brandingproblem | au shenanigans for icasm

Nothing special. Just holding hands. Softness that he can offer.

Why? Because. It's a dream. Does there have to be a why?

Clint shakes his head. "I'm too down to earth. Sure, I've seen some wild shit for a human, but this is all...something way beyond me."

"Why do you insist on this falsehood that you're simple," which is not at all what he said, Loki, but it is how it was taken apparently. Loki's hand flexes in Clint's hold but he makes no move to try to let go or pull away; if anything, he's holding a little tighter. "Why does being a no one appeal to you so much when it goes directly against everything you're comfortable with?"

"I didn't say simple," explained simply. Calmly. "I said down to earth. Grounded, not stupid." He knows he's not stupid. Not in any of the ways that matter to what he is and what he does. He's never let a few pieces of official paper stop him from his goals, and he crafts his own trick arrows and gear even if the materials come from somewhere else.

"Once upon a time, I was a spy and an assassin, a covert agent. Being a no one appeals. I disappear. Get to have a cozy family life without worrying about safety. I don't get stopped on the street much more often, and I don't even wear a mask. What is it you think I'm comfortable with? Fame and fortune?"

"No," Loki sighs, shaking his head. They never understand one another in the first two statements, it seems. Or even the first two hundred. "But being 'grounded', down to Earth, merely human is not a thing that determines who and what you are. Instead of wearing these things like a jacket, protection from the elements that would otherwise run roughshod over you due to your past and involvements, you... cling to them as if they were a shield. A shelter. They aren't.

Is the idea of being more, something... different from your common man, on this planet, so very frightening?"

"Why do I get the feeling this isn't about dreams anymore?" It's a rhetorical question, Loki, please do not answer that.

"I'm not different." Is that true? Does he believe that? Clint looks up at the vast and beautiful ceiling, nostrils flaring. Counts to five in his head. "I don't have a suit of armor; I don't have super strength; I don't have an experimental serum running through my veins. I don't call lightning, don't control thunder. I don't fly or shoot magic from my fingers or any of that. I'm just a guy. I'm a common man only made uncommon through means that any other man would be able to accomplish if they put their mind and body to it."

But does that even answer Loki's question? No, it doesn't. At least he realizes this after a moment, centering himself again to Loki. "I don't know if it would be scary, to be something more. I don't think I would want it, though."

He isn't going to answer that, don't worry.

Loki thinks he understands what Clint is getting at, even if it doesn't answer his question immediately. There is something to be said for the person who does what they can merely through the strength of their own bodies, but that ignores the strengths that originate from elsewhere. Like community and resources and secret serums running through the veins.

But that's getting pedantic, perhaps; either way, Loki doesn't say anything about it, despite his clear desire to pontificate on his opinions of Clint's feelings. As per semi-usual.

To ask him what he would do if it happened to him, the way things happen to people all the time, people who don't choose but are chosen by something else, someone else, some other if not necessarily higher power... well that would be showing Loki's hand a little too much, wouldn't it?

Whenever Clint realizes he's different from the rest of humanity, well. Loki will deal with the fallout. Not a moment before.

He realizes they're meandering a little in his thoughts; a problem of traveling in dreams, he knows, and so the demigod takes a breath in, out. The door to outside, to the frozen former gardens of Asgard and several other places Loki has seen in his long life appears before them, swings out and open.

Things are still frozen, but a little less bitingly cold. Clint will know it's cold, but it poses no real risk to him now. "Here we are." That is where they were headed, right?

It won't be too much longer before the realization hits, probably. Better bask in the bliss of not knowing in the time they have.

Loki's silence is...interesting. It's not often that the god chooses not to speak. Because it seems like he disagrees with several of Clint's notions. Maybe he's holding himself back in this dreamscape, or simply doesn't want another argument.

When they step into the garden, yes, he feels the cold, through the robe tied around him, but he also doesn't actually feel it. As dreams do.

"Why?"

Not why are they here. Clint wanted to see it, to be on the other side of the glass that turned to ice. Why this. Why is it this.

One day he will beg and beseech this man to ask detailed questions of him.

Apparently, it is not this day.

As it is, Loki sighs a little at the question; he has not let go of Clint's hand and shows no particular desire to do so. Why here? Clint had wanted to see it, and does Loki know why that is? No.

Why does it exist? Well, that is a 'why' he can imagine being asked by Clint, so that will be the presupposition he runs on at this moment.

"I'm an ice giant; I enjoy when things are cold. I don't like myself; things aren't inclined to grow in hateful soil, I've found. Plus this is a collection of places that are gone, or that I can no longer reach. I like to remember them."

It's true that not much grows but there are still winter flowers and fruits in bloom in this cold garden, with it's snowed over hedges and frozen leaves. They're just tucked away, hidden in the shadows of weeping blood statues and stone benches scattered here and there.

"It seems sad." Which, true, Loki does hate himself. And if this is a collection of mental mementos from places that no longer exist, there would be an air of melancholy. The statues are creepy, but beautiful all the same.

Loki has allowed him here, welcomed him here, so he doesn't feel in any danger. Still, it feels like he shouldn't disturb the peace here.

So he'll be polite. He's learning, bit by bit. "Am I allowed to touch anything?"

"I am often sad, I suppose," Loki admits as though he's never considered the possibility with any certainty (a Lie, if ever there was one). His hold on Clint's hand loosens, a bit, as he considers the request but it's only a heartbeat longer before he lets go completely with a nod.

"Touch whatever you like."

The problem, if a problem exists, is that in the span of not!time it's taken them to get outside Loki has accepted and come to desire even just the idea of Clint rifling through his brain, callused hands touching the spines of the books in the library, etcetera. He could let it become erotic, that sort of desire, and instinctually he wants to, but he's afraid it will bleed through in some uncomfortable way (for Clint) and so instead he allows it just to remain the wanting of a thing, for no particular reason or endgame in sight.

"Nothing will hurt you here."

He has to bite his tongue. It might become clear, through the connection that they share on a subconscious level, and from the look on his face, that he's deeply considering something.

And it's not the wanting. It's that nothing will hurt him, and he's trying to figure out why, exactly, even as he moves with care.

Maybe that's a stupid question. Loki might want and desire pain for himself, has wrapped up the idea of desire in pain, so intrinsically connected to his own self-worth, but he cares about Clint. Who is a little bit more disinclined to pain. (But maybe only a little bit. There is eroticism inherent to violence, especially in situations where things are so emotionally muddled that he barely knows which way is up. What's a little stabbing in the side between partner-enemy-lovers?)

But at the same time, why shouldn't Loki have dangerous things tucked away in his mind and in his dreams, things to protect himself? Why not show off who's in control, or threaten some punishment for the downright childish way Clint had acted before? Why not offer up pain as pleasure in its own right? Where the hell are the boundaries in a place like this?

He brushes a hand overtop the sharply flat cut of a hedge, disturbing the dusting of snow from atop. Toes a looping design on the ground in the white, just to disturb the pristine blanket. Twists off some berries, gives them a squeeze between his fingers, looks at them as though he could possibly identify alien fruit though doesn't dare to eat them just yet. That's what pockets are for, things for later. He approaches a statue and stops before it. Considers keeping his hands to himself, but the distress in the image begs investigation. Reaches a hand up to touch the edge of a jaw, side of a face, a thumb brushing as though to wipe away tears.

"Do you ever let yourself be happy in your dreams?"

"Not... for a very long time."

Childhood? Later. The fall from the lightbridge? Ah, yes, that's about when the possibility of happy dreams were chased out by horrible realities. And even when Loki's dreams have fleeting moments of joy, something changes the tenor, ruins the vibe.

Just like reality, in his experience. Colored and tainted by his own actions, every iota of happiness is merely snowfall in a dirty city, awaiting the shift from white to grey.

Things Loki is aware of, immediately: the conflict of texture between cold stone and Clint's warmer hands against the statue's face. The flavor of the berries in Clint's pocket (tart, like lemons if lemons were more like cherries in texture).

Things Loki is not aware of, as immediately: the way his skin has changed hues, from pale cream to a lighter shade of dusty blue, ritualized hereditary lines rising and falling in his skin like magical tattoos. He's sat down on a stone bench when it occurs to him that the air feels different on what of his skin is exposed, that his own breath no longer pools floating condensation clouds in front of his own mouth.

Uncertain how he feels about it, Loki does nothing to bring Clint's physical awareness to his transformation, but Loki's moment of surprise and then reluctant acceptance can likely be felt nonetheless.

He does become aware of it, as it happens. But Clint doesn't want to draw attention to it right away. Continues his exploration before turning and coming to sit by Loki.

If the appearance startles him in any way, well, then he's suddenly gotten very good at hiding things.

"We don't have to stay here if this upsets you." Clint will do his best not to remind and reiterate that this is, ultimately, Loki's dream, Loki's headspace that he is intruding on. "If you don't want to be this."

The fact that Clint is so rarely a man who possesses what Loki understands guile and deceitfulness to be, it goes a long way that Clint is neither upset nor startled by Loki's transformation. He turns his own hands over, palms up on his thighs, and curls his fingers inward. Even like this, his nails are pristine, clean, strong. Another sign of how unlike his brothers he has ever been, in any direction one could take that.

"I'm not upset." Honest. "I had forgotten it would happen." He's not often here, anymore. They exist, but for him, mostly to be viewed through the window. It's a strange thing, to make a memory within a place of memories, but not wholly unpleasant.

Thanks to the company. "I won't regret it."

"I get that it's complicated." He doesn't know what it's like, obviously, but he can get that it's fucking complicated to be raised as one thing only to find out you are wholly another, an Other thing that is near universally despised in some fashion. "But if you want to be like this around me, it's not gonna scare me off."

Banner turns into a giant green hulking beast with a personality and mind of his own. This is nothing in comparison.

"Why's the statuary like that?"

"It is. But you're unlikely to see another. And it is... me."

Unlike Banner, he does not have the excuse of a strict alter-ego to blame on his poor choices and bad behaviors. But he does feel like there is less baggage in being a creature whose overall look he has so little control over.

As thought it were more honest, by design.

Like that has him furrowing his brow for a moment, trying to place the question and then its answer. "Oh, I saw it once in the gardens of the sultans of Krylor Five. I thought it was beautiful, and fitting. I never learned what caused it, or how they came to be that way. If it were design or chemistry or some other thing."

A shrug. He's always been a melodramatic thing.

"You change your looks all the time when you're out and about." When Loki meets up with the kids, when they're in public, when Loki looks like anyone but himself but makes sure all the Bartons can identify him immediately at a glance. "But obviously it's your looks to do with as you want."

The fact that he thought there might be more explanation to the statues means that maybe, maybe he gives Loki a little too much credit. They are gothic and dramatic and sad, therefore it appeals to him. Of course that's the reasoning, and Clint actually gives a scoffing cough of a laugh about it.

If Loki looks, there in the corner, there might just be a lopsided snowman that wasn't there before.

"Show me more."

Another shrug. He's decided not to be bothered: by the shift to frost giant, by Clint's insistence that he do what makes him comfortable (the Hel is that, even? conceptually?), by the presence of that lopsided snow monstrosity claiming to be a 'man' off in the corner. Yes, he noticed it. No, he doesn't care, even though it's uglier than sin and not on purpose.

It reminds him of the Bartons. The one here and the ones sleeping elsewhere.

"There's a maze, here." If Barton wants to literally get lost, but Loki suspects that wouldn't exactly be the case. "With a temple at the center. That's about all that's left out here."

"More of the library, then? Now that seems like a maze. To me. Or." His brow furrows. "Am I overstepping? I already fucked up your orgy thing; I don't necessarily want to mess anything else up. We could just...I don't know. Talk until we wake up. Or figure out more stuff I can do in dreams."

Has he realized he's done anything at all? Seems unlikely.

Loki shakes his head a little. "Your presence is no longer a disruption." In part because Loki has decided to roll with it; as long as Clint is with him, whatever he sees or touches or interacts with is fine. Loki will see to it. "Besides, the orgy was mostly an exercise in the comingling of praise and self-pity. Not much was lost.

There is the library, which is still a little more dangerous than being out here, or there are my rooms. You've seen the hall. That's all there is, really, or at least most of the time."

He rises to his feet and points at the snowman. "Do you think I summoned that into being?"

The library was spooky and spectacular, and he wouldn't mind seeing more of that. Loki's rooms might be more...intimate, a reason he hadn't followed before. But he hasn't seen any of that. So maybe that, for some small sake of completion.

But then there's the snowman, which he's pretty sure wasn't there, but then again, it's kind of tucked away. It's hardly perfect or pristine. Looks--

"You could have," he says, casual, careful though. "Building snowmen with the kids. That'd be a memory to cherish." The image of it seems to fade, stutter, like it isn't completely solid, like it might disappear.

"You could show me your rooms," he moves on, maybe a little too quickly.

Loki doesn't understand what he reads to be Clint's fear about what's happening here. Is it power? Is it about power over Loki? He knows that prying won't necessarily net him an answer that makes any more sense than the things he's observed, but he does wave a hand toward the snowman —— you he thinks at it, are not to go ANYWHERE — and then he and Clint are on their feet and moving toward the doors to the library once more.

There's no rules that state they have to traverse one to reach the other, but Loki knows Clint was fascinated by the library and he wishes to see the other man there; there's nothing to say they can't visit both locations.

So. Inside, first, and then into the library, which is markedly less freezing than the first time Clint was here.

Clint frowns, but his voice is amused. "Did you just talk to the snowman?"

Not with his voice, but. There was Something.

Probably good that Loki doesn't ask, at least not immediately, because Clint does not have any answers at all, least of all satisfying ones. The library is, of course, far more interesting than any half-assed snowman. Clearly! Because now it's less threatening, and he feels like he's allowed to explore things now. The distant screaming sounds are a little unsettling, yeah, but it's kind of background noise at this point.

"It's not gonna mess anything in your head up if I start...doing anything? Pulling books? Poking around?" Because he's already reaching for the spine of one with an ornate runic design he can't decipher in brilliant silver.

"It seems likely." Completely unaffected air you've got there, Loki, but; Look. He may not have put it here but it's here now and here it shall remain. Clint made it happen (whether or not he wants to admit it or likes that truth) and Loki loves Clint, so.

It. Stays. Put.

He remains a frost giant when they're inside, which is more a mark of how comfortable he is with Clint knowing his secrets as they are and having less to do with how cold the library may or may not be still. "Purposefully damaging the books would probably be painful in a way I wouldn't enjoy, but I doubt you'd do that anyway." Plus the library would likely defend itself from such an attack as it stands. "It should be fine. I'll let you know if anything feels... off, I suppose."

Mostly he wants to stand there and watch Clint handle the binding, the pages, moving drawings of things Loki knows, places he's been, people he's met and encountered along the way. This is a book of languages; the faces in it are of those who taught or opened the door for Loki to learn a new dialect, to expand the AllSpeak, to study the written word as it was intended to be understood.

It's a pretty heavy tome.

It is heavy. And, funnily enough, the words inside of it are indecipherable to him. Which may be because there are so many different languages, or it could be the library attempting to protect Clint from himself. Literal centuries of knowledge do not necessarily belong in a mortal human's head.

And immortal human, well. Save that for later.

But even if the specific words are impossible for him to read, he still understands the gist of it. As is what tends to happen in a dream, he realizes. There's a joke to be had that this is a hint, that they need to sort out their god damn communication issues. But he's not going to be the one to say it, and puts it back.

He plucks another at seemingly random, a few rows down. This one is slighter, a balmy blue, and full of--weather facts and figures. Details on the constant volcanic rains on Cyrellus, the volatile silver seas of Ganid, the hottest and coldest days ever recorded in the history of Asgard's existence. He flips to a page on snowy Iowa days, near the very end of the book. By sheer coincidence. Surely. Clint smirks and slots it back.

Lets his fingers trail along the spines as he ambles down the aisle. There's so much. And it's all so beautiful.

The next is a little black book. Literally. "Oh, is this a universal concept?" he jokes.

Surprise, it's details on the mating rituals of serpents through the universe!

"Nnnnnevermind."

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