Cursed [Loki fanfiction]

3. Problems

After smelling all the Avengers, that is apparently what they called themselves, Crypt curled up on the main sofa and whined. The rest of the Avengers ignored her but Loki sat on a chair across the room facing the sofa and Natasha sat next to her.

Crypt was mourning her dead pack brother Vas. He had somehow crept his way into her heart and had become her brother. Now he was dead, at the hands of a flash flood, he had taken something with him into the afterlife and the hole oozed and wept, a constant remined of what had happened. 

A weight rested on her side and Crypt jumped up and grabbed the thing in her jaws, biting down. It was Natasha's hand. Immediately she left it go and licked it in a way of an apology. Crypt hadn't spoke in centuries and if she did now, they not wait for her to transform into a Scinlæce before doing whatever they would do to her.

It had been a rough sleep for Natasha that night. Snow puzzled her so much that she couldn't sleep. At six o'clock in the morning Nat had had enough pacing in her room and opted to make breakfast for the team. It was her turn anyway.

The pancake batter was thick and it poured into the pan just right. She made enough for the whole team, even Thor's appetite and Snow. Could foxes eat pancakes? Or even any human food?

Crypt woke to the smell of batter cooking and stretched her legs. The bed was firm and like soil that was always cool beneath her paws. The gaping hole in her hearth yawned as she did and reminded her of its presence.

Her eyelids drooped and the temptation for Crypt to just curl back up to sleep and to continue to sleep forever was enormous, but hunger was bigger. She plodded her paws heavily on the hard white floor and entered the common room. It had an open kitchen where Natasha was plating up pancakes. The last time Crypt had had pancakes was when she stole some for a bakery twenty years ago and these ones made her mouth water.

Crypt hopped onto the counter and opened a cupboard with her snout before taking a bowl in her teeth and jumping back down. Natasha hadn't seen what she had just done, but Loki did. How did this look? Was she just a really really smart fox or was he starting to guess? In her anxiety Crypt's heckles raised and Loki almost flinched.

She calmed down and hopped onto the white marble island and placed the bowl in front of Nat. She looked almost shocked that Snow had a bowl but she didn't question it further as she was too tired but Natasha did put it into the bank for later analysis.

Natasha put two thick fluffy pancakes into Crypt's bowl and she picked it up and went to eat it on the sofa. They were as delicious as they smelt but the emptiness had begun to gnaw at her soul again.

This was how it was for the next few days. Everyone was starting to see the change in the perky fox that had come to the tower, to the sad miserable lonely fox that never moved from the same spot in the sofa. Crypt wasn't eating or drinking and her ribs had started to show. Even Tony Stark was getting concerned.

Natasha tried to coax a response from Snow with food and strokes but she stayed lifeless except from the rise and fall of her chest. Her eyes remained shut. The whole team tried to get a response and the most received was a nuzzle of Tony's hand when he petted her. 

Loki had watched this silent chaos unfold, he recognised Snow's symptoms almost as his own when he lost his identity and found the truth about what he was. A frost giant. Was she mourning something, or someone?

Natasha and Thor were starting to become distressed, they knew that Fury would blow if they lost Snow and as much fun as it would be to see Fury live up to his name, Loki did not think that the aftermath would be favourable.

He got up from his chair and moved towards her. Closer up, her fur was matted since she had not been washing it and her ribs where painful to look at. Loki sat to the right of Snow so he was closer to her head. He began to stroke her and her nose twitched, a sign.

Did he know what was happening to her or was he just trying to get her to live like the rest of them. Crypt opened one blue eye and looked up at Loki. He did know, he had experience this, the expression of sympathy and pity on his face made it quite clear.

"I found out that I had been lied to my whole life, that I am not an Asgardian." he leant in and whispered, "I am a Frost Giant". Loki said is like it was a cursed word, Crypt remembered learning about the Frost Giants when she lived on her homeland with the rest of the Scinlæce, he looked nothing like one.

Crypt opened both eyes and Loki looked over at the others to notify them. Hawkeye pointed towards her on the sofa just as she got up and settled down on Loki's lap. Loki was stuck as a seat for her. The others came round and asked him how he did it. He said that he knew what she was experiencing, grief. He continued to say that he thinks that she has lost someone close to her.

Even Iron man ended up feeling for the fox as they had all lost someone they loved.