Chapter Text
“Brother, however I have wronged you, whatever I have done that has led you to do this, I am truly sorry. But these people are innocent, taking their lives will gain you nothing. So take mine, and end this.”
The words replayed in Loki’s mind with alarming constancy during his first months of confinement.
He had ‘succeeded’, he had finally bested The Mighty Thor when all others had failed. Thor had gambled; either on Loki’s mercy or on his own nobility, and he lost.
Loki ordered the Destroyer to kill Thor without a second thought, which was rather unlike him. All of it was so unlike him. Not the plan to let the frost giants in, nor to lure Thor to nearly enter Jotunheim, those were par-for-the-course for the God of Mischief. Especially one determined not to let Asgard fall to ruin in the hands of his oaf ‘brother’.
But, with the benefit of many hours of solitude and hindsight, he could see how impulsive he had been. Loki thought to rid himself of those who would rob him of the throne and the one chance to prove himself: not truly a frost giant, a worthy son, a worthy heir…just…worthy. Thor’s treasonous friends threatened everything, and they would have brought back Thor who would have learned what Loki was and then it would have all been over. Either because Thor would have wrested back the throne or perhaps worse. Thor spoke pretty words before the Destroyer but that was all they were. Thor had centuries to reflect on his treatment of Loki, to acknowledge his own arrogance and recklessness, and he suddenly learned humility on Midgard? All of the sudden he wished to apologize for what he’d done to Loki? A thing which by his own words, he did not even know the context of.
Loki had been awash in the expulsion of rage that he’d nursed inside of himself for so very many years. The horrifying realization of his parentage, coupled with the Odinsleep, and Thor’s banishment, and the sudden responsibility of the throne. He could hardly catch his breath before Thor’s friends had turned on him and before he was about to lose everything. Could he really trust that Thor would not bring Mjolnir down upon him?
“When I am king, I will hunt down all the monsters and slay them!”
”The Jotuns will learn to fear me as they did you, Father!”
If Loki had been only worthy to follow in Thor’s shadow in his eyes before, how much lower would he be in Thor’s esteem if he knew Loki was a frost giant? A monster?
And if centuries of unanswered, festering bitterness, resentment, and rage had boiled over in the moment Thor faced the Destroyer well…it had felt justified. That one moment where for the first time in their lives he truly had power over the Golden Prince of Asgard, he held Thor’s life in his hands, and he chose to take it.
The image of Thor’s body flying through the air was seared into his mind, so weak as a mortal as he never had been as a god.
There was a time when Thor’s weakness would have terrified him. For if Thor had been rendered so defeated, then surely they were in dire straits. But now Thor’s weakness had thrilled him, had egged him on, had given him reassurance.
Loki was free; of the fear, of the shadow of Thor, of his competition…all that was left was to do the one thing neither Odin nor Thor could do, destroy Jotunheim.
But he had failed.
--xx--
“I could have done it, Father!” Loki’s voice was desperate as Odin stood before him after having reclaimed Gungnir. “For you. For all of us.”
“But all of us are not here.” Odin said, in a tone of grave quiet.
Loki felt his stomach drop at Odin’s expression, a hardness in it far more immovable than he had ever seen there before. “I-”
“No, Loki.” Odin said. “You murdered your own brother when he was at his most helpless.”
Even now, Odin’s mind was on Thor. It was always about Thor. “I am not his brother! I never was!” Loki screamed.
And the pity he found mingled with Odin’s hardness turned his stomach. “I am truly sorry if you think it so.”
“It is so! I am-I am…” He cut off with a pained noise as he slumped, suddenly more defeated than he had ever been. What future was there for he? He had slain the prince of Asgard, he was a frost giant, an imposter, a monster… Loki looked to the abyss of the void, the endless, quiet darkness and almost as if drawn by strings took a step towards it.
But then Odin’s iron grip found his wrist, and Loki felt a shudder of terror run through him.
“You will make of me a relic after all.” Loki said, a manic, rasping chuckle escaping his lips even as his eyes brimmed with tears. “I will never be free again, will I?”
Odin was silent for a few seconds before he replied with. “Will you accompany me by your own power, or must I bind you?”
Loki inhaled sharply and blinked rapidly before he said in a quavering voice. “I will walk.”
When they reached the palace, Loki was taken first to his mother’s rooms because apparently she had asked it of Odin.
The sight of his mother shocked Loki, for he had never seen her look so distressed. Frigga’s face showed evidence of weeping, her hair was in uncharacteristic disarray, and the eyes she turned upon him were devoid of their usual life and warmth. “How could you, Loki?” she asked, in a tone so small and broken that Loki’s heart shattered then and there.
Somehow that reached him as nothing else had, the sight of Frigga’s blatant misery, the sad question. She did not scream at the frost giant monster, she did not look on him with disgust. Her eyes were full of hurt, she spoke to him as her son who had murdered her other son, not the son of an enemy.
“I had to.” Loki whispered. “He-he would have…he would have killed me, don’t you see? That is all he has ever w-wanted…to slay all of the m-monsters.” he stammered as tears fell, as Frigga’s face grew only more weary and miserable.
“I am not his brother, I never was.”
“Brother…I am truly sorry.”
“He would have hated me.” Loki said, barely audible as images played in his mind of better times, a better Thor.
But that Thor was gone.
“Know your place, brother.”
“Enough!”
“You cannot say that.” Odin said, tone low. “You did not give him a chance either way. Thor was at his weakest, he could do you no harm. You could have told him the truth with no fear.”
“Except that is not what Loki feared most.” Frigga said quietly and Loki’s brow furrowed faintly. “Even in his mortal state, Thor could do what Loki most feared. Reject him as his brother. And so Loki rejected him first.”
Loki’s instinct was to deny it, but even as he turned her words over in his mind, he saw truth in it. That Thor might strike him down with Mjolnir was the fear of the dark; the fear born of unknown possibility. But what troubled his mind most was what would be attached to any use of Mjolnir in that way.
For Thor to say the very words Loki had said.
“I am not your brother, I never was.”
“Monster.”
“You will learn to fear me.”
“Know your place, frost giant.”
Frigga saw the realization in Loki’s face even as more tears fell. “Oh, Loki.” she said brokenly. “Always so perceptive, of everyone but yourself.”
Loki’s lip trembled and he took a step towards his mother, stunned when Odin held him back by the arm.
“I must confer with the Council on what is to be done.” Odin said in a tone of practiced authority. “There will be a trial. For the murder of the crown prince of Asgard, and for the use of the Bifrost in hostile attack on Jotunheim.”
Loki’s legs nearly gave out at that. “Murder of a royal is a death sentence.” he rasped.
“Not always so.” Odin said as he cast a glance at Frigga.
Frigga rose from her seat to approach Loki, who was shocked further when Frigga slipped her arms around him in an embrace.
The white hot rage of the lies, the fiction, fell down around his feet as he clutched the only mother he had ever known. “Mother…I-I am sorry.” he whispered.
Frigga held him more tightly, and when she pulled away it was all he could do not to reach for her again. “You have and always will be my son, Loki.” she said softly.
Loki’s mouth fell slightly open as he struggled to compose himself, but Odin was already leading him away. As the door closed behind him he heard the sound of his mother weeping and the sounds cut him to his core.
Odin himself brought Loki to his cell and motioned him inside where Loki numbly stepped up and waited as the energy field activated. He looked down on Odin from his position in the cell.
“Thor’s funeral will be held before the trial…if Frigga wishes for you to attend, then you will be given the option. Otherwise, you will remain here until a trial can be convened and a verdict rendered.”
Thor’s funeral. The force of the words stole the breath from Loki’s lungs. He himself had ordered his execution and yet somehow…the words did not seem as reality. Thor was young, approaching only fifteen-hundred. He was strong, full of life, invincible, he was Thor.
He was dead. Loki had killed him.
“I understand.” Loki heard himself say, his throat felt like it was full of gravel.
Odin and Loki stared at each other for a long moment before Odin turned away, wrestling with emotions too complicated to convince him he would speak fairly in the moment. The knowledge that he had adopted one son who killed his other feeling as though he brought Thor death with his own hands. Odin had failed his sons, for how else could this come to pass? But he had not the words or gentleness in that moment of grief and anger to say so.
Loki saw only Odin wordlessly turning his back on him and despaired.
--xx--
Loki stood at his mother’s side for the funeral. His magic had been bound with Gungnir for the moment. Thor’s body had disappeared after the Destroyer’s attack. So in his funerary boat was his silvery, feathered helm.
“Ooh, nice feathers."
“This again, cow?”
Loki heard the echo of their voices in his mind, could still see Thor’s playful but anxious smile.
“You are my brother and my friend…sometimes I am envious. But never doubt that I love you.”
Loki could feel the weight of Thor’s too-warm hand clasped on his neck in their gesture of affection, as Thor had done so many times before.
“Really, Loki…how do I look?”
“Like a king.”
Thor would never be a king now, his fate was cut by Loki’s hand.
Thor’s red cape hung over the boat and the sight was so familiar it could have choked him. How many times had he seen that cape flying? He could not count the number of times the sight of that bright, red eyesore rushing towards him filled him with a sense of safety. The knowledge that his big brother was coming to save him.
Now he never would again. There would be no one coming to Loki’s rescue now.
“I am not your brother, I never was.”
“Never doubt that I love you.”
“Brother, however I have wronged you, whatever I have done that has led you to this, I am sorry.”
“You are incapable of sincerity.”
Loki’s eyes moved absently over the surface of the water.
--xx--
Loki skipped a stone that went eight skips before sinking, whereas Thor’s rock skipped but once if he was lucky. He hid a smirk at Thor’s growing frustration.
“I am glad you are pleased.” Thor grumbled.
“Merely admiring your skills, brother.” Loki said innocently, and he laughed as he dodged an attempt by Thor to put him in a headlock. “Come here, oaf.” he offered as a conciliatory gesture.
Thor gave him a begrudging look as he stepped up beside him and Loki placed a stone in his hand.
“Like this.” Loki said as he took Thor’s hand in his own and tilted his wrist. “And then flick.” he said as he mimed the gesture.
Thor huffed a little and Loki lifted a brow. “If this is just another way for you to laugh at me…” Loki gave him an expectant look and Thor sighed slightly before he did as Loki suggested, delighted when the stone skipped four times.
Loki tried not to laugh at Thor’s excitement over the small feat, he really did, but he couldn’t help his mirthful chuckles and Thor snatched him into a sideways bear-hug.
“I knew it!” Thor exclaimed, but he was grinning. “Another plot from the God of Mischief."
“Oh, come now, the lesson was genuine.” Loki protested as he pushed at Thor playfully, a grin of his own on his face. “Perhaps you will even win this time.” he said sweetly.
Thor growled, no less amused, and set Loki down as he picked up a stone. “I will turn your tricks against you, brother.” he declared, before in his over-eagerness he went back to his habit of plopping the stone in the water instead.
Loki burst out laughing, particularly as Thor looked almost crestfallen, and then fled as Thor gave chase.
--xx--
Loki stared down at the stones at his feet, the moment seeming a lifetime ago.
“-Where brave shall live forever. Nor shall we mourn but rejoice, for those who died a glorious death.”
Loki caught the tail end of the funerary prayer in his absent thoughts and he nearly let a morbid chuckle escape him.
Was Thor’s death glorious? He had been self-sacrificing, Loki supposed, did that count as a valiant death to offer one’s self to one’s angry brother-not-brother?
--xx--
“I wonder if Valhalla is like the legends say.” Loki said, as the boys sat leaning against each other under a tree while sharing an apple.
Thor pondered it as he munched a slice. “When I get there, I will come back to let you know.”
“You cannot come back from Valhalla.” Loki rolled his eyes at his brother’s foolishness. “And anyway, who says you will be there first?”
Thor gave him a look like Loki was the fool between him. “I am your big brother.” he said, in a tone as if it should have been obvious knowledge. “I will never let you die before me, Loki. I will always protect you.” he said firmly.
Thor could be mean sometimes, and kind of annoying, and such a fool but…times like these made Loki remember especially how much he loved his big brother. Thor always looked out for him, no matter what. The thought of Thor being gone put a sickening feeling in his stomach and made his heart clench painfully. He never wanted such a thing.
Loki instinctively pressed more against Thor as he put his hand on Thor’s knee. “You are not allowed to die.” he informed Thor, who blinked and then laughed.
“Then we will live forever?”
“That…would be acceptable.” Loki said, a bit primly, and Thor grinned as he ruffled his brother’s hair and Loki huffed.
“Fighting side-by-side forever…I like it.” Thor declared.
“It’s always about fighting with you.” Loki grumbled.
“We can play games too.” Thor assured him before he looked almost thoughtful. “Forever is a long time.”
Loki snorted. “…Yes, brother. Thank you for pointing that out.”
Thor gave a light, brotherly punch to Loki’s leg. “I would not want to live forever without you. It would be boring. And sad."
That was practically philosophical coming from Thor, and a nice little sentiment besides. Loki smiled at his brother as he moved Thor’s arm up and around him as he hugged against Thor’s chest. “Me neither.” he agreed. “Someone has to keep you out of trouble.” he added.
Thor hugged Loki close even as he scoffed playfully. “Says the biggest little trouble maker in the Nine Realms.”
Loki grinned unrepentantly, and Thor smiled at him fondly.
--xx--
Another four thousand years would not be ‘forever’, but Loki suspected it would feel like forever all the same. Even if he wasn’t executed, he found it unlikely that he would be released from his cell…who would be king when Odin passed? And what would happen when a king who wasn’t Odin had Loki ‘Laufeyson’ in their clutches?
Loki felt heated stares and glanced over to see Sif and the Warriors Three burning holes into his skull. He would not let them see weakness from him, so he shot them a faint smirk and saw Sif seem half-ready to approach him. But then he caught the dull-eyed, disappointed gaze of his mother-Queen Frigga-and felt a rush of shame as he looked away and back at Thor’s boat.
Thor’s funeral. They were at his funeral, because Thor Odinson was dead.
Loki killed his birth father and adopted brother on the same day, that had to be a unique feat.
“I am your big brother. I will never let you die before me, Loki. I will always protect you.”
“Someone has to keep you out of trouble.”
Thor kept his promise. Loki had not.
--xx--
Two Years Later
Loki lay on his cot bed as he tossed a ball up and down in the air with a neutral expression. Once the God of Mischief, once the second prince of Asgard, once always busy with quests, experiments, or schemes. And now he was no more than a layabout in a cell.
And still Loki Odinson, at least on paper, which had come as a great surprise to him.
Loki expected a number of things that had not come to pass: his execution, his being outed as the son of Laufey and a frost giant, his being disowned by the House of Odin.
He had been sentenced to the cells of Asgard at ‘the All-Father’s pleasure’, which was to say, till forever if Odin so willed it. Likely he did, given that Loki had killed his only true son.
Frigga had come to see him a couple of weeks after the trial, and made a regular habit of her projection visits since. He was given little luxuries, at least so far as prisoners were concerned. Frigga’s company was a balm for Loki, who ever feared and hated to be alone and who found his mind in the quiet of the cell to be an enemy greater than any he’d faced before.
“Monster.”
“Laufeyson.”
“Murderer.”
“Betrayer.”
At some points, when sleep had eluded him for too long and his mind had wandered too far down darker avenues…his guilt seemed to summon specters to him. He saw projections of his brother-not his brother- at different ages. Sometimes friendly.
“I love you, Loki.” The little blonde boy said, beaming at his real and older counterpart.
Loki stared, transfixed by the smaller, innocent version of Thor who looked at him so sweetly.
“Excellent work, brother!” The teenaged Thor cheered as he pulled Loki into a one-armed hug with a trademark, charming-oaf grin.
Only there was no Loki in the projection, Thor held the empty air, an illusion much like Loki’s identity as that brother.
Other times the projections were not so friendly.
Thor’s gaze was flint and steel as he sneered at Loki and gripped Mjolnir. “ A frost giant monster in Asgard…I will fix this mistake myself.”
And yet, Frigga had the right of it, even as that Thor filled Loki with dread. There was an even more terrifying vision of Thor to visit him.
“You think I ever loved you, Laufeyson?” Thor asked coldly. “You think I would still call a creature like you ‘brother’? You really are a mad little beast. Do not fear that I will kill you, you are not worthy of my time, you are beneath me.”
Words Thor would not speak, even Loki was sure of that. But they hurt to see, to hear from Thor’s face and voice.
But oh, there was a worse one still. A specter he feared most of all. Even more than Thor offering himself to the Destroyer.
Thor, looking at Loki with centuries of brotherhood between them as he clasped Loki’s neck after his declaration not to doubt his love. A moment of affection and vulnerability for Loki alone, from Thor, his big brother.
“I’m not your brother, I never was.” Loki whispered to the projection, and Thor’s projection dissipated.
“Then am I not your mother?” Frigga had said.
And Loki, so full of pain, so full of complicated feelings he could not possibly speak of, answered back.
“No, you are not."
The saddened, haunted look on her face drove him to blurt out an immediate apology but she was already gone. She did not come for nearly a month, and when she returned, he did not dare speak of it again even as she proceeded on like it had not happened. But Loki saw a tension in her that was not there before in their interactions, the jagged edges of their frayed bond. What he had done to Thor, she had seemed to try to compartmentalize so that she might at least keep a measure of relationship with the child she had remaining. But Loki’s denial of her after that had seemed to shatter something further in her and it broke his heart.
Loki had done this, Loki had done this to them.
Sometimes his mind told him Thor had done this. If only Thor had been worthy, if only Thor had not been so cruel and arrogant, if only Thor had been a better brother, if only Thor had been a better man-
But it was not Thor who sent the Destroyer to Midgard, or lured his would-be brother into ruin, or lied, or murdered said would-be brother.
Loki did those things, some of them even before knowing what he was deep down. Perhaps being wicked truly was in his nature, perhaps that was why he did such things.
But Thor had been unworthy, Odin had finally seen it!
Being unworthy was not supposed to be a death sentence. Loki’s mind reminded him.
He would have never accepted Loki, he would have never tolerated Loki to be king.
“The burden of the throne has fallen to me now.”
“Can I come home?”
No accusations, no mistrust, no anger, no jealousy…Thor simply wanted to come home.
Loki had not slept in two days…or was it three? He heard a rustling at his side and glanced over to see a little Thor projection again.
“You are okay, brother. I will make it better.” The little Thor promised an invisible little brother. He pressed a kiss to the air before he wrapped small arms around an invisible toddler. “Shh, I have you, Loki. I am here."
“Not your brother.” he told the little Thor, his voice a brush of breath, but watched the projection greedily until it faded all the same.
“I am the monster parents tell their children about."
“I love Thor more dearly than any of you. But you know what he is! He’s arrogant, he’s reckless, he’s dangerous!”
Thor standing before the Destroyer, offering himself up to Loki’s wrath with humble apology and words of amends.
Some days, Loki felt as though he loathed Thor and he let his mind wander to all the ways Thor had wronged him. He let himself remember the jibes, the dismissals, the shouts and Thor’s rages. It was Loki who was expected to act as Thor’s minder, as much as Thor had been Loki’s minder in their childhood. Loki who all eyes turned to when Thor was out of control as if to say well, do something. It was he who had to soothe Thor’s wrath, his arrogant tantrums, to fix with sorcery what Thor broke in his impulsive anger. Loki who had to wheedle and plead to turn Thor from reckless action [not always with success] because Thor no longer heeded and respected his counsel for all that he sought it for self-validation. He was expendable, the second prince who did not nearly embody the perfect ideals his golden would-be brother did. Loki ever had less of everything simply because Thor existed.
And other days, Loki loved Thor ‘more dearly than any of them’. Thor, who had been his little protector, mother hen, and confidante for so much of their lives. How many nights had he sought refuge in Thor’s arms for what frightened him? How many wounds had Thor taken it upon himself to dress? How many times did Thor lie to take punishment for mischief that Loki had caused? Thor, who had once so readily pulled Loki into hugs to offer declarations of pride and love. There was the Thor who was quick-to-laugh, to help anyone in need, who would make silly and bewildered expressions at trouble Loki pulled them into, and who would without question put his life in danger to save Loki’s.
Would Thor have accepted him, called him brother, even knowing what and who Loki was?
“Brother.”
“Monster."
Loki would never know, but he would have the rest of a long, lonely ‘forever’ to wonder.