Archive of Our Own ^beta

. . . . . .

"Fortunate" is not a word that Loki would normally use to describe himself.

He was born to the losing side in a massive war, cursed with a tiny body among a people with little use for the physically weak, and abandoned by his father to die in the snow. He was adopted by his people's great enemy, a king who saw little in him besides a useful political pawn; he was raised in the shadow of his widely loved adopted brother and relegated to second best by people who could not see what danger there was in that fool Thor’s arrogance. And when he discovered the sad truth of his birth and attempted to reclaim the respect he'd always been denied, he ended up rejected, forced from his adopted home, and in the clutches of the mad Titan Thanos. After that came mind control, an unsuccessful invasion of Midgard, and ignominious capture at the hands of those absurd Midgardian heroes.

No, Loki would certainly never describe himself as fortunate. Not until the moment a scuffle breaks out in Stark Tower and the Tesseract miraculously ends up in his hands.

Perhaps his luck is finally changing, he reflects as he picks up the Tesseract and transports himself away.

The first thing to do, obviously, is to fake his death, and this Loki does at the first possible opportunity. This isn’t the first time he’s let people think he’s dead, so he knows this latest death will automatically look suspicious. So he takes his time, does it right, plans it well, and a few months after his escape from Stark Tower there is a convincing corpse placed where it’s certain to be found. He supposes that everyone will be glad, on some level, to see the end of Loki Odinson, prince of Asgard.

And then Loki No-name, prince of no kingdom, son of no father, grips the Tesseract tight, grins to himself, and vanishes.

. . . . . .

Years pass, blurring into a haze of places and faces. With the Space Stone at his command, and with every reason to avoid places he has known and to move frequently—not the least of which is that Thanos is likely still looking for the Space Stone—Loki traverses the universe, wandering far and wide, thinking of nothing but his own pleasure. He visits glittering cities and silent forests, sweeping vistas and ink-black caves. He watches planets as they’re born and stars as they die. He eats the finest food, drinks the finest wine, views the finest art, hears the finest music. He learns old magics all but forgotten by the rest of the universe. He has traveling companions and friends and lovers, from time to time, but only briefly; Loki can be charming, but it’s only skin deep—a trick he learned, not who he truly is, and he can’t keep it up for long and people always decide they prefer other company, in time. So he’s mostly alone.

And in those long silent days, Loki changes.

Not in fundamentals, of course, but he feels the rancor bleed from him, little by little. Away from Odin, away from Thor, away from Thanos and his Mind Stone, he mellows. Loki the destroyer and Loki the traitor prince and Loki the disappointing son fade away; he hardly knows who will be left when all the fading is done.

He comes to wonder what has become of Asgard, of Odin’s family and Thor’s friends. And in time that curiosity overcomes him, and one day, nearly a decade after the failed invasion of Midgard, a figure in a dark green cloak slips through one of the hidden paths into the Realm Eternal and stares in confusion at the scene before him.

This is Asgard, certainly, but something is wrong; parts of the city have been rebuilt, so once-familiar buildings no longer look quite right. There don’t seem to be nearly as many people as there ought to be on the streets. And something has gouged out chunks of the hills and cliffs on the edge of the city.

Something terrible has happened.

Loki checks that the disguise spell is still working, and makes his way to the tavern most favored by the Einherjar. And he’s in luck: none other than Fandral is there. Even he seems different, though; the single barmaid waiting on him is a far cry from the bevy of beautiful women who used to hang all over the man every time he went out.

“Pardon my forwardness,” he says as he takes the seat next to Fandral, “but I recognize you. You’re a warrior, are you not? A friend of the prince?”

Fandral’s charming grin still feels familiar, even after so many years apart. “I am indeed! And you are?”

“Name is Ingvar,” he lies. “Raised on Asgard, but I’ve spent the last ten years living out in the Xandarian region. This is my first time back in ages.”

Fandral nods. “Different, isn’t it?”

“What happened?” Loki demands. “Whatever it was, news didn’t reach me.”

Fandral’s smile turns sad. “That isn’t a story I like to relive,” he says. “But maybe you could loosen my tongue with a drink.”

So Loki orders him a drink, and Fandral tells the tale: how the Dark Elves, led by Malekith, rose and attacked Asgard; how it was all the forces of Asgard could do to stop them before they destroyed all the Nine Realms; how half the city and half the population were destroyed in the battle.

“Thor barely pulled that one off,” sighs Fandral, and Loki’s focus sharpens at the mention of his former brother’s name.

“But the prince, he was all right? He survived?”

“You really haven’t heard much, have you? Thor was and is quite well. Married his Midgardian not long after—Princess Jane, as she is now.”

This is rather astonishing news. And it’s also a good way to gather more information. “What did his parents think of that?” he asks casually.

“Oh, Frigga was surprised, but she’s happy enough about it now; she’s quite fond of Jane. Odin was furious for a long time. He’s only now coming to terms with it.”

So Frigga and Odin both yet live; that’s . . . well, it’s interesting to know, that’s all. And Thor has married the Midgardian woman he inexplicably loves. Really it sounds like his former family is doing well without him. Not that he ever expected or hoped for anything different.

But the Dark Elf attack on Asgard! He is surprised by how much the news bothers him. “Half the population destroyed by Malekith, you say?”

Fandral nods wearily. “The carnage was terrible.”

“Was anyone of name among the fallen?”

“Magni the general,” Fandral sighs. “Fjorgynn and Forseti, and Bragi the royal skald. Freyr, son of Nord. And a dear friend of mine: the shieldmaiden Sif.”

The floor seems to drop out from under Loki; the feeling is not unlike when he let himself fall from the Rainbow Bridge. “Oh?” he hears himself say, and is surprised his voice is so steady.

"I suppose there's comfort in knowing she went out just as she would have wanted to: with a sword in her hand." Fandral lifts his glass in something like a toast, and there's a weariness in his eyes Loki has never seen before. "We shall never see her like again."

Loki sits very, very still for a moment. And then he thanks his companion for the story, and leaves Asgard as quickly as he can.

. . . . . .

His wanderings are not so pleasant as once they were. A fine wine, a good meal, a beautiful sunset: some of the pleasure has faded from these things he once loved. To stand on a frozen asteroid and watch a star collapse into a supernova once thrilled him, but now it only makes him think of another light that has gone out in the universe.

He is a fool, he knows. The Lady Sif died hating him; she would laugh in derision and disbelief if she knew her loss sits like a rock in the pit of his stomach. And he has no right to mourn: they were nothing to one another. They were not even friends, once he drifted away from Thor’s circle, and they were enemies by the end of their acquaintance.

But that doesn’t change what he once felt, once wished for (still feels, still wishes for, on some long lonely nights).

He moves through the universe out of habit now, more than desire.

At least Asgard survived. He’s surprised to learn that it matters to him, but it does. So does the welfare of the three people he once called family. He will never go back, though; no doubt they are happier without them, and it is surely an act of compassion, in a way, to let them go on thinking he is dead.

How dull this aimless wandering has grown.

. . . . . .

There is a thought that has niggled at the back of his mind for a decade, and one firelit night in a vineyard on Haakon, he pulls out his memory of his escape from Stark Tower to examine it. Literally: it is a useful spell that displays a memory in the air like a hologram, so that it can be examined without the problems caused by the brain’s tendency to alter what it remembers.

And he examines the scene from many angles until he is sure that he did see what he thought he saw: the Midgardian Tony Stark appears in the memory twice.

He accompanies Loki to the lobby, where he has a heart attack. But he’s also standing in another area of the lobby, dressed in the dark clothes of some kind of Midgardian soldier or law enforcement personnel. The face is partially covered, but it is the same. The voice is the same.

Several possibilities, then: astral projection. Clones. Illusions. But Tony Stark has no magic, and Midgard has no sufficiently advanced cloning technology. Or at least these things were true ten years ago.

He watches it again and sees that the second Tony Stark seems to be after the Tesseract: he snatches up the briefcase when it’s dropped, only to lose it when that green monstrosity barrels into him. He peers closer at the second Tony Stark and realizes the interloper doesn’t look exactly the same as Tony Prime: he looks, perhaps, a little older.

Time travel, then, with the aid of quantum physics . . . that’s a real possibility. The science exists, though no one in the universe—that Loki is aware of—has yet figured out how to control it well enough to be useful. Perhaps the Man of Iron finally did it.

(He knows the Time Stone is on Midgard, or at least was at the time of this memory, and it could certainly explain the time travel as well. But after ten years of traveling with the Tesseract, he has become intimately familiar with the certain tang in the air that an Infinity Stone leaves behind. He detects no such residue in his memory.)

He watches the scene again and again until he is confident in his hypothesis: Tony Stark went back in time from some future date to take the Tesseract (Loki is uncertain whether he caused his younger self’s medical emergency, or simply remembered it happening and knew that it would make the perfect distraction for the heist). He lost it, however, when Bruce Banner, that menace, barrelled out of a stairwell and collided with him. That’s how it ended up in Loki’s hand; that’s how he escaped.

Those fools.

Don’t they know about all the hypotheses about how such time travel would affect the universe? Don’t they know that the tiniest change—bumping into a civilian, stepping on a butterfly—could be the catalyst for spawning an entire alternate reality? For them to have affected the past so much as to allow him to escape with an Infinity Stone . . . they must have spun off hundreds of alternate realities. They must have left the time stream in absolute chaos.

He wonders what made them so desperate and careless.

As he lets the memory spell fade into the darkness, curiosity grips him, and a moment later he is packing his things and vanishing himself away to Thimoreld: the largest and most ancient library of magical texts he’s aware of, located on Besmor, a tiny, little-known planet at the very edge of a far-flung galaxy.

. . . . . .

Loki spends two months in Thimoreld, pouring over every volume related to time, until he is ready to construct the spell he wants: one that will allow him to observe the time stream from outside.

He casts it one quiet afternoon and shakes his head when he sees how right he was: the time stream is largely intact for most of its run—the very occasional bulge or offshoot, every few centuries, indicating what must be the occasional attempt at time travel—until the present, where the time stream comes to resemble a broom: the solid, long flow of time suddenly splinters out into dozens or hundreds of offshoots. A large number come from the day he escaped Midgard, but an equally large number come from a few years later, and a smaller portion shoot off from forty-some-odd years earlier; he does not know whether he can blame Tony Stark’s meddling for this, but if he’s remembering Midgardian lifespans correctly, this does seem to coincide with the beginning of Stark’s life. Perhaps he went back to see his own birth? Loki has no explanation, however, for the the proliferation of offshoots about seventy years ago.

There’s a grim satisfaction in knowing that he’s right: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes have made an absolute mess of the time stream. (Further proof that this was not the work of the Time Stone; it is powerful enough that when it moves people back through time, it actually eats up the time that has already passed, so no branches are formed.)

There’s nothing to do with this information, though; what’s done is done and he can’t change it, and why would he bother trying to, anyway?

So he simply examines the splintered time stream one more time, amusing himself with the thought that on each—or at least most—of those branches, there is a version of himself living out his life. He wonders how his other selves are faring.

And just before he lifts his hand to wave away the image that’s floating before him, another thought occurs to him: on each—or at least most—of those branches, the Lady Sif yet lives. Maybe there’s even one where she doesn’t hate him.

He would never admit how much comfort that thought gives him as he packs up his things and leaves the planet of Besmor.

. . . . . .

He resumes his wanderings with a little more gusto than before; a bit of color has come back into his life. But it doesn’t last long. That last thought he had in the Thimoreld library lingers in the back of his mind, growing louder day by day until there is little else he can think of: there must be time branches where Sif lives, and there may even be one where she doesn’t hate him.

It doesn’t matter. He was nothing to Sif, and she is nothing to him.

(Lies, lies, lies.)

He doesn’t care about the notion that there has to be a universe out there where her light has not gone out.

(Lies, lies, lies.)

He tells himself for one year that he does not care about that idea. And then he gives in and returns to Thimoreld.

With his previous research under his belt, this time it takes only a few weeks for him to construct a spell that will let him jump to other branches of the time stream. Such a spell requires an enormous amount of power—more than he could muster on his own—but he just happens to have a source of enormous power in his possession.

Soon enough he is ready: his things are tucked, as always, in a pocket dimension where he should be able to access them even from alternate realities. He has carefully marked the time branch he is leaving from, so that he can return to it when his journey is complete. His disguise spell is in place (with no idea what he’ll find on the other side, he thinks it is wise to be unrecognizable, just in case). The Tesseract is in his hands. And with the sensible side of his brain sighing that he is a besotted fool, even after all this time, he performs the spell.

. . . . . .

The first alternate reality he visits is so much worse than what he feared.

When he appears on the surface of this reality’s version of Besmor, he sees that the once-forested planet is now a wasteland; there’s a strange substance underfoot that seems to have covered and destroyed everything on the surface. He runs searching spells, and the results leave him reeling: every inhabitable planet he can reach is devoid of life—save one, and thither he carefully makes his way, using all his power to conceal his approach.

His careful observations turn up the following alarming situation: a Celestial called Ego, along with his son, has succeeded in destroying all life in the universe, with the intention of repopulating it with outgrowths of himself.

Loki has no idea how the Midgardians’ meddling led to this, but he still curses them under his breath as he transports away to the next time branch.

. . . . . .

The second alternate reality he visits is intact, so that’s a relief, at least. When he runs a searching spell for Sif, however, he comes up empty, and with dread curling in the pit of his stomach, he goes once again in disguise to Asgard. Once again it has been greatly damaged by Dark Elves, and once again he makes his way to that tavern, where a helpful Einherjar sadly informs him that the Lady Sif died in the battle with the Dark Elves, along with Frigga and Thor.

Loki grits his teeth and leaves.

. . . . . .

In the third alternate reality, his searching spell finally comes up with Sif’s location, and Loki breathes a sigh of relief. She is on a moon of Vanaheim, and when he draws close to her location, he realizes she is on a hunting trip with the Three. So he disguises himself as a local and goes to where she cannot help but run into him.

He is pretending to pick fruit from a tree when she comes bursting into the clearing, accompanied by Volstagg, and it takes everything in him not to simply stand and stare at the sight of her. She looks exactly as he remembers: her shining armor, her long dark hair worn impractically loose and flowing as an act of defiance against those who called her too beautiful and feminine to be a warrior. He has not laid eyes on her in over twelve years, and now that she is here, it’s all he can do not to step forward and pull her into an embrace.

But she would not welcome that from a stranger. He wonders if she would welcome it from Loki.

“Our apologies,” Sif says politely as they come upon him. “Have we strayed onto private lands?”

He’s missed that about her, that she insists on being so fair even to peasants. He’s missed her voice. He’s missed her face. He has missed everything about her more than he ever let himself notice.

“No, you’re still in the forest,” he finally remembers to say, “and free to pass.” And he really does mean to let her go. He’s seen her, he knows that there is still a reality in which she lives and, by all appearances, is well and still in a position where she can hunt for pleasure with her friends.

But it’s been twelve years since he saw her, and he can’t let her leave just yet.

“You are Asgardian?” he finds himself blurting. “I’ve not seen your people in these parts for a while.”

“Indeed,” says Sif. “I am Sif, and my companion is Volstagg.”

“Sif and Volstagg!” Loki exclaims, as though just recognizing the names. “I have heard of you. Close friends of—” he changes what he’s about to say as he remembers that he has no idea what Thor is up to in this reality— “the throne of Asgard, are you not?”

Sif nods solemnly. “We are sworn to Odin Allfather, and to Prince Thor when he becomes king.”

He can’t help himself: “There was another prince, was there not? Or did I hear that incorrectly?”

Instantly Sif’s eyes are full of fire, her lips twisting into a sneer. “The trickster Loki,” she confirms. “That traitor rots in the dungeons of Gladsheim. Where he belongs, and where he will die.”

“Ah,” says Loki faintly. “Well, I should get back to my work.”

Sif and Volstagg bid him goodbye and leave, and Loki stands and watches them go for a long time.

He should go back to his time. Shouldn’t he? He found what he was looking for: confirmation that there is an alternate reality where Sif is alive and well. So he can stop this journey across the time stream and go back to his own reality.

He can, and he will.

Only . . .

He doesn’t want to leave it there. He doesn’t want his final memory of Sif to be that searing anger and disgust toward Loki.

What would it harm if he visited one more alternate reality?

. . . . . .

In the fourth alternate reality, she is in Asgard, which for once has not been ravaged by the Dark Elves. Perhaps this is the best reality he has visited so far, he reflects, until he starts a casual conversation with a passerby and learns that Loki in this reality is dead, and all of Asgard is glad of it.

That puts a damper on his enthusiasm.

What puts a greater damper on his enthusiasm is when a cheer goes up from the other Asgardians wandering the street, and his companion turns a pleased look at him and says, “Here come the king and queen!”

A glimpse of Frigga would not be unwelcome, so Loki turns to look.

And feels his stomach drop, because coming toward them, mounted on horseback and resplendent in fine clothes, are Thor and Sif.

“Ah,” he says weakly, “so the Lady Sif became the Allmother.”

“And such a fine Allmother she is! Not the same as Frigga, rest her soul, but a very fine queen indeed.”

Loki isn’t sure he likes this reality anymore.

And he doesn’t want his final memory of Sif to be her smiling placidly at Thor’s side.

What would it harm if he visited one more alternate reality?

. . . . . .

You may not be surprised to learn that it turns out to be much more than just one more alternate reality.

Loki loses track of how many time branches he visits—a few dozen, at least. And he sees every possible outcome: Sif dead. Loki dead. Thor dead. Odin dead. Frigga dead. Sif single. Sif married to Thor. Sif married to Haldor. In one bizarre reality, Sif married to Odin. Sif a fierce warrior. Sif a helpless paraplegic after a terrible battle. Sif a doting mother. Loki a prisoner of Asgard. Loki a prisoner of Midgard. Loki a prisoner of Thanos. Loki a trusted child of Thanos. Loki long lost, with no one aware of where he is now. The Dark Elves victorious. Ego victorious. Thanos victorious. Somone called Hela victorious. Asgard whole. Asgard damaged. Asgard destroyed. Midgard destroyed. The galaxy destroyed. The universe destroyed.

But in every single reality, one detail remains the same: Sif, if she lives, hates Loki.

It is becoming exhausting to see how implacable her anger with him is, to see that it stretches across all realities.

. . . . . .

This is the last one, he tells himself for the fortieth time as he steps into a garish bar on Pyree. But still, something in his heart hopes. This is a new situation he’s found himself in, after all: Sif is far from Asgard in this reality, and she’s not surrounded by Thor and Three. And if the circumstances are different, maybe other things will be different as well.

And the moment he sees her is all very new too: Sif sitting at the bar in a dim, smoky room; Sif with her hair cut to her chin (he immediately misses her glorious long hair, but this look suits her very well, and reminds him of their childhood, when he cut her hair and turned it black); Sif out of Asgardian clothing or armor for once, dressed instead in a utilitarian and somewhat tattered jumpsuit. He’d almost question whether it’s really her, if not for the very familiar sword by her side.

This is the first reality he’s seen where she cut her hair; he wonders what has happened in this universe in the last twelve years. Or is it thirteen years now, since the day he escaped Stark Tower? He’s been jumping time streams so long, he hardly knows.

He ducks into a dark corner and changes his clothing to match the locals and his face to look Vanir. And then he meanders toward her. He knows Sif well enough in any universe to know she will not take kindly to what appears to be a man hitting on her in a bar. So instead he sits two seats down from her, orders a drink, and sips at it slowly, all the while pretending to not even notice her. And only when he’s been there a few minutes does he glance over as if noticing her for the first time and say appreciatively. “Beautiful sword. Nidavellir?”

That works: Sif is pleased to talk about her weapon, as he’d known she would be. “You have a good eye. How are you familiar with Nidavellir?” And then her eyes widen on seeing him. “Are you Vanir?”

“Born and raised,” he lies. “Haven’t been back in . . .” He pretends to think. “Oh, decades. Name is Temend.”

“Asgardian,” she smiles. “Sif.”

“What are the odds?” he chuckles, careful to make it seem he’s at least as interested in his drink as he is in her; too much eagerness will put her off. “Two children of the Nine Realms, meeting on the other side of the galaxy.”

“Higher odds than they used to be,” she says darkly. “Especially since . . .”

After what he’s seen in the last who-knows-how-many realities, he feels safe hazarding a guess. “Yes, I heard there was some sort of terrible event on Asgard. What was it again? The details were fuzzy when I heard about it.”

She turns, her eyebrows raised. “You do not know?” she asks. “You really have been gone a long time. Asgard was destroyed. By Surtur.”

This is new. “Surtur? Surtur of Muspelheim? By what power? I thought Odin took the Eternal Flame from him ages ago.”

Sif chuckles darkly. “Thor brought him to Asgard and allowed him to destroy it.”

A universe where Thor turns evil? This is indeed new.

But perhaps he’s wrong, because when he demands “Why?” in a voice that is more desperately confused than he means for it to be, she explains, “To stop Ragnarok.”

Well, this is indeed a whole new situation; he has visited realities where Asgard was destroyed before, but in none of them was Ragnarok given as the reason for the destruction.

Although, come to think of it, in four of those realities there was no one left to give him any information on Asgard's destruction, so perhaps Ragnarok happens more frequently than he thinks.

“So Ragnarok finally came for Asgard,” he says in something like wonder. “How?”

“Through Hela.”

Yes, he's heard that name before in previous time branches. “And who is Hela?”

“Odin’s daughter.”

What is going on in this universe? “Odin has no daughter,” he retorts.

“So thought we all,” she agrees. And she tells him the whole story, of how after the Dark Elf attack and Frigga’s death, Loki banished Odin (he very much wants more details about that, but he doesn’t want to make her suspicious), how Odin passed away and his death loosed his long-imprisoned daughter Hela, how Hela destroyed most of Asgard, and the only way to stop her was to let Surtur destroy the rest—after evacuating all the survivors, of course.

“And how many survivors were there?” he says, with an all-too-familiar sort of dread stealing through him. He has seen so many terrible outcomes in his weeks of traveling through the time stream that little can surprise him now, but it doesn’t mean he is inured to the horror of it. His relationship with his adopted realm is still complicated, but he is not such a monster as not to feel discomfort at the thought of Asgard destroyed and its inhabitants slaughtered.

Well, he’s not such a monster anymore, at least.

“Very few,” is her grim reply. “And one of the two refugee ships was destroyed soon after. So, as I understand it, there’s only enough to fill a few small villages on Midgard now.”

Troubling indeed. “But you have chosen not to join them.”

At this Sif sighs. “I had been banished from Asgard by Loki not long after he usurped his father’s throne—”

Loki bites his tongue to hold in the He’s not my father that wants to escape.

“—so I was not even on that side of the galaxy when Ragnarok occured. And Ragnarok was right before Thanos happened.” She gives him a melancholy little smile. “I was one of the taken. By the time of the restoration, the Asgardian settlement on Midgard had been going for five years and . . . things were different. They had all grown so close, and then so few people that I’d known survived Ragnarok.” She sighs. “I still love the people of Asgard, and I always will. But I no longer feel quite at home among them.”

There is an enormous amount to unpack there, beginning with the dread pooling in Loki’s stomach. Thanos has been victorious in two other universes, and both of those universes made Loki's skin crawl. His experience with Thanos is something he has no desire to repeat, or even remember, ever again. Still, this is new; apparently this is the third reality where Thanos destroyed half the universe with a snap of the Infinity Gauntlet . . . but the first where the dead were brought back. What could have brought this about?

So he starts subtly angling for more information. “I was one of the taken, too,” he says. “That was a difficult time.”

Sif nods emphatically (he’s starting to wonder just how much she’s had to drink, for this is more open and communicative than he has seen her in many decades). “I never thought I would say it,” she says, “but we owe the people of Midgard a great debt of gratitude.”

Ah, things are beginning to come together: the proliferation of alternate realities five to ten years ago, the fact that future Tony Stark seemed to have gone into the past to retrieve the Infinity Stone. “I never heard all the details about that,” he says casually. “Do you know how it all went down?”

For the first time Sif clams up a little, examining him thoughtfully: perhaps she is not quite as drunk as he thought. “I was not there,” she says after a moment, apparently having decided there is no harm in telling him this. “But I have heard from Thor that the Midgardian warriors—the Avengers, they call themselves—found a way to gather all the Infinity Stones and to kill Thanos.”

Gathered them through time travel, apparently; it seems he has found the original time branch, the one in which all the time travel originated.

And he can see why they would think it was a good idea; gathering the stones in the past would surely be easier than stealing them from Thanos. He just wonders if they considered at all the consequences of meddling with time.

“I am pleased Thanos is dead,” he says, and he’s never said anything more truthful. He can’t say much more than that, though; he thinks back to the devastation he’s found in other realities, and thinks it takes a special sort of selfishness to doom whole universes to save half of your own.

Although, if he absolutely must, he will concede that perhaps they were unaware of the consequences of their actions . . . although he knows that great minds throughout all Nine Realms have had a great deal to say on the subject of time travel, so if the Midgardians were unaware, they have only themselves to blame.

But then, he tried to destroy both Midgard and Jotunheim, so it’s not like he has much moral high ground here.

“I will drink to that,” says Sif, and knocks back the rest of her cup.

“So what will you do now?” he asks, looking back to his own cup. “You will not go to Midgard with Thor and what remains of Asgard?”

“Thor is not with the Asgardians,” she corrects him. “He has left the colony under the care of a Valkyrie called Brunnhilde. He is now running around the galaxy with a group of . . . reformed criminals, including a Groot and a talking raccoon.”

This truly is the strangest time branch.

“. . . ah,” he says after a moment. “Then you will not go to Midgard with Brunnhilde and what remains of Asgard?”

She shakes her head. “Perhaps someday,” she says. “But for now, I am finding unexpected pleasure in living for myself out here in the black. All my life has been spent serving Asgard and the Allfather; I have never chosen my own path before.”

“And what is that path?”

“Good honest work,” she says with a smile. “And on that note, I’m going to bed; I have to get up early tomorrow.”

He’s been so entranced by her tale (and by the fact that this is the longest conversation he’s had with her in any of the realities, and in many years) that he neglected to bring the conversation around to Loki yet. He’s so dismayed at the thought that he apparently lets it show on his face, for Sif laughs.

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

“No, it’s just—it’s been a long time since I spoke to someone from home,” he says. “Well, nearly home.”

And Sif’s eyes soften, just for a moment. “I know what you mean.” She hesitates. “Listen, what are you doing on Pyree?”

“Looking for work,” he lies, because it’s an easy cover story.

She grins. “Any good with a sword?”

“I’m better with a spear.”

“Good enough. Look, I’d been going to hire an extra hand for tomorrow. I’ve been hired by a local to clear his land of lava worms, and have finally found the nest; taking it out will be a two-person job. It’s only a day’s work, but the pay is good. Interested?”

More than he can say. “Sounds good,” he says casually.

She grins. “All right, meet me out front tomorrow at dawn.” She slaps money down on the bar and strides away, calling over her shoulder, “If you’re late, I’ll leave you!”

Loki watches her go and fails to hide a grin.

. . . . . .

When they meet at dawn and strike out for the land they’ve been hired to clear, Sif is not so talkative as she was (the result of having less alcohol in her system, no doubt). Instead she asks him about himself, and he spends the hike spinning lies about the life of Temend the Vanir.

And then they come to the lava worm nest, and there is no time to talk, for all their breath is taken up for fighting.

So it is mid-afternoon before he is able to address the question he most wants answered.

With the lava worms all dead, they have finally taken a moment to sit and eat some of the food they brought. Sif seems more relaxed and open than she did this morning; perhaps the fight has mellowed her, or perhaps she is coming to trust Temend more, now that they have fought together. Whatever the reason, she is nearly chatty—or as close as Sif gets to being chatty—as they eat.

“What a view!” she declares, looking out over the vista before them: the long sweep of verdant fields dropping into black sand beaches and turquoise water. This part of Pyree is a tropical paradise, so long as you manage to avoid being killed by lava worms. “I could happily live in a place like this.”

“It’s a little warm for my tastes,” says Loki, who has surreptitiously been casting cooling spells on his body all day to keep from overheating. Jotun physiology is not designed for a tropical paradise.

“I don’t know if I could stay here forever,” she agrees. “But I could do it for a few years.”

“Is the place where the Asgardians settled much like Asgard?”

“A little,” she reports. “The winters are harsher there than ever they were in Asgard. But in many ways it is similar. It is the area of Asgard that Odin used to visit, around the time I was born. They revered him there for many generations.”

Loki knows the area she means, but cannot admit as much. “Is that not where the Frost Giants tried to attack, and Odin went to repel them?”

“The very same.”

The perfect moment has arrived. “I think I heard,” Loki says as casually as he can manage, “something about the Frost Giants in Asgard. Was there not some terrible secret involving Odin’s younger son?”

And for the first time in dozens of realities, Sif’s face softens on hearing of Loki. And Loki’s heart leaps.

“Yes, I suppose there is no reason to discreet about it now. We learned some ten or fifteen years ago that Prince Loki had been adopted as a baby—that he was a Jotun by birth.”

“You must have been horrified,” Loki says, and it is all he can do to keep his voice level.

“Surprised, certainly,” she agrees. “But not horrified. What was horrifying was his behavior after he learned the truth.”

Loki is skeptical. “You did not care that the prince of Asgard was revealed to be the great enemy of Asgard? The monster that haunts children’s dreams?” Sif looks curiously at him, and he adds smoothly, “Or so we thought of them in Vanaheim, anyway. I assume it was similar in Asgard?”

That seems to convince her. “Truly I did not mind,” she says. “None of us did. The only person who could not live with that revelation was Loki himself.”

That cannot be true. It simply cannot. “And what became of the Jotun prince?” he asks.

Sif’s face falls further. “He was killed by Thanos, before the Snap,” she says, and there’s such genuine sorrow in her voice that Loki’s heart leaps. (And how strange has his life become, that news of his own death can bring him such pleasure?)

“You sound sorry about that,” he observes, his own voice carefully neutral. “I would have thought you’d be relieved, if not downright pleased. Is there a story there?”

Sif leans her head back against the tree trunk behind her. “Not a happy one.”

“Most stories I’ve heard lately have not been happy,” he mutters. “What’s one more sad one?”

“We were restored,” she reminds him firmly. “The Snap was reversed. I know how things have been; I know that getting the universe back on its feet has not been easy. But we are alive. That counts for something.” Her face falls. “Well, some of us are alive.”

“So tell me,” he urges. “What could the traitor Loki possibly have done that means you are not celebrating his death with feasts and parades?”

She turns her head to look at him, a bittersweet smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Come, let us start our hike back down,” she urges. They gather their things and begin walking, and after a moment, Sif says, “He changed.”

Loki blinks.

“Loki did . . .” Sif sighs. “Terrible things. Tried to seize the throne, tried to kill us. Tried to destroy Jotunheim. Tried to destroy Midgard. And then he succeeded in seizing the throne, for some years, while his father was banished, enchanted to not remember who he was. And when he was Asgard’s enemy, I certainly fought him with all I had; I would have killed him, if I’d needed to.” A sad little smile crosses her face. “But he did good things too; he nearly sacrificed his life to save Thor’s Midgardian. He helped Thor when he was trapped on the planet of Sakaar—enough to give his brother hope that there was still good in him. And when Ragnarok came and Hela would have destroyed Asgard and everyone in it, Loki chose our side. It took him years, but in the end, he chose Asgard. And when Thanos attacked the refugee ship to obtain the Tesseract, Loki was killed attempting to protect Thor.”

Well, that doesn’t sound like something Loki would do. “You are certain? That traitor died to protect Thor?”

Sif nods. “I had it from Thor himself, after Thanos was defeated and all the dead restored. We rendezvoused in Vanaheim and he reported all that had happened.” She grimaces. “You’ll recall I was away from Asgard when Ragnarok occurred. He found me so he could report the destruction of our home, and the deaths of all our friends and family.”

This is not the first reality where Asgard and many of its people were killed, but it is the first where he has seen it through Sif’s eyes, and he is surprised at how it makes his chest ache.

“And he told me of Loki’s death: how at the end, Loki claimed his adopted name—Loki Odinson, prince of Asgard—and died defying Thanos, attempting to protect the Tesseract and Thor.”

Indeed, this does not sound like Loki at all. “And how did Thor take that?” he asks, his voice small.

“Many tears were shed in the telling,” Sif says. “We built Loki a monument on Vanaheim, and swore to honor him in our hearts.” She glances over at him. “That is why I have told you so much. I want it to be known by others of the Nine Realms, what Loki did in the end.”

Loki shakes his head. “Why would he have done such a thing? That doesn’t sound like him at all. I mean, from what little I have heard of him.”

“It does not sound like the Loki of the last decade,” she agrees. “But it is exactly like the Loki of my childhood: to fight fiercely to protect the places and the people he loved.” She shrugs. “Somewhere along the way, he remembered what he’d once believed in.” And now she gives a bitter little laugh. “Perhaps it took losing everything he’d ever loved for him to remember that he’d once loved it.”

He thinks of how he's felt to see Asgard destroyed in so many time branches, and supposes she might have a point.

“It sounds as though you mourn him, a little," he says tentatively. "As though you miss him.”

“Of course I miss him,” she says quietly, sounding defeated. “I’ve always missed him. Even when he was locked in Asgard’s dungeons, even when we were enemies, I missed him.”

And Loki can only blink in surprise. “Even—even after the terrible things he did?”

Sif shakes her head. “He was one of my closest friends for a thousand years,” she says, and she sounds tired. “It’s hard to forget that just because of a decade of bad behavior.”

And suddenly Loki cannot breathe, and it’s not just being a Frost Giant on a tropical continent. This Sif would have taken his other self back, if only he’d shown an inclination to change his ways and return to the fold. Does it follow that his Sif would have welcomed him back if he’d returned before her death? Would all of Asgard have done so?

And a thought echoes through his head, loud as thunder: I may have made a terrible mistake.

In that moment they turn a corner and see the lane that marks the border of the property, where Sif has parked the cruiser that brought them from town. “Are you ready to go?”

But Loki does not answer her question. Loki looks at her beloved face, her beauty still untouched despite all she has been through of late; he looks at the way she moves and the expressions that cross her features, as familiar to him as the face he sees in the mirror. And he says, “May I ask you one thing?”

She tilts her head curiously.

“If Loki were here, what would you say to him?”

The surprised blinking tells him she’s a little thrown by the question, but she answers obediently. “I would tell him he’s been an absolute fool. I would tell him he should have trusted us and himself.” She smiles a little sadly. “I would tell him I will always regret how things turned out for him.”

And he hasn’t felt like this in years—this pounding in his chest, this delirious hope—and he can’t help himself. “Then, old friend Sif, there is something I ought to tell you.” He hesitates, and then he lifts his hand and makes a gesture.

The disguise spell falls.

Sif stares at him a long moment, and he absolutely cannot read the expression on her face. “Is this a trick? Loki is dead.”

He shakes his head. “There is much to explain, but it is me, Sif. Look, I can prove it.” He thinks a moment, then says, “When we were young, we climbed out on the palace roof with Thor to watch a meteor shower, and Odin was so angry at our putting ourselves in danger that he forbade us from attending the Midsummer feast, so we snuck to the kitchens and stole meat pies and ate them in the garden.” He thinks. “Once you dared me to lick a toad, and then you had to take me to Eir to get the rash on my tongue healed. At Volstagg’s wedding, you helped me slip crickets into Thor’s food and he never noticed. We laughed for days about that.”

“Why did you cut my hair?” she asks, testing him.

Because he wanted her to pay more attention to him than to Thor, just for a moment. But the answer he gave her at the time, the one she’ll be expecting, is “You’d told me I wasn’t any good with a knife. I wanted to prove you wrong.”

Sif’s eyes have grown wider and wider all this time, and now she speaks softly. “Loki?”

He nods.

And then she steps forward and punches him in the face.

“Sif!” he exclaims in pain and shock as he looks up at her from his back.

“How could you?” she demands, standing over him with her hands clenched into fists. “And how did you? How many times are you going to fake your death? How many times do I have to mourn you?”

“I’m not your Loki!” he exclaims, scrambling to his feet. “He is actually dead!”

That gets her attention. “Not my Loki?” she repeats. “What on earth does that mean?”

He puts his hands up in a gesture both placating and defensive. “Are you going to hit me again?”

Her lips tighten into a thin line. “Depends on what comes out of your mouth.”

He supposes that’s better than nothing. “When Thor told you about the war with Thanos—it was time travel, wasn’t it? That’s how they got the Infinity Stones?”

“Perhaps,” she admits reluctantly.

“The Midgardian Tony Stark came back to the day of my failed invasion of Midgard. He interfered with things somehow, and the result—totally unintended—was my ending up in possession of the Tesseract. I used it to escape custody.”

“No you didn’t,” Sif shoots back. “You ended up in the dungeons of Asgard. I saw you there myself.”

“Yes, that happened in your reality. But because the Midgardians went back and changed what happened that day, they also created an alternate reality, a branch from the time stream, where I escaped and have been exploring the universe for the last twelve years.”

Sif has many fine qualities, but a willingness to believe blindly is not one of them. “There are two realities?” she says skeptically.

“Dozens, actually.” He mutters a few words under his breath and the image of the splintered time stream appears. “Even the slightest change can have far-reaching consequences, resulting in a new branch. And the Midgardians made many changes when they traveled through time.”

Sif crosses her arms across her chest. “And I’m supposed to accept this, with only your illusion as proof?”

“There’s also this,” he says, and plucks the Tesseract out of the pocket dimension where he’s been keeping it.

She stares. “That looks like the Tesseract.”

“It is the Tesseract,” he responds, and to prove it, uses the Tesseract to transport to a few feet away.

Sif rolls her eyes. “That doesn’t prove anything,” she says reasonably. “You’re a sorcerer.”

“Fine,” he says, “you try it. You’ve never had enough magic to light a candle.”

Hesitantly she takes it from him, and he explains how to concentrate on where she wants to go. She closes her eyes, her brow furrowed, and suddenly disappears and reappears a few feet away. She stares down at the glowing blue cube in her hands, then up at Loki.

“That really is the Tesseract. The Space Stone.” Her eyes are wide as saucers.

He nods.

“The Infinity Stones were all destroyed seven years ago. Thor saw it.”

He nods.

“And the ones that were retrieved from the past were taken back to where they came from.”

“This one only exists in this timeline because I brought it with me,” he confirms.

She looks at him a long moment. And then she solemnly hands the Tesseract back to him. “You are not my Loki.”

“Not the one you knew,” he agrees. Which he regrets a little, honestly; if he were the Loki she knew, then he would be the one she that she mourns, the one that she misses, the one that she now thinks highly of.

Her brow furrows. “Then why are you here?”

A half-truth seems to be in order here, discretion being the better part of valor and all that. “In my own reality, I discovered how the time stream had been splintered, and grew curious as to what the other realities were like. I’ve been visiting them for a month or two now, and seeing what was happening to Asgard and . . . the people I’d once known.”

“And what is happening to Asgard in other realities?”

“Oh, any number of things. In some places it’s fine. In others it . . . isn’t. This is the first reality I’ve found where both Ragnarok and Thanos’s culling occurred.”

She regards him solemnly. “And what is happening in your reality?”

“The universe is safe from Thanos, for I have the Space Stone.” He ponders. “You mentioned the Dark Elf attack happened in this timeline? It happened in mine as well. Half of Asgard was destroyed, and many people killed.”

“What went differently from my reality?”

He thinks about it and has to confess, “I was not there. Apparently that would have made a difference.” And he can’t help the wince that crosses his face. Apparently if he hadn’t left Asgard, his Sif would’ve survived the Dark Elf invasion.

“And why weren’t you there?” she says in a voice that says she knows the answer.

And there’s nothing to do but confess. “I had faked my own death and gone traveling across the universe a few years before that.”

“And have you been back?”

“Briefly, and in disguise.”

“And do you plan on ever going back? For longer than a visit?”

This is a question he has given a great deal of thought to. “I believe Odin and his family are happier believing me dead. It’s better for everyone that I remain a wanderer.”

Sif examines him a long time. And then an unhappy little smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. “You are right,” she says quietly. “You are not my Loki.” In one swift movement, she pulls a stack of credits from a pouch at her belt and holds them out to him. “Take them,” she says when he doesn’t react. “I know you likely don’t need them, but I don’t want it said that Sif does not pay her debts.”

Slowly, he reaches out and takes the bills. The second they are out of her hands, she turns on her heel and heads back to the cruiser. “I assume you will be transporting on to your next destination,” she calls over her shoulder, “but if you do want a ride to town, you’d better get over here now.”

She’s right that he should be transporting on to his next destination, but for reasons he cannot explain (yes he can, of course he can) he trails after her and climbs in the cruiser.

They ride in silence for several minutes, until he cannot keep himself from speaking the words pounding in his chest.

Loki, god of mischief, does not ask for favors. But that doesn’t stop him from saying, in a voice that is not nearly so casual as he would like it to be, “I was thinking—if you have any other work that needs done—I wouldn’t mind staying a little while longer on this planet.”

“Don’t you have your own reality to get back to?” she snaps, and he realizes she’s angry.

“There’s nothing for me there,” he admits quietly. “I have nothing and no one.” If there’s one thing Loki hates, it’s being honest and vulnerable, but the truth is the only thing that might reach her right now. And suddenly he needs more than anything to reach her, to convince her to let him stay with her. He didn’t know until this moment that this has been his goal all along—to find a version of Sif that doesn’t hate him and find a way to stay close to her—but suddenly the thought of going away and leaving behind the only Sif who might let him be part of her life is unbearable.

Besides, he means it when he says there’s nothing for him in his time branch. Today has been the first time in months (in over twelve years) that he hasn’t felt alone.

“And you think you could find a place in our reality?” she asks sharply. “Our Loki is dead. Asgard is no more. The Allfather and Allmother are gone and Thor is gallivanting across the galaxy with a group of criminals, trying to find himself or some such nonsense. What could you possibly want in this reality?”

It’s so hard to respond honestly; he never could speak this way to his own Sif, in his own time. But he’s about to lose her either way, and that gives him the ability to risk his heart. “I lied when I said I’ve been looking for all my old friends and family in each reality,” he says, his eyes fixed on the dirt lane in front of them. “I’ve . . . only ever looked for you.” He steals a glance at her out of the corner of his eye, but her gaze is fixed on the road as well. “The Sif from my time branch died in the Dark Elf attack. And when I learned of the other time branches, I had to find out if there was one where you lived . . . and where you didn’t hate me. This is the first, out of dozens.”

Still she says nothing, but her grip on the steering is tight, her knuckles showing white.

He takes a deep breath and lays it all on the line. “I didn’t want to live in a reality where you were dead.”

Still she says nothing, and he wonders if she’s understood.

They’re driving through town now, and still Sif says nothing. “So do you understand why I want to stay?” he says quietly. “This is the first reality where I’ve thought . . . I could be happy.” They pull onto the lane behind the bar they met at last night, and still she is silent. “And you did say you regretted Loki—”

That’s the thing that spurs her into speaking. “I regret my Loki,” she cuts in. She parks the cruiser and powers it down, but does not climb out just yet, so he follows her lead and stays in his seat. “My Loki went through so much, and through those trials he found himself again. He changed, and through acts of self-sacrifice proved where his heart truly lay. But you are not my Loki. Your path and his diverged twelve years ago, and you’ve spent those years gallivanting about the universe, doing just as you pleased. As far as I know, you are still the Loki who tried to conquer Midgard and destroy Jotunheim—still the immature and resentful child who sent the Destroyer after me. How could I trust you?”

“I swear it, Sif—”

“And what is your word to me?”

The god of mischief does not beg. Except when circumstances are dire. “Sif, please—”

“Go back to your own universe,” she says.

“There’s nothing for me there.”

“There’s nothing for you here,” she responds, and turns to walk away. “Goodbye, Loki.”

And at the sight of her retreating back, something in him coalesces; he has long admitted that his actions around the time of Thor’s coronation were foolish and hot-headed, but in that moment, he finally admits to himself that he regrets it all, for it has cost him everything.

“I’m sorry,” he calls, and her footsteps pause. “For everything.” She won’t turn back to look at him, but she is standing still, and he finds himself adding. “I wish I was the Loki who had earned your trust again.”

“You’re not,” she says, unmoving.

“I’m not. But knowing that there’s a version of me that redeemed himself . . . that gives me hope. Perhaps I can redeem myself.”

Still she does not look back at him.

Perhaps this is a foolish endeavor. “So thank you, Sif. You have given me hope, and it has been many years since I have had that.”

No response.

He holds out as long as he can, hoping—but her still form is implacable. So perhaps he should go. Perhaps he can find a way to do good in this universe, and then find Sif again, and prove to her that he has changed. It’s not much, but it’s the start of a plan, and it’s more than he’s had in some time. The thought of it buoys him as he prepares to transport—just to another part of the galaxy this time, so no Tesseract needed.

“Goodbye, Sif,” he says as he raises his hands, and in that moment she whirls around.

“Look,” she blurts, and he lowers his arms, hope pounding through his veins.

“Yes?”

She hesitates, then repeats, “Look." She takes a tight breath and speaks as though she doesn't quite believe she's saying what she's saying. "I’ve got another job lined up on Trinawa, and I’ve been needing to find a partner for it. And having a sorcerer along would actually be quite a big help.”

His eyebrows lift. “And you’re saying—”

“If I get even the slightest hint that you’re up to your old tricks, I will not hesitate to run you through. Do you understand me?”

And now Loki is fighting back a smile. “Perfectly,” he says.

“And you must promise me that you’ll consider going back to your time branch, when you’re ready, and making things right with your family.”

That one is a little easier to agree to than he’d expected it would be. “I’ll consider it,” he says. “In the future.” And then he cannot help asking, “But why?”

She understands what he means, he can see in her face. She takes a step forward. “You’re not my Loki,” she repeats. “But you were once. That potential in him, to redeem himself—it exists in you too.” His smile starts to break through, and she adds, with a bit of a scowl, “And this is better than you running around alone getting up to who knows what. We just got this universe back in order; I don’t want you mucking it up again. And if you go back to your time and keep wandering around alone like a lost soul, maybe Thanos gets his hands on the Space Stone and they have the same problem we had.”

And now Loki is grinning fully. “So you and I are . . .”

“Partners,” she finishes. “For now. Just to see how we like it. But you have to swear to me now, none of your tricks, none of your mischief, none of your anger.”

“I swear it,” says Loki, and has never meant anything more.

Sif stares at him a long time, as though gauging his sincerity, then nods. “Well, I need to pack my things and then we can leave for Trinawa; my ship is docked nearby.”

Loki grins. “Then let’s be off.”

Together they set off through town, and Loki couldn’t stop smiling if his life depended on it. Because for the first time in twelve years—no, longer—he finally feels like he’s going somewhere he wants to be.

. . . . . .

fin