Continuing Tales

Overlapping Spaces

A Marvel Movieverse Story
by Khilari

Part 15 of 37

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Overlapping Spacesl

It was the snippet of previously unrecalled memory that stuck with Loki most from that afternoon. He fell asleep thinking about it — which meant that the various dreams about it were probably a result of that and not of him recovering more of his memories. Especially the one where he was attacked on the Bifrost by a bilgesnipe.

Perhaps it was because Thor was gone from Asgard, and entertaining the notion that Thor had not tried to kill him no longer meant having to decide whether that obligated him to see Thor, that he was considering it so much more than he had. Perhaps it was that his thoughts were less jumbled now than they had been. But either way Loki wanted to recall the truth and, when Holda could offer him nothing except opportunities to talk about it, he resorted to finding every book in the library even touching on false memories and making a pile on his usual table. Most of them, unfortunately, involved magic and the usual anti-mind-magic counterspells had been cast on him already as a matter of course.

Which was why, by the time Jane arrived, he had a large pile of discarded books, a very small pile of possibly useful books, a quite large pile of still unread books, and a number of dubious looking handlers.

Jane made a small show of standing on tiptoe to peer over the unread ones at him. 'Building a fort in here?'

'Looking for information on false memories,' he answered, too frustrated to joke with her, and tossed another one onto the discard pile. 'Ones not induced by magic.'

'Oh.' She sat down across from him, going serious again, and propped her head on one hand. 'Not going well?'

'Not very. Nearly all the information is on magical ones.' He gestured towards the large pile. 'Other possibilities...non-magical hypnosis, head trauma, compensation for amnesia. Which aren't impossible. Except the amnesia, I think.' If he couldn't remember something amnesia was tautologically relevant, but he didn't think he had any kind of general amnesia.

'I'm still a little worried about head trauma as a cure for mind control,' Jane observed, then shook herself a little and reached for the top book on his unread stack. He glanced up at the motion and noticed there were shadows under her eyes. 'Can I help?'

'I'd appreciate it. Just put any that involve magic on the very big discard pile,' he answered. Then, a little concerned about her, asked, 'Did you not sleep well?'

She pulled the book off and settled down with it, switching it to English. 'Not very. I had weird dreams... about Malekith, and Erik. I kept waking up feeling like I'd swallowed a rock.'

'I dreamed about the Bifrost. It was less frightening than it should have been, mostly because it was ridiculous.' Loki checked another book. Ale of forgetfulness - magic again. Wait, mead of memory? Ah, you were meant to drink that while doing whatever you wanted to remember. 'Malekith and Dr Selvig seems like an odd combination.'

'Ah, not at the same time.' She paused to add her book to the discard pile. 'I don't think. That would be weird. I mostly remember Malekith was just... there, and the rest of the time I was dreading talking to Erik about you.' As if she hadn't said anything at all odd, she added, 'What was ridiculous about your dreams?'

'The usual things that are ridiculous about dreams. Creatures showing up for no reason.' He put another book on the discard pile and frowned at her. 'I know you disapprove of what I did to Dr Selvig, but would talking to him about me really be that bad? And if it would can't you just not talk to him about me? You've seen plenty of other things in Asgard he wouldn't object to.'

Jane glanced up at him with narrowed eyes. 'So, what, you recommend I just don't tell him the part he might not be happy about?'

Loki looked at her, a finger in the book he'd been checking, surprised that she seemed angry about the suggestion. 'I thought you were worried about upsetting him,' he said. 'In which case, yes, that seems like quite reasonable advice.'

'You don't seem to have appreciated it much,' she said pointedly.

Loki nearly dropped the book he was holding. 'That's entirely different!' How could she even compare hiding something about who he was to simply not mentioning an acquaintance to someone who might disapprove? He wasn't suggesting she leave Dr Selvig unaware of his own identity. 'It's not his concern in the first place, who you spend time with.'

Jane scowled at her book and then put it aside and pulled down another. 'He doesn't dictate it, no, obviously, but it's not like he doesn't care. And he's... a really good friend.'

'Then make up your mind whether you'd rather upset him or lie to him,' snapped Loki. 'Assuming he will be upset. He seemed quite happy to be able to study the tesseract. And sometimes more attuned to its will than I was.' The tesseract was still a strange point in his thoughts. If Thanos was too terrible to dwell on, the tesseract was too wonderful, and he didn't think the awe he felt towards it was a product of madness.

Jane eyed him. 'You are sounding... troublingly non-metaphorical there.'

'I was being entirely non-metaphorical.' At least that sounded more like the sort of slightly concerned comment he usually got from Jane. Loki finally checked his book, found nothing and threw it somewhat violently at the top of the reject pile. 'I thought your friend would have told you.'

Jane sighed and turned to the middle of her book, eyebrows drawing together. 'Kind of. He called it "she" and was... really pretty confusing on the subject.'

'It's a confusing subject.' Whatever sort of being the tesseract was, it did not communicate in the same way as other beings. But it was a being - it felt like a being, the spark of magic in it more like a person than a magical object, if not like any he'd ever seen elsewhere.

'If it has a will, what did it want?' Jane asked a little warily. 'Does it like the Chitauri? Want to travel?'

'It wanted...' Loki's voice trailed off as he remembered galaxies that were no part of space, things even Heimdall had never seen. 'To be used,' he said, after too long a pause. 'To be looked into, to be opened. You'd like it, Jane. The device Thor brought stops its voice, but it would show you everything.'

She looked tempted for a moment, maybe, but then shivered. 'He did say it was fascinating. Mysteries of the universe and everything. From the way you're talking... I'm surprised he managed to build the shutoff.'

'It shouldn't have been possible for numerous reasons.' Loki wasn't entirely sorry Dr Selvig had managed it, though. Even as he feared the Chitauri's vengeance he was somewhat grateful not to be trying to rule a planet while not in control of his own thoughts. He blinked, then remembered what he had been doing before he started talking about the tesseract and picked up another book.

'Maybe I'll tell him you're impressed.' She shook her head and gave up on another book herself. 'This one is not only magical, it seems to be about a very extreme form of method acting.'

'Useful for spies, I expect,' Loki commented. 'And you can, if that is something he would want to hear.' Telling her that he'd rather liked Dr Selvig himself might not go over well.

'He might not mind that part.' She discarded two books apparently based entirely on the table of contents, then started paging through the next before asking, 'Did he try to get you to take better care of yourself? In between the mysteries of the universe?'

'Yes.' He had made attempts at convincing Loki that short of time as they were, eating and sleeping were not unnecessary delays. Even though he'd been caught up in the tesseract himself. 'He did.' Loki frowned at the book he was holding. Not magical, but it wasn't going to do him much good when he didn't understand most of the terms used. He put it on the 'to read' pile anyway, and made a mental note to get a dictionary.

'When I was working on my dissertation he used to send me emails about it. "Vitamins are important, Jane." "Get some sleep, Jane, your project is screwball enough without dream sequences." "You're stressing too much again, Jane, you'll still make the deadline if you take the night off and get drunk."' She mimicked the cadence well enough Loki could imagine Dr Selvig's voice and accent, and for all the gruffness of the words she sounded decidedly fond.

'I don't think he would have considered it a good idea to advise me to get drunk,' he said, unable to help smiling. 'He made some of Clint's hires go and get pizza - which is a bizarre foodstuff - and told me that they still needed to eat, even if I didn't think I did. And that I was wrong about that, anyway.'

Jane was smiling by that point, too, though it looked a little unwilling. 'I think he had a point. What's so bizarre about pizza?'

'Mostly I know what is in something I've eaten after I've eaten it, if not before.' Not that the pizza had been bad. But it had certainly seemed strange to him at the time.

'So he did actually get you to eat.' Jane started laughing outright at that point, but still trying to keep it quiet, if not actually restrained. 'I always thought pizza was pretty open about what was on it, but I guess if you're not familiar with the toppings...'

'Yes. He did convince me to eat,' Loki said, his own mouth twitching less out of amusement than because her laughter was contagious. 'Perhaps having practised on you stood him in good stead. And I could recognise the toppings, meat and cheese are simple enough, but I have no idea what the red ooze was.'

Jane blinked. 'Oh, you don't have tomatoes here, do you? They're a kind of vegetable - the sauce was probably pretty heavily seasoned, they're different by themselves but I think you'd recognise the flavour.'

'Ah. So that's what I ate.' Loki discarded another book, this one apparently about sharing memories through dreams. The pile to be looked through was getting noticeably smaller.

'Probably.' Jane flipped through another and glanced up. 'Do you want to keep one about hallucinations?'

'If it's not magical, then yes.' He wasn't sure how much relevance it would have to the memory issue, but since he'd actually hallucinated during some episodes where he lost control it might be useful anyway.

'Doesn't seem to be.' She set it on the to-read stack. 'What exactly are you hoping to find?'

'An explanation. If I can understand why it might have happened, maybe it can be reversed. Or I can understand which parts are likely to be true.' Probably it couldn't be reversed. Magic could be undone with a counterspell, or, in the rather baffling case of the sceptre, by hitting people. Brain damage (which he really didn't want to think was the cause) couldn't be undone at all. He had no idea about non-magical hypnosis. 'At the very least, I'd settle for knowing circumstances make it plausible. Or implausible. For having a decent reason for deciding what I believe.'

Out of the corner of his eye, Loki thought he saw one of his handlers relax slightly. 'That makes sense,' Jane said. 'I admit, I'm going partly on the fact that Thor hasn't been through nearly as many things that could compromise his memory, and he seems like he'd be a terrible actor.'

'That...is a good point. Thor really is a terrible actor.' Odin could probably compromise Thor's memory, Loki thought, looking at the large pile of magical memory altering techniques they'd discarded. But was that really likely? He could imagine it. Odin deciding the only way to cover Thor's crime was to make him forget it. He rubbed at his forehead. Unless he could completely rule out his own memory being suspect it was far from the simplest solution.

Jane followed the look and asked, 'Do magical false memories really come up a lot?'

'Not really. Not least because they're vulnerable to counterspells, which would be cast on anyone acting suspiciously. Thor...has not been acting suspiciously, that I'm aware of, and wouldn't if he were in the grip of a false memory.' He hesitated and then let out a breath softly. 'I don't actually think it's likely. More and more I'm suspecting that my memory is wrong, because if Thor would have killed me on the Bifrost then he's had similar opportunities and motivations since.'

'Logical,' said Jane absently. 'You certainly provoked him enough.'

Considering Loki had stabbed him that might be an understatement. Loki picked up the last book and flipped through it, before slamming it onto the discard pile and looking at the half a dozen books that might contain actually relevant information. Thor was not usually hard to provoke. Insult or injury, he believed in fighting back against those who delivered them. Except, apparently, when it was Loki, because if he did discount the fight on the Bifrost then Thor had never tried to do more than stop him. 'I would have thought so.'

'Were you trying to?'

'I was rather confused by his behaviour. At least an honest attack would have made sense.' And an equal enemy would have been a better role than a wayward little brother. But, for all he'd opened up to Jane during the meteor shower, he didn't want to say that now.

'He loves you.' It came out rather flatly.

Loki turned away from her, walking towards the shelf where he could find a dictionary. 'I love him too and look where that's got us,' he muttered, not sure whether he was out of earshot.

He hadn't been. She was still looking toward him when he turned back, and her expression was softer. 'It is a mess. But at least that's a good thing to go back to.'

After a thousand years of loving Thor, being dragged places by Thor, watching Thor's back, having Thor watch his back, being overshadowed and overwhelmed and teased and adored by Thor...he wasn't sure whether he wanted to go back to that. Or whether he could possibly choose to leave it behind. He settled into his chair and opened a book that it seemed reasonably possible to make sense of. 'I'll see how things stand when he gets back.'

Overlapping Spaces

A Marvel Movieverse Story
by Khilari

Part 15 of 37

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