Chapter Text
He was never the most patient. For all of his younger brother’s bitterness, that title belonged to Jörmungandr. Fenris decided that a serpent’s patience, in its many facets, was a very father-like trait: it was the willingness to bide time with tranquility at one moment and then seethe with impatient jealousy the next. Perhaps it was Jörmungandr’s cold blood that granted him that gift. Fire had always flooded Fenris’s veins, especially in Asgardian winter. When the wolf had longed to bound into the mountains he had done so.
Frigga would fret, eventually - back then she and Odin cared for Loki’s children, for possessing grandchildren - and Týr and Thor would entice Loki’s oldest back with tables upon tables of cooked boar at the mountain foot, hoping the north wind would blow the scent to him. No Asgardian seven year old, massive wolf or not, could resist a lunch table. Fenris always came bounding back on the third day, tripping on on his oversized feet with stag blood on his whiskers, and dug in.
(Fenris knew Thor was jealous of him. Of the spread, of the unnecessary cooing Frigga did over him when he could more than take care of himself. Fenris had adored it while it lasted. Don’t be mad, Uncle, he had wanted to say. Grandmother gets to spoil me now. You’re too old for it. Your turn is over).
But that had been long ago. Now Fenris rested beneath tons of bedrock with gleipnir’s ribbon binding his feet. The days of flight and family had passed. Maybe patience was an acquired virtue too, Fenris decided. After several thousand years of being imprisoned at Midgard’s center he thought he had gained some. It was impossible not to.
Without it he would have gone crazy.
When Frigga died Fenris trembled so fiercely he destroyed a mountain in India. His howl drowned around the long-bloodied sword holding his snout shut. Jörmy, simmering in resentment over being imprisoned, didn’t make a sound. Fenris ignored him. He knew Frigga had agreed to his binding. He knew Loki and Uncle Thor had walked upon Earth already, more than once, and not given him a second thought. Fenris did not care.
He was allowed to grieve for good things already lost.
One of Fenris’ earliest memories was of chewing up Thor’s armor. Thor, smaller and cleaner-faced then, fumed and clutched Mjolnir close. Loki laughed until he cried.
“Brother,” Thor said, “why must you keep having such destructive children? Why do you have children at all? You’re younger than me. It’s too early for this. It’s... weird.”
“I don’t ask for them,” Loki said, wiping a tear from his eye. “They just happen.”
“Unsurprisingly, Loki, children happen when you don’t work on not having them. If you would just - ”
“Don’t give me a responsibility lecture.”
Thor ground his teeth into his lip. Fenris laid on top of his shredded pile of armor, trying not to laugh. His tongue still hung out of his mouth in freedom. Thor saw the wolfish smile and grumbled.
“Your freakish delinquent son is laughing at us.”
“You only dislike him because he doesn’t listen to you.” Loki threw an armor scrap to Fenris. “If someone called Jörmungandr a freak you would be up in arms about it. Is your favoritism that obvious?”
Thor folded his arms, wounded. “Jörmy doesn’t chew up my armor. Fenris is already a danger. Look at him! Look at those jaws!”
Loki smirked. Fenris wasn’t offended. His uncle and father talked this way often in front of him. Thor did not realize he could comprehend it all; Loki knew and did not care. It makes sense, Fenris thought. Uncle Thor loves snakes, attention, and danger that bends to him. Jörmy gives him all of those things or is all of those things.
If Jörmungandr was uncle’s favorite, was he Father’s? Fenris wasn’t sure. He was definitely Father’s oldest. No one else could claim that, however a thankless title it was. Fenris laced pride in his backbone. He had to defend himself. Father may not have given him affection, but he had given Fenris pride and a name. Something to protect. That made him worthy of being Fenris Son of Odinson.
Fenris was still shielding his title the day Týr showed up with a roasted pig and leyding.
The first time a visitor arrived, Fenris was not expecting it. He was napping at Midgard’s core with his head on a shelf of iron and magma oozing through his ribs. The whispers were so soft that Fenris first believed they were part of the magma’s current. He flicked his ears in irritation, opening one eye. He heard a gasp.
There was a shimmery apparition of a man floating in front of him. Fenris was too surprised to blink. Liquid nickel, as hot as the sun’s surface, trickled down the crease of his leg. Fenris finished opening his eyes. The man’s cloak shrunk behind him. It trembled. An infinity stone as green as Fenris’ eyes glimmered at the man’s throat.
“Sorry,” the bearded man said. “I’ll be going.”
Before Fenris could try and speak around the sword in his mouth, the man disappeared.
That’s irritating, Fenris thought. Even if it might be a sign of something.
He fell back to sleep as he mulled over it.
The aspect Fenris hated the most about losing his freedom was losing sight of his younger brother. They had not seen each other or Sleipnir in eons. As much as Fenris loathed Sleipnir, he almost wanted to see the youngest of them. Almost. Sometimes he bubbled lava out of nose and through the sea floor, hoping to tickle Jörmungandr’s stomach with blobs of hot rock. It was the best he could offer since they had outgrown playing.
Listen, Fenris wanted to say, I know you’re the most like our father. I know you overthink things to be petty and make life harder for yourself. If you’re plotting something stupid don’t do it. We don’t have to rise to Ragnarok, you imbecile. What they expect of us doesn’t matter. Don’t become a monster solely to spite them. That’s one of Father’s games and it never works. You do not have to kill your favorite uncle. There are other ways to deal with this; if it must happen, I can kill him. Thor has no love for me. Let me handle things.
If Jörmy heard him, Fenris received no reply. He wasn’t sure Jörmungandr could communicate. Oceans could not push into Midgard’s center. They could only cover it. Fenris hoped his acidic younger brother could hear him. He did not want to lose family that cared for him. That family was definitely not the Odinsons. The Odinsons had made that clear when they locked Fenris and Jörmungandr away based off prophecies.
Loathing filled Fenris when he imagined Týr bringing food to him, alone. New islands simmered to the surface in the Pacific as the wolf ground his teeth. Thor was insufferable, but Týr was worse. At least Fenris had anticipated Thor betraying him.
Thor was not his favorite cousin bold enough to feed him.
When Thor learned that Fenris - like Jörmy - could understand every word being said, though the wolf had trouble replying, he fought with Loki. Fenris heard it from his bed in the barn. Thor showed up in a huff later. Those were the years before everyone but Týr stopped feeding him. Back then, it had been a few people, including Thor. It was not dinner time, but Thor had a cowhide. Fenris perked up with interest.
“We are not friends,” Thor said, his face red. “But I am your uncle. I cannot pretend I’m not. Especially if Loki refuses to be your father. I am not letting you go undefended in cases where you can only use your words and not your teeth.”
All the most beautiful doves in the land went to Jörmungandr, hand fed to him by Thor himself, and Fenris’ olive branch was a cowhide laid on the stable floor. Fenris watched Thor leave with disdain.
He ate every scrap of the hide that night and longed for more.
When Loki placed Odin on Midgard it was hard not to react. In the back of his mind long poisoned by solitary confinement and betrayal, Fenris felt a flicker of genuine fury. Not the paltry hatred he felt for Thor, or the stronger melancholy loathing he felt for Týr. Sheer world-ending fury. It was far from the fond distrust Fenris held towards Frigga’s memory or Loki. Fenris salivated with rage. Clouds of steam billowed around him.
For a moment, Fenris was unfettered and small. He was the damp pup feeding at his mother’s breast. He recalled Loki’s haughty voice breaking with fondness to say “We should name him Fenris.” He remembered later learning that the name was Odin’s suggestion. It was a name dripped in blood: it was the namesake of Hela’s massive wolf steed before Odin buried them both in the underworld. Odin and his ravens had sensed this Fenris, too, would be dangerous. That this Fenris, too, would be buried in a lonely tomb for everyone else’s safety.
Fenris was Loki’s oldest son, Thor’s nephew, and Frigga’s grandson.
To Odin, he was an it.
Fenris writhed against his bonds and snarled into the Bermuda Triangle, destroying a fleet of ships with the earthquake-made waves his thrashing made. He relished their small lights snuffing out before he felt nothing. They were not a challenge. They were not anything. Fenris heaved before composing himself. He sensed Jörmungandr curling tighter around the world, embracing it. Fenris let his molten spine arc against the iciest depths of Norway and Jörmungandr’s glacier scales. Three thousand fish died in an instant, rent apart by their sibling affection. Their cooked white carcasses filled the depths like so many stars.
Don’t think about him, Jörmungandr said.
I don’t, Fenris said.
They parted before they destroyed more and before gleipnir could bind Fenris’ legs tighter.
If some men wandered too deep into remote mines, among the cave dark and deadly gas and crushing pressure, maybe they disappeared into a maw older than Scandinavia. Maybe. Fenris licked the gold from his lips and watched those on the surface squirm. Those consumed did not even whet his appetite. He had not consumed a good meal in a long time. The fretting of humans granted him dull amusement.
He had outgrown his enjoyment of being the feared unknown in the dark. Now, he was…
Fenris stretched, feeling the Mariana Trench quiver above his elbow and the Grand Canyon shake below his foot.
...this.
“I really didn’t want to do this, but I have to. Before I come out, I’m going to ask you to remain calm.”
The formalities are unnecessary, Strange, Fenris said. I know you’re not actually here. I won’t lunge at you again or create a new continent trying to. You can come out now.
Dr. Strange, the man with the cloak, appeared in front of him with a shower of green sparks. Fenris dug his itching feet into iron. It was hard not to snap at the cloak. The movement was so… tempting. The cloak seemed to understand his dilemma. It curled behind Strange’s projection, fussy.
“You’ve settled down a lot since the first time I saw you,” Dr. Strange said. “Any reason for the change in attitude?”
I don’t pursue things I know are fruitless, Fenris said. I’ve had a long time to get comfortable. Eons.
“Right,” Dr. Strange said.
He looked more tired and grey-haired than the last time Fenris had seen him. The defined face made him look rather like Sleipnir. Fenris rumbled out a chuckle. Dr. Strange recoiled from a falling lump of magma. Blinding silvers, yellows, and reds dripped from the metallic hell around them. Fenris breathed molten nickel.
“What do you find funny? I’d love to know,” Dr. Strange said. “There’s a lot I don’t find funny right now.”
Unwind, Strange, Fenris said. The pressure you’re placing on your teeth right now is far greater than than the pressure making diamonds above us.
He could have gone cruder with the joke, but neither Jörmungandr nor Thor the easily amused fool were around to laugh. Fenris settled on restraint. Dr. Strange unclenched his jaw. Beads of spectral sweat broke out on his apparition’s forehead. The nonexistent air around them distorted under a perpetual heat mirage.
“Fenris,” Dr. Strange said. “Monster of the River. The universe’s largest wolf. Loki’s oldest bastard child out of three, produced with the giantess Angrboða. Future killer of Odin. Right now, a half molten mess trapped in Midgard and watched over by Earth’s sorcerers, unable to do anything.”
You’re flexing, Fenris said, softly, rivers of dark dried blood five eons old and metal spilling from his mouth. The sword piercing his palate groaned. How flattering. I’ve never been intimidated before.
He licked his always lacerated tongue over his fangs. Their purification at the Midgard’s center made them blinding. Splinters of Týr’s bones remained in some. Dr. Strange’s arrogant posture deflated. Fenris withheld his satisfaction. While Strange reassembled his courage, Fenris tested his legs. He found he had forty five feet of reach without needing to get up. Strange hovered around twenty five feet away.
“Forces are stirring in the universe,” Dr. Strange said. “You haven’t been pulling at gleipnir lately, have you? Or heard Jörmungandr thrashing around?”
No, Fenris said, I have not.
Dr. Strange’s brow furrowed. Fenris saw calculations running through his head. He levitated backwards as he muttered to himself, counting off options on one hand. Fenris almost lost sight of him as his apparition drifted into a column of iron. The cloak curled around him. Fenris counted the distance as Strange glided away. Thirty feet… thirty five… thirty eight…
Strange, he said. I have one more word for you.
“What?” Dr. Strange said.
Fenris' head shot forward, destroying the columns of metal around them; his fangs snapped shut on the edge of Strange’s translucent chest in a shower of tumbling iron and heat. He glimpsed the look of horror on Strange’s face and the cloak’s panicked twist seconds before the apparition vanished.
Boo, Fenris said.
Strange was not around to hear him. It did not matter. Fenris took pleasure in imagining Strange’s strangled breathing and the cloak’s thrashing when they took physical form in his office. Sorcerers needed handling, or they became intolerable. Both Strange and Father were alike in this. Besides: it was insulting for Strange to be worried about Ragnarok but not admit it. Fenris refolded his legs in a superheated bed of metal. His tail swept through the deepest point of a tin mine in Bolivia, sending bright splinters flying.
Fenris considered his options as he readied for a nap. If he wasn’t breaking free, he doubted Jörmungandr was. That left one option: Surtur and his crown. Disappointment filled Fenris. He closed his eyes. All of Asgard’s feats, all of its land built on blood and soaked with the blood of those Fenris had crunched for the throne, and it was falling to a melodramatic fire giant? There was a repulsive unfairness in knowing Asgard would briefly become like his current home before it fell to pieces. He would not even get to rend the world apart or take on Thor, Týr, or Odin as Asgard blistered to nothing.
At least, Fenris thought, if Loki and Uncle Thor do not stop Ragnarok from happening. He fell asleep to a singular thought:
So they are doomed or snatching victory by the skin of their teeth, then.
Fenris would later resent being half-right.