Marvel, page 19
Loki changed out of his pajamas and into a pair of worn jeans and a green thrifted shirt that read Lewiston Jazz Festival with a simplified trumpet design behind it. He slid into his sneakers and shuffled his uncaffeinated body across Donna’s front lawn to the gate for the dog yard. Several furry faces met him at the fence, tails wagging, their opinions of him unchanged. There was solace in that, in the gleaming dark eyes of the beasts that trusted him. In the yard, he freshened up the water bowls and threw the ropes and balls for the dogs for a while, waiting until the usual feeding time to grab the kibble from Donna’s back shed and scoop out meals for everyone. The contented ASMR of crunching and munching filled the yard, and Loki allowed himself to enjoy it briefly before the sliding back door on Donna’s trailer whooshed open, and she gestured for him to join her inside.
Donna’s trailer was bigger, cozier, and cleaner than the guesthouse on her property that he occupied. It smelled like cooking bacon inside, a radio on the counter playing a low murmur of voices discussing in-season and upcoming sports. Two large leather sofas made an L in front of her wall-mounted television. The apple-red walls were covered with wooden frames, smiling faces showing Donna with her sisters and brothers.
There was hot coffee waiting for him on the bar-slash-counter delineating the kitchen. He dropped onto one of the scuffed wooden stools and let her pour some. Donna’s wild mane of blue hair was pulled up into a scrunchy, creating a soft poof on top of her head. Her pug, Thurman Thomas, wheeze-snored on the couch, curled up like a wrinkled croissant. It was clear from Donna’s silence and baggy eyes that she hadn’t slept, either.
“I think you owe me an explanation,” she said, making her own mug of coffee. Lots of sugar, dash of hazelnut creamer. “Maybe several explanations…”
Loki nodded, staring down into the black pool of his own cup. An almost iridescent film of oil swirled in the middle of it with the hypnotizing pull of a Völva witch’s cauldron. He didn’t try to lie. He didn’t resist Donna’s insistent gaze.
“Sit down,” he instructed her gently. “For I have much to tell…”
He started at the beginning, with the cycle of birth and death called Ragnarok. And afterward, he spoke freely of his own life in this current cycle, of his adoptive parents, Odin and Frigga, of his brother, Thor, and the war with the Frost Giants that led to his being an orphan in the first place. Whatever he could remember, good and bad, he told her. And without guile or pride, he explained the series of events that had led to his exile on Earth.
“The night you found me in the bar I was lost, a babe wandering the darkened woods,” he said, finishing. “Ah, well. I’m sure you have questions,” he said.
Donna refilled his coffee. “Mm. A few.”
Loki smirked. “Just a few, eh? Then, I will answer a few.”
“Well, for starters, why kill your brother?” she asked, pulling no punches, in true Donna style.
“I didn’t mean for him to die,” said Loki. “Humiliate him? Wound him? Certainly.”
“But you had to know he might die.”
The statement somewhat startled him. “It had never happened before, not in a thousand years of rivalry.” And there was Ragnarok to consider—none of the other signs of prophecy had come. It seemed impossible that the cycle should change this time.
Donna frowned. “Huh. Okay. How about this: If you’re the real big bad boy, why did your mom chuck your brother’s hammer through my roof?” she asked. “Sounds like he was the heroic type, and you’re…”
The villain. Loki said nothing, sipping his coffee, interested in her conclusion.
“And you’re you,” Donna said. “What are they playing at?”
“According to Rūna, my mother thinks I could wield it,” he replied. “But I have my doubts. Perhaps she takes my despondence as evidence of guilt. Or perhaps she has discovered a love for me that she could not access before.” When it mattered. “I don’t know. Grief makes madmen of us all.”
Donna slurped from her mug. “Sounds like a Hail Mary pass to me.”
He had watched enough collegiate football and recordings of old Super Bowls with her to be familiar with the concept.
“A test,” he murmured. “And not an insult?”
“Could be.” She shrugged and leaned heavily against the counter. “You said that the dwarf girl who helped you isn’t who she said she was, right? And Rūna thinks she’s trouble or working with trouble. Maybe they want you to pick up the hammer to fight her. Maybe they want that grandbaby of theirs to have more power in her corner. Or, I don’t know, a buddy. A mentor. One big, happy family, you know?”
“I make messes, Donna. I don’t tend to clean them up.”
“Yeah, hon, about that. If you’re the God of Mischief, or whatever, can’t you just stop being that?”
“No, Donna,” he said softly. “I am what I am.”
She was quiet for a moment. He could feel her draw inward. “On that topic,” she said with a sigh. “Between skipping out on work, stealing my credit card, and ruining my trailer, I don’t think I can have you around anymore, Loki. I’m sorry. I feel for you, I do, but if that hammer is here to stay, then I gotta find a way to build around it. I’m not gonna be the one to move, you are.”
Even if he saw it coming, it hurt more than he expected.
“Donna, people will come for that hammer eventually. It’s too powerful to go unnoticed. Like a moldering corpse, it will draw flies. I fear to think who might desire it, and fear also that you would not have adequate protection against them,” he said.
She blinked at him. “That didn’t sound all that villainous to me.”
“I consider you a friend, Donna. I’ve grown to trust you.”
“And I wanted to trust you. I’m forgiving, honey, but you’re all out of chances with me. I’m sorry about it, I really am, but if you’re a friend, then you know I have to stand my ground. If you were a real friend, you wouldn’t have stolen my credit card. You grew up in a palace, so maybe you don’t understand that for someone like me every dollar matters. Your little jaunt to NYC hit my bank account hard. I don’t tend to operate with a lot of wiggle room. The dog thing is steady, it works for me, but I’m one bad emergency away from closing the doors, understand?” Donna lowered her head and walked to the sink, staring out of the window there at the dogs lolling in the yard. “You can…You can finish your coffee. I’ve gotta run into town for more dog food, it’ll give you a few hours to pack up and get on your way.”
“Donna…”
“I’m sorry, Loki. I am. But I’ve got a business to run and a life to live,” she said, going to the front door and pulling her keys off the loop there. “God or no god, a girl’s gotta have standards.”
The door opened and closed. Loki shifted off the stool and went to the wall running along the shallow hall that held the front door. The wooden frames on the wall had little slogans painted on them like Cherish the Memories and Together Always. There were no photographs of Donna’s parents there. He remembered one night, two weeks ago, when they had sat on her couch with some fast-food burgers and watched a movie about figure skating. Something about the family dynamics in the film had bothered Donna, and she got up abruptly, left the room, and came back with her face redder and covered in splotches. She sat cross-legged, blue hair spilling over one shoulder, and robotically recounted her childhood under her father’s roof. He drank constantly, sometimes disappearing for days on end, her older siblings cooking for each other and her, and sometimes going next door to beg for snacks when the cupboards were empty. The teachers at school knew to pay special attention to the kids in her family, and notified administration when they came to class too many days in a row in the same outfits, unwashed and underfed. Once her father sobered up, their mom came back, stayed awhile, but then they both found casinos, and there was even less food in the house, and the empty feeling of love that ought to be but never arrived.
“We raised ourselves,” she had told him. “Mom got it together for a minute or two toward the end, started the dog daycare, but she would’ve run it straight into the ground if I hadn’t taken over.”
When her parents were dead, she ripped the old daycare sign down and renamed it Donna’s Doggies, because it was her blood, sweat, and tears that kept the business running, so it was time it had her name. A pit of dark shame opened in his stomach. It was one thing to move against the rich and powerful gods of Asgard; it was another to undermine someone like Donna. She was already struggling but jumped to share what little she had with him.
And how had he repaid her generosity?
On the couch, Thurman Thomas grumbled, farted, and flipped over in his sleep. Loki went and scratched the pug’s belly, staring out into the yard with his ears ringing. Donna was right. He had brought nothing but chaos and trouble into her life.
There was, however, the problem of Mjolnir. Even though he had tried to explain clearly to her that it simply could not be moved, no matter how hard she tried, he got the sense that Donna still felt she could loophole the hammer off her property. She couldn’t conceive of what it might truly bring to her home; chaos and trouble were just the beginning. The problem of Mjolnir. Or could it be the solution he needed?
Loki left through the back sliding door, accepted tributes of affection from the dogs in the yard, and jogged to the guest trailer. Determination, not shame, that’s what he needed now. His brother was always going on about Mjolnir’s capacity for building, claiming it met or surpassed its aptitude for destruction. He strode to the blanket covering Mjolnir, tore it away, and jumped down into the pit, bracing one foot against the mounded earth hardened beneath the hammer, both hands wrapped around the handle.
“Donna has shown me nothing but kindness,” he said, closing his eyes. “What is worthier than the desire to right the wrongs I’ve committed against her?”
He drew in a deep breath and pulled.
Mjolnir resisted. He tried again.
“But I feel like I have changed,” he grunted. “Can you not see into my heart?”
Nothing. The hammer stayed put. Loki pushed away, lashing out at it with his foot as his temper flared. “You’re rubbish! A waste of metal! An embarrassment for the smiths that forged you!”
“The hammer judges the whole person, not the individual action.”
Loki spun around, surprised. Rūna had been watching him for however long. Either he was imagining things, or there was the slightest hint of disappointment in her voice. He could well believe his softhearted mother wanted to see him wield the hammer, but he never once considered Rūna might want the same.
“It should know my reasons for taking it up are noble,” said Loki, climbing out of the crater. “Who is worthier than Donna? She deserves what aid Mjolnir could give her.”
Rūna tipped her head to the side, smiling faintly. “I’m inclined to agree. Perhaps she should try to wield the hammer herself.”
“Oh, you like Donna now? Did you two bond while I was sleeping?” He put the blanket back over the hammer and rubbed his face, frustrated.
“You will never wield it if you reject it outright,” she said, and sighed.
“It appears I’ll not wield it, full stop. I need to speak to you,” he said. “I need your help.”
Rūna cocked a brow and swung toward him. “This ought to be amusing.”
“We need to fix up the trailer—I need to—and I must find a way to pay Donna back for the hotel,” he explained. “If not, she will force me to leave.”
“Good for her. She takes in too many strays.”
“You’re not listening,” Loki muttered, going to Brian’s enclosure. He checked to make sure the gecko had enough to eat and then moved him to a sunnier spot in the trailer. “If both of us leave, what happens to the hammer?”
“Ah. You are wise to ask the question,” she said.
Loki nodded grimly. “We can’t just abandon her to watch over it. Like you so kindly pointed out, she has enough strays to worry about.”
“Aye, ’tis not safe to leave until the hammer is recalled to Asgard or moved by other means.” Rūna stroked her chin idly. “What did you have in mind?”
“You have your super strength; can you not lift the trailer and resettle it on the other side of the hammer? Then we could at least patch the floor and the roof, and perhaps build some shed or box to conceal Mjolnir,” said Loki, thinking aloud. He was about to brainstorm further when the sound of tires squealing and brakes screaming interrupted his thoughts. Leaping to his feet, he and Rūna went to the window. Pulling back the curtain, he expected to see Donna’s truck outside, but it was an all-black vehicle with tinted windows.
His heart fell. “It’s already begun.”
“What do you mean?” Rūna demanded. “What has begun?”
“On Earth, vans like that are always an ominous sign,” he said. The front door of the van opened, and a petite woman tumbled out onto the grass of the lawn. “By Bragi’s sharpened quill pen, is that Jane?”
They watched her hurry around to the other side of the van, open the passenger door, and collect Quinn. Jane took her daughter by the hand, checking up and down the road frantically before sprinting toward the trailer and banging on the front door.
Rūna snapped into action, brushing past him to open the door for them.
“Where is it?” Jane asked, out of breath. At her side, Quinn waved. “Mjolnir! Where is it? Tell me you hid it somewhere safe!” Her eyes slid from Rūna’s face to the gaping hole in the ceiling, to the fleece Buffalo Bills blanket poorly concealing the crater in the floor. “Oh my God! You can’t be serious!”
“How did you know the hammer was here?” asked Loki, peering out from behind Rūna’s broad shoulder.
“Listen, there’s a man tied up in that van. His name is Kevin and he’s very sweet, I’ll explain later, but we don’t have much time to figure things out before all hell breaks loose. Tony Stark knows Mjolnir is here, and he wants it. Trust me on this: When Tony Stark wants something, he gets it.”
20
IT ALL CAME OUT in a jumble. Tony Stark. Genius. Billionaire. Playboy. Philanthropist. He was a weapons savant and New York’s chosen tech golden boy, losing a friend to the malfunctioning Asgardian Destroyer, in turn kicking off an obsessive vendetta and a terrifying hunger for Asgardian blood. Oh, and wormholes. That’s where Jane came in. And of course her relationship with Thor, though she had no idea how much Tony knew about her personal life and past. Now he had the Destroyer all to himself, and with Mjolnir on Earth, he had everything he needed to make his demented dream a reality.
“On a scale of one to ten, ten being confusion and one being total comprehension, where are we at?” Jane asked, looking swiftly between Rūna and Loki. To their credit, both seemed to be listening intently while Jane panic-vomited all her words up.
“Three,” said Loki.
“Eight,” answered the Valkyrie. They were still standing just inside the door of the ruined trailer. Quinn had found her way to the couch and the gecko in his cage not far from it. She could tell Jane’s daughter was eavesdropping as hard as she could. “But it matters not,” Rūna continued lightly. “He is just one man, a triviality. If he tries to apprehend the hammer, he will not live to regret it.”
Jane should have expected that. It was almost word for word what Thor would have said. She shook her head, striding toward the obvious slant and hole in the floor, tearing away the fleece blanket covering it. The hammer looked comically pristine next to the destruction its arrival had wrought. “Oh my God,” she said. “Wow. It’s here. Okay, okay, we can salvage this. There’s got to be a way to keep it from him…”
He’s here.
No, Thor was gone. She couldn’t rely on him to swoop in and save the day.
“Aye, there is a way,” said Rūna, joining her beside the crater. “My axe. My fists. And if Loki can, as your people say, get it together, he will protect the hammer, too.”
Jane’s pocket lit up. She fished the phone out of it, shocked that it wasn’t Stark calling, but her lawyer. The timing was too coincidental. Too scary. Quinn rolled impatiently around on the couch, blowing raspberries.
“Mom, can I go outside and play?” she asked. “I hear dogs next door.”
“No!” Jane said, slapping the phone against her face. Stark probably had an entire flock of drones hovering over the trailer, waiting for them to do something suspicious. Kevin. Kevin! They had to do something about Kevin. Maybe her lawyer would have some ideas, or some estimates on how much jail time she would serve for tying up the chauffeur…
“Ugh, can I at least play inside? With Uncle Loki?” Quinn whined.
“No. I mean, I guess, fine. Fine. Just stay where I can see you, okay?”
Quinn rejoiced, rocketing into the air before running three circles around the coffee table. His brow deeply furrowed, Thor’s brother watched the little girl rummage through the books and junk strewn across the floor. Finding a shard of broken flooring, she held it up triumphantly.
“Lightsaber,” she declared.
Loki hesitated. His gaze slid to Jane, asking for silent permission. It was an unexpected but welcome gesture. All in all, he wasn’t the menacing presence she had imagined. Thor made it sound like he was darkness and danger incarnate. She sighed and nodded her head once, then retreated to the tiny footprint of the kitchen to take her lawyer’s call. The line picked up, and before Jane could say a word, her longtime friend and lawyer, Jennifer Walters, launched in.
“Ooh, look at that, big-shot author taking little old me’s phone call, I feel honored.” Jen snorted. There was no time to wedge a foot into the conversation. “Kidding! Don’t kill me. I’m so, so, so, so sorry to interrupt your promo stuff, I know it’s a nightmare and you’re probably running on, like, two hours of sleep, three lattes, and a prayer, but something major has come up. And before you freak out, I would’ve called about this sooner but I’ve been dealing with this bozo of a client who has, like, a higher calling to give me an aneurysm, I swear to God, he’s going to be my downfall. He got this cursed bear costume at a flea market or something and every time he puts it on, he ends up in jail. Bing, bang, bong! I don’t know if I need to call the Antiques Roadshow or an exorcist or both. Anyway, this time they picked him up for theft, and—get this—I had to drive to Calabasas at four o’clock on a Friday. The 405 was like the opening of La-La Land but somehow more unbearable. I mean, is there a bank holiday I don’t know about? But get this, he’s out and the cops are screwed because his alibi is ironclad. I’ve got a TikTok of him at the time of the theft bare-knuckle boxing teenagers on Hollywood Boulevard. And I know how that sounds, but you would hate these kids. That video already has a million views, so if anything, they should be thanking Maxwell.” Jane opened her mouth to cut in, but Jen hadn’t taken a breath yet. Jane pinched her temples between thumb and forefinger; she loved Jen, but not for her brevity. “So, here’s the dealio: When I got back from downtown, I waltzed into my office and found this fat manila envelope situation on my desk. It, um, looks like there was some kind of contingency in place.”
