Monstrous (Avengers Fanfic)

Chapter 7

Now, most of the Avengers had seen some pretty bizarre things in their time, but even they had to admit that looking at Lila's grey skin, proof that she was slowly and painful turning to stone, was one of the most shocking and stomach wrenching things they had seen in a while. What shocked them even more though, was Loki's reaction to the sight before him.

-- Back in the cell --

Loki stared at Lila, frozen and stunned into silence. Lila lowered her shirt and waited for any kind of response. She waited for him to blow up at her, to scream and shout....but he didn't. She gently touched his arm, concerned. "Loki, are you alright?"

It was like something inside him broke. His very first true friend was dying, and Loki could not handle it. Tears started to well in his eyes and his breathing turned ragged. When he couldn't even out his breaths, Lila knew. He was having a panic attack. He was choking, not able to draw enough air into his lungs, as his eyes turned wild, tears now streaking his cheeks. Lila had to calm him, and quick, before he passed out. Loki had curled in on himself when he started to have a panic attack, so Lila gently took his head in her hands and laid it in her lap. Running her fingers through his long raven hair, she started to sing.

"Come stop your crying
It will be alright
Just take my hand
Hold it tight

I will protect you
From all around you
I will be here
Don't you cry

For one so sad,
You seem so strong
My arms will hold you,
Keep you safe and warm
This bond between us
Can't be broken
I will be here
Don't you cry

'Cause you'll be in my heart
Yes, you'll be in my heart
From this day on
Now and forever more

You'll be in my heart
No matter what they say
You'll be here in my heart, always"

Lila's singing was high and soft, like the twinkle of a silver bell in the gentle evening breeze, and calming like the most beautiful sunset. While Lila sang, Loki's breathing slowly returned to normal.

"Thank you." Was he could bring himself to say to her. She smiled down at him, affection shining through her eyes. "You know, you're my first friend too." Someone like Lila, with what she had been through, Loki had assumed someone like that would be bitter and cold, her heart closed forever, to save herself the pain the she had once felt before.

After all, it was what Loki had done.

-- Time Skip --   --In the Viewing Room--

"Loki, have you had panic attacks before?" The Avengers and Thor especially were shocked when Loki nodded sadly. They watched in awed silence as this strange girl coaxed and calmed a rather emotional Loki into explaining; opening up to her, an almost kindred spirit.

-- In the glass cell --

He didn't know where to begin. It was like Lila could read his heart. "Start at the beginning." She said gently. Loki nodded his head. If this girl that he had known for no more than a few days could open up to him, then surely he could do the same. Though it gave him no comfort to know that the Avengers would probably be watching, Lila's presence nearly made him forget.

"When I was a child, my brother-" He paused, then corrected himself, "Thor and I were told stories. Tales of horrible creatures called Frost Giants. Odin told us that they were evil beings to be feared, and despised. He spoke of a war between the Asgardians and the Frost Giants, a fierce battle for power, fought on their home world, Jotunheim, a cold and desolate icy expanse.  Of how these evil creatures killed thousands of our people, with no mercy or care for peace. How, in the end, Odin defeated them and those that remained cowered back into the dark crevices from whence they came, vowing that he would rue the day he ever set foot on Jotunheim."

"Thor took to the stories like a true son of Odin, cheering his father on and swearing that when he was king, he would wipe every vile Frost Giant out of existence. I however, did not take to Odin's bedtime stories so lightly. When I slept, images flashed in my mind, innocent people being run through by a Jotun ice sword, blue and red blood splattered across an icy battlefield. I would wake up sweating and shaking, not able to breath. They scared me so much-" Loki had to stop, he was working himself up, becoming anxious.

Lila rubbed his back in a rhythmic manner, slowly and comfortingly, nodding for him to continue when he wanted to. He appreciated the gesture more than he was able to express.

"No-one ever knew and I was never going to tell anyone. Many years later, on the day that Thor was going to accept his place as king, some Frost Giants broke the already thinly abided by treaty and entered the palace, disrupting the ceremony, which, consequently never took place."

(A/N We're going to pretend that Loki wasn't the one who let the Frost Giants in, they got in some other way.)

"But Thor would not take such an insult lying down. He planned to storm Jotunheim, seeking recompense for the actions of a few. He was young and reckless, none of his friends nor I could talk him out of it. However, we would not let him go alone either. Volstagg found out the hard way that when a Frost Giant touches non-Jotun skin, you get rather bad frost bite. I was not a warrior like Thor and his friends, but I had one thing that they did not have, magic."

"I used my powers of illusion to send charging enemies over the edges of cliffs, but alas, I could not stave them off forever. One of them took a chance and grabbed my arm, picking the real me out of my phantom copies. But... their touch did not burn me. Instead, my arm turned blue, which quickly faded when the Frost Giant stopped touching me. "

He looked down in shame, clutching his right forearm to his chest.

"When I confronted Odin, he had no choice but to tell me the truth. He found me during the battle he spoke of when we were children. I was but a child cast out onto an icy rock and left to die because I was different. I was a runt, to small and pitiful to be a Frost Giant let alone the son of the great Ice king Laufey. Odin picked me up and took me home, in the hopes that one day, he could use me as an instrument to bring about peace. The child of two worlds, a monster and an outcast in both, it seemed. I was the very monster that parents tell their children about at night, the evil creature the scared me so much as a child. The flashes, the images I saw in my head, it turned out they were memories, not nightmares after all. "

Throughout the end of Loki's explanation, he had been slowly changing. The blue spread and grew like a disease, an indented pattern in his skin gradually becoming visible, forming what looked to be raised tattoo like markings.

Loki looked up at Lila, gazing deeply into her violet eyes with his own, deep, bloody red.

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If anyone wants to know, the song is called You'll be in my Heart by Phil Collins.

Goodbye and farewell from The Doctor's Companion