fossilised | Jotunheimr

"Perhaps we should spar sometime, and I will show you that it might be you who is in need of my protection."

Probably not. Especially not if it were a test of pure might, Thor would win in moments and Loki would never be able to stand up to him. But he had been training how to fight opponents much larger and stronger than him for his whole life, and he was an expert at swift manoeuvre and careful misdirection.

He would enjoy proving that Thor needed to think beyond his muscles and might on the battlefield as well as in the political arena.

"But I would enjoy seeing my dam's face when you seek to assure him of my protection, so let us go to Jotunheim before we travel to Midgard. Perhaps Tony Stark will offer his hospitality once more?"

“He is the one with the stone, is he not? We will visit him again, soon.” Obviously, Thor could not tell Stark and Strange apart. They did wear their facial hair in similar ways.

Loki would get time with both of his parents as Thor spent his time with Bylestir. He’d really taken to the younger Jotun during his time here before and they enjoyed games of throwing things and races while Loki took his leave.

Laufey was careful as he listened to his eldest son, nodding thoughtfully of talk of the Infinity Stones and their distribution. His mate, however, wanted to hear only of Thor and their progress with that aspect.

Loki was swift to assure his sire that things were progressing well with Thor and that Odin All-Father would contact them shortly to discuss an official courtship. Thor remained reluctant in some areas, but he believed it would only be a matter of time before he was thoroughly tied to Loki for good.

He also assured his dam that he would be careful regarding the Infinity Stones, and advised Jotunheim to train warriors and trade for as much food as possible from the newly reopened Ways to the Vanaheim Free Markets in case war came and they needed to shore up and protect their already damaged realm.

Only then did he go in search of Thor, who he would find being introduced to one of the Great Ice Serpents that Jotunheim held, a pet of Bylestir, a snake almost fifty feet long with a body as wide as Thor's shoulders in some places.

This might have been the best day or Thor’s life. He had an important duty, he was nearly officially courting someone who could go with him toe to toe on missions like these, and now he was best friends with the biggest, most beautiful snake in all the Realms. Thor was rolling around with the serpent as Bylestir watched, and upon seeing his eldersibb, the younger Jotun tutted his way over to sit by his smaller kin. “I wish you both would stay for longer periods of time. I am very found of Thor Odinson.”

No need to sugar coat it.

Bylestir ignore the way Thor made impact into the ice as the serpent tunneled through it with him. Neither were in danger. And Thor was laughing uproariously.

“He is very simple. But resilient.”

"He is, and I too am very fond of him. We will return when we are able, but Jotunheim is taking its place back in the wider realms and we must be prepared to travel beyond our borders. If you wish to put in a claim to be King one day, youngsibb, then you must venture out yourself sometime."

He laid a hand on Bylestir's forearm, the highest part of his brother that he could reach, and then stood to make his way over to where Thor was tussling and playing with the great serpent.

"Leave Bylestir's pet alone, Thor, we must be about our business. Perhaps if you are so fond then we might seek one out for you one day, though such a mission is treacherous."

Thor was by far the happiest that he’d ever been when they arrived once more on Midgard. Tony Stark had not been asleep for long when JARVIS informed him that the portal had opened again, similar to when Loki and the rest had come through last time. He wrinkled his nose a little and rolled out of bed, even as Pepper reached to grab him by the collar and haul him back towards her. “Aliens,” Tony muttered as he rubbed at his eyes and had JARVIS patch him into Steve’s number.

It rang a few times while he relieved himself and only connected as he was washing his hands.

“What are you doing? Nothing? Good. Come to the Tower. Quickly. Our favorite smurf is back.”

Steve had spent a few days in Tony's company discussing their potential superhero partnership, and had found the other man both infuriating and refreshingly kind at times, a real enigma. The furrow of his brow and palpable confusion were probably audible even down the other end of the phone.

"Uh-- what exactly is a smurf?"

Just asking, because then he'd know whether Tony was calling him for an emergency or because some of his favourite food had just arrived and he wanted to try it. He wouldn't forget the time Tony called him at 4am to make him try churros in a hurry.

Listen, Rogers. Tony needed a friend sometimes. Rhodey didn’t always answer. Pepper was busy. And you exist. That meant that, to Tony, Steve was his the default bestie. And that meant doing things that besties do.

Including trying churros at all hours of the day or night. Tony barely slept anymore so it all was the same to him. Sunset and sundown? Exactly the same. In reverse.

“Loki. Blue guy? Have we not watched smurfs yet? Okay, J. Set a time for next week to watch cartoons.” Tony had gone from dead asleep to motormouth in the span of three minutes. It was amazing. “Just come over. I’ll make eggs. I make a mean egg.”

Steve actually quite liked the bits of Tony that he saw underneath the endless babble and the ego that he was nearly sure was projected to help with his public image, he had moments of kindness and he was the first person in this bizarre future who actually treated him like a person instead of an icon that was something elevated from human.

"...okay, sure. Loki. You should have said that to start with, I'm on my way over."

He hung up and went to go and grab his motorcycle out from the garage of his building, he liked the drive over when it was late and there was barely any other traffic on the roads.

"Sir," JARVIS said once the call was ended. "Perhaps in the time it takes for Captain Rogers and the delegation from Asgard to arrive, we might go over some of the pending business that Ms. Potts has sent over and labelled 'urgent'?"

“I don’t think so, JARVIS. Leave Ms. Potts in bed, will you? She works hard. She should get a chance to sleep.” He knew that wasn’t what the AI meant but Tony wasn’t about to do any more work today. He’d woken up. He washed his hands after he pissed. That was good enough. Those papers would be there later. Or tomorrow.

Or three days from next week. He’d get to them when the strawberry blond forced it on him. He always was a sucker for blondes.

He dressed instead, jeans and a t-shirt, and made some coffee before he have JARVIS show footage of the traffic lights that Steve was passing and the path from Central Park that, thank Jesus, only two aliens were striding down.

“Make sure we keep SHIELD in the dark. They’re still made that I stole their boy wonder.”

"I'm sorry, sir, but I'm unable to keep SHIELD in the dark or perform any other duties," JARVIS said, sounding genuinely apologetic with just a hint of sarcasm that an AI really shouldn't be capable of. "My servers are too overloaded with overdue files from Ms. Potts."

Sometimes JARVIS liked to take Pepper's side, she was good for his master and kept him on track, she deserved to have someone else bully him sometimes.

"I should also inform you that using government traffic cameras to spy on Captain Rogers is, technically, a federal crime."

“You win!” Tony said as he threw his hands up. He did not need JARVIS blabbing that he liked to hack into the Big Brother system around New York to watch people coming to see him. He didn’t think Rogers would be stopping off anywhere, he just—. Well he didn’t need to explain himself!

So Tony sat down to go through some files, begrudgingly, and Thor kept trying to get Loki to give him reasonable cause not to skip off and have a little fun before they got to Stark’s.

“The danger is not immediate and pressing. Are you not curious to discover how those gray birds might taste? Or to ride on their metal ground mounts?”

Pepper had sent over a lot of files to try and improve the image of Stark Industries. She wanted to devote a huge chunk of money to developing things like water bottles that purified dirty water in countries where that wasn't always easy to come by, or manufacturing more sophisticated and cheaper prosthetic limbs for people who had lost their own, or charity fundraisers for a variety of issues.

Loki, unaware that they had already been noticed, was wavering at the idea of spending at least a few hours exploring and having fun before they got down to the reason for their journey. He needed to celebrate and blow off steam, he had achieved the first step in what had seemed at first an impossible plan.

"...I suppose it would be rude to call on a household so long after sundown, we ought to wait for the sunrise. Very well, if you can capture one of those grey birds, I will build a fire and cook it for you."

This was not their smartest plan, but Thor was intensely moved by a desire to provide (something all sentient people about his approximate maturity level felt) and to have Loki promise to cook for him? Well, how could he ever turn that down? These were things people courting did and Thor was enthusiastic about their first somewhat ritualized moment of that.

So as Tony was approving (and redesigning) the bottles in Pepper first briskness plan, he managed to look up just in time to see Thor swinging some sort of projectile, which knocked several pigeons from the trees. New Yorkers had yet to start paying attention, however. Most of the time, people in this city ignored anything and everything they could.

This included.

Tony blinked and turned to see where Rogers was on his journey from Brooklyn.

“Uh. Okay. If he kills anyone’s dog, let me know.”

"Yes, sir. Thankfully, no canines appear to be in any danger. Although Prince Thor has killed seven pigeons and Prince Loki is building a fire in the centre of the park."

New Yorkers might ignore a lot, but they probably wouldn't ignore two men, one of whom was very attractive and muscled, sitting in the middle of the grass cooking and eating pigeons over a campfire.

Loki saw nothing wrong with this, all travellers cooked food over an open flame in every realm he had read of or visited, why should this be any different. He sat shearing the feathers finely from the flesh with a dagger as the flames licked higher.

"There is little meat on these, you would need a whole flock to feed just you."

Tony pressed his lips together and lowered his face towards the tablet where he was trying to design a better filtration device using cheaper materials. Most people would be working in the lab for this, testing then out, but Tony could do it in his head, and through chemical equations and imagination alone. “Tell me if the fire burns any dogs,” he muttered, knowing JARVIS would understand it was expanded to the trees and people too.

“Sir, there are videos appearing on Facebook.”

Why? Tony groaned and gestures to the tablet. “Look! I’m busy—. Damn it, get the suit ready. And give Rogers the new coordinates.” Tony dashed towards the armature that held his suit and willed it to rush the building process before he took off from the landing deck just outside of the living area of his penthouse.

Three minutes later, Thor stood as he spotted a red man barreling towards them in the sky. Tony landed a bit roughly and immediately turned his attention to the Facebook Livers, having JARVIS kill the phones for the next hour. “Go home. Even you— Love that top, looks great on you. Classy, go away.”

Tony's presence just attracted more people to stand around and gawk, and more than a few to get their phones out to try and take pictures or video without realising that they were dead right then. People began to crowd around, some of them shouting for his autograph.

Loki looked bemused as he also stood up to watch Tony Stark approach, even royalty did not get mobbed this way and what exactly was an autograph? Did he owe them some sort of tithe?

"Well met, Tony Stark, your armour is most impressive."

“I will deal with you and your creepy X-Ray vision in a minute,” Tony said, voice modulator making him sound more metallic and further away with a slight echo. He wasn’t sure how an alien knew he was Iron Man, but honestly, he didn’t know how Loki singled him out as king of the whole damned world either. His research skills were spotty at best.

When it became clear that the crowd wasn’t exactly leaving, because even Tony Stark couldn’t handle a bunch of fantastic joggers and dog walkers, the man in the armor returned to where the fire was still smoldering and let the faceplate of the armor flip back. “I need you two to stop making your way to the evening news. You’re going to be hard to explain. I have a car coming. Not to be ripped apart like last time please? You two are almost more trouble than you’re worth. Thank you at least for not being blue,” he grunted at Loki and pointed to the concrete restroom building where they needed to go. And hide. Immediately. He’d handle the rest here until Happy arrived at the closest entry with the car.

Again, Loki was suddenly thrust into a place where the language all seemed to make little sense and words that all had meaning individually created utter chaos when strung together. What was the evening news and why were they on it? How were they being any trouble? They had not caused any sort of raucous issue, or even interacted with the surrounding mortals.

"We are making no trouble or hardship, we have only stopped for refreshment. You may join us, if you wish, though there is little enough meat to go around."

"Sir," JARVIS said in Tony's ear. "CNN have a van approximately ten minutes away and approaching."

Of course. Tony briefly closed his eyes before he more forcefully ushered the pair away and tried to stomp out the fire. “There is obviously a vast cultural disconnect here. You can’t start public fires. Our news is global and there are people coming to record your images and send it out to every person in the next few minutes. This is bad. Please let me clean this up before everyone finds out about you.”

Thor finally dropped the bird he had been helping to pluck clean and offered his hand to Loki. “If Stark is to be our Guide, we must trust him.”

He’d learned that the hard way with Loki.

Not trusting the one person who was meant to be looking out for you got you in a lot of trouble. Mostly of the painful variety.

Midgard truly was bizarre if travellers weren't even allowed to start cookfires without creating some incident that would be felt the world over. But he was also amenable to following the advice of their guide, and so he stamped out the fire alongside Stark and clutched the few bird corpses that he had already plucked.

"Very well, lead on, we will go to your hideaway and endeavour to cause no more trouble."

For now.

There would probably be trouble when they came to wanting to take that gem from the sorcerer they had met before. He laid a hand on Thor's arm, a more familiar gesture than he had used before, but they were almost officially courting and so it seemed appropriate.

"Perhaps we can be shown where is appropriate to make a fire, these birds should not go to waste."

“There are plenty of places in New York to get food,” Tony said without sounding too exasperated (this has to be how Pepper felt on a constant basis with him). “And pigeons are street rats. You don’t eat pigeons. Nothing eats pigeons. They are filthy carriers of disease,” Tony said before he stayed behind to handle the news and to keep people from following Thor and Loki to the bathroom.

“There are many rules here,” Thor said before the smell of the place they watered made him balk. “You can not eat the wildlife and you must wait in a filthy outhouse? I do not understand! We have seen the marvels of indoor personal waterfalls. What is this?!”

Please explain this craziness to Thor.

“Midgard needs to be taken by hand and brought to the proper century!”

"When you are All-Father, I hope that you will use your time for unity. Too long has been spent on war and sundering, of stopping the free travel among the branches of Yggdrasil, and that must end. You could be the one remembered for bringing all to the fold and both teaching and learning from all."

That was the legacy that Loki wanted to be remembered for. He wanted to go down in history as the All-Mother and Loki-King of Jotunheim who had ruled during the most prosperous and golden age of all the realms. People would revere him and his consort for generations.

"Now is the time to begin to build those bridges. Look with compassion and learn, do not judge. That was your mistake on Jotunheim."

Thor was silent, not exactly because he was taking in the criticism but because there was criticism in the first place. He appreciated being led in the right direction but sometimes Loki was fairly harsh about it. He was frowning still, and quiet, when Stark pushed opened the door with his foot.

“Come on. We have to get back to the actual city.” Technically, Central Park was in the city but he didn’t trust any place with more trees than there were buildings.

When Thor finally spoke, it was not about seeking the Gem that they had come for, but to save some face with Loki.

“I require the texts of your culture. I do not wish to be seen as a fool while on your Realm.”

Tony glanced between Thor and Loki. “Uh. Put a pin on that. We have a few centuries for you to get used to and I don’t think you’re going to make it in an afternoon.”

Thor would be rewarded for his efforts with a smile from Loki and the Jotnar coming to his defence to Stark, not something he did often. But he knew that he needed to balance praise and support along with his teaching and criticism, or else he would drive Thor from him. Loki knew that someone who was rewarded for the right behaviour after learning would come to respect and love the teacher more.

"I think you underestimate the swiftness of Thor, our histories are much longer than mere centuries and our tutors have taught us to assimilate quickly. Texts of your culture would be of use to both of us, so that we no longer make such errors as we have made this afternoon."

He drew out a sculpture that he had collected from Jotunheim. Nothing too special, dwarven smiths could make things much better, but it was beautiful. A sculpture of a snowflake in perfect detail, crafted out of true ice by Jotnar magic and then set that way into a pendant.

"I offer you this small hearth gift as thanks for your hospitality, and in payment for the procurement of these texts."

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