fossilised | werewolves

werewolves

Pumpkin Spice.

It hits the shelves the moment the temperature dips below eighty, before the summer officially ends and the leaves give hint at changing color. It's become an American way of life. Lattes might claim it to be proof of their success and staying power but it's expanded into hand soap and e-cigarettes now. You can't find anything, really, that hasn't been pumpkin spiced these days. Pumpkin pie is too humble to try and reclaim it anyway, and has quietly retreated to Thanksgiving where it waits to mark the end of the most beloved season in New York among straight white girls.

Steve Rogers, while neither straight nor a girl, has whole heartedly embraced the trend and the moment Starbucks announced that it had come back out for a Limited Time Only, Steve had rummaged in his sock drawer for a gift card he was sure had money left on it and stood in line with the masses to claim his holy grail.

It's a comfort. It's a promise that there's going to be something else to look forward to in the coming months when holidays rear their ugly and beautiful heads to remind you that your family is dead and most of the kids you lived with in foster care and group homes have disappeared out of your life. It makes Steve's day and he's already day dreaming about boots and puffy vests the moment he takes his first, iced sip. Steve isn't really a day dreamer, but his head can get stuck in the clouds on the best days and distraction comes easily in a city where you're never and always alone at the same time.

There's charcoal under his nails and a moment of joy in his heart from the iced latte he grasps so fiercely the day he sees Bucky across the street. He'd know him anywhere, even with that long fringe of hair he hasn't seen since before he went off to basic training. The light to cross the street between them is red but Steve ignores the risks. There are two lanes each direction, and all four are packed with yellow cabs and black Uber cars. No one can go fast enough to do him any damage.

The latte gets dropped along the way and Steve doesn't care. It's been over a year and a half since he's seen Bucky. It's been six months since he last heard anything from him actually. He hadn't even gotten a birthday card this year.

"Buck!" Steve is just a skinny guy, five foot four, maybe 100 pounds if he's got art supplies and an easel on him. He has fallen arches and a heart arrhythmia, but they aren't keeping him from shimmying between cars and nearly getting run over. He's out of breath when he makes it across the street and though he's lost his drink, he needs to bend over and cup his hands on his knees to steady himself anyway so it all works out. "Hey." It's smooth and followed by a smile. Something bright and cheery and all too Steve Rogers hopped up on artificial sugar and flavorings.

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Those not versed in wolf body language might think that Fenris was angry at this exchange, but Steve would instinctively know that Fenris was pleased with his answer and considered it a point in his favour. Life was a fight. Mortals seemed to have forgotten that with their self made luxuries, but his kin would never forget. To stop fighting was to die.

"There lies the issue."

Fenris would not be on Midgard biting random mortals if he had a choice in the matter.

"I became separated from one of my kin during travel, and I have not the means to return to Jotunheim alone. There is a way, by asking a boon of Asgard and its gatekeeper, but my mother would not thank us for that. The prince of Asgard is besotted and, though I believe my mother will wed him in time, to give him hope that he possesses the favour of my siblings or I would not be wise."

Hopefully Steve is following this, because Bucky just looks wary as hell and Bruce's brow is furrowed in confusion as he tries to follow this already complicated family tree. He murmurs to Tony as he steps close. "Asgard and Jotunheim, they're realms from Norse mythos, this-- this can't be happening."

“There is a talking wolf and an ugly duckling turned swan having a conversation on my dad’s front lawn,” Tony interjects to Bruce, though his voice isn’t that low. It probably can’t drop that far, not when he’s too use to projecting it. “I mean... crazy god worlds from some Viking mythology are what’s tripping you up right now?” He sets down the coffee cup and heads down the steps.

He’s either fearless or stupid. Banner would probably say both and he’d accept that too.

“So you need to phone home?” he asks, like he’s in some 80s movie and is already trying to think of a way to peddle a bike across the face of the moon. “I can help with that if you’ll give me a few days.” There’s a lot Tony can do with just a few scans.

Steve, however, holding the side of his pants closed, and now a head taller than the other men standing nearby, looks dubious. “I don’t know if I have a few days. I might not stop growing, Mr. Stark.”

"It is possible you will continue growing, but more likely that you will lose what control you have managed to maintain."

As strong as Steve has been to this point, he is still mortal and all mortals have their limits. Without help to bind that control so that it would only unleash on rare occasions, he would be unable to do it for himself.

"And this does not concern you any longer, this is not a mortal matter."

Bucky stepped forward at that point, brow furrowed. "It's our concern. If you're taking Steve someplace dangerous, someplace that people might say he doesn't get to live, then he doesn't go without someone to watch his back."

“Buck—“

Steve fully expects Bucky to interject and so he lets him, sighing. Everything his friend is saying is true though. Steve has been through many hardships and many trials but almost never without Bucky by his side. Truthfully, he wants him there too. He belongs with him, and that’s not just the possessiveness talking. He can’t really help but look at Bucky right now, though he’s managed not to do it for some time to keep himself in control, and there’s so much in that look that even Tony throws up his hands and takes a step back.

That’s saying something.

“If I’m going to lose control, and if there’s no other way than to call the prince of whatever... I’ll take the burden. I’m of your blood now, right? He might listen to me. I can’t afford to be allowed to hurt someone.”

"You misunderstand, blood of my blood, the prince would be all too happy to listen to us both. He would welcome the chance to 'save' children of Jotunheim and to visit there with good excuse."

It would be Loki who might be a little less impressed at the sudden arrival of Thor, and having that mean that he was slightly in Thor's debt for saving Fenris from Midgard. Though Fenris knew his mother did care for the Asgard prince, it was complicated and Loki would not thank them for making it more so.

Bucky shrugged, all he knew was that Steve wasn't arguing him coming too and that was enough. He was frightened, but it was all pushed down beneath the all-consuming mission that was Protect Steve Rogers.

"So what? If that's the only way to go, and he'll be happy to help, then let's do that."

"You speak with no comprehension for the forces beyond your ken."

“Your mother can take her anger out on me for calling the Prince then,” Steve says, stubbornly. “Every moment is harder than the last and I don’t know how long it will be before I’m less me and more... whatever I can’t control. It might be better if I don’t— I get that she might decide to kill me outright. It’s just a risk I have to take. I just... none of this is Bucky’s fault. I want him to be safe.”

Fenris probably can’t promise that. Steve knows it. But he also knows that Bucky won’t stay here no matter the danger and Steve absolutely can’t stay here.

If the prince is the only way, and Steve knows of no other, then he has to suck up the consequences. He does it by puffing his chest—

—and busting open the hoodie’s zipper.

So his pup wants to take mortals with him to Jotunheim. He includes the other two as well as the one that he can smell as bonded with his pup, even if it might not by physical yet, because he has no reason not to.

He stood and shook himself like the human equivalent of a very beleaguered sigh, and opened his mouth to howl. None but Steve would understand what that howl meant, what the words in the language were.

"Heimdall, Watcher of Asgard, inform the prince that Fenris of Jotunheim would speak with him on Midgard, if he is amenable."

Then he switched back to All-Speak for the sake of the mortals, at least two of who looked incredibly creeped out from the eerie howling. "He will come, of that I am certain. Be respectful. Though he may be a boor, he is the future All-Father."

“I think I should have called catering,” Tony says, setting his hand unceremoniously on Bruce’s shoulder before he gives it a squeeze. No one in Bruce’s life over the last six or seven years would ever touch him so casually but Tony has not seen him as the monster inside since they met. Not even during that little mishap in Brazil a few years ago. He’s never been and likely never will be afraid of accidentally triggering the Hulk.

Tony turns to go back inside when light from the sky shoots down in a perfect cylinder, violent and disruptive and loud, throwing Tony down over Bruce (accidental, he isn’t trying to protect the other man) and Steve over Bucky (anything but accidental, and thoroughly distracted given the way Steve nudges his nose against Bucky’s ear as he protects him in busted clothing).

Grass and dirt settle seconds after the light ceases and a massive, long haired blond linebacker in a red cloak pulls himself up from one knee, a massive smile on his face.

“Fenris of Jotunheim. How much you’ve grown since last we met! How fare you and your mother?”

Bruce felt his heartrate spike when suddenly there was goddamn lightning out of nowhere, and he gripped Tony as they were thrown with a little more force than necessary, taking very deep and very deliberate breaths to try and calm himself down from that shock.

Bucky went into fight or flight mode, it sounded like a grenade and Steve was on top of him, so he grabbed his friend around the (much more muscular) torso and tried to flip them so that he could be the one protecting and not being protected. His own breathing was short and sharp, the shallow pants of something only just not panicking.

Fenris ignored all of this and sat back on his haunches, rolling his eyes at the smiling prince. Honestly, he was like a pup himself, Odin's ravens only knew what his mother saw in Thor.

"We both are in good health." Urgh, he doesn't want to do this, but he doesn't have a choice. "I must ask a boon of you, I have found myself stranded here upon Midgard and require passage for these four mortals and I to my grandsire's halls."

“Why not call your mother?” Thor does one better about ignoring the mortals. They mean literally nothing to him and so he doesn’t even acknowledge their existence. Midgard technically falls under his protection, but the people die four or five times over between his visits and so they are of little use to him as far as subjects go. Or life goes, for that matter. It would be like greeting and asking after one’s breakfast each morning.

Not far away, Steve refuses to let Bucky gain the upper hand on their position. He’s heavier and stronger and he doesn’t mind demonstrating the fact as he has a genuine need to make Bucky understand that he’s capable and a worthy choice in mates. The struggling is normal, instinct tells him, though he can smell the fear on Bucky and that alone stops Steve from going overboard with his own sudden hormone all urge. He breaths somewhat suggestively against Bucky’s neck and ear, however. “It’s all right. It’s all right. You’re with me and I have you,” he says, only partially soothingly.

Thor drops the hammer in his hand and it falls with a clunk beside him, kicking up more grass.

“I enjoy being of service to you and to yours but surely, Loki could have come to your aid...?” And maybe Loki is already here, says the hope in his voice.

"While my mother is skilled in traversing the realms without the need of the Bifrost, he does not have the ability to hear my call from such a distance as Heimdall does. I doubt he is aware that I require aid, it will be several centuries before I am missed."

Fenris was no pup any longer, and Loki did not shackle his children to his side, they all lived independent lives and went as they willed. They owed fealty to him and to Jotunheim, but nothing more.

Bruce felt as though he were living in some weird hallucination, and could no longer stop himself piping up. "Wait... Loki? As in, Loki God of Lies and Stories? Loki who is a man, is the mother of a wolf, and now Steve is a half wolf?"

Bucky couldn't calm down. With Steve pinning him, he felt trapped, captured once again and what little sanity remaining to him fled. His reality became that of Afghanistan, and he began to thrash in earnest, fear rolling off him in sickening waves for the ones who could now smell such things.

It’s all Steve needs to banish any other thoughts away. He’s not gone to lunacy after all, though scrambling up after attempting to hush Bucky more soothingly just ruins whatever remains of his clothing. He looks like he’s a mad man in a shredded sweatsuit. It’s a good thing Tony still has some ringing in his ears or that would be that and he’d have lost it in laughter.

Or maybe teased Bruce that Steve ‘wore it better.’ Instead, he’s just trying to focus on standing, not even on what his friend is blathering on about.

The other voices finally get Thor’s attention. “You will be mindful of how you address the rightful prince of Jotunheim. God of lies? You mortals are very poor of tongue.” Thor’s voice rolls like thunder as he turns to address Fenris “Are you certain you wish to bring this madness to Asgard?”

One mortal screaming. Another hovering over him. Another making noises with his finger in his ear and... the one with the strange eye mask and his crooked tongue?

“Buck— Buck, you’re all right,” Steve pleads behind him, again kneeling to try and get Bucky’s attention. “It’s me! It’s Steve!”

Fenris watched all of this unfold with ears back from the scent of panic, there was something wrong in that mortal's mind, much like the madness of a warrior who has the battle fever on him. It would be a kindness to send him into one last battle and let him die in a glorious way, rather than continue with this burden.

"I must," he answered Thor, taking no offence to the title granted to his mother. Loki would not mind being titled so. "The one becoming unclothed is now pup to me, a mistaken passing of my blood to his, I must present him."

Bucky heard none of this, he only perceived that the weight holding him down was gone and he scrambled to his feet in record time. Steve would see that there was no recognition in his eyes, they were blank, like Bucky had been turned off with a switch and there was nothing left but fear and instinct. He swallowed hard, tears running down his face though he didn't notice them, and lashed out with a furious swing towards Steve.

Luckily, Steve felt little of each blow. He let Bucky hit him and would continue to until he wore himself out. He’d hold him after if he was allowed or just crouch beside him while he slept, if that even became an option. Luckily, no one is going need that. Not while there’s a doctor with sedatives in hand. Steve is a good catch and despite being new in this body, he’s already taking to it with grace. A little bit of drug can do wonders for a broken man and Bucky will be asleep in no time, dreamless and unshackled by his torments. For now.

Thor seems impressed. He tilts his head as he gazes upon Steve’s near nakedness. “A warrior, your new kin. Perhaps a mistake but certainly a good one. Loki may well be pleased.”

He holds his hand out and the hammer returns to his grip (which is followed by Tony’s whooshing breath of delight). He hoists Mjolnir towards the sky and the beam of light returns. Only Fenris, Thor and Steve will arrive in Heimdal’s chambers on solid ground. Bucky, probe, has no choice, but the two scientists are certainly going to end up on their faces. Again.

Tony is much less pleased than before and the Bifrost has done more than left him shaken. It’s left him vomiting behind some golden object or another and groaning.

Thor pays them little mind. He greets Heimdal both with warmth and delight. Loki should arrive soon. His heart is already on fire.

Bruce also staggered a short distance away, but only so that he could dig his hands into his knees and breathe very deeply. There was a greenish tint to his skin, but he was determined not to let that happen. Not now, not here. He finally managed to get himself under control by focusing on the scientific side of this, that he was actually in another world and had the chance to document things.

Still, he looked sweaty and shaken when he did finally stand up.

Fenris stepped out of the observatory proper and began to grow, and grow, and grow, until he was his regular size, something shackled on Midgard. The wolf, now easily the size of a house, looked down on Thor and his new kin as the Bifrost blurred white again and a tall, thin, very blue someone stepped out with a blast of chilled air.

Loki arched a brow at Fenris, completely ignoring Thor for now, and the wolf, despite being twenty times the size of his mother, grovelled on his belly in shame.

"I am sorry, Mother, there was no other way. I have a pup."

Wisely, Steve decides it’s time to keep his mouth shut. There will be time in a moment or more to meet another member of his new family but for now, that tall, Avatar looking person has all of his attention. He feels the need to kneel again and so he does, though his head does not drop. He’s too curious.

Tony, however, is curious in a different way. When he’s on his feet again, he’s still reeling and uncomfortable. His whole body seems to be fighting him, demanding he sit, but nah. Not now. Not when there’s so many cool things to mess with.

He’s not used to throwing up, though. His stomach is angry with him, demanding to know why it can do its job of holding onto a liter of scotch without problem but this ruins it. He swallows back some bile and feels around his pockets for a breath mint. Luckily, he has one.

Meeting an obvious alien is right up on top of his bucket list and he wants to make a good impression.

He doesn’t make it to Loki’s side before Thor does. He’s trying to be casual but anyone can see that he’s rather smitten with the seemingly genderless being on the verge, perhaps, of scolding his/her offspring. “Welcome to Asgard,” he says as if it’s the only conversation going on. “Take it easy on Fenris. I would not wish anyone to spend that much time on Midgard. They’re air has a strange scent to it.”

Deep red eyes flash towards Thor as he argues clemency for Fenris. This is one of the reasons that he is not ready to be a ruler yet, he is too eager to let his heart rule and step in where matters don't concern him. And yet, it is also one of his endearing qualities, and one Loki secretly would be sorry to see squashed out of him entirely.

"I find myself in your debt for your assistance of my son, so I will dispense your asked for clemency and consider us even once more."

Loki smiled, a tiny and amused smile. No doubt Thor would have preferred to use that leverage for something more beneficial to their courtship, but he would have to learn to guard his words more carefully when dealing with a wordsmith.

"Fenris, it seems you are to be forgiven for now. Pup, blood of my blood, step forward and let me see you. Make your case for survival, I will listen."

Well that seems unfair, Thor's pout screams, though he puts a hand to his heart and bows instead. There's very, very little that Loki could do to upset him. His beloved had once turned to a snake, knowing that Thor absolutely loved snakes, and just as he went to hug it, Loki stabbed him. Ah, good memories! He hopes to have many, many more like them in their future.

It is not Thor in the spotlight right now, but the strangely unclothed Midgardian.Wearing little more than tatters, and half reluctant to leave the slumbering Bucky Barnes, Steve does approach when beckoned and takes a space beside the huge wolf, sitting back on his heels once prostrated.

"I'm Steve Rogers. Until a few days ago, I was just this kid from Brooklyn. Nothing special. I was...always sick. Always on the verge of dying according to my doctors. Your...son...it was a mistake but this is what's happened to me. I don't know if I can argue a case to keep me alive. I don't know what's happening to me but I'm afraid that I'm going to start hurting people and I can't have that...uh...grandmother."

He actually side-eyes Fenris, hoping that's the proper term.

"It's taking everything in me to control myself. I need some help, and I'm hoping you can help me, ma'am."

Loki approached Steve Rogers and, though he looked small in comparison to both the hulking Thor and his own son, he proved to be tall up close, merely slender like a willow rather than full of muscle. Blue skin was covered with whorls and patterns of raised lines, and his clothes were a mixture of a fur robe and a silken tunic. Red eyes looked down on his new kin, and considered his words.

There was something earnest to him, something that recalled Thor, as if there was no deception or manipulation in his heart. A disappointment for one of his blood. But then, Bylestir was more simple in his machinations, and even Fenris was the most honest of Loki's children, and he still loved them.

But he was mortal. Even with this mingled blood, he would still live scarcely two centuries at most, a fleeting creature that might sully the pride of his family. Perhaps best to kill it at once and solve the issue. But Fenris would not have risked his wrath by asking Thor for help if he did not see a potential in him.

"That is no good case for your life, Steve Rogers. For to keep those around you safe from harm, the simplest path would be to end that threat in permanence. And it may be simplest for you to refer to me as Loki, I am not ma'am nor have I decided if I will be grandmother."

“I would have to disagree, Loki. If I can’t be trusted, it’s the best thing for everyone,” Steve responds, stubborn to the core. “I want my life to be meaningful, but I don’t want that meaning to cause anyone pain.” No one has told him when this growth will end. No one had told him if he’ll be able to overcome his emotions, emotions that have already played a part in triggering Bucky.

It makes Steve sad, hurt, and appalled to know he played a part in that.

His chin lowers. “But. Ive never been strong. Ive never felt so healthy. If there’s a way to check and balance what I am, I can do so much good. I could finally help people the way I’ve always wanted to. I could maybe find a way to help Bucky, or to end wars—“

Tony snorts under his breath but it’s enough for Steve to hear and glare at him.

“I want the chance to try.”

That was the wrong argument to use in trying to convince Loki. Though he could be given to acts of generosity at times, it was rarely on a large scale and altruism did not suit him. To have the plea that Steve Rogers wanted the chance to save others and help others, it was mildly distasteful.

It seemed he truly was of a kin with Thor, more so than the blood mingled in his veins made him kin to Loki. He had no idea who Bucky was, nor did he care, for doubtless it was the name of a mortal.

"And yet you have not given any reason why you deserve such a chance to try. You carry my blood in your veins, diluted and weakened, but my blood still. I would not allow you to risk dishonouring my name with your actions."

Feeling the sting of embarrassment and a rush from explaining his secret desire to be more than just a sick art student with some degree of talent but no ability to sell himself in his previous state, Steve stares Loki directly in his/her deep crimson eyes. He’s not afraid of the person that literally holds his life in their hands, and that’s because he’s afraid of almost nothing.

He’s certainly not afraid of dying.

“It would be a dishonor to stretch out my neck and let you kill me. Something has been right on the verge of killing me from the second I was born. You’re powerful. Your son is powerful. You’ve made me pretty powerful too,” he tells Loki, “but death has had it out for me my entire life and hasn’t gotten me yet. I survive. I survived everything up until this point and I’m going to survive this too.”

Steve Rogers might have the heart of Thor and certainly the tenacity of a warrior, but Loki can understand the scrappy, resilient little thing housed inside the newly muscled bag of meat that is this mortal. He’s an underdog himself, one with immense strength of his own.

“I don’t have any intention of dishonoring you, Loki. I’m not asking for special treatment here either. I just know I can be worth something if you give me the chance.” Once he has some control of himself, well Steve is his own biggest cheerleader. He knows he can do great things with the right tools. Even if he has to make those tools out of dirt and duct tape.

That was more like it.

Loki stepped forward and rippled as he moved, blue skin becoming pale, and red eyes becoming green. Her form grew curves with long legs and breasts, though her voice remained a husky deeper tone. She glanced once at Thor to see his reaction to her Aesir-like form, something she had been practising in recent months to make it easier to bear the heat of Asgard and to touch those of non-Jotnar descent without danger.

She used it now to take Steve's jaw in her fingers, still cool but no longer freezing to the touch, and send a spark of magic through him to determine the truth of his words. Steve would feel it as if being shot with a bullet of pure energy, like his whole mind and soul were bared open for anyone to see, but only for a moment.

"--very well, I will give you the chance you have asked for, son of my son. He will return to Midgard with you to teach you how to control the potency of your blood."

“Wow. That’s... she’s hot. She’s hot right, Banner? Even you have to feel a little stirring down there, right?” Tony’s whisper is not a whisper. The man is incapable of being quiet, even when it really would behoove him to be. He makes a move to nudge Bruce on the shoulder but Thor’s crushing hand is already on the back of his neck and Tony finds himself inextricably forced to his knees.

“She is of Jotunheim’s blood,” Thor growls protectively, though it’s any wonder he can speak. He’d been dumbstruck by the change and the same rippling of the loins Tony spoke of has happened to him as well. “And is anything but warm. You will hold your tongue, mortal.”

“Woah, okay, wow, it was a compliment. Good job, buddy!” Tony says with his hands up. He might not be very good with self preservation but having the weight of Thor’s strength on his spinal column helps steer him in the right direction.

They miss the way Steve twitches at Loki’s touch, or the sweat that pours from his body when she releases him. His breathing is hard, muscles still shivering, and he sinks to the ground to gather himself back up. It’s not easy.

“I will make you proud of me,” he promises, connected to Loki as he is to Fenris. Loki might not care about the outcome of a mortal, even one of his blood now, but Steve still wants to be thought of well just the same.

Edited 2018-11-08 15:38 (UTC)

Bucky doesn't miss the way that Steve twitches and he's by his friend's side before Loki has even finished withdrawing her fingers. He doesn't know what he can do against a shapeshifting god (apparently), but his self-given mission is to protect Steve Rogers, and damn it all he's going to do it.

So he stands over his friend, straight backed, and just glares a silent challenge into Loki's eyes. Loki merely responds with a smirk, and a ripple back to blue form now that he no longer needs to touch mortal skin.

"You may let him up, Thor, in the mortal vernacular he was merely calling me attractive. It has been too long since you were on Midgard, you know nothing of their world any longer."

Loki knows more, though mostly through connection to his children who wander far and wide.

"Now, our business is concluded and I am sure you wish to get these mortals off Asgardian soil before Heimdall informs the All-Father of their presence here?"

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