on his face, but it looked pained, and panic was clear in his eyes. “You’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Hermione’s eyes narrowed. “Are you okay?”
Loki nodded. “Yeah. Yeah. I think the time travel is starting to get to me. I never know quite where I am in the timeline.”
Hermione nodded her head, still looking at him suspiciously. “Uh huh. I’m glad you could make it today. Thor will be happy you could take time off for this celebration. I’m, um, going to go check on the kids.”
She started backing away, keeping her eyes on Loki. Their interactions in the past had been stilted, but never anything like this. Usually there was some awkward small talk, and then an hour later he would come up to her and shamelessly flirt with her, before Thor would come over and kick him out.
Maybe everything was fine, and she was reading into the situation. He did do a lot of timeline hopping. He probably really was confused about where he was in time. It was a very logical explanation.
Hermione eventually lost track of Loki. So he must have decided either to leave or he was having a good time at the celebration. They weren’t sure when Love’s birthday was, so Thor picked a random day a few years ago, and made it her birthday. He roped the entirety of New Asgard into throwing a huge celebration. When she met him, and their relationship became serious, he turned the whole thing into a celebration for all three kids. It was possibly her favorite time of the year.
She was just finishing up talking Hugo out of eating another piece of cake in favor of something off the veggie table when she saw him again. He was walking over to her, a smirk firmly on his face. Hermione smiled to herself. Right on time.
“Enjoying yourself?” She greeted him as he made it to her side.
“Thor has absolutely outdone himself this year. This is the first time I’ve been able to get away from the festivities to come and greet my favorite sister-in-law.”
Hermione frowned. “What do you mean? We just talked. You were acting weird.”
It was Loki’s turn to frown. “Um, I would remember talking to you. Talking to you is the highlight of my time here. We talk, and then I flirt, and it pisses off Thor, and I get to have a laugh. It’s our thing.”
“I know, which is why when you didn’t even remember I had moved here, or that Thor and I had children, plural, I thought it was strange.”
Loki looked around the town square, but there were so many people, he didn’t seem to find what or who he was looking for. “I don’t like the sound of this,” he said, distracted by looking around more. “I’m going to go find Thor and talk to him about this.”
Before Hermione could say anything else, he was gone, back in the direction he had come from, presumably looking for Thor.
Loki’s erratic behavior caused unease to rise in her. Clutching her hands to her stomach, she followed Loki’s example and started looking through the crowd for Thor. She would feel much better with him at her side. Loki was up to something.
After a few minutes of looking, she heard cheers break out. Turning toward the sound, she saw Stormbreaker rise above the crowd. Relief flooded her as she started off toward him. She knew the kids would be with him too. Rose, Hugo, and Love always flocked toward him, and if the crowd was cheering, it usually meant he was bragging about the kids or was showing them off.
He was a very proud father.
She had taken only two steps before her path was blocked again.
Loki.
“Where are you going?” His face didn’t hold any of the humor it had held a few minutes ago.
“To talk to Thor.”
She went to move around him, but he blocked her path. She tried again, but he moved even quicker, blocking her again.
“Let me pass.”
Instead of answering her, Loki grabbed her by the arm and began dragging her away from the crowds.
Hermione’s heart rate sped up as she tried to dig her heels into the ground, fruitlessly trying to anchor herself to the spot. “What are you doing?”
“You’re in the way.” His voice held no emotion, and it almost sounded distorted.
Hermione used her free hand to pat around her hips for her wand before cursing herself. Ever since living in New Asgard, she had let her defenses lapse. Things had been so peaceful, she stopped carrying her wand with her at all times, living mostly as a Muggle.
“In the way of what?”
Loki didn’t answer her, just continued dragging her through the town, toward the boundary.
Suddenly, a whooshing sound rushed past her right ear, and Loki loosened his grip on her arm as Stormbreaker smashed into his chest, throwing him several feet ahead of her.
Whipping back, she saw Thor come running toward her, with Loki right behind him.
Hermione turned her gaze back to the man lying on the ground under Stormbreaker. Who was also Loki.
Before she had time to react, she was wrapped up tightly in Thor’s arms as he crushed her into a hug.
“Are you all right?” He asked.
She nodded against him, breathing in his familiar scent, calming her. “I’m fine. But what is going on? How are there two Lokis?”
“I don’t know, but we’re going to find out, and whoever that is is going to pay for what he’s done.” Thor pushed back and stalked over to the man on the ground.
Hermione felt Loki stop next to her. He rested his hand on her shoulder.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah, fine. Just confused. Is this a time thing? Are you crossing yourself with the timelines?”
“No, we’re pretty sure that is not any version of me.”
“Then who is it?”
Thor lifted Stormbreaker off the fake Loki before replacing it with his foot. “Who are you?”
Hermione watched as the person under Thor’s foot shifted and, instead of Loki’s face, a green one took its place. “I am Grulmidd. I am here under orders to kidnap your witch and eliminate her. She poses a threat to our existence in the universe. Our leader has seen it.”
Loki’s grip on her shoulder tightened as Hermione’s blood ran cold.
“He’s a Skrull,” Loki whispered in her ear.
Hermione didn’t know what a Skrull was, but she didn’t like that she apparently had a hit out on her from them. Thor had told her stories of the past, of what they had to deal with as far as alien invasions, but he told her things were fixed. Which is why she felt comfortable moving here.
“What does he want from me?” She whispered back.
“I don’t know, but neither Thor nor I will allow them to cause you any harm.”
Hermione watched as Thor hauled the Skrull up from the ground. “I should kill you for daring to lay hands on my family, but that would make me no better than you. I will bring you to our prison, and Valkyrie can decide what’s to be done with you.”
As Thor walked by her, pushing the Skrull in front of him by the back of his neck, he paused and gave her a quick peck on the cheek before continuing on.
“Good call noticing something was off with him,” Loki spoke up from next to her.
“Well, it wasn’t hard. I know you and Thor have your differences, but you’ve never been outright rude to me, and you do know I live here.”
“Yes, I’m very aware that you live here. Thor won’t shut up about it in our communications. And you’re very hard to forget .”
Hermione turned so she was looking at Loki. He was staring down at her with something she would have missed if she wasn’t looking for it. It stirred something inside her that she tamped down.
She cleared her throat. “Yes. Well. You’re also very hard to forget.”
The two stood staring at one another before they turned their gazes away.
“I should go check with Thor and see what the next steps are.” Loki gestured in the general direction of where Thor had gone off with the Skrull.
“I should go check in with the kids.”
The two didn’t move.
“We won’t let the Skrull harm you.”
Without waiting for a reply, Loki went off, leaving Hermione staring after him, wondering what was going on, and what happens next.