Loki turned on Thor the moment the Bifrost disappeared, his confusion and anger finally finding somewhere to land. He shoved his brother hard enough to make Thor stumble backward. "What did you do?"
Thor stared at him as though he had suddenly lost his mind, then pushed him back. "I did nothing! What did you do to Eirlys? How in the Nine Realms is she pregnant?"
The question struck Loki with a peculiar mixture of embarrassment and realization. He knew exactly when it had happened, that morning. The morning when he had asked Eirlys to let him have her, when she had been nervous and he had been desperate for reassurance that she had accepted him and their marriage. Somehow, between imprisonment, jealousy, grief and the ridiculous conclusions his mind had constructed, he had completely forgotten the most obvious consequence of that morning. His face warmed despite himself.
Thor noticed. "You know," he said slowly.
Loki cleared his throat and looked away. "That is not the point."
"It rather seems like the point."
Loki ignored him, his expression tightening as another thought struck him. He turned sharply toward Thor. "When you went to Vanaheim, what happened between you and her?"
Thor's eyebrows shot upward. "Nothing."
Loki stared at him suspiciously. "Nothing?"
"I went to speak to her about Mother." Thor's voice became quieter at the mention of Frigga. "She was grieving. So was I. She held me while she cried."
Loki's expression changed as the memory of the Palantír returned with painful clarity, but now the image looked entirely different. He remembered Eirlys crying against Thor, and suddenly the simple truth was obvious. She had been mourning Frigg and nothing more.
"She told me I should return to Jane," Thor continued. "Said Jane needed me and that I needed her."
Loki went completely still while the words from Eirlys's mouth in the garden returned to him, followed by the memory of her kissing him while believing he was Thor, her teasing question about Jane, and the terrible conclusions he had drawn afterward. He had believed she was confessing to an affair. Yet Thor had apparently done nothing except speak to her about their mother. Loki's stomach dropped. There was only one person who could untangle the rest. Eirlys. Whatever had happened in Vanaheim, whatever she had meant, whatever secrets she had kept from him, only she could answer them. He suddenly turned toward the Avengers Tower.
Tony was already looking thoroughly exhausted by the entire situation. Steve had the expression of a man reconsidering every decision that had led him into the room, while Natasha appeared far too entertained by the spectacle. Vision simply watched the brothers with his usual unreadable calm.
Tony finally sighed. "Okay, great. Wonderful. The family mystery is solved enough for one afternoon." He gestured vaguely toward the two Asgardians. "You two have your girl problem, your marriage problem, your divine sibling trauma, whatever this is. Take it back to Asgard."
Thor frowned. "Girl problem?"
Tony raised both hands. "I don't know. I stopped keeping track somewhere between the falling princess and the surprise pregnancy."
Loki glared at Tony as he pointed toward the still-open portal. "Go, have the argument somewhere that doesn't contain my tower."
Neither brother had a clever response. Loki simply looked toward the Bifrost's fading light. His thoughts were already with Eirlys. He had spent months convincing himself he knew her but now he finally understood that he knew almost nothing at all. Loki left Thor behind without another word. For once, he had no interest in arguing with his brother. There was only one person who could answer the questions now crowding his mind, and he needed to find her before his courage disappeared.
He found Eirlys exactly where he had expected. She was sitting alone in the gardens of Asgard, beneath the fading evening light, one hand resting absently over her stomach. The gardens were unusually quiet. Without Frigga, even the familiar beauty of the palace seemed to carry a different sort of silence.
Loki approached slowly. "Eirlys."
She looked over her shoulder, for a fleeting moment, something softened in her eyes, then she remembered. When Loki moved toward the empty space beside her, Eirlys deliberately shifted farther away, he stilled.
She looked at him with an expression that was far calmer than he deserved. "You promised me something once."
Loki swallowed. "That I would never deceive you."
"Yes." Her gaze dropped briefly to her wrist. "You did a remarkably poor job of keeping that promise."
Loki cleared his throat. "I came here because I need to explain."
"I know."
Before he could continue, she lifted her hand, the bracelet was still there. The one he had given her before everything between them had fallen apart. Loki stared at it and age slowly turned it around her wrist, letting the faint shimmer of its enchantment catch the evening light. "You remember this?"
"Of course."
"You should." Her eyes met his. "Because it remembers you too."
Loki's expression changed but Eirlys continued quietly. "When you came to Vanaheim disguised as Thor, you forgot one very important thing."
His eyes dropped toward the bracelet. "The enchantment."
She nodded. "It recognized you."
The realization struck him with such force that he almost stepped backward. The garden seemed to disappear around him. The bracelet had been with her all along. She had known it was Loki disguised as Thor, she had known the entire time, every word, expression, and moment. Loki's face went blank as the pieces finally fell into place. The kiss, her teasing question about Jane, the invitation to stay. She had been testing him.
She had been punishing him. "You knew."
Eirlys's mouth curved into the smallest, most unapologetic smile. "I knew."
Loki stared at her. "You let me believe…"
"Yes."
His voice dropped. "Why?"
Eirlys's expression became more serious. "Because you deserved to feel even a fraction of what it was like to be deceived."
Loki flinched at that.
"You deceived me first," she continued. "You lied to me. You manipulated me. You made promises and broke them. You went to Midgard knowing exactly what you intended to do." She touched the bracelet gently. "And when you came back disguised as Thor, you expected me to simply prove something to you."
Loki had no answer. He had spent days imagining betrayal. He had built an entire tragedy inside his head around a single embrace between Eirlys and Thor. And all along, she had been standing several steps ahead of him.
"You wanted to know whether I had betrayed you," Eirlys said softly. "So I let you think I had."
Loki's eyes closed, a disbelieving breath escaped him. "You kissed me."
"I did."
"You…" He stopped right before her. There was almost a laugh hidden somewhere in his disbelief.
Eirlys raised an eyebrow. "Consider it a small revenge."
Loki looked at her again. "You are terrifying."
"Suits you." She folded her hands over her stomach. "Perhaps now you understand why I was so offended when you asked whose child this was."
Loki's face fell immediately. "Eirlys, I—"
"I know." Her voice softened. "I know whose child it is."
When she said that, Loki looked genuinely vulnerable. He sat down a careful distance away. And this time, Eirlys did not move farther from him. The silence between them remained heavy, but it was no longer built upon a lie. For the first time in months, Loki finally understood that the person he had been trying to figure out had known him far better than he had known himself.