Working Title : Loki & Annie

68 Sticks and Stones

"There's a couple of reasons I'm not still mad at you." Annie flipped the lamp on next to her and blinked in the soft light. She wanted Thor to see her face and she wanted to see his reactions, it was important that there be as few misunderstandings as possible. In the light, she saw him look back at the Thor figure in his hands and decided to go ahead and ask, "Where did you find it?"

Following Annie's lead, Thor spoke quietly, "Outside. On the ground." His eyes moved up to look at her, "Loki dropped it." 

When she didn't say anything his eyes lowered back to the figure, giving it nervous little shakes. Annie agreed with Thor's conclusion but knew she didn't need her to say it out loud. She probably wouldn't ask Loki if he had dropped it intentionally, maybe just ask if he wanted it back. Or maybe not even that.

"Do you know why I was mad at you?" Annie watched as multiple expressions raced over Thor's face. She didn't know which one was accurate. The petulant child? The guilty boy or the defensive man. Probably all of them.

"I-" He stopped and appeared confused. "No, I truly don't. I know what Mike said to me, that you feel I hurt Loki's feelings. And that, perhaps, you disagree with my correcting of Loki's behavior."

Thinking about Thor's words Annie paused before replying. He was being honest and she had to respect that even if it left her working at how to explain what her issue was. She normally didn't have intense conversations that were this important, her life was intentionally kept simple. Which she found ironic at this very moment because she had the feeling her life would never be simple again.

Taking advantage of Annie's momentary hesitation Thor asserted, "Loki is my only Brother and I love him. I would never seek to hurt him."

Annie nodded, "I know that. I know you love him. If you didn't love him you would never have gone through all this effort to help him, to protect him. But," Here she tried to speak clearly without casting blame, "You did hurt him." She thought she had succeeded in being neutral-sounding.

Thor huffed out a quick breath, his disagreement obvious even as he said nothing. He wanted to say something to defend himself from Annie thinking he'd meant to hurt Loki's feelings but then realized it didn't matter if he meant to, Loki was so sensitive that any words criticizing him would have hurt him. They always did. Instead Thor just silently accepted the rebuke.

 She waited to see if he would actually speak but when he didn't she continued. "But then I also started to get mad at myself because I should have spoken up and said something right away."

Thor wondered why Annie would have felt the need to defend Loki from earned correction. The AllFather never hesitated to correct he or Loki when they had done something worthy of it. He gave voice to his lack of understanding, "Loki needed to be corrected, he is a representative of Asgard and a Prince of the House of Odin. To allow him his moods would not show favorably for either."

Taking a deep breath Annie let it out slowly while taking her time to reply. This was what she wanted to talk about. "Okay." She nodded slowly, "I see what you're saying. I do." Which was only a small lie. She didn't really understand what it meant to be a Prince of some house of someone. but she knew how Loki felt about it and she tried to remember and focus on that.

"Yet you disagree with me," Thor spoke factually, even he could see how Annie felt.

"Hell yes, I disagree." She pulled back her next words by biting her bottom lip before attempting her I'm-A-Calm-Adult voice, "What do you mean that he earned correction? What needed to be corrected?"

Thor was puzzled and it showed on both his face and in his voice, "His refusal to answer. To offer his thanks for a generous act done for him. He has the habit of dismissing a kindness done for him and I would not let that stand unchallenged. I could not."