Careful, Tommy. You're bordering on petulance. [But there was no malice in his voice at the statement. It was more of an observation than anything. Tommy often reminded Loki he was very young, even by human standards.] But yes, my mother loved me. As for the rest...Asgard has always been a realm that valued physical prowess to cunning or trickery. I've never had a skillset befitting a prince of the realm, let alone one who may eventually wear the crown. Trust me, I understand being undesired in the face of your brother's ability.
No, shut up for a second. That’s the fucking difference between us, Loki. And it isn’t fucking petulance. At some point in your life, someone wanted you. For you. Not because they are supposed to or they are tied to you. Because they loved you. Asgard May have sucked but someone wanted you.
That... that wasn’t what I had. I had to come here to be wanted because I’m Tommy. Not because I’m someone’s soul-twin or a useful teammate or something. But for me.
[Maybe it was the tone in Tommy's voice or the earnestness in his eyes, but Loki did shut up and let the boy talk. No. Not "the boy". Tommy. His friend. The one who'd actually listened to him when he'd told his story, who had accepted he'd made mistakes and still accepted him, who'd defended him.
He looked over to him apologetically and with sympathy, and nodded.]
Is that so bad, though? I can count my friends as precious few, and you among them.
[He's angry, that much is absolutely happening, and he's angry because i doesn't deserve to be angry and he knows it. Or so he's always thought. So he's always been told.]
Frank and Mary Shepherd had a good relationship, until me. I know this because they fucking told me to my damn face when I was five. My parents told me that I was a mistake and I was ruining everything. I was the problem with their relationship and happened because of a broken condom. After that, they didn't hesitate to tell me that they didn't want me, but they couldn't get rid of me.
I was five. I could barely spell my fucking name, and I knew that no one in the world wanted me. That they'd prefer it if I fucking died in a car accident or got super sick and they could pull the plug.
[Loki was reminded, quite suddenly, of a heated conversation he'd had with his father four years ago. Maybe it was the weight of the chains that made the memory sting so acutely, but the words rang truer than he'd ever known, given context, finally, and demonstration, by this...truer friend than he'd ever known.
'You attempted to seize control of Earth for your own gain, and for what?' Odin had chided. 'It was my birthright' Loki's insolent reply. 'your birthright was to DIE' Odin had retorted angrily...and he'd been correct He was misformed by Jotun standards, a burden, a disgrace, and...Odin had saved him from that, had given him a home, a place to belong, however awkward it had been.
Tommy had no such reprieve. The empathy was uncomfortable, palpable, but for once, he didn't turn away from it. Instead, he looked up, determined, angry on his friend's behalf.]
And for that, I hope their deaths were slow and painful.
They are alive. Divorced. And happier now that I'm gone. I've looked. I've watched them. They're happier and better without me. They were fucking RIGHT. They're better without me. But long before that, they showed me how much they didn't want me. Frank hit me. Never in ways to get caught. But he hit me. 'Discipline' he called it. Mary? Didn't see the point to feeding me all that much. And it only got worse when my mutant gift manifested. Because effectively, I was getting starved. I had to steal to eat enough. Which meant trouble with the law a lot.
[He clenched his jaw in anger. It hasn't been often that Loki felt rage on another's behalf, and for a very long time. Now, it felt somehow impotent. These poor excuses for parents were beyond his punishment and they sorely deserved pain. He took a deep breath and leveled his gaze on Tommy again.]
I am truly sorry, Tommy. I'm...glad this place is better for you.
I blew my school up, when I was fifteen. It was a mistake. They were my legal guardians. They gave me a public defender, and my parents told him to make it go away. So they wouldn't be bothered. He made me plead out. You... saw that memory, right? They signed me over to that place. They never visited. They never cared. They let those people HAVE me.
Both. There was this kid, he... What mattered was that the explosive part of my gift? The molecular manipulation and all of that? It triggered then. In a chemistry lab. I barely got people out in time.
[And it was what it was. He's on his feet. He's pacing and shaking. Because this is the worst thing, this is beyond the worst thing. And Tommy is sharing it anyway. Just for him. Because it's fair.]
I was there so long. The place wanted a weapon. An assassin that could get in and get out. Leave a mess that will make people look for a chemical bomb, and not a person. I was supposed to stop being a person and be a tool. And the only reason I got out? Because Billy's boyfriend got kidnapped.
Yet you did get them out. [He nods, understanding this part at least: that this story was difficult in the telling. Tommy had never had support. Loki could give him that much.] Regardless of how you did get out. They did not have you. You are not a weapon.
The first person in this life that wanted me was some kid that looked like me from a perfect family. And we got told immediately by a Skrull leader that we were the children of the Scarlet Witch and The Vision. Vision, who kept records of teens with powers. Who would have seen Billy and me, and how were look the same. How our powers fit our family. And he didn't CARE. He didn't help me. He didn't get me out. He didn't give a fuck, and never did even after he learned everything, even after who we were was found.
And Billy. Fucking Billy. And his perfect family. The magic gave him that. And I got the Shepherds.
Billy, with his perfect family, cared about you. [That's what he'd heard.] I understand that's difficult to hear, and even harder to accept. [He raised a hand to still his protest.] I do. I realize it wasn't the same, but Asgard loved Thor, because he was the strongest, the most proficient, the most earnest and brave, because he was tall, broad of shoulder with a towering shadow and a confident swagger, and I hated him for it, but when I fell, father let go, and when I came home, father cursed me to the dungeons and forbade my mother to see me, but when I took a poisoned dagger from a dark elf, and when Thanos crushed my throat, it was Thor who wept for me. Billy would, too. He cared and he didn't have to. He owed you nothing.
[He blinks at the boy, shaking his head. He really has no idea how to handle this situation, except to react to how ludicrous that concept is, reality-warping powers be damned.]
Tommy. Do you honestly believe your brother invented your treatment by the Shepherds? Your experiences in prison? What are we if not the sum of our lives? Regardless of where you've come from, you are real. [He takes a steadying breath before adding the last because stating his feelings honestly has always been his shortcoming.] And you are my friend, and he is not a fiction.
Billy doesn't always think that far ahead. I think he needed something, and he made someone who could fill that need, who would have a reason to help him. And the universe filled it in, filled all the gaps without guidance.
[And that's a problem.]
Because why else do I have such a terrible life and his is perfect?
[The past is a thing. And Tommy's seems to keep coming for him here.]
I was loved once. Wanda and Vision wanted a kid so much. Kids. And she made us, from magic and fragments of the soul of the demon Mephisto. Two kids. We were loved. And then we died. And... and she went crazy, she hurt so much over the loss of us.
And no one ever loved me again. Not in this life. Which, fucking hell, started before that kid she loved was ever born.
[No one wanted him in this life until Billy, and then Billy...]
I'm not arguing your point, Tommy, but the past won't change the longer you dwell upon it or the longer you lament what you once had. Do you even remember your first life, or are you mourning something you were told? [He frowns. He knows how that is, too.] It's a fool's errand, that. We...have something here, I think, or does our friendship here mean nothing because of what you never had in your own world?
[He doesn't get it at all. Tommy is upset because he is 19 and the only people who seem to care about him back home are a twin that can't understand him, a team that abandoned him, and a guy he knew for two days. And all but the last had abandoned him, like everyone else. So he's angry and this place makes no sense and he hates how much he is jealous of Loki's life. And how he would trade it for Loki's in an instant.
This is the first time people have seemed to want him for him.]
Are we friends, Loki? Or am I a tool you're keeping for a rainy day?
People... everyone's always wanted to use me for my powers. Those people that my parents gave me to, Billy, his team, my grandfather. You're Loki. The guy with plans and stuff like that. Why are you a person that wants me for me when everyone else...?
[This place makes no sense.]
What is with this place? It's hell in form, but it's like it keeps holding out all these things I want. And it's going to blow up in my face. I just know it.
[Yes, he considers Loki a friend. And he doesn't like how good it makes him feel that Loki thinks of him as a friend.]
It's true. I do always have a plan, and I'm well aware of exactly how I might best apply the use of your powers, and anyone would be a fool to trust me at my word. [He smiles, though.] But...I deeply appreciate that you do.
[He laughs.]
Tommy. When I was a boy, I turned myself into a snake to trick my brother into toying with me and stabbed him. I sent an ancient weapon to kill him, and I nearly sold him into slavery. How in Heaven's name do you think I deserve a better friend...or one at all?
Name one thing you've done to hurt him since you got here. Name one thing you've done to hurt me. To hurt this place.
[He doesn't think you can, Loki, not really.]
I blew up part of a school. I stole food. I tried to murder the people who were holding me by blowing them up. I destroyed the facility where they kept me and threatened the lives of the people in charge to make sure it doesn't happen again, and then gave their data to people to make sure they didn't do it.
The thing that decides between good and evil is the choice we make.
[And that's the thing Tommy envies his brother. That Billy never had to make the choice. He always knew, instinctively, what he was.]
I want to watch the world burn. The people who hurt me suffer. My parents suffer. I'm a bad person, Loki. I just refuse to let that win. Even though I really want it to.
I disagree. [For a long time, he felt no guilt whatsoever over wanting Asgard to burn, over wanting to destroy Jotunheim with his bare hands, over wanting the humans of Earth to kneel and worship him, over wanting to force the people of Asgard to mourn him. He'd been hurt, lost.] You're a young man with fresh wounds barely healed. Bad people don't lament their desires. They act upon them. When the wounds are scars, you'll feel differently. Still, I think no less of you. Anyone who knows my reputation assumes I mean only to manipulate them and toss them aside once I'm through. For a long time, I sufficed to fulfill their expectations. I reveled in it, but...because of that, I missed everything. Don't do that, Tommy. Don't throw away everything for spite. It isn't worth it.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-02 08:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-02 08:47 pm (UTC)That... that wasn’t what I had. I had to come here to be wanted because I’m Tommy. Not because I’m someone’s soul-twin or a useful teammate or something. But for me.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-02 09:31 pm (UTC)He looked over to him apologetically and with sympathy, and nodded.]
Is that so bad, though? I can count my friends as precious few, and you among them.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-02 09:40 pm (UTC)[He's angry, that much is absolutely happening, and he's angry because i doesn't deserve to be angry and he knows it. Or so he's always thought. So he's always been told.]
Frank and Mary Shepherd had a good relationship, until me. I know this because they fucking told me to my damn face when I was five. My parents told me that I was a mistake and I was ruining everything. I was the problem with their relationship and happened because of a broken condom. After that, they didn't hesitate to tell me that they didn't want me, but they couldn't get rid of me.
I was five. I could barely spell my fucking name, and I knew that no one in the world wanted me. That they'd prefer it if I fucking died in a car accident or got super sick and they could pull the plug.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-02 09:52 pm (UTC)'You attempted to seize control of Earth for your own gain, and for what?' Odin had chided. 'It was my birthright' Loki's insolent reply. 'your birthright was to DIE' Odin had retorted angrily...and he'd been correct He was misformed by Jotun standards, a burden, a disgrace, and...Odin had saved him from that, had given him a home, a place to belong, however awkward it had been.
Tommy had no such reprieve. The empathy was uncomfortable, palpable, but for once, he didn't turn away from it. Instead, he looked up, determined, angry on his friend's behalf.]
And for that, I hope their deaths were slow and painful.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-02 10:18 pm (UTC)[Tommy laughs and shakes his head. If only.]
They are alive. Divorced. And happier now that I'm gone. I've looked. I've watched them. They're happier and better without me. They were fucking RIGHT. They're better without me. But long before that, they showed me how much they didn't want me. Frank hit me. Never in ways to get caught. But he hit me. 'Discipline' he called it. Mary? Didn't see the point to feeding me all that much. And it only got worse when my mutant gift manifested. Because effectively, I was getting starved. I had to steal to eat enough. Which meant trouble with the law a lot.
[And they didn't care about that either.]
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-02 10:31 pm (UTC)I am truly sorry, Tommy. I'm...glad this place is better for you.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-02 10:42 pm (UTC)I blew my school up, when I was fifteen. It was a mistake. They were my legal guardians. They gave me a public defender, and my parents told him to make it go away. So they wouldn't be bothered. He made me plead out. You... saw that memory, right? They signed me over to that place. They never visited. They never cared. They let those people HAVE me.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-02 10:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-02 11:05 pm (UTC)[And it was what it was. He's on his feet. He's pacing and shaking. Because this is the worst thing, this is beyond the worst thing. And Tommy is sharing it anyway. Just for him. Because it's fair.]
I was there so long. The place wanted a weapon. An assassin that could get in and get out. Leave a mess that will make people look for a chemical bomb, and not a person. I was supposed to stop being a person and be a tool. And the only reason I got out? Because Billy's boyfriend got kidnapped.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-02 11:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-02 11:22 pm (UTC)The first person in this life that wanted me was some kid that looked like me from a perfect family. And we got told immediately by a Skrull leader that we were the children of the Scarlet Witch and The Vision. Vision, who kept records of teens with powers. Who would have seen Billy and me, and how were look the same. How our powers fit our family. And he didn't CARE. He didn't help me. He didn't get me out. He didn't give a fuck, and never did even after he learned everything, even after who we were was found.
And Billy. Fucking Billy. And his perfect family. The magic gave him that. And I got the Shepherds.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-03 12:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-03 01:04 am (UTC)That brother of mine? Who is gonna be a god and make the world and all that shit? He shapes reality to his will. Loki...
[He puts a hand against the table top, and it hurts to say this, but he's been thinking it since Noh-Varr told him everything.]
What if I'm not even real?
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-03 02:35 am (UTC)Tommy. Do you honestly believe your brother invented your treatment by the Shepherds? Your experiences in prison? What are we if not the sum of our lives? Regardless of where you've come from, you are real. [He takes a steadying breath before adding the last because stating his feelings honestly has always been his shortcoming.] And you are my friend, and he is not a fiction.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-03 02:50 am (UTC)[And that's a problem.]
Because why else do I have such a terrible life and his is perfect?
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-03 02:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-03 03:05 am (UTC)I was loved once. Wanda and Vision wanted a kid so much. Kids. And she made us, from magic and fragments of the soul of the demon Mephisto. Two kids. We were loved. And then we died. And... and she went crazy, she hurt so much over the loss of us.
And no one ever loved me again. Not in this life. Which, fucking hell, started before that kid she loved was ever born.
[No one wanted him in this life until Billy, and then Billy...]
You had a family, Loki. At least you had that.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-03 03:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-03 03:48 am (UTC)This is the first time people have seemed to want him for him.]
Are we friends, Loki? Or am I a tool you're keeping for a rainy day?
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-03 03:52 am (UTC)Would you believe me if I said that yes, I do consider you a friend and that I have a grand total of two of those?
[The trouble with being so deceptive was no one believed you when you were telling the truth.]
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-03 03:55 am (UTC)[This place makes no sense.]
What is with this place? It's hell in form, but it's like it keeps holding out all these things I want. And it's going to blow up in my face. I just know it.
[Yes, he considers Loki a friend. And he doesn't like how good it makes him feel that Loki thinks of him as a friend.]
You deserve better friends than me.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-03 04:03 am (UTC)[He laughs.]
Tommy. When I was a boy, I turned myself into a snake to trick my brother into toying with me and stabbed him. I sent an ancient weapon to kill him, and I nearly sold him into slavery. How in Heaven's name do you think I deserve a better friend...or one at all?
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-03 04:06 am (UTC)[He doesn't think you can, Loki, not really.]
I blew up part of a school. I stole food. I tried to murder the people who were holding me by blowing them up. I destroyed the facility where they kept me and threatened the lives of the people in charge to make sure it doesn't happen again, and then gave their data to people to make sure they didn't do it.
The thing that decides between good and evil is the choice we make.
[And that's the thing Tommy envies his brother. That Billy never had to make the choice. He always knew, instinctively, what he was.]
I want to watch the world burn. The people who hurt me suffer. My parents suffer. I'm a bad person, Loki. I just refuse to let that win. Even though I really want it to.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-11-03 04:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
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