Getting settled on the Statesman takes some time. The first few days are filled mostly with sleep. Brunnhilde spends hours holed up in her quarters sleeping or drifting in that place between waking and sleep, and she knows that Thor, Loki, and Banner do much of the same. There is much to do, but they have to rest first.
Three days in, she makes her way to Loki’s quarters. She’s not really sure why, but she’s not seen hide nor hair of him since settling in that first night. Upon inquiry, it was revealed that Thor and Banner hadn’t either. She wanted to make sure he wasn’t dead and decomposing in there.
She knocks sharply at the door and receives no response. The light is on. She knocks again. “Lackey, I know you’re in there.” Another three knocks. “Loki, open the goddamn door.”
She goes to knock again, but the door slides open. Loki’s standing there looking awful. He’s changed into sweatpants and a tee shirt that hangs off him and highlights just how skinny he really is. “What,” he spits, “do you want?”
“Just checking in. Norns, you look like shit, Lackey.” It’s true. Loki looks sick. He’s clearly not bathed since arriving on the ship, and the bags under his eyes sit dark against his pallor.
“Not that you look much better,” he mumbles. “Now, if you’d leave me to my rest?”
“Doesn’t look like you’re doing much of that,” Brunnhilde says, shoving her way past Loki and into the room. It’s in complete disarray, strewn with books and clothes and loose sheets of paper and God only knows what else. “You live like this?”
“Brunnhilde, if you’ve nothing to contribute, then-”
“Go take a shower,” she blurts.
“Excuse me?”
“Go take a shower, Lackey. You look disgusting.” She gestures to his greasy, disheveled state and grimaces. “I’d certainly want one after…” she trails off. Your fault, her brain reminds her. You left him to that.
Loki seems to pick up on what she was going to say. He grimaces right back, arms crossed defensively over his chest. “No. No, I don’t think I will.”
“Why?” Brunnhilde hasn’t known Loki for long, but she knows that he’s a vain person, that he values appearance above most other things. Why would such a fussy man not want to shower? “You really could use one.”
“Why are you still here?” Loki hedges, trying to herd her out of the room.
“Why won’t you take a shower?” She stands her ground, leaning against the wall and looking him up and down again. “It’s not that hard.”
Loki twitches, a hand coming up to fidget with his hair. “I really don’t see how it’s any of your business.”
To be fair, neither does Brunnhilde. All she knows is that it would make Thor sad to know that his brother isn’t taking care of himself and Thor’s been sad enough lately. Maybe it also has something to do with the guilt of leaving him to the Grandmaster all those weeks ago. Maybe she’s going soft. “Don’t make me get your brother in here,” she threatens. “And anyways, aren’t you, like, the prince or something? You have to look nice.”
The word ‘prince’ doesn’t seem to sit right with Loki. He cringes, shrinking away from her as though she’d struck him, and casts his eyes to the floor.
“About that…” He twirls another strand of hair around his finger, tapping his foot as he goes. “There’s something that I suppose I should tell you now that my father is dead and Asgard is no longer.”
She opens her mouth to ask him what in the Nine Realms he’s on about this time when his whole form flickers and falls away. What remains is… more Loki than anything she’s ever seen. The same clothes, the same eyes, the same hair, the same height, but a different body. Loki is softer, edges filed down and filled out, leaving a form just as skinny, but filled out in the chest and with a femininity that hadn’t been there before. A girl, she realizes. Loki is a woman. This isn’t an illusion. It makes sense in hindsight. Actually, now that she’s thinking about it, she can’t believe she hadn’t realized before.
“Oh,” she breathes.
Loki’s staring at her like a hunted animal. Poised to run, she realizes. Poised to put a knife in Brunnhilde’s throat and do whatever it takes to get away. “‘Oh?’” Loki questions, voice rough and higher than before.
“Yeah. I mean, what else do you want me to say?” You’re beautiful.
“I’m a woman, Brunnhilde. I’d expect you to have much to say,” Loki snaps.
Brunnhilde frowns. “Well, is that it? You use feminine pronouns?”
Loki huffs. “ Yes. I just shared the biggest secret I possess with you and all you have to say is, ‘ oh? ’” She crosses her arms over her chest.
Brunnhilde sighs, sitting down on the edge of Loki’s bed. “Does Thor know?”
Loki eyes her for a moment before sitting down beside her. “That I’m… like this?” Brunnhilde nods. “In a way. It wasn’t- we weren’t at liberty to speak about it in my father’s house, and after that, things became complicated. It fell by the wayside.” She sighs, dropping her head into her hands.
Brunnhilde nods. She supposes Odin would be the sort to make something out of nothing, after all. “What does, ‘like this,’ mean to you? Not to pry, but I want to do this right if I’m going to be the first person you come out to.” Brunnhilde remembers coming out. The crushing realization that, try as she might, she would never like men. The shame. The fear. For all they’ve quarrelled, she doesn’t want Loki to be alone in this.
Loki sighs again, running her hands through her hair. “I’m a woman,” she begins. “I know that as surely as I know anything in my life. Biologically, I suppose, I’m intersex, but I identify most with the Midgaurdian term ‘trans woman.’ The, ah, the augmentations to my form are my own doing.” At this, she sits up to gesture broadly to her breasts. “My father did not approve of my effeminate tendencies in my childhood, so I did my best to crush them down and forget about it. When I became sure of myself, the truest expression of my body became what you see now and the ‘male’ Loki was relegated to the land of illusion. So much smoke and mirrors, you see.”
Brunnhilde nods. “Thank you for telling me,” she says. “I understand the courage this sort of thing takes.” Loki looks up at her, eyes wide and wet and hopeful, and Brunnhilde nods in response to the silent question there. “I’m a lesbian.”
“Oh,” Loki breathes. “I’m bisexual,” she offers. Then, she makes a strange choked-off noise and slaps a hand over her mouth. It takes a moment, but Brunnhilde suddenly realizes that she’s crying. Loki is sitting next to her, tears streaming down her face, and Brunnhilde hasn’t the first clue what to do. “I’m sorry,” she manages. “I’m not sure what- what’s come over me.” She breaks off into another sob and Brunnhilde can’t take it anymore.
She leans forward and gathers Loki in her arms, pressing her face into Brunnhilde’s shoulder. “Shh, shh, it’s alright. It’s normal to feel emotional after coming out,” Brunnhilde assures her. And you’ve had a hell of a month, she thinks. “Sometimes, your emotions get the better of you. Let it all out.”
For a few awkward minutes, they sit like that, Loki sobbing into Brunnhilde’s shoulder and Brunnhilde wondering when she’d gone so fucking soft.
Finally, Loki sits up with a sniffle and wipes her sleeve across her face. “I’m sorry,” she says again. “That was…” She seems to have no words for her little outburst.
“Necessary,” Brunnhilde says. “It was necessary. You know what’s also necessary?” Loki raises an eyebrow and Brunnhilde laughs. “A bath. You smell bad.”
Loki blushes, but laughs along. “I suppose, if you insist.” Then, quieter, “I couldn’t bring myself to… between the discomfort with my body and the injuries and, well, everything…” She trails off, seemingly losing confidence.
Of course. Loki’d been through the same hell as the rest of them, and God only knows Brunnhilde is sore. “I understand,” she says. “Is there any way I can help?”
Quickly, quietly, like it might get away from her if she waits too long, Loki murmurs, “Can you stay?”
“Of course.”
The process of getting Loki undressed and into the bath is longer and more complicated than originally anticipated. The bathtub is full by the time Brunnhilde manages to wrestle her out of her shirt. She must have changes at some point, but whatever shoulder injury she’d acquired had since stiffened and she couldn’t hold it over her head.
Brunnhilde drops the shirt to the floor, leaving Loki pale and gasping for breath in her sweatpants on the edge of the tub. She’s not wearing a bra, so Brunnhilde moves to the sweatpants, tugging at the cuffs until Loki gets the hint and starts wriggling out of them.
At last, Loki is naked and lowering herself into the tub. She hisses as the water touches her legs, sinking in slowly in order to acclimate to the heat. She really is a sight, even bruised and tired and skinny. Brunnhilde lets her eyes wander downwards, tracing the lines of Loki’s hips and legs, taking in the sharp swell of her small breasts. Then, she realizes that Loki’s just sitting there staring at her.
“Will you help me with my hair?” she asks. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to reach it.”
“Sure.” Brunnhilde’s done more awkward things for less and, when it comes down to it, this isn’t all that awkward. Rolling her sleeves up and kneeling beside the tub, Brunnhilde realizes that there’s a kind of quiet intimacy in this that she never would have expected to want with Loki. It’s nice.
With a bit of prompting, Loki tips her head back, letting Brunnhilde soak her hair and run her hands through it, noting the worst of the tangles. Loki’s got a bare-bones bathroom set she found god-knows-where, and it’s got a comb in it. She’ll deal with the knots once there’s conditioner in her hair.
Brunnhilde squeezes a dollop of cool, slimy shampoo onto her hand and starts lathering it into Loki’s hair. It’s both longer and softer than she realized, and the black looks almost blue in the water. She works the bubbles into Loki’s scalp, scrubbing until she winces to ensure the worst of the filth is scraped away. The water that runs down Loki’s shoulders is rust-red and brown.
Brunnhilde works the shampoo through her hair from root to tip, then taps Loki’s shoulder. “Close your eyes.” She takes a cup from the sink and fills it with warm bathwater, pouring it over her head and rinsing away the bubbles. She does this until the water runs clear, then gets more shampoo and repeats the whole process. By the end, some of the tension has bled from Loki’s body. Brunnhilde smiles. “You can open again.” Loki doesn’t.
Brunnhilde uses a generous amount of conditioner, spreading it through Loki’s hair and using the opportunity to get started on the easiest of the knots. She scratches lightly at Loki’s head again and she hums.
“I’m going to use the washcloth to wash the rest of your body,” Brunnhilde warns. Loki just nods, eyes still closed, and she takes that as her queue to proceed. Gently, carefully, she runs the soapy washcloth over Loki’s neck and shoulders, pausing to admire her chest before going lower. This body, Loki’s body, is marked with scars and stretch marks. There’s even a mole on her collarbone. Brunnhilde touches it and Loki shivers.
She washes over Loki’s breasts and stomach, feeling the way her ribs stand out. She changes positions and washes her back, rubbing dried blood away from a cut on her back and trying to ignore the vicious, half-healed nail marks.
She runs the washcloth down Loki’s stomach and underwater, skimming over one hip and bringing her other arm up to support Loki’s shoulders as she washes her legs. Loki relaxes against the side of the rub, mouth curving up into a little half-smile.
Only one place left now. “Hold your breath. I’m going to wash your face.”
Loki’s eyes snap open and she bolts upright, snatching the cloth from Brunnhilde’s hands. “No,” she snaps. “I’ll do it.”
Brunnhilde knows that look, she knows that fear. She also knows when not to push, so she leans back and lets Loki scrub viciously at her face with the cloth. When she finishes, Loki simply tucks the cloth into the corner of a shelf and leans back, watching Brunnhilde with those sharp eyes.
Brunnhilde reaches back and grabs the comb. “I’m going to comb your hair now.” No response. “If you freak out, that’s on you.” Loki nods and Brunnhilde begins the long, tedious process of combing her ridiculous hair.
Now that the conditioner’s soaked in, most of the knots come out easily, falling apart under Brunnhilde’s hands and the teeth of the comb. It takes about fifteen minutes to work all of them out, and by the end, the water’s lukewarm and Loki’s begun to shiver. Brunnhilde runs her hand through her soft, detangled hair one last time before pouring more water over it, rinsing the conditioner out.
“Alright, up,” she commands, opening the drain. Loki startles as though she’d been sleeping and blinks slowly up at Brunnhilde. “Come on, get up. I’ll go and get you some clothes while you dry off.”
Loki nods, standing with Brunnhilde’s help. “There should be another set of sweats in the dresser,” she says. Thor’d come around to Brunnhilde’s room with some clothes on the first morning, so it only makes sense that he’d done the same for Loki. Brunnhilde ventures back out into the main room, closing the door behind her.
Later, Brunnhilde will braid Loki’s hair into two neat lines. Later, Loki will lean into her and ask her to stay the night. Later, Brunnhilde will hold Loki to her chest, warm and safe and tired, and all will be well. Later, they will wake up and discuss next steps and older brothers. Later, they will begin to sort things out.