MaLoki 20 AUs: mythcanon
because canon, too, twists this around




2. Halfway across the world and back again¹
because, er, pantheon crossovers are fun?

"Can't you spare a few?" Loki asked, with what he thought was a winning smile.

The Hesperide yawned, seeming to find her fingernails more interesting than Loki's attempt at persuasion. "If you haven't an appointment with Hera, you've got to get past that dragon over there, and no one's ever managed to do so. Anyway, surely this should be a diplomatic matter? We don't often have dealings with your sort, stranger-from-the-North."

"Well, as you said -- I've come this far already, you know, and one golden apple's much like another. If you could just supply us for a while? Just until we resolve certain issues back home." He was going to play the pity card soon, the nymph thought. Ah, there we go -- "They've threatened to do, ah, some rather unpleasant things to me, if I go back empty-handed. My only other option isn't much better on the slow-painful-death front, either."

"Sorry," the nymph said, not sounding it at all. "Got to go through the proper bureaucratic channels, there was a disaster last year when our father -- well, anyway, I'm afraid I can't help you. Good luck."

The Hesperide watched as Loki shrugged on the cloak, turned into a falcon and flew resignedly away. He hadn't been that bad-looking, she thought. For a foreigner, anyway. Perhaps she should have just relented and given him a few to take back with him. Or perhaps not -- even though their garden was the main supplier of apples to Idunn, protocol was protocol, and he hadn't come with an official writ.


¹Okay, yes, I know Greece isn't exactly halfway across the world from Scandinavia, but.




6. And you?
because there's something about the Twenties

The automobile that pulled up next to him was pale grey. Not the most impressive colour, Thor felt. His impression of the vehicle was improved once he got inside; the low, confident purr of the engine and the smoothness with which it sped down the street was much more befitting the car of a speakeasy's owner.

"So," he said after a while, for lack of anything else to do, "who're you?"

"And you?" the driver replied, in a tone that was rather too familiar - in at least two senses of the word - for Thor's liking. "Can't be good news if Odin wants to see you. Got into trouble with his men?"

"Actually," Thor said, slightly nettled, "I saved five of our boys this morning. Mjollnir here--"

The driver laughed. "That tommy gun? It can't even be worth the metal it's made of. And look at you, you call that a suit? You don't even have a tie."

Thor bristled. "And you? Mjollnir's killed more men than you'll ever ferry around. Don't see you doing anything particularly useful for my father."

"Your father," the driver said, smiling at his own joke, "could have asked me to take you for a ride."¹

That line made Thor frown, and then sigh as understanding dawned. Thor knew his father's sense of humour ( it had grown even worse lately; Thor suspected that Loki had had something to do with it ) and the reason for the voice's familiarity became all too apparent.

"Dad, just because I haven't seen you in a while..."


¹In the 1920s, this was slang not for 'deceiving someone', but rather for 'driving someone to a deserted place and killing them there.' A violent decade, that.




15. Two feet beneath water
because Heimdall needs to win sometimes

The first thing Loki thinks when he hits the water is "Oh, damn it."

Granted, hitting the river is probably less painful than hitting the hard concrete of the docks, but Loki has never been overly fond of water. Especially when he is sinking in it. Especially when he is sinking in it and running out of air and having to fight off someone who is quite intent in sticking a switchblade into him.

Not to mention how his suit is probably going to end up ruined beyond repair. His grip on Heimdall's wrists slackens a little, at the thought; the water clouds momentarily with his blood, as the switchblade opens a red line across one arm. At least, Loki thinks grimly, there aren't any bullets involved. He lets go, kicks out -- his foot connects, but he's not sure what with -- and makes for the surface. The necklace is a burden, weighing down his jacket; Loki's just glad that he didn't choose to wear it around his neck.

He gets his first deep lungful of air at about the same time as Heimdall pushes the blade between two of his ribs and surfaces, triumphant, in front of him.

Heimdall's kind enough to pull him out of the water, though perhaps that's only because it makes the necklace easier to remove from the inner lining of his jacket. It takes a while longer for Heimdall to remove the knife, but Loki doesn't complain. He does, however, grin weakly in the general direction of Heimdall and ask if he could at least get one of Odin's underground doctor-types to come over.

"You won't die so easily," Heimdall replies with a touch of regret, wiping the blood off the switchblade and onto Loki's jacket. Loki winces and wonders briefly if his tie, at least, can be saved. Then he realises that he's probably been bleeding on it, and closes his eyes.

"Fair enough," he says. Heimdall has already begun to walk off, and Loki listens to the steady footsteps as they recede; they sound muffled, further off than they should be, and Loki grins again at the sky and thinks about drownings. The night air, cold enough to choke on, stings his lungs as he breathes in.




16. Palms up and back to the ground
because Matantei Loki RAGNAROK turned out to be false advertising

There is no difficulty in surrendering to an end that you have already seen coming. Hitting the ground is the hard part; once Heimdall is lying in the dust of Vigrond, he finds it very easy to stay there. ( It helps that Loki was first to fall, of course. That makes Heimdall feels more justified in giving his attention to the sky, instead of wondering if Loki is still breathing. )

Eventually he decides that it isn't worth the effort of uncurling his fingers from his sword, and raises his other hand, stretching shaky fingers towards the scorched heavens. Loki is probably laughing, somewhere to his left; the sound is choked enough for it to just as easily be anything else. Not that it matters now. Heimdall reaches out, palm to the sky, hoping to feel the sunlight on his skin --

The only heat that reaches him is that of the burning fields, and the ground under him grows damp with his blood. Heimdall lets his arm fall. The grass is rough against the back of his hand; he watches the dying sun, and waits.