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Someone had once explained to Thor the concept of wishing on a shooting star. He didn’t quite remember who told him that, but he does remember laughing because “Midgardians had such pretty imagination.”
Funny. He was sitting on the cliff right now, desperately waiting for a shooting star. He was looking out for even the slightest chance, the thinnest thread of hope, that everything goes back to normal.
Because he can’t shake the images from his head. He can’t shake the dead weight of guilt from his shoulders, growing ever heavier. It had become like a sentient being, whispering to him, reminding him of just how great a failure he was. Pulling him into darkness. It made him feel like he was drowning.
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What did it take to be a failure? Nothing.
What made him a failure? Everything.
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The universe had given him so much. Made him a prince, made him a God. Made him ever so powerful. More powerful than most people.
Then, in one moment, took everything away from him. Left him stranded. Gasping for breath. Left to kill him slowly, painfully.
Left him alive. Left him to see the Asgardians, or at least those who were left, glaring daggers at him. The whispers that were passed every time he was seen, the looks of hurt, of accusation. Looks that screamed “You don’t deserve that title”, “You could’ve done more”, “This is all your fault”.
He never heard the silence that loud. It was deafening. It threatened to overwhelm him. He never heard what they were saying, but he knew what it meant.
“YOU. FAILED.”
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That’s why he was sitting on top of that cliff, shivering in the cold, waiting for a shooting star. He was desperate. Somehow, anyhow, if everything would return to normal. This was way too much for him to take.
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He remembers all the years he has wasted, waging wars. Instead of trying to cherish them. He misses them. He misses the warmth of his home.
Asgard is not a place, it’s a people.
But Asgard was home.
He misses home.
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“Thanos! I told you, you would die for that.”
“You...you should have...you should have gone for the head.”
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He couldn’t even sleep. Forget sleeping, he could not even close his eyes without remembering his failures. He couldn’t help but remember everything his failure had cost. Cost so many innocent people to die. Why were the others paying for his fault? They did not deserve this. They had no hand in this. Hell, they weren’t even remotely related to the fights. They did not even know what was happening. He could not even imagine the horror of the people when they saw their loved ones die. Turn to dust. They couldn’t even give them a proper funeral. They were just...gone.
Gone.
Because of his failure.
Failure.
How that word weighed down on him. It suffocated him. Made him want to die. Maybe… he deserved this. But it overwhelmed him, threatened to choke him.
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The cliff was terribly cold. Correction: it was freezing.
“Loki? Loki, it’s so cold, do you need a blanket?”
“I don’t feel as cold as you do, Thor. Are you forgetting that? I feel...pleasant. You have the blanket-” laughs “-you are shivering!”
“Very funny. It’s- oof- so cold.”
How would Loki feel? Would he think this as cold? Or, like always would he sit and observe the stars and say it was pleasant?
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He had seen everyone else cry when they lost. He saw the remaining Asgardians cry for their dead. He saw the rest of the Avengers cry. But for some reason, tears would not come to him. His tears had run dry. He lost so much in one week. His father, Loki, Heimdall, Asgard, half the people of Asgard. Which one was he to grieve?
“Loki? Brother? Loki?! BROTHER?! GET UP! Brother, I know you are tired, but we can’t rest here. We need to leave. The ship is about to explode. LOKI! PLEASE! PLEASE...get up. You need to help me, brother. I can’t do this without you…”
He clutched him tightly and sobbed.
“Please…help…”
“Help.”
There were times when he wanted to scream and tell the others to shut up, to stop whispering each time he passed. To tell them that he didn’t need a reminder of how big a failure he was. His mind did that work pretty well. They did not need to remind him that he was a failure, unworthy. He wanted to scream and shout until it hurt. Till his throat bled. Maybe then the others would shut up.
Crying was a way of expressing pain. One of the most basic reactions. It came naturally to people. Crying was a bliss. A bliss the universe denied him. It didn’t let him cry. Instead, it let him drown silently, pulled down by the weight of his own failures.
He realised the bliss Midgardians found in wishing on shooting stars. The fact that they could hope that there was something greater than them, that would hopefully fulfil their wishes. The mere thought was a bliss.
Sometimes, it got too loud for him. Not the whispering, but the voice in his head, reminding him how throughout his life he had been a failure. Failure as a son, a brother, a friend, a king. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he would drink. It drowned out the voices. It gave him relief. It would make his head fuzzy, not let him think too much. That made him feel relieved. Not having to think was a bliss. He could just sit there, not having to think, not having to deal with the voices. When he was clear-headed, he regretted it, but he would do it again. Because it was the only time he didn’t have to deal with anyone. But he knew, in the end, he would have to face it, that he couldn’t run from what’s in his head.
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He didn’t leave the house one night. It was the only night he didn’t leave. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he couldn’t. He had a terrible headache and had passed out of exhaustion on the couch.
When he woke in the morning, that thing Korg had fitted was playing. It was probably called television. He ignored whatever the man in the television was saying. He went to turn it off when the man said the words, “Meteor shower in Norway last night.”
Thor stumbled, crashing into the table with a bottle of wine on it. The bottle shattered on the floor. Meteor shower. Didn’t Banner once tell him that they were like a shower of shooting stars? He waited all that time on the cliff for one star, and nothing happened. And now?
He fell to the ground, shaking. He let out a scream.
Tears spilt down his cheeks for the first time in months.
The bottle lay shattered at the ground, the wine staining the floor, looking so much like the blood that coloured his red.