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imagine-loki · 2 years

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Atlas: Enneagram Challenge

TITLE: Atlas: Enneagram Challenge

CHAPTER NO./ONE-SHOT: 5/10

AUTHOR: fanfictrashdump

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki’s life told through the spectrum of enneagram personalities he has had to adopt to survive for each situation. Sleeping At Last’s Enneagram series serves as reference.

RATING: T-M, as we go along

NOTES/WARNINGS: Inspired by the Atlas: Enneagram series by Sleeping At Last, this series will be little vignettes of Loki’s life and the ways he camouflaged his personality to fit what he thought was needed. Language (I think), self-hatred, mentions of injury, surly giant blue boi, and lots of fluff.

SUMMARY: When a counter-curse has unintended effects, Loki has to learn how to come to terms with his true self.

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FIVE: THE INVESTIGATOR - intense, cerebral; perceptive, secretive, innovative, and isolated. Soundtrack inspiration—->FIVE

~*~

It had started innocently enough.

After a mission gone awry, Loki had found himself cursed, of all things. He was not in bad shape but there was a distinct aching burn that radiated from his center every time he inhaled. His lungs felt like little sparking embers threatening to catch fire. His discomfort had been obvious enough that it prompted Strange to intervene rather than watch the Asgardian argue that the matter was no big deal.

Strange’s logic was sound–he was going to remove any magic with malicious intent off of Loki and draw the curse into an innocuous vessel to imprison it for eternity. This, in itself, did not set off any alarms for Loki inside his head, though, to be honest, he was desperate for the burn to be gone. It did not occur to him to think that malicious intent might not have been reserved solely for hexes, curses, and general illness, but could include a normal magic done for the wrong reasons.

Say, a glamour?

The moment Stephen finished his spell, the pain in Loki’s lungs abated and he sucked in a grateful breath with his eyes closed. He had never realized how much he liked breathing until then. When his eyelids fluttered open, smile on his face and thanks ready on his tongue, he was shocked to find… well, shock.

Time slowed down, painfully slowed, after that. The moment that followed seemed to last forever.

Stark dropped an Erlenmeyer flask filled with dubiously-colored liquid, smashing on the floor with a crash.

Aurum, who had insisted on the whole affair in the first place, remained passive, or it would have seemed that way, if not for the raising of a solitary eyebrow.

Strange froze, his eyes darting in empty space, as if reviewing the spell in his head. It took him a moment to realize he had not done this. Realization hit him, followed by an emotion that Loki could not quite place that was almost pity but not as condescending. “Oh.”

“W-why is everyone…?”

Loki glanced down and regretted it instantly.

His pale hands had turned a dusky blue and textured lines rose as if to mock him. Evidently, this was the first time they had encountered a Loki that turned this particular shade of azure. He knew that. He knew that the Loki of this universe, the one who had perished violently some time ago, was adopted from Vanaheim.

Like a (nightmarish) deer caught in headlights, Loki froze. Breathing hurt again, but not because he was cursed but for the debilitating squeezes of his heart.

“Lo–“

Before Strange could finish the last syllable, the Jotunn had stepped backward until he was far enough to safely (or so he thought he needed) turn tail and flee.

“Loki!”

He could hear them all calling after him, now, but he would not stop until he was in his quarters, locked safe and sound. He would not feel comfortable until the monster was gone, once more.

There was only one problem…

He couldn’t get the glamour to stick.

For as much as he mocked his universe’s and this one’s Stephen Strange (though, playfully, in this one) for being what he considered a party clown, he was fastidiously thorough. The effects of his counter-curse were so all-encompassing that nothing was working. It made him continue to desperately try to pile on spell after spell in an effort to not look like this–to look normal.

Turns out self-hatred was considered ill intent. He would laugh at the wretchedness of his situation if he was able to assuage the fear in his heart.

Glaring at himself in the mirror, admittedly, was not helping. However, if he wanted to counteract this mess, he needed to catalogue himself, and break down the process in steps. If the universe wanted him to learn about himself, he damn well would. He pulled every book and reference from his personal library, sat himself across the full length mirror and made himself a master of the Jotunn. Maybe if it were many small changes the counter-curse wouldn’t care.

His eyes were… horrifying, he decided. They were an angry shade of red that clashed with his skin but allowed him to see in the dark with incredible accuracy. He could counteract the color with a green coloring spell, or teal, more accurately, to restitute his blue irises. The right shade of orange might work on his skin, but he was more worried as to what to do with the very specific raised lines that identified him as a royal of the Frost Giant race.

Not to mention the horns.

Or the fangs.

Norns, even the plum hue of his gums were making him irritable.

Well, in actuality, he chose to become irritable because the alternative was succumbing to the dread in his heart and crying away the rest of his life force while curled on the floor.

No, irritability was better. Safer. So was the ardent note-taking.

“So…”

Loki flinched at the sound of her voice. He hadn’t even heard her come into his apartment. Then again, she was a spy and her livelihood was made in not alerting others to where she was.

“Does this mean that the toadstool houses are actually enormous or…?”

Loki was unsure what he hated more–the lack of disgust on Aurum’s part or the fact that he understood the reference because it was made in every universe. “I am not a damn smurf.” The words were directed at her, despite not wanting to glance in her direction, opting, instead, for glaring at the surface of the table.

“Are you sure? Because, of all the things I have seen in my life, you are the most similar to a smurf.” She dropped gracelessly in the seat beside him, propping her head on her elbow to watch him resume taking notes. If she minded the way he subtly slid his chair away from her form, she did not show it. For a full minute, Aurum watched him as he awkwardly itched at the patterns on his left arm with his right before her hand covered his.

“Careful!” He sounded like a child upset that another had messed with his carefully arranged house of cards. “You could… you could get burned if I’m not paying attention.”

“High heat?”

“Ultra low heat. Frostbite.” He had yet to look at her, but could feel that calculating look she often had on her face when it came to him. The one that informed him she was translating Lokispeak into actual emotions to understand him better. He heard her hum thoughtfully, her fingers tracing over delicate dimples on the back of his hand.

“Are those scars or natural texture?”

“I think they’re natural.”

“Think?”

He could feel her eyes prodding lovingly at him and it warmed at him more than the temperature spells he had attempted.

“We don’t have a good knowledge of Jotunn physiology and the books in Asgard are horrendously skewed to represent them as monsters. But I was adopted very young. I could have been born this way or it could be a ritual–who knows?” He was momentarily distracted by her other hand brushing at his lips to take a look at his purpled gums and gently prod at his overly sharp canines with her thumb. “You’re going to hurt yourself, Aur.” His tone was exasperated but there was an underlying sentiment of fondness or relief or both.

She was curious about him, even going as far as tilting his head toward her by grabbing his chin. Her golden gaze met his with a spark of amazement.

“But your lashes,” she said in way of defense, fully aware it made no sense. “Loki, your lashes are purple. I’ll risk being a little chilly for that.”

He relented, if only a little, pulling her open palm to his mouth and pressing a kiss to the center whose temperature made her spine tingle. “I’m just trying to keep you safe.”

She smiled, pulling closer until she could rest her forehead to his, giggling quietly at the brush of his horns. “I know you are.” Her hands cupped his jaw, making lazy circles on his cheekbones. “You are the most fascinating creature I’ve ever met.”

“Says the woman whose veins are literally flowing with gold,” he retorted, his voice warm and indulgent.

He wanted to be cross and continue to be the irritable bundle of hatred he was a few minutes prior. He wanted to be self-hating and cruel and bully himself into fitting back into his Asgardian mask. It was hard to want all those things while also wanting to share this part of him with Aurum and her enthusiasm. The fondness when he lightly pressed his lips to hers and she laughed delightedly at the cold was all-consuming. For so long, his mind had been filled with propaganda that he couldn’t see the finer details of his natural features for what they were. Loki could identify every line, dot and hash on his skin, but he couldn’t put into words how it made him shiver when she traced the coronet detailing on his forehead, hidden by his shaggy curls and bracketed by horns. Neither did he know those same horns were velvety and one was slightly crooked, making them look like he had put on his helm askew.

But she did.

She remarked it in quiet, honeyed tones. With fondness and care. She also told him how his hair was the same shade of inky violet as his lashes, and only showed its true color when it caught the light.

After a while, his tender heart could not take more of her lovely praise for tiny details and he kissed her silly. He smiled in earnest as she played with the ends of his hair.

“Stephen feels terrible, by the way. He didn’t think the glamour would give way.”

“It wasn’t his–wait, he knew I had a glamour?”

Aurum nodded, kissing him just under the jaw where his heart beat ever slower than when he was in his other form. “According to him, every version of you is adopted in one way or another. It is reasonable to think that species that don’t necessarily look like us might have been included in the mix.” She winced, then, the words feeling heavy on her before she even said them. “He didn’t think the glamour would be cast with bad intentions, though. That’s why he feels bad. It felt like he was overstepping his bounds.”

“And Stark?”

A bark of laughter left her. “Tony shorted out because he thought you looked hot and he couldn’t comprehend why his mind betrayed him.”

“He’s not wrong, though.” She hesitated a moment, something very much unlike her. “Would you mind if I helped with your notes? I think it’s important that we have better resources than whatever the fuck these are.”

He nodded, somehow now enthused by the prospect of learning about himself. When he attempted the glamour, later, it took on the first try.