Chapter Text
The Frederickson children weren't given to conspiracy, a fact that continued to baffle Loki. He had expected, in his time with them, that he would slowly see more treachery from the mortal siblings. But aside from minor squabbles, all ended by Mary's swift and unquestionable justice, they were amicable with each other. Joe and Jack didn't plot to overthrow Mike as firstborn son, nor did they undermine each other. And for all Anna's whining and predisposition toward melodrama, she hated conflict and would sacrifice personal pride for peace.
So when Anna and Mike left one afternoon for sibling bonding , Loki was suspicious.
"They're just getting ice cream and a few things from Walmart for me," Mary said, thrusting a basket of freshly laundered clothes into his hands. "Fold them?" It was posed as a question but remained a command. Mary had a skill for treading the line between request and demand, and she walked it most admirably. Even Frigga, Loki thought, would benefit from watching Mary.
Anna and Mike were gone far too long to have gone simply for ice cream and groceries, and when they did return, they avoided him as best they could. It was Loki's intent to corner them and discover the reason for their delay, something that shouldn't have been difficult but was.
As soon as they returned, Jack set upon Mike with demands to play video games. Anna's phone rang, and for the three hours that followed, she sat in her room and talked to her friends without ceasing.
Loki had every intention of lurking since his first and preferred plan could no longer be executed. Unfortunately, Joe accosted him.
Tugging Loki up the stairs to his room, Joe announced they would play Avengers. Silently, Loki wished Joe's obsession would shift to something else.
"You have to be Iron Man," he said to Loki, who reminded himself that Joe wouldn't know how singularly insulting that idea was. "And I'm going to be Captain America." As far as Joe was concerned, the Avengers had a strict rank of "awesomeness." Captain America came first, then Iron Man, the Hulk, Hawkeye, and, lastly, Thor. That ranking system made Loki far more amenable to the game, since he couldn't help but approve of anything that placed Thor last.
"And our mission?" Loki asked. Though he would rather be anywhere else, doing anything else, he humored Joe, who was a wall of resistance once he determined to do something.
"Duh, to save mom. Doctor Doom kidnapped her."
"Your mother is cleaning the kitchen." It was a moment, Loki would later reflect, of profound idiocy, where he fell prey to the egregious mortal habit for stating the obvious.
"No," Joe said in a tone only an eight year old afflicted by supreme stupidity could muster. "That's Doom's kitchen. Keep up."
So they set about rescuing Mary. This involved a plan with at least thirty steps, all carefully outlined in red crayon over the course of several pages in one of Joe's notebooks for school. In truth, the game was only a ruse to get Mary to play with them, as it turned out she was secretly Scarlet Witch in disguise. The game concluded with Mary rescued, and they celebrated with drinks – hot cocoa for Joe and tea for Mary and Loki – and all three of them eating gingerbread cookies.
Finally, Loki was able to speak with Mike and Anna, except not even that could be on his terms. Mike, claiming he wanted Loki's help with a video game, invited him to the basement. Loki saw through the charade the moment Anna said she wanted to find an old board game in the basement's crawl space.
Sure they thought themselves quite clever, Loki allowed the two to herd him into Mike's room.
"Should we not even pretend at this ruse?" Loki asked, the question purely rhetorical, as he sat in the only chair in Mike's room.
"We made a decision," Mike said, ignoring Loki's question, and his face hardened into an unreadable mask. "Since Halloween, everything's been getting weird."
Ah, the mortal talent for understatement. Events in the immediate area had passed the mortal concept of weird to take a right turn at bizarre and now headed unerringly toward the territory of insane. Even Loki had to admit the activity was unnerving. Though he had seen no more of the fire jotun from the prior week, he had seen the brandyr – and far too many other creatures that should never have even the faintest interest in Midgard.
"And since, Mike continued, "the three of us seem to be the only people who know, we've got to be the ones to deal with it."
"Even if we don't want to." Anna crossed her arms in an attempt to appear defiant, but her face, flickering between a pout and a smile, gave her away. "I'm giving up a night of cheerleading every week to learn this sword business. And my weekends."
For the first time in many months, Loki was speechless, taken aback by their decision. After Mike's reaction to the Askafroa, he had expected both children to refuse to help him in the search for information.
"We know we're no good," Mike said, mistaking Loki's pensive silence for hesitation. "But this is our town."
"And at the very least, we can provide distractions." Anna smiled, obviously thinking she had hit on a winning argument.
Loki considered telling her there were precious few creatures she would be able to outrun. But, no, he would spare her that harsh reality for the time being.
"Then I suppose I will continue to teach you," he said, and the joy that lit their faces made his heart lurch strangely in his chest.
They were, to his surprise, quick studies, and he attributed it to the years they had spent learning sports. Anna, flexible and quick on her feet, was much more suited to his preferred style of combat, something that resembled the mortal art of capoeira. She moved like a dancer, fluidly and gracefully, but lacked the ability to make the quick and decisive strikes the style required. Mike, large and solid, Loki taught the art of the sword. Mike's skill suffered only because Loki so lacked detailed knowledge of swordplay, having always preferred other modes of combat.
It was when their skill became disproportionate to the time they spent with him that Loki realized they were taking their training seriously. Curious to see how they were managing to find time between school and their extracurricular activities, Loki offered to pick Anna up from cheerleading practice one night in mid-December.
Standing a carefully calculated distance from the mothers present – far enough away that they wouldn't bother him but close enough that he didn't seem disagreeable – he watched the team's cool down. And though he supposed he shouldn't be surprised by it, when they began the easy routine he and Anna had worked out, he was. Even after the other girls stopped, Anna continued, moving with the music piped through the gymnasium's sound system.
While the majority of the girls and their mothers filed out, a few remained, watching Anna with curious eyes.
Loki shed his jacket, placing it on the ground, and removed his shoes and socks. Having stripped down to his slacks, he strode across the gymnasium and inserted himself into the middle of Anna's practice. "Strike without hesitation," he commanded, catching a kick behind his back with the intent to take her to the ground.
She twisted in his grasp, using the force of the takedown against him, and he was forced to release her. Shifting into a crouch, he spun toward her, and Anna flipped away from him. She caught his kick on her arm, wrapped her hand about his ankle, and attempted to overturn him.
Every move he made was aggressive, intended to force her to respond in kind. Continually, he moved into her space, and she turned him aside. Her strikes began to come with greater certainty and more strength, and so he struck harder, faster. They danced about each other; she fought to keep him at bay and he assessed every move she made against him.
They broke apart to a smattering of applause and one of the girls saying, "See, mom, that's what I want to learn!"
Face flushed and lit with a broad smile, Anna hurried to her things to get a drink of water. Loki followed her, accepting the towel she offered. "Better," he told her.
She made a disagreeable sound. "Psht, please, I could have owned you."
"And yet you didn't."
With a laugh, she tossed the water bottle at him. "Would it kill you to give a girl a compliment?"
Three months ago, the thought of taking a drink from Anna's water bottle would have nauseated him. Now, he tilted back his head and squirted out a mouthful of cool water without hesitation. "You'll get a compliment when you do it right." He handed the bottle back to her. "You didn't tell me you were practicing."
She shrugged. "I'm an athlete. We find time."
"Cheerleading isn't a sport." They both glanced at Mike, Anna with a measure of annoyance, and Mike laughed, dropping his duffle bag to the floor. He rooted through it and tossed Loki one of his shirts, rumpled but clean, and Loki pulled it on if only to spare the shirt he came wearing.
"I take it you're finding extra time to practice as well," Loki said to Mike as Anna finished collecting her things.
He nodded. "Yeah, I take a half hour before and after football practice to do some of the sword moves you've taught me." He winced, glancing to the side, embarrassed. "I have to use a stick. And hold a dumbbell to get the right weight."
Loki's lips quirked. If nothing else, mortals were quite inventive.
"Oh, God, did you just smile?"
His gaze shifted to Anna and his expression clouded over. "No."
"No, you did. You totally just smiled. Oh, God, I might die. Mike, make a note of it," Anna commanded with an imperious wave of her hand as Loki slipped his feet into his discarded shoes. "December twelfth: Loki smiles in front of all and sundry."
"Do you even know what sundry means?" Loki muttered, pulling his coat on.
"No. Do you?"
"Yes."
Anna turned up her nose. "Priss."
Loki reached out and tweaked her nose between two fingers. "Brat." Then he did smile, and he suffered her teasing well into the night and for the following week.