Chapter 133: Matthew: Loki, You Won't Even Call Me Father
"SHIELD?"
Matthew picked up the question easily. "I've had some dealings with that organization. They operate under the International Security Council. Their mandate is handling supernatural events and threats that could trigger global crises."
"The fact that they came for your research suggests what you're studying almost certainly touches on something in that category. Either it's inherently supernatural in origin, or it points toward the kind of event they consider a world-level risk."
Hearing that the situation was genuinely this serious, Jane's earlier plan to track down Coulson and demand her research back dissolved quietly.
"I suppose we have no choice but to chalk this one up to bad luck." She let out a long breath and settled back into the sofa like a balloon with the air let out.
About half an hour later.
Elsewhere, Thor, having regained consciousness after Hawkeye's shock arrow, had been placed in an interrogation room by Coulson under the category of unaffiliated mercenary.
The interrogation produced nothing useful. Coulson stepped out quietly.
The moment the door closed behind him, a figure appeared in the empty room without any prior indication.
Loki.
Thor's younger brother.
The instant he saw Loki, something in Thor gave way. He'd been hit too many times today. He couldn't hold everything in place any longer.
His body trembled, barely perceptibly, against his control.
"Lo... did you come to take me home?" A flicker of hope crossed his face.
It lasted about half a second before his younger brother personally extinguished it.
"I'm afraid not, brother." Loki arranged his expression into something appropriately grave. "I didn't come to bring you back."
"Then why..."
"I came to tell you what happened between Jotunheim and Asgard after you left."
A pause.
"Father passed away shortly after your departure. The weight of it overwhelmed him. He's gone."
"Mother refuses to see you. Because of what happened." Loki let the words settle before continuing.
"Because of the situation you created, Jotunheim presented us with terms. If we wanted peace, you had to be permanently exiled. With Father gone and pressure from all sides, we had no choice. We accepted the terms."
"So. You can't come back."
"The reason I came today was to say farewell. With Father gone and you exiled, the full burden of Asgard has fallen on me. I have to carry what a king carries. We won't be able to meet again for some time."
He paused. "I'm sorry for that."
Loki's voice had dropped low. It sounded, to anyone listening, like someone fighting hard to contain grief.
In fact he was fighting to contain something. Just not grief.
What he was suppressing was the very specific pleasure of watching someone who had made your life difficult thoroughly believe a set of lies you'd invented on the spot. He hadn't actually expected it to land this cleanly. But then, this was his older brother, and his older brother was exactly as brilliant as he had always been.
One was willing to spin any lie with a straight face. The other was willing to accept it whole.
Looking at Thor, who was visibly fighting back tears, Loki gave a small shake of his head. "I've said what I came to say. Now I must go."
"Farewell. No. Goodbye. Permanently."
He turned and walked away, leaving Thor standing there like something the storm had washed up.
In the empty corridor outside, his steps were noticeably lighter. The walk of someone who had just successfully executed a prank they were quite proud of.
"Truly cannot believe Odin wanted this man to rule Asgard."
Loki's lips curved as he moved.
He was about to leave when his gaze snagged on something. A figure, not far away, looking directly at him.
Hmm. Was that a hallucination?
Why was that mortal looking straight at him?
Could his invisibility have failed?
A slight tension moved through him. He checked his surroundings. The SHIELD agents moving past gave no indication of noticing anything unusual.
Probably a coincidence. A mere mortal couldn't detect him.
He put it out of his mind and kept walking.
Then he noticed it wasn't going away.
Wherever he walked, the gaze followed.
Not far from him.
Matthew stared at the area in the corridor where a heartbeat was emerging from empty air. A small crease appeared between his brows.
Had he imagined that?
Air didn't have a heartbeat.
He checked his watch. He glanced at the interrogation room Coulson had just left.
And then it occurred to him.
At this exact point in the timeline...
Loki.
Of course.
Magic. That would explain why he couldn't see him.
He glanced over at Thor, who was being led out by Coulson and waiting to be released to Matthew's care. A thought took shape.
He raised his voice, directing it toward the empty space near the exit, in full view of Thor: "Loki. Do you feel any particular honor in deceiving your brother?"
His tone was unhurried. The kind of tone that assumed it would be heard.
Hearing his name spoken aloud by someone who also appeared to know exactly what he'd been doing, Loki stopped walking.
He turned around. He looked toward the voice with an expression he couldn't entirely control.
The line froze more than Loki. Thor, stepping out of the interrogation room, went rigid too.
He recognized Matthew's voice. He could not make any sense of what Matthew had said.
Loki deceived him?
And how did Matthew know Loki's name?
Thor's brain, which had never been its owner's strongest feature, was running as fast as it could. He could feel it working. He still couldn't arrive at an answer.
"Matthew." He broke free of Coulson and covered the distance in a few quick steps. "What do you mean by that?"
"You're saying Loki deceived me?"
Matthew looked at him. He nodded, raised his hand, and placed it lightly on top of Thor's head with the measured gravity of a father addressing a child who had tried their best: "My foolish boy. Even now, after all of this, you still haven't understood why I sent you to Earth?"
Then he turned to look at Loki, who had gone slightly pale and was moving toward the door with purpose: "Loki. Are you really in that much of a hurry to leave?"
"You won't even call me Father."
Matthew's face changed.
In the space of a blink, Odin was looking out through his eyes.
Without the golden armor. But the face was unmistakable.
"Fa... Father?! But how... Loki said you were dead-"
Thor's voice came out at a different pitch entirely.
In this moment, it did not occur to him to question for even one second whether this was actually his father.
By contrast, Loki, who had built his life around not being fooled, was considerably quicker.
He saw Matthew take Odin's face and decided there was no point in staying invisible.
"Hmph." He reappeared, his eyes narrowing to something that was not remotely warm. "You can fool him. You cannot fool me."
"You are NOT. ODIN."
"You are a clown playing dress-up." The words came out with precision.
Thor rounded on him instantly: "Brother! How dare you call Father a clown?"
Loki stared at his older brother, took a breath, and did not particularly manage to hide what he thought.
"Idiot," he said, not quietly.
Then, louder: "Our real Father entered the Odinsleep before I left! Think about that with that walnut you call a brain : if Father is in the Odinsleep, how is he standing in front of you?!"
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