Chapter Text
There is everything and there is nothing. A name, but nameless still. The deafening roar but silence all at once.
It encases him, this everything and nothing. An emptiness but crowded. Holds him like a newborn, gently and welcoming but yet cruelly, for there is no one else. It snakes along him in that null and suffocating brilliance, caressing him as if he didn’t have anything else to belong to. But he does, doesn’t he? Have belonging. Somewhere, in this deep, deep something.
And it’s there, he understands what has become of him. For he isn’t meant to exist in this space. Not without another. And, yet, he relishes in it, allows it to flow through him like a water’s steady current. It’s comforting and unnerving. It’s everything and nothing.
And, even then, that ends too. Something takes him by the wrist, carefully guiding him elsewhere, gently, softly. And he lets it, despite himself.
---
It’s another world, he realizes with wonderment. A beautiful world that stretches infinitely and he thinks that perhaps that is the point---to be an endless span to contain universes within. The colors range within the golds and reds, though soft and warm, overwhelmingly so.
The hand around his wrist remains there, small but sure, encasing him in something he’s felt before, he supposes. Attention all for him but for reasons not of duty or convenience but of want. Attention for him merely because he exists . It’s a new feeling that washes over him---an odd sort of peace but perhaps he’s never felt peace at all to understand.
She’s small, a child embodying the innocence and newfound tranquility in a stark world. Dark crimson hair, tied messily into two buns atop her head and even darker reds she wears. Her skin an emerald color that he predictably finds comfort in, as it’s the shade he wears even now, in this strange morose vision and dreamscape. And her eyes---they light with gold there, a glint meant for childish jest, yet it seems like a welcome home.
“It’s warmer here,” he remarks as they stand upon a cliff and he wonders if it’s of her own making. The landscape below is a valley, a river glimmering gold between the hills they stand upon. “You mean to have me stay here.”
Her voice resonates ( Like a god , he thinks), soft but overwhelming all at once. “Only if you wish it. I heard your call, so I reached out for you.”
Despite the lovely world, he finds him staring down at the child, holding his wrist still and he discerns she’s grounding him. For if she shall let go, he’d be whisked away to where he had been before---the everything and nothing. He wishes for it but resents it all at once, unsure of his choices; a startling thought as he vaguely recalls he used to be so certain before, in a past life.
“You pull strays from their dark corners often, then.”
The gold swims in her eyes as she looks upon him and it feels as though he is the one who is small. “Perhaps my soul cannot be broken of habit, even here.”
“What do you call this place?”
“There’s no name but I believe you know where we are. What you wish to know is why .”
Her voice echoes into the beyond and he thinks, perhaps, she is the everything and nothing from before. For how could she have yanked him from it? There’s a smile upon her lips, a gesture so foreign now and he has to remember the meaning. Quite possibly he had used his own smiles as something cruel in a past life that he’s forgotten.
“Is there a reason?”
The smile widens then, glee reaching every corner of her face. “You will see.”
---
She shows him his reflection in the waters as they walk along the river. For a world so endless, there is no one but them and he finds it both comforting and unsettling. Everything and nothing. She stops them at the bank and leads him to the water.
As he looks upon his face, he cannot give it a name. Stardust floods his eyes, just as the gold swims in hers, like the skies on a land he cannot quite recall. But in this, he recalls a gem with infinite power, held in his hand and ready to trade it for a life he had once cared for.
“You see now,” the girl tugs on his wrist again and he’s standing once more. “It chose you.”
“No,” he murmurs, his fingers tracing his brow as he strains to remember, remember, remember , “I don’t understand.”
“That’s all right,” she says to him, happily, charmingly, convincingly. “You will.”
It’s everything and nothing.
---
“There are others,” he remarks aloud to her.
Time is no longer a concept he’s willing to understand here. There is existence and there is not. That’s all he can be truly certain of, as the hand that grips his wrist, tethering him to her world. Beings pass like ghosts, blurred and unseen after a blink of an eye.
“Yes,” it’s the first time she sounds forlorn, wistful, but no less like a god. This god in the form of a child. “Some long before us, brought upon another wielder in the beginnings of the universe. Some in the middle. Some now, at the end.”
“Is it the end?”
“For us, yes.
“Then I am glad to have witnessed the fall.”
“Are you? Without the one that anchors you?”
The images filter through his eyes, as if seeing them for the first time. Memories, he grasps, like a stray thread, unraveling the rest of the fabric. That anchor, as she says, comes in the shape of a king, eyes ablaze and lighting jagged and curled within his hands. It’s another striking truth in this foreign place. That anchor, a king, a warrior, the lighting, brother, is everything and nothing.
“You mean to show me a heart,” he assumes her intentions, once again.
Once again, she smiles, everything and nothing, and says, “I merely unveil souls here. Your heart is your own.”
He stands before her still, the small hand wrapped around his wrist is tight now, as if she’s sure he does not want to go back to where he once came. Where she had clasped and wrenched him from. It’s comforting here and yet he feels like a visitor. Purposeless in this great expanse she commands and wanders with him.
“And what of yours? Your soul? Have you got one?”
Her smile is balanced then, the gold dims in her eyes and he thinks it could grow brighter with a gentle whisper, like breath to a fire. “I was the first claimed. My soul intertwined with the gem now. And with His.”
It’s said with such finality and she seems to grow smaller at the mention. Withers, almost. Just as he did when reminded of his own anchor. But that doesn’t seem right---not her anchor: her reason for being. She’s separated her anchor from her reason for existence and he thinks that must be nice, for in a past life, his anchor and reason for being is the same person, same king, same brother.
“What of those before you?”
“There had never been a sacrifice before,” she moves them, past the trees that stretch to amber skies. Her other hand grazes the bark, like a mindless comfort. “It is mine, as the Other is yours.”
---
He knows of what the Other is. But he doesn’t understand, as he’s told her before. He’s only wielded it once, held onto it like a precious treasure and that it all. It had been his undoing, his death, he recognizes now.
Memories are a cruel thing, in this place. They cut him like the barbed lighting he remembers, harsh and white hot, searing him from inside. It brings forth regrets, a whisper of what havoc he’s brought upon the universe by his actions alone. Selfish.
---
“Why did it choose me?”
They walk through the forest and it’s endless. There’s an odd tranquility about that, for he doesn’t want it to end. But he’s certain she’s taking him on a journey and those inevitably end, do they not?
“You know,” she simply states and pauses.
Both their feet halt and she turns to him. He tilts his head in question to the child, curious she would stop their trek to wherever she plans to take him. The liquid gold is alight once more, speaking of silent promises he’s sure she holds for all the souls that reside with her. A god, everything and nothing.
Her other hand beckons him closer and he kneels to be eye level, the action easier and like a feather of muscle memory. Her small fingertips graze his brow and she stares at him with glee and sadness all at once, secrets only for her to keep.
And then gold hides behind eyelids and he closes his as well.
---
The stones call for each other, ache to be together, wielded together, but can never be for long. They cannot be reunited for the rest of time, doomed to be the last bits of energies left when all the stars die out, when there is nothing left but them and then they will dwindle away too. All until they start the universe again.
No other stone knows this truth as deeply as the Space Stone. For what other being would know loss and ache as much as the one who embodies the void? To know loneliness, to hear the calls of its kin and cannot reach them? To understand everything and nothing, only to stay stagnant and barren. What of it then? What will it leave it this time? Only to be torn apart, into that nothingness, that everything.
For the others wish to be together and yet they can grow comfortable with what they’re given. The Space Stone does not have this convenience and it wants for nothing more to be surrounded by kin.
---
“You see now,” she echoes from before, hand caressing his face, like a mother would.
“Yes,” he murmurs, staring at his own hand, “I understand.”
“It tethered itself to you, for you understood its longing above all.”
---
(He hates, hates, hates what it means, so suddenly. But all at once, he loves too. It surrounds him, like heavy furs, a comfortable burden upon his shoulders. It both rips him apart and melds him together, like that lighting, everything and nothing.
He thinks it must be a nice thing for other souls, to hold sentiment so close, like something to be treasured. But sentiments meant poison to him and he’d catch himself before he took that drink, smile spitefully and reject it bitterly, wretchedly.
For what was the Space Stone without its kin? What is he without his brother?
A wanderer, mindless and purposeless.)
---
They move from the tree line, moving through the wisps of ghosts, souls that have been claimed, weaving through a ghost village. It’s all in crumbles, wrecked from a war unseen. Fragments from her world, he wants to believe. Her past life, or another’s and she keeps it.
“You keep this form,” he tells her, even though it could be posed as a question.
“I thought a child leading you would be a comfort.”
“It matters no more to me.”
“Very well.”
Within a blink of an eye, she’s nearly as tall as he is, the hand around his wrist larger but slender still. Red hair falls over her shoulders and face now of a matured version of the small girl from before. She wears the same tunic, crimson and black, as if holding onto some semblance from her past life. Though he cannot disagree with the nostalgia, as he wears the colors from a fonder time too.
She smiles, that gold glittering something like untold mischief, yet he welcomes it. Everything and nothing. A god. As he must have thought of himself once. What he could never become, a lie, as were the words spilled from his mouth in the life he led.
“Is this the form you held when you were murdered?”
The crudeness of the question doesn’t escape her and it’s as if had struck her. Nothing else moves but the swirl of gold, heavy and secret-laden. She glances towards the skies then, the hues of amber and light reds reflect upon her face, basking in her warmth, for she’s the god here and all worships her. A humble sort of god, he supposes, with the weight of all the souls that brush past them.
“It’s the form I had before He tossed me away.”
“You speak of him like a god. He is not.”
She turns to him then, a level of startlement sparked in her features. It’s the first he sees this entity before him look upon him in a way. To surprise a god, this god. And then it vanishes, smoothed away by an all-knowing smile and a nod.
“Yes, I suppose he is not.”
Caught with memory, she seems to flick it away and it’s no more. He wishes he could do the same with his everything and nothing.
---
They arrive.
It’s a shrine of sorts, surrounded suddenly by nothing but the reflection of still water. They stand atop the stone of the shrine, sheltered by its narrow and elegantly designed roof. She lowers herself upon its floor and he follows, lest he be ripped from her grip.
They stay there for a time, quietly watching as souls appear and disappear, like the ghosts they are. He watches her, watching them, looking upon them with a sad fondness. She recognizes the faces, he realizes; she sees them for who they had been. Peering into their souls, while he cannot. All he sees are shadows, without much form and featureless. Through stardust eyes, he only sees everything and nothing and it obscures them. Out of touch and he supposes that is the purpose.
He remembers her light touch upon his forehead from earlier and intertwined their fingers then, careful not to fully release before he holds her hand within his. Her eyes snap to his.
And then he sees her .
A warrior, fierce and jagged. A lover, sharper still but adored. A companion, respected and treasured. And a sister, hated and loved, all at once. Everything and nothing. The paradox that tethers the both of them.
“Is she here? Your sister?”
She doesn’t withdraw from him and he doesn’t let go. Instead, she smiles that smile again, warm and inviting. “No. As your brother is not either.”
Perhaps he had hoped for the both of their sakes. The reunion that would never come again. Bound to call for each other but torn apart all too soon.
“They seek revenge, for us,” she says, crestfallen and looks upon the skies once more. “They won’t know peace for it.”
“Would they if they didn’t take it?”
She turns to him then and shakes her head. “No.”
“Then let nothing stop them from their revenge.”
“You want them to take it, whether it would destroy them or not,” she says and it feels like that barbed lighting in his chest, as if she can tear him open, see the small, selfish and cold heart that lies beneath. “It would mean he cares for you, even beyond your death.”
“Yes,” he agrees and thinks it’s pointless to hide it all now. Hide from the god who sees souls, the wretched and innocence. “You don’t?”
Her mouth quirks into a smirk now, smooth, clandestine. “I want peace that will never come.”
---
Infinity means forever. For the same cycle to occur, over and over. It’s a terrible truth the stone shows him, something that cries and laughs as it embraces the fact with fondness as it tears it apart. How cruel infinity sounds.
But to her, he understands, it simply means Until next time .
---
He thinks the stones must choose souls as their representatives, so that they may sit together like this. To bask in each other’s presence with understanding, revelations and simply exist. She embodies the Soul, with all her warmth and light and he embodies Space, with the void that searches for the cosmic life.
What a wonderful and wicked sentiment of all.
---
“It’s time,” she says, a quiet whisper that cuts him.
He feels it too. The rip to the fabric that binds them together, only to be torn away to the shreds they were before. That full circle, where there is no end and no beginning. Everything and nothing.
“What a shame.”
“They mean to set it right a second time.”
It’s then, among still water and under a small shrine, within a world he doesn’t belong, he feels a flutter. Something new. Something he fears to hope for. Now she grins, shoulders tremble as she laughs with hopeless abandon, shaking her head.
“You see it as futile,” he states.
“No, I see it as another fork in the road. We will retrace our steps to go back to it.”
“Is that such a terrible thought?”
“I wish I had gotten to know you, even for a short time.”
The confession bleeds despondency. Perhaps she is used to being a god and having another to speak to, not tied to this world. But he’s gotten used to her too. Yes, with her golden eyes and welcoming smiles, the traces of an entity reborn for something greater. Not he, for he wasn’t meant for anything great, even now.
“Your name,” he prompts.
But she shakes her head. “No names here.”
“Then I bid thee farewell,” he bows his head and takes a step back, their joined hands within the space between.
“In another life,” she says.
It’s only right she’s the one to let go, he thinks, as he’s jerked violently back to the very stone that claimed him before. She had been the one to guide him in the first place. It’s fitting she’d be the one to send him back.
And he returns to the everything and nothing.
---
The tumble back to a familiar reality is a harsh one. Disorienting and sickening. A former life is yanked by a single line right out of his chest and he’s left with that lonesome, frozen heart that feels as though it will shatter.
He struggles a moment, caught between three different worlds all at once, struggling to ground himself in at least one. It doesn’t work at first---the anchor he had once had isn’t present and a restless fear curdles inside his head that he’s in a world without it. There’s a fight to stay lucid, to remember, remember, remember everything and nothing.
And then he can’t remember anything at all.
The Space Stone leaves him bare, stripped of the worlds before. A little girl and her hair in buns, eyes of molten gold and a warm smile. An endless landscape with the shadow of souls. A void that cries out for its kin. A call of his own, reaching, reaching, reaching for that everything and nothing.
Gone.
And he’s suddenly stumbling over his feet and he’s falling towards solid ground. Hands catch him then, familiar. An anchor. His anchor.
“Steady, brother.”
His ankles, wrists, mouth are bound with iron. He does as he’s told, mutely, bitterly. It’s like deja vu, something amiss, like an echo of muscle memory. They’re walking through corridors. Midgard. And he’s been contained, ready to head back to---
“Loki.”
Ah, yes. That’s his name. Had he forgotten for some reason? For a moment, it seemed as if he had no name at all.
---
It comes as a whisper, a hand on his shoulder, as if the man is not allowed to be close or speak to him. Which he thinks, proudly, that is how it should be. He is a god among these humans, to be feared. But that is not the reason, he can tell. He cannot ask the intentions of the man, however, for iron covers his lips, muzzled. So he merely eyes the man suspiciously.
It’s Tony Stark, looking more ragged, tired , than before. In passing, he leans forward, almost hastily, and mutters in his ear, “Thanos returns---and he’s destroyed the universe and you will be the first.”
It’s an odd thing to say, really. In hindsight, Loki will still think it odd to chose those words. For in all his hubris, after the attack on New York and Thor’s precious humans, Loki would have still said, “ Good. Let him come.”
He would have, if unmuzzled and not for a flash of blue starlight and a small child that streaks through his memories.