The Multiversal Road-Trip: Book Five

11

Scott had absolutely no idea why the hell he was bringing this up now. It wasn't the right time, and both he and Loki knew it. Stephen wasn't even speaking. Then he replied, for some bizarre reason, "Indeedy. Therapy, bro, just me and you."

Crap. He'd just accidentally called Loki bro.

With the serious tension in the room, this didn't seem like a particularly smart idea.

Predictably, Loki's face darkened and he said, serious as hell, "Do not call me bro."

Scott raised his hands in surrender. "Sorry. Please accept my sincerest apologies."

"It's no problem," Loki said, then he smirked and added, "bro."

Oh good, so he was just joking. He wasn't going to get stabbed for that. "I'll have to admit, I've never been to therapy, so I'm not sure how these things work."

"Oh, it's pretty simple. You just talk about your life with a therapist. Every therapist does it different," Loki shrugged, and Scott blinked.

"You've been to therapy?" Scott asked, then wondered afterwards if it was an insensitive question. But hey, maybe if they did this now, Stephen might even join in. Or at least turn to face them.

And luckily for him, Loki wasn't a very sensitive person. "Yep, and it never helped." He adjusted his position in his chair so he was facing towards him better. "So, Lang, tell me all your secrets."

Gosh, what on earth did he say? What didn't Loki and Stephen already know about him? They already knew he was an overly-optimistic Christmas-obsessed weirdo who could talk to ants. What else was there to it? "Let's see..."

Scott frowned, sinking back into the cushions. There had to be something.

Wait... there was one big thing he'd never really told them. A kinda important detail as well.

His crime life.

"I haven't always been the total angel you're convinced I am," he started off. "I've actually spent a lot of my life in prison. Either under house arrest or actually physically in prison. I'd be in a bad place, so I'd commit a crime to earn some money, to just try and pay child support so I could see Cassie. But Maggie would always find out and forbid me from seeing her until I got a job. I'd get a job, be fired, and then I'd be back to square one again. It happened over and over and over again, and it never changed until I became Ant-Man and saved her life, then Paxton and Maggie allowed me to see Cassie again. That's the reason I'm trying so much harder now to be in her life, because I've missed so much of it because of it."

It weirdly felt good to get that off his chest, actually.

Loki just nodded, slowly, not saying anything for a while. "I guess you can probably see where Wanda's coming from then, huh? Doing anything to help your kids?"

Scott hesitated before nodding too. "Yeah, I guess. If I lost Cassie and I thought there was a way to get her back, I'd do it. No question about it. The difference is she's clearly not in control of herself at the moment. But then... I guess I wasn't in complete control of my emotions back when either."

They fell into a silence, until Loki spoke again. "Wow, this is deep."

Despite the serious tension and his serious manner of speaking, Scott couldn't help the laugh that escaped. "Yeah, and we've only just started. Now," he said, adjusting his position on the chair so he was resting his head on his hands in a way that stretched his face so he it looked like he was permanently smiling, "your turn. Tell me all your secrets-" Scott suddenly realised he didn't know Loki's surname "-Loki No-Surname. What even is your surname?"