Goddess of Stories | Loki & Peter

I do love working here. It's just, we all have a lot of laughs

"Here they are." Shuri said. Loki looked up from their notes to see the princess walk into the room with the metal armed friend of Captain America. "Bucky, Loren. Loren, Bucky Barnes."

Barnes stepped forward and held out his non-metallic hand. "Hey."

"Well met." Loki said evenly, suspecting where this was heading. They already weren't in a good mood, they wanted to be in their more masculine form right now but things were too busy to slip away to shift for a few hours. This wasn't a conversation they wanted to have right now.

"So Banner and that Valkyrie gal said you wanted to talk to me?"

"Did they now?" Loki replied, tone cool. "I did not ask them to do that."

"I think you should," Shuri said, "I was talking to Sam, and he thinks it would be good for you two to talk because you both went through some form of brainwashing in the past."

"Is it a new trend to discuss my mental well-being behind my back?" They gestured to their notes. "I'm busy."

"We wouldn't have to talk behind your back if you talked to people like Bucky who you could relate to."

Loki sneered. "I can't relate to anybody."

"That's so sad," Shuri said, "I'm going to bring the Alexa meme out of retirement to play despacito for the poor emo child stuck on tumblr."

Bucky looked to Loki. "Look, pal, I'm not going to force you to talk if that makes you uncomfortable. But the Valkyrie was telling me about your whole story and I think you're focussing on the wrong things."

Loki narrowed their eyes. "What do you mean?"

"You apparently keep talking about being a frost giant like it means you're not Asgardian."

"That's exactly what it means." Loki replied.

"No, but I asked her some questions. Being Asgardian is like being from Earth, or like how I'm American, right? But being a frost giant is like being human. You keep saying you're not Asgardian because you're a frost giant, but I'm pretty sure that isn't how citizenship works."

"But I'm from Jotunheim. I'm jotun, not Asgardian."

"You're pretty dense." Shuri said.

"Uh, listen," Barnes said, "you know Steve? He's Captain America, right? Punk's american to a tea. But his parents aren't. They were both Irish immigrants. He even speaks fluent Irish. So yeah, he has Irish heritage and that's a big part of him, but he was raised in American. He's an American citizen and is just as American as the people with parents that had lived there longer. You may be a frost giant or whatever, but you were also raised in Asgard, you're an Asgardian citizen, so you're Asgardian. It's pretty simple, pal."

Barnes was... right. He'd been looking at the words aesir and asgardian like they meant the same thing. Maybe he was just as Asgardian as he was jotun. Perhaps the two things weren't mutually exclusive.

"Yeah, dual-citizen is a thing." Shuri said. "Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can't be Asgardian."

"Plus, Valkyrie was saying most of what you think about frost giants is propaganda invented after some war you had." Barnes said. "You could talk to her when you have some free time, figure out the truth about your heritage. You might embrace it."

Loki didn't think they'd ever embrace their frost giant heritage but Barnes' intentions were noble.

"Thank you for this conversation." Loki said, grabbing his notebook and slamming it shut. "But I think I need to stretch my legs."