Chapter Text
Three thoughts occurred to Loki simultaneously as Thor kissed him: first, who in all the nine realms would cast a love spell on Thor that would only activate when Loki approached? What possible benefit could that be for anyone? Second, the last time Loki had been held this close to Thor was after a dark elf had stabbed him, and Thor believed him to be dying. This was preferable insofar as he didn't have a stab wound. Third... was that tongue?
Loki brought a hand to the side of Thor's face and with a hurried spell sent him back to sleep. Thor didn't even try to fight it, slumping forward, sending his body toppling to the floor with a heavy thud. Silence hung heavy in the sick chamber.
"Well," Stark finally broke the silence from where he and the Avengers stood bunched up in the doorway. "Want to walk us through what the hell just happened?"
Loki had no such desire. Instead, he nudged the unconscious Thor with a foot so he lay on his back and Loki could confirm that the enchantment remained, the golden strands encircling his arms and his throat as though Thor was a once more a child adorning himself with Frigga's armbands and necklaces.
"Perhaps it would be best to simply keep Thor like this. If you get a nice glass coffin, he would make a fetching addition to your decor," Loki said. Stark loved big, shiny, tacky things after all.
"But he woke up. Doesn't that mean you broke the spell?" Stark asked.
"That wasn't the spell," Loki paused, not only for dramatic effect, but to consider how much he wanted to tell the Avengers. Certainly, he wasn't going to tell them it was a love spell that put Thor completely in Loki's power because they would reasonably come to the conclusion that no one other than Loki would be the obvious beneficent of such an arrangement. Loki knew himself to be innocent of any involvement and even he was at a loss trying to think of another candidate.
"Thor has been ensorcelled to trust and be affectionate towards anyone he happens to see. My professional opinion is some second-rate mage put Thor sleep to cast a spell that put him under the control of whoever he first saw upon waking up, but I think the magician overestimated his ability, and now Thor is simply smitten with whoever he happens to see," Loki lied, hating the convolution of it, but he didn't have better material on hand. It was as though Thor had infected him with his dull wits through the kiss.
Stark muttered something resentful about the very existence of magic, and looked very tired.
"Is Thor going to kiss all of us then?" the archer asked who seemed more curious than perturbed about the situation.
"It's certainly possible," Loki said. It was, in fact, more than probable once Loki had a private moment with Thor and could order him to fawn over the Avengers to cover up the truth that Thor was only bound in his unnatural passion to Loki and no one else. Or, Loki thought, he could simply slip out the door and say that none of this was really his problem. After all, what bound him here?
A hand wrapped itself around his calf, and Loki looked down to see Thor looking up at him dreamily, as if he were some celestial body. "Loki, you're really here," Thor announced. Loki tried to shake his leg to dislodge the lovesick god, but Thor clung on like Fenrir with the limb of a double-crosser.
He considered sending Thor back to sleep until he had better control of the situation, but the Avengers apparently felt the magical threat to be over and crowded into the room, though they stayed outside kissing distance. "Do you remember the last thing that happened before you were sent to sleep? Did you see anyone?" Rogers asked.
Thor's brow lowered in concentration, "I saw Loki." Now all eyes shifted to Loki. "He came into my bedchamber and asked me to follow him to the roof; so I did. When we got to the roof, I tried to turn him around to ask him what was so urgent, but then my hand passed through. After that, all I remember is a soft golden light and then Loki again, but he's not an illusion this time," Thor concluded his paltry tale with a lovelorn sigh and wrapped a second arm around Loki's leg.
"Well, clearly someone used my likeness to trick Thor," Loki said, baldly, not in the habit of professing his own innocence in cases where he was actually entirely innocent. "If I had wanted to kidnap Thor or hurt him or warp his mind against you, I wouldn't have agreed to come now and wake him up." The Avengers didn't seem particularly swayed by this argumentation. "If you give me a little time, I should be able to break the enchantment myself," Loki found himself pledging.
An alarm began to wail and every Avenger in the room, including Thor who sat up at the sound, turned their attention from Loki to Stark. He had already pulled up a screen and read from it in apparent disbelief, "There's four large bulls loose in the MET."
"That's weird, but that's not exactly an Avenger problem, is it?" the assassin said, crossing her arms.
"They are when they're nine feet tall," Stark sighed. "And Pepper's also a big donor so she's already sent me a message that we have to deal with this before there's any serious damage."
"Of course, the Avengers shall answer the call!" Thor replied eagerly, and even released Loki's leg as he clamored to his feet.
Loki was too sunk into his own thoughts to appreciate his new freedom. Cows? What wielder of magic did Loki know who had anything to do with cows? It seemed too much of a coincidence that such a strange attack would happen so soon after Thor awakened, but he strained to think of a connection.
"Hey now, big guy, you just woke up. Maybe you stay here and we'll come back, run some tests, and get you cleared for duty—"
"I am always ready to fulfill my duty." Thor eagerly turned now again to Loki. "Loki, you shall accompany us, will you not? With you by our side, we might conquer any foe!" Much like unfounded suspicion, Loki didn't know how to parry exorbitant praise. The Avengers were also mute in dismay, but Thor merely took the silence as agreement. "Let us go to the field of battle together!" he whooped, wrapping one arm about Loki's waist and his other hand had already summoned Mjolnir. He was out the window and into the air before Loki could object that he would much prefer to travel by jet.
The Avengers ignored Loki's presence as they huddled in the museum's atrium and strategized, as they did their best to ignore the sound of distant crashes. Loki craned his neck for a better view of the video footage of the creatures they were there to corral.
It wasn't just their large size that set them apart from other Migardian bovines: The long legs, the curvature of the spine, even the shape of its face out of which grew two large horns, white and curved, all of this marked these creatures out as something ancient, something that had passed out of this world before the grandfathers of any Avenger had been born. In a way, they did belong here among the treasures of the past. Of course, the Avengers were entirely ignorant of this and saw only the great inconvenience that these beasts presented.
"...Falcon, you will go and get the two bulls in the American wing's attention and see if they will follow—"
Rogers paused in his directions and Stark gave an annoyed, "What?"
"You've been referring to them as bulls, but these are actually oxen."
Stark's face-plate was up as they had been reviewing the footage and maps so his eye-roll could plainly be seen. "And what difference does that make?"
"You might want to ask an adult the importance of the distinction," Loki said, primarily to see the disdain on Stark's features. Rogers was less easy to bait and continued to lay out his plan of attack for each member.
There was a significant difference between these cows being bulls or oxen because it meant Loki knew who their owner was and most likely who was responsible for Thor's love curse. A curse very much still in effect as Thor would look away from his teammates maps and video footage to stare longingly at Loki.
A shattering crash momentarily captured everyone's attention as they glanced over at the wing where it emanated from, allowing Loki to slink away in the opposite direction without detection. He had glanced over the maps enough now to have an idea of where he thought the oxen's owner was mostly like to be.
He ignored the white statuary of the gallery bent in sinuous shapes, moving towards where the smaller and far easier to steal artifacts were kept in glass display cases. The Enchantress didn't seem surprised by his appearance and continued to lift the golden arm bands. From her ears already hung earrings depicting a boy and an eagle in dazzling minute detail. Loki couldn't argue that gold didn't suit her.
"Aren't they just perfect?" she said, gesturing with the treasure in her hand. "It's a crime to lock these things away and never allow them to serve the purpose they were created for. Don't you agree, Loki?" she asked with a conspiratorial smile, and held out the armbands to him. "Would you mind terribly helping?"
He took the offered golden armbands, shaped like serpentine coils, each capped with a figure, one masculine, the other feminine, each holding a small winged child. He slid the first up her right arm and the other up her left. She smiled widely and inspected the effect in the closest reflective surface. "They're gorgeous," she declared.
“What game are you playing, Gefjon?" Loki asked, mostly simply curious. If all she wanted were human treasures, there were simpler ways than enchanting Thor and releasing her oxen.
"Gefjon," she stopped admiring her reflection to shudder in disgust. "Where have you been for the last thousand years? That name is so old and obscure: I go by Amora now. And I don't know what you mean by game, Loki. I'm not like you, always plotting. I've had my eyes on these for a while now"—she gestured at the armbands—"and thought I might let my darlings have a little enrichment at the same time."
Then why lure Thor out with my shape and cast a love curse on him?" Loki asked.
"Love curse?" Amora asked. "That's a contradiction of terms. Love is a beautiful thing, and what possible reason could I have for doing anything? Thor is your obsession, not mine."
They hadn't been friends exactly when they'd been young and she had been a student of much promise come to study under Frigga, but they had respected each other's talent. That is until, as it always happened, she had caught sight of Thor. That had ended any camaraderie between them.
"I seem to remember a time when Thor turned you down, and you were so upset about it, you made him fall in love with one of his goats," Loki said.
Amora laughed, bright and sparkling. "Perhaps I have been feeling nostalgic. It has been such a long time and both of you are far too busy nowadays with all your official Asgardian duties for old friends. But what is it I've been hearing as of late? Loki, god of mischief, god of chaos, living out his days playing Frigga's messenger boy?"
"Given your exile, we haven't had a chance to see much of you. Didn't that poor girl do away with herself after you were paid to make her lover fall in love with someone else?"
Amora inspected her armbands once again, but now with less pleasure on her face. "How am I to be held responsible for what some unwell little brat decides to do? Am I to never use my art simply because others cannot control themselves?" she snarled, but she must have heard her own wounded tone and her eyes flashed back to Loki. "It was far less of a crime than the betrayal of my kinsmen and an unauthorized invasion of another planet, but I guess this is the difference between one in favor with the royal family and those who are not."
Loki wasn't going to argue with her about fairness, and instead pressed his advantage. "Don't you think it's a little sad to be still caught up on Thor centuries after he turned you down?"
"Be very careful here, master of lies, or else you might just expose yourself. I have not been the one running around the realms making it so Thor has no choice but to constantly chase after me. You should be thanking me. I've given you what you've always wanted: a Thor that loves you without condition and who will not disobey your will."
"And if I should check the teeth of this great boon?"
"Merely consider that fervent desire only persists as it remains unconsummated," Amora said.
Loki opened his mouth, but whatever he was going to say was lost as a great crash came from behind. He turned in time to see Ironman thrown through a wall into one of the gallery's large pillars. This appearance was followed by the bellowing of an ox as it also came though the wall with Thor astride it, trying to wrestle the creature down. Thor caught sight of Loki watching and waved, which led to him getting bucked off immediately and also thrown into a pillar.
Unimpressed, Loki turned back to Amora, only to see that she was gone. He looked around, but already knew that she had completely vanished, treasures in tow. It was an enjoyable enough trick to pull off, but an annoying one to be on the other side of.
Thor rose to his feet, Mjolnir in hand, but the ox, perhaps sensing his mistress was gone, stopped its attack and merely wandered listlessly about the gallery as if in confusion. Other members of the Avenger rushed in, and the fight was over. The ox did not resist as they restrained it. The Avengers looked at each other more baffled than satisfied by their sudden victory.
Loki watched this anticlimax and remembered that there are many stories told of just how Gefjon had found her oxen. There was one story that they were her sons by a frost giant and she had been so embarrassed by the products of such a liaison that she had turned them into cows. Personally, Loki thought this was just an ugly rumor as so often followed in the wake of beautiful women.
Another story he'd heard was Gefjon had been pursued by four mortal suitors who would not give up no matter how many times she rejected them. At last, she offered that they might forever be by her side if they agreed to be turned into oxen, and to her surprise they had accepted the deal. Loki hadn't put much weight in this tale either but he couldn't deny there was something that sounded lovelorn in the beast's bellows as it must have realized that it had been left behind.