Hello there! This actually doesn't even come close to revealing my dirty love affair for primes. I know so much about them and wanted to cover so much with them, but it didn't seem fitting so I didn't. I will very likely revisit them later in the series, if only because I want to EDUCATE YOU on how sexy prime numbers are, and how very special they are too.

In any case, this is part of the If and Only If AU that I'm working on. More family explorations for everyone! The other two fics are Fractals and Sequences; at present all fics in series can be read in any order.

Enjoy!

Primes

It is nearly three in the morning. The hotel bar is deserted, except for two men, both in nice suits. One is tall, graying, and broad; the other is short, stocky, and brown haired. Publicly, they oppose each other, outbid and undercut each other. Privately, they do not much care for the other, recognizing and finding distasteful the particular showmanship they see mirrored in each other. But they always join each other for drinks after conventions and expos, late at night, when it is only them and the bartender and all the whiskey they can drink.

They have a mutual problem they cannot share easily with anyone else.

"Primes," Odin says, pausing to take a sip of his whiskey. Howard also takes a drink and Odin does not have to look to see the raised eyebrow. "Primes are the problem. He never acts like this when his age is divisible by something other than one."

On the muted television over the bar, the news is running a few clips from earlier. Loki's thirteen year old smile is still just as sweet in replay as it was that afternoon when a reporter asked a question she really should have known better than to ask. Odin knows that smile—it is a mamba's smile. What plans he had had to take Loki out and show him a few buildings with unique design had been squashed in the damage control Odin had unexpectedly ended up fielding.

Really, he reflects as he takes another sip of whiskey, people should know by now to avoid asking Loki questions. He should know better than to let reporters ask Loki questions (difficult, when Loki's delicate looks seem to have endeared his son to the press, or rather, the press' photographers).

"It can't be just primes," Howard says. "Tony never does these things in just primes."

"Tony is not Loki, Tony is always causing you problems. Loki is nothing but numbers. It's primes." Odin is resigned. It makes him wish, occasionally, that Loki had not started to speak after all. Loki's words, especially these days, always seems as if they are aimed at proving something, though Odin does not know what. There are many things he does not know about Loki, and that is even considering Odin has been forced to learn more about math and patterns since Loki began to talk than he thinks is strictly healthy, if only so he can communicate in some way that makes sense to Loki.

(Like promises. The words 'I promise' mean nothing to Loki; the words 'I can ride Slepnir if and only if I am given permission' are much more binding.)

"What about when he was five?"

"Burned down my garage. Lost both the Audis, Thor got second degree burns."

Howard goes silent and they both reflect on the tragedy.

"Nothing when he was six. That was a good year, actually. He stopped counting out loud all the time that year."

"That's just one year, and it's possible you're just forgetting something. What happened when he was seven?"

"Thrown off a horse at his grandfather's, trampled. He spent two weeks in the hospital."

"Well," Howard pauses. "Well, while that is terrible, it doesn't seem like he caused that."

"It was the only unbroken horse in the stable and Loki was told very explicitly not to try and ride it." That was actually when they figured out about using logical statements to make Loki promise things. (Thor had been stunned that no one else knew that already, which just went to show Odin that perhaps his elder son can notice details that would make him fit to take over the company one day, provided Thor ever shows the same stubborn protective streak towards it that he does his little brother.)

"It can't be just primes. That doesn't make sense." Howard gestures with his drink. "He had to have done something between then and eleven. That's four years. Tony can hardly go two weeks without trying to cause a catastrophe."

Odin thinks. Maybe he is just reading a pattern where there isn't one. It wouldn't be the first time. Thor is always predictable and ploddingly so; usually just as Odin thinks he can predict Loki something changes or he realizes he was missing part of what informs Loki's behaviour. And while it is wrong, it does mean that occasionally he favours Thor a little more, Thor who is easy to understand (except when he gets the notion to go digging through the thesaurus again, in which case it's more a matter of needing a dictionary—that still has nothing on needing an innate knowledge of discrete mathematics in order to even start to argue with Loki). The point being, it might not be anything to do with primes and everything to do with Odin seeing a pattern where one does not exist.

(Sometimes, he wonders why he decided to name his second son after a god of chaos, and why Frigga agreed and thought it a good idea. Subconsciously, he knows there was no other name for Loki.)

"No," Odin finally says. "Just mischief."

Howard nods.

('Just mischief,' when you are the father of a genius child who desperately wants attention and confirmation they are not strange, generally means everyone comes out unscathed and there are no scandals, be it with family or the press; it does not mean that the things around them come out fine.

On one memorable occasion, Howard had drank three bottles of whiskey by himself, Tony having just managed to get hold of Howard's computer and onto the server then horribly mangling everything on both. Odin had stayed sober that night, intensely grateful that Loki had thus far shown little interest in his computer.

Mischief.)

"So eleven?"

"Came out of the closet."

Howard is silent, and Odin realizes that he is being stared at.

"And?" Howard sounds incredulous that that is all Loki did.

Odin gets a faraway look, like a man who is reliving a particularly bad car accident but cannot stop.

"It was Thanksgiving dinner. The entire family was there."

Howard blinks, mouth opening a little in horror. Their sons' sexual orientation has never been something either father feels comfortable controlling, realizing that it is the least of their issues. What the rest of the family thinks of it is a different matter, and in general both had been relatively successful at keeping everyone else in the dark. Odin keeps going.

"One of his grandfathers was teasing him about how he liked to play with girls, said that at Loki's age he did, too, because he thought the girls were cute. Loki smiled, then proceeded to detail all the reasons he preferred playing with girls. Stood up at one point and started writing proofs for it on the wall, about why they were better."

Howard finds he cannot look away.

"There were diagrams," Odin adds after a heavy pause. "Then, happy as you please, he finished by saying the biggest reason that girls were more fun to play with than boys was because girls liked boys the same way he liked boys." Odin can see Loki smiling, mamba-like, in his mind's eye—happy, innocent seeming, and utterly poisonous—just before walking out with a piece of pie.

Howard's eyes flick up to the television, though it has moved on to some late night show.

"Primes," Howard says, not sure if he is envious that Loki is so predictable.

"Primes," Odin echoes, not sure if he is grateful that Loki is so predictable.

They knock their glasses together and drink.

XXXXXX

Primes, Odin thinks darkly, watching his second son die in Tony's arms.