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When Loki was a boy, his father told him a story. It wasn’t a happy tale, for Odin did not know many of those.
It told of a man so convinced of his brilliance that he was locked away by a spiteful king, with only his son for company. One day, the man created wings so they might fly from the tower, free from the king, free from the world, free to be whoever they wanted. The father warned the boy not to fly too close to sea or sun, to not be dragged into vicious waves or burned by the fiery sun. The boy nodded, and whispered, “Yes, Papa” as he’d done all his life, but when the time came, he faltered. This was the first time he could experience freedom. Why should he have to listen to his father? Why not make his own choices for the first time in his life?
Despite the father’s shouts, the boy soared into the sky. The freedom had given him joy. He smiled and laughed as he looked at the almighty sun, as if to say I am free to write my own destiny now. Then, the sun struck. The wings melted. The boy plummeted to the earth and sank into the water, his once bright-soul now off to the Underworld and his body food for sea monsters.
“Who wrote that story?” he’d asked Odin. He did not like it. All he could imagine was himself in the water, broken wings around him, eyes wide at freedom’s betrayal.
His father brushed the hair from his forehead. “Some of the Midgardians, my son. They like to tell themselves stories. And this one,” Odin tapped him on the nose, and Loki giggled, the horror of the story melting away at his father’s touch. “-Tells us that boys should listen to their fathers.”
Loki now understands that story. It was not about arrogance, or listening to authority. The boy fell from the sky because he wanted to escape from his role in life, because he wanted to be free.
Freedom , he thought, clutching the TemPad he’d stolen. One of life’s greatest illusions.
It had been easy to convince Mobius- a Mobius that didn’t recognize him- that he was just an analyst who’d lost his nerve at the branching timeline ( at the birth of free will ). It had been easy to swipe a TemPad away from one of the desks. It had not been easy to turn away from the statue of He Who Remains, the God-King at the end of Time, and exit the TVA through a Time Door. How many realities had the Variant already conquered? How many lives had been destroyed because Loki could not make Sylvie see that there could be another way?
I’ve been where you are. I’ve felt what you feel.
He’d recognized the pain in her eyes as she’d swung at He Who Remains. He’d seen it when he found out about his heritage and stormed to his rooms and smashed every mirror inside it. He’d seen it in the reflections on the glass of Stark Tower as Chitauri rained down upon New York. Sylvie never cared about free will, or ending the tyranny of the TVA. All she’d cared for was revenge no matter the cost. And Loki had not stopped her. He had not pulled her from the abyss he’d fallen into long ago, had not made her see that bringing destruction onto others would only bring pain onto herself.
His family must have seen that same look in his eyes: when he fell from the Bifrost, when he’d rejected Thor’s attempts to bring him home, even when his brother put him in chains and prepared him to be taken to a cell. After Loki had fallen, did Thor think of what else he could have said or done? Did Frigga regret handing the throne over to Loki? Was Odin haunted by the words he’d said in the Vault, cursing the Norns for not having more time to explain?
He quickly types in the date on the TemPad. He does not know how to find Sylvie or make Mobius remember him. The mess he’s made is infinitely larger than what happened on the Bifrost, or in New York, and the weight of what he’s done to the universe ( multiverse ) makes him tremble. But there is something he can do. Something he needs to say, even if it isn’t to the people he needs to say it to.
The smell of alcohol and garbage assaults him the second he steps through the portal. Ripped up paper, bottles of what Loki assumes is beer (according to Mobius, anyways), and dirty clothes are strewn about the floor. In the middle of the room is a bed with a large, filthy figure snoring on top, twisting and turning in his sleep.
“No,” Thor whispers, “no, Loki, please-”
Loki turns away. Mobius had told him what happened to Thor after his death, but Loki did not believe it. How could golden, perfect Thor fall apart like this? How could his brother, after all his betrayals and lies, mourn him like this? He shook Thor’s shoulder, desperate to wrench him from the nightmare.
“Thor,” he says, “wake up.”
Thor’s eyes open. His brother does not leap at him or shake him or yell. He only stares.
“Loki,” Thor reaches up and grasps his cheek. “Loki, how-?”
“I’m just a memory.” He can’t let Thor be tormented by the idea of his brother being alive, when the Loki of this timeline is dead and alone in space with a crushed neck and broken dreams. “Or a ghost. Whatever you want to think of it.”
“Loki.” Thor’s finger drunkenly traces his cheek, like Loki is a treasure to be worshipped. “My bro-” he coughs, “-my brother. I am so sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Loki pushes Thor’s hand away. “I want to apologize. For everything. For sending the Destroyer after you, for fighting you on the Bifrost-” he pauses. “-for letting go. I’m sorry for rejecting you when you tried to bring me home. I should have listened, gave up on the throne, and gone back with you. I shouldn’t have threatened and hurt your Jane or Midgard to hurt you. I’m sorry.”
Tears glisten in his eyes. His Thor is dead, consumed by Alioth along with everyone else. Had his brother even seen the monster before his death? Or had it been quick and efficient like everything at the TVA?
“I-” Thor chokes out a sob. “I sho- should’ve killed Thanos. When he attacked you. I-” more cries escape. “I should have protected you.”
“And I was wrong,” he continues, “to have pushed all of my insecurities onto you. Yes, you have not always treated me right. But how could you have known how I felt when I never told you?”
“You-” Thor slurs, “you’re a strange memory.” Thor reaches up and holds his shoulders. “Feel so real.” Loki tries to pull away, but Thor’s grip is too strong. “Are you here? Stay. Please.”
“I have to leave, brother.” He pulls out the TemPad, but Thor refuses to let go.
“I’ll protect you,” Thor murmurs. “I will protect you and never let you go, Loki.”
“I-”
“I killed him.” His brother’s grip tightens. “Thanos. For you. For everyone. I won’t let anything happen-”
The enchantment spell strikes like a snake. Thor slumps over, back into his slumber. Loki will only be a memory, but hopefully one that will bring his brother comfort.
“Do not worry, brother,” he whispers before turning on the TemPad. “You will come back. You always do.”
The halls of this Asgard are slightly different. The kitchens are on the left side of the palace, while in Loki’s Asgard they were on the right. The gardens are next to the training grounds rather than tucked near the royal residency. They aren’t large differences, yet each one he spots makes him wince. It’s another reminder that his Asgard is gone.
He wanders, cloaking himself in a poorly done invisibility spell. He saw his other self in an Asgardian prison cell, calmly reading a book and trying to ignore the guards stationed around him. Loki snorts. He can see right through his other self’s facade to the anger and frustration lying underneath. For a second, he contemplates trying to talk to his variant, but brushes that thought aside. It’s not as if the last time he talked to a variant of himself reality fell apart.
He is about to give up and use the TemPad when he hears: “Aren’t you supposed to be in your cell?”
His spell drops. It’s Frigga, smiling and holding her hand out.
“Mother-” He swallows. His mind assaults him with what he saw at the TVA: his mother, stabbed by a dark elf, dead. His mother, the woman who showed him how to make fireworks, who comforted him when he was sick, who was gone because of his own actions in both timelines. “I-”
“You are not from this time, are you?”
Despite himself, he chuckles. “I guess. It’s a long story.”
Frigga reaches for his hand and squeezes. “You’ve had a long journey, haven’t you?”
“One way to put it.”
His mother cups his cheeks. “You can tell me, son. But first, you need a bath.”
Loki sighs in relief as he sinks into the warm water. Frigga runs a hand through his hair, making a tsk sound at the knots. She enchants the water so it stays warm but not hot; the perfect temperature for a Frost Giant. Of course, the bath is a bit wider and shorter than the one from his Asgard. Even Frigga looks different: her eyes are more green than blue, her jaw a little more defined, and her hair a lighter shade of blonde. He wonders how long he will remember what his mother looked like. How long until she will be a dream, just like Sylvie’s mother.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I should not have pushed you away, Mother.”
“Hmmm, yes.” She taps his head. “You were quite rude just a few hours ago. Refused to thank me for the books I brought.”
So Frigga thinks he is the future version of this Asgard’s Loki. He decides not to correct her. After all, he might risk getting thrown into an institution if he talked about the giant smoke monster that killed his reality.
“I only thought about myself,” he continues. “I didn’t think about the pain I was bringing to all of you. I didn’t think of how it would feel for you to see me lose myself.”
Frigga pauses. “You have experienced heartbreak, haven’t you?”
“There’s someone I know,” he says. “Who has suffered quite a lot. She wanted revenge, but it had catastrophic consequences and-” he takes a breath, “I just wanted her to be okay, but she didn’t believe me.”
He steps out of the bath, and Frigga hands him a set of Asgardian armor along with his TVA outfit, now cleaned.
“You look like a Midgardian,” Frigga comments as he puts on his TVA uniform. “Should I tell your younger self that he will one day dress like a human office worker?”
“I-” He thinks of his mother, dead at a Dark Elf’s hands. “The Dark Elves will attack. Tell the All-Father to prepare.”
Frigga raises an eyebrow. “You should tell him yourself. He is a stubborn old man, but he still loves you, Loki. Even the you that is currently in a cell.”
Loki thinks back to the vision of himself with his father and brother, where his father openly proclaimed his love for them both. “I know.” He summons the TemPad. “But I can’t stay here, Mother.”
Frigga embraces him. “Then, good luck on your travels, my son.”
“I am serious about the Dark Elves,” he says, wishing it was his real mother he was holding. “You must prepare. And-” he sighs, “-and tell my past self not to give the intruders any directions.”
And with that, he steps aside, and leaves his mother forever.
The first thing he hears is the churning of ocean waves. The second is the whipping sound of the breeze. The third is the voice of an old, old man.
“Ah, a fellow traveler,” Odin says, by the rock just like in the TVA reel. “Come sit with me.”
Loki stills. The last time he saw his father, Odin told him No, Loki .
“You need not be afraid, my son.” Odin’s voice softens. “I am done with hurting you. Please, come here.”
He creeps near the rock and sits next to the old man. Odin smiles, in a way he hadn’t done in centuries. The All-Father’s remaining eye pierces him, breaking him down and seeing right into his soul. Suddenly, Loki feels very small again, like the little ice runt Mobius saw him as.
“I have gazed into other universes,” Odin says. “Yet I have never seen anyone from them. Tell me, son, how have you come here?”
He blinks. “How-?”
“The power of the All-Father is a curse I would not wish on anyone, Loki. Now, tell me, why have you come here? Surely not to comfort a dying old man.”
Tears water in his eyes. His Odin didn’t get to die peacefully. No, his father must have watched as everything died around him before his soul was consumed by eternity. And yes, Loki loves Frigga and Thor, but nothing will compare to how he feels under his father’s loving gaze. So he tells Odin everything: stealing the Tesseract, the TVA, Mobius, Sylvie, Lamentis, the Void, Alioth, He Who Remains. He tells Odin how he tried to help Sylvie, tried to stop her from making a huge mistake, but to no avail. He tells his father how the first friend he’s ever had doesn’t even remember him, and how there’s a man set to conquer all of time and space.
Odin grasps his hand and pressed into Loki’s palm. “I am sorry that you had to suffer like that, my son. And I am even more sorry that I cannot help nor protect you.”
Loki shakes his head. "On Midgard, I'd spouted nonsense about freedom being an illusion. Turns out that I was right. But when I finally got to make my own choices, I didn't know what to do."
"I rather like having free will," Odin says, winking. "And you should not blame yourself for whatever happens. Who could make the right choice, when the fate of everything is on the line? I do not believe anyone could, Loki."
“It’s my fault.” The grief he’d been bottling up ever since he arrived at the TVA pours out. “I picked up the Tesseract because I didn’t want to face you or Thor or Frigga. I didn’t want to face the consequences of my own actions. My entire universe, my family, all died because I was a coward.”
“You are guilty of cowardice, yes. But you did not know what picking up the Tesseract would have done, so you are not responsible.”
He stares out into the endless ocean below. “All I thought about was how I could be free from them forever. Now, I’d happily submit to the axe or spend my days in the dungeons, just to see them again.”
Odin looks away from him. “You would not have gotten the axe, Loki. I thought about it, yes. I hated you at that moment. I hated how you rejected my teachings, how you betrayed your family just so you could have a throne. But I would not have swung that axe.”
“So the dungeons, then.”
“Yes, I sentenced you to the dungeons. But not forever. One day, when all our tempers had cooled, when you had truly shown remorse for your actions, I would have gone down to the cells and freed you.”
It is strange to talk about his avoided imprisonment with both his would-be jailer and father. “I am sorry for betraying you, father. For attacking innocents because I would not inherit your throne.”
Odin is silent for several moments. Then, “And I am sorry, too, my son. For failing you. For not seeing the pain underneath your facade. For not telling you the truth earlier. For ever making you believe that you and Thor were not equal in my affections.”
“I forgive you.”
“And I you, Loki.”
They embrace, and Loki curses his past self for being so foolish and distant. There is nothing better than being in the arms of the All-Father, surrounded by Odin’s love and protection. It reminds him of the embrace he had with Mobius in the Void, and Loki pulls away.
“I have to go.” This is not his reality. As much as he would love to stay by Odin’s side until Ragnarok, he cannot abandon his goal to save Sylvie and Mobius. “I- Thank you, Father.”
“Be safe on your journey, my son.”
He turns on the TemPad. “You know, I’m technically not your son.”
Odin shakes his head, laughing. “Look at you. Your lawless nature, the storms within you- you inherited that from me. How could you not be my son?”
Loki does not know where to start. He could go back to the TVA, or find his way back to the Void. Maybe he could recruit the Avengers (Norns help him with that) or the child-king at the End of Time. As he steps through the portal into the unknown, he closes his eyes and thinks of his family.
I am sorry , he says to their spirits, off in Valhalla. But I promise to make you proud.