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She doesn’t remember her brother, not really.
She cannot conjure what he looks like, the shape of his eyes, the way that he smiles, the assured way he walks into any room in the expanse of their home. She cannot remember the sound of his voice or if he had ever said anything of significance to her, that would make or break the way she had perceived herself. She cannot remember if his words were warm and soothing, a balm to her misplaced soul like honey, or if they were jesting with an unduly cruel edge. She does not know what his favorite color was or his favorite food might or the childhood memory that would have made him laugh so hard that he would nearly choke on his honeyed wine.
But she remembers how he had made her feel, though. She can remember how she had followed her brother around like he was the sun, warm and bright and glowing, and she had simply been happy to be a moon in his orbit. She remembers the way he had treated- indulged her wishes, played with her, made her feel special and treasured. She remembers the way that he had shielded her from the worst of the criticism for her parentage. She was never less than in his eyes. Instead, she was a sister, a beloved daughter of Asgard, a person wholly, entirely, and well loved.
All of it is gone, and there are times when her rage against the TVA feels so unbridled that the storm inside her rivals the hurricane, meteor showers, and the disasters that envelop her. They are of equal world-ending power.
(In her dreams, she can feel strong hands braiding her long, thin, raven-colored hair, and the feeling is enough to sustain a love-starved girl throughout an endless expanse of time.)
-
The darkness of jealousy grows inside of him like a twisted and gnarly thing where his heart should be.
Around his sun of a brother, bright and glowing, he had only felt like he had existed to be burned.
Odin only confirms what he had already known deep in the pits of his stomach. He was not of this family, not of this place, not even of this realm. He was an interloper who was barely tolerated, fed the scraps of love and affection that his “parents” had barely had left. He had no true place, no future to strive for, no history to go back to. He was a monster that the people of this kingdom told their children about at night.
And if he was already a monster, he might as well act like one.
(His stomach burns as the blood runs over his hands. He never expected it to be hot. He never expected his brother to grasp at his own neck as he had clawed at his only chance of life. He never expected to hear those sounds, to endure what he had watched knowing that he had been the one to cause it.
He thought he would feel relief. Yet, he does not.
Grief and shame he feels as the blood drips from his hands to the marble floor burns more painfully, like his very being was being consumed by flames, than the cost of living in his shadow ever had.)
-
He is sitting on the replica of his brother’s bed, in the center of his brother’s room.
It is his best illusion, by far.
The great sitting rooms and libraries of Asgard are hazy recollections at this point. The throne room and his father’s study, as much as he had coveted it, pined over it, killed for it, are practically all but lost to his memory. Even his room, where had often holed himself up throughout his extended adolescence, was missing a few key details. He simply could not bring himself to recall the exact titles he kept by his bedside or the exact texture of his favorite blanket, a gift from his late mother.
But this room was nearly memorized to the tee. The blankets were disorganized in the way that his brother had always left them. There are a few open books strewn next to old practice swords and outgrown armor with the dents of past adventures still patterned across their surfaces. There are few Midgardian treats, discarded Eggo boxes, a coffee mug from a diner in New Mexico, a Stark Industries keychain, that are wrapped carefully in an open box on his mantle. Even a replica Mjollnir sat precariously perched on a hook by the door.
In the absence of his brother, of the most constant and stable presence in his life, he supposed this would have to do.
The real room, of course, no longer existed. It was blown to smithereens with the rest of Asgard at the end of the ages before the Mad Titan shattered the little remaining hope they had left. Throughout his travels, he had heard the survivors and his brother had set up their new and subdued existence in a quiet part of the Midgardian shore.
His brother, their once and future king, should have a new home by now, a new room.
Patting the edge of the bed, Loki decides that he would like to see it.
(On his desolate planet, there is no one to admit it to, but to see him again was the greatest and most secret wish of his hardened heart.)
-
He knows that death, like the specter she is, is close to stealing him away. He supposes it is probably time. Even cats had so many lives that they could live out. Even snakes had so many skins that they could shed. So, it was logical to him that he could only escape death and cheat his way to another day so many times before it would be time to repay his debts.
He cannot move his neck or his body at all. There is a pain so overwhelming that it is almost all-consuming. Every remaining rise and fall of his chest felt like a great battle to be waged, and his desire to fight was fading quickly.
Yet, he can feel himself being cradled. He can hear his brother’s cries and promises and comforts. He can feel a large hand holding his ever so gently, so tenderly as if to communicate that all had been forgiven.
As the black eats at his vision, he is ready to go, yet he selfishly wishes he had more time. He is finally content with himself, and it was all being ripped away from him so quickly.
(It feels so good to die this way if he had to say that he had felt and found joy in this experience. It feels good to die a beloved hero.)
-
The TVA is in ruins. There are no more Timekeepers. There is no more Sacred Timeline. There are no preordained destinies, just an infinite collection of choices that bring pain and joy in a balance that waxes and wanes. He calls it good.
He takes a step through the portal that the Tempad had opened, glancing back at Mobius and Sylvie for the final time. He has saved the worlds that are and that have not been. He has bid some of the truest friends he has ever known a faithful goodbye with the genuine hope that they live out their days in a place where they had belonged. Knowing that the Tesseract, the stone that Thanos would have used to end words, has safely been destroyed like the rest of the TVA headquarters, he can finally return to live out the rest of his days without fear of the Mad Titan.
He is finally the hero he had always dreamed that he could be, and he is tired.
He steps right through from the ruins of the TVA offices into the Grand Dining Hall of Asgard, his home, in the middle of a great feast. His father, of course, is sitting at the head of the table. His mother is there, very much alive, although looking much more melancholic than he had remembered. Thor is there, in the middle of some great joke. His friends are there - Sif, the Warriors Three, Heimdall, their family members. Their people are all there, toasting to something that Loki did not arrive in time to see.
He has not changed out of his dirty and soiled TVA outfit. So arrives at the ceremony out of nowhere, looking downtrodden and desolate and unabashedly alive. Yet, in the eyes of those who love him, they will recount that this is the best he has ever looked.
He knows that there will be punishments and sentences to perform and submit himself to. He knows that he has much to repent for. He knows that he will now carry an unspeakable burden of knowledge that those around him may never understand, the secrets of time and the universe itself. He knows that he will have to live without confirmation that the friends he had made during this perilous journey were happy and safe.
Yet now, all he can do is cross the hall in an urgent run, dirty shoes tracking a ghostly trail behind, kneel at his mother’s and his brother’s feet, and weep.
(They gather him in their arms, and they welcome a prodigal son home. This is where he was meant to be.)