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His door was left ajar again.
It must have been Thor, waiting to ambush him with some quest or other. His suspicions were confirmed when he spotted his brother sprawled across the coach, reading a book. “Thor, for the thousandth time, I’m busy.”
Thor looked up and froze.
Strange. “What, do I have dirt on my face?”
“No,” he said slowly, still staring. His hands tightened around the book he was holding. Loki squinted at the cover.
“Since when were you interested in Vanir history?”
“Since I succeeded the throne,” Thor said, finally turning back to reading. “I suppose there are things you can learn indoors.”
That had more bite than usual, an edge to his words. Thor’s moods came in flashes, and Loki would usually needle him into a fight, but in a rare act of generosity, he let it drop. He’d have more opportunities after he was properly refreshed, anyway.
He turned, intending to enter his bedroom. A sudden shove sent his right shoulder crashing against the frame, and that patience immediately dissipated.
“What is wrong with you,” he hissed, whipping around. Thor was still on the couch. But Loki could have sworn—
Thor raised an eyebrow in challenge. “Shall I list them alphabetically or chronologically?”
His skin prickled. “You are not yourself today.”
Thor huffed a laugh, getting up with surprising grace. The prickle grew into a brief spike of unease, which was foolish. And illogical. It was just Thor.
Even then, he couldn’t help but tense when Thor stalked towards him and grabbed his shoulders. “You’re right,” Thor said quietly. “I’m not myself today. Perhaps it’s because I’m looking at you, bastard son.”
He blinked dumbly. It was a ridiculous statement, entirely untrue. But it still struck something deep within him like an ancient wound. “What?”
“Wastrel,” Thor spat. His fingers dug in painfully. “Foolish, useless wretch.”
That flicker of unease came back. Thor had become a little cockier of late, since the succession was announced, but this was something else entirely. He reached for his sedir. “Seriously, Thor, what are you—”
His magic slipped through his fingers like smoke. That— that was advanced spellwork beyond his current abilities, and certainly beyond Thor’s. That wasn’t Thor.
The intruder smiled.
“Who are you,” he said, mind whirling. The palace was heavily guarded with guards and enchantments, and Loki’s room even more so with his own spells. It would’ve been impossible for a stranger to enter.
“Haven’t you figured?” Green shimmered over the man’s features, revealing black hair, green eyes, what in the Nine—
All he managed was, “Is this some kind of joke?”
The other Loki laughed shortly. He was older, certainly — more haggard, more world-weary. But more dangerous, all sharp edges and a threatening air. “Our life is the joke, brat.”
He stepped back, surveying him with open disgust. “I’ve always wanted to do this,” he said, and in the next moment Loki’s head snapped back, pain exploding from the side of his face.
Between the punch and whatever this was, he had a lot to deal with at the moment. He opted for the latter. “You’re from the future.” Why do you hate me, he wanted to ask, but that was a pointless question. “Are you here to give us a warning?”
“A warning,” Other-Loki repeated, considering. He bared his teeth in a smile that would be more appropriate on a wolf. “More than that. I’m here to fix it.” Knives flashed in his hands. “Starting with you.”
Loki prided himself on being one of the best sorcerers in the Nine Realms. His bladework was decent as well, as was required of an Asgardian and Odinson. But his older self had the advantage of time, experience, and whatever hell else.
“Would you know your fate?” Other-Loki moved like a devil, a whirl of knives and hits, and it took all of Loki’s skill to deflect the attacks. No one in Asgard fought like that, dirty and vicious, edged with recklessness he’d seen only in death matches. “It’s quite a tale.”
He attempted an attack. His opponent swept it aside like an afterthought. He was severely, embarrassingly outclassed. “Considering how you are, I’ll pass.”
“You attempt genocide.” An elbow in his ribs. “You attempt to conquer Midgard. Failed both, by the way. Might be worse than trying in the first place.” A blocked hit, blade tearing across his arm. “You kill your mother.” A particularly vicious backhand that sent him reeling. “You let everything and everyone burn.”
His back hit the wall. “All that,” a choked gasp escaped his lips as his older self drove a knife through his shoulder, into the wood, pinning him in place, “because you wanted to be loved.”
Loki kicked his shin and sent him stumbling back. He pulled out the knife, ignoring the burning that ensured. It was preferable to the poisonous words. “It’s not fair,” he snapped, breathing heavily. “I don’t even know what you’re saying. You did those things, you sick monster.”
The barest flinch. He counted that as a victory. “What could’ve possibly occurred in the next few centuries—”
“Years.”
“What?”
“Years.” Other-Loki regarded him with a cool expression. “In a few weeks, really.”
That was…terrifying. And impossible to comprehend. “You’re lying.”
It was rather disconcerting to hear his own laughter from the mouth of another. “Oh, we do excel at that. I do it quite often. But not more than you, and certainly not more than the All-Father.”
“You wish for a warning?” His older self leaned in, eyes glinting. There was nowhere to run. “The House of Odin is filled with lies. Lies upon lies.”
A fist, flashing green, slammed into his chest. The world turned into a confusing mixture of crashes and dust and pain.
He blinked stars out of his vision; a useless endeavour when everything was blurry. It took a few moments to realise he’d gone right through the wall between his rooms. That was…not good. He felt like he’d gone multiple rounds with the Destroyer and then some.
"Pathetic," the older Loki said somewhere above him, strangely distant. A burst of pain rushed up his leg. Definitely broken. He bit his lip to suppress a scream. "Norns, even I’m embarrassed."
He spat out a tooth, clawing himself up into a semi-upright position. Even breathing hurt. “It’s not honourable to fight someone who's at a distinct disadvantage.” “Because you know so much about honour,” his older self sneered. “Using the Bifrost to kill your entire race put them at a distinct disadvantage.”
Frost crept in his veins. His thoughts tumbled into each other. You attempt genocide. He wouldn’t— he’s lying— “Asgard?” The older Loki laughed. “That’s right. You don’t even know what you are yet.”
The cold spread to his stomach. He was going strangely numb, his injuries taking a backseat to the awful dread settling over him. “What does that mean.”
“Don’t you wonder why you never truly fit in? How they talk about the strange second prince? It’s because you’re not Asgardian.”
“You’re lying.” He said again. He wasn’t sure if it was the concussion or the implication that was making him dizzy. “I’m not— whatever you think—”
“You are,” other-Loki turned towards him, a savage kind of fury on his face, “exactly what I think you are. We are the very same, or did I knock out your brains as well?”
His words settled deep in his bones, an aching cold, and hurt like truth. It all made sense now, why Odin never considered him, why Thor outshone him, why he could never, never match up to any of their standards.
"But you do wreck Asgard," his reflection said, examining his daggers, "Ragnarok begins with ice and ends with fire. How true it was."
Ice. That only referred to one realm, one planet— no, he wasn’t, he was Asgardian—
The other Loki reached out, when did his arm turn blue— and grabbed his left arm. Before he could even blink, the same blue rushed across his skin. There was no pain, no frostbite, only a familiarity of something like home, something finally slotting into place. This was a nightmare, this wasn’t real, he had to wake up—
“This is what the future holds for you, Jotunn.” He was slammed down again, white-hot pain flaring in his chest, iron in his mouth. He lashed out with seidr on instinct. His older self simply swept it aside. There was a hand around his throat. All rational thought left him, only a scream of no, no, no, he wasn’t, he wasn’t— “You deserve everything I give you. You’re unfit for any place but Hel.”
The words sank into the haze descending on him. Some part of him wanted to fight, to call for help. The rest of him felt nothing at all, nothing but cold.
“He told me my birthright was to die,” the man said softly. Of course. A fitting fate for a Frost Giant. “I suppose it’s time I claim it.”
He watched the dagger rise, and shut his eyes.
"Leave him alone!"
Panic snapped him out of the haze. Thor. He opened his mouth to tell him to run, curse him for barging in, and only managed to cough out blood.
Other-Loki tilted his head. "There he is. Aggravating as always.”
A metallic clang. The air turned heavy with ozone. "Who are you?”
“I’m hurt. Don’t you recognise me, little brother?”
Thor faltered, looking between them. "Loki? But— what in the Nine—"
"From the future, yes, we established this. Run along now. We're having a private discussion."
Please run, he thought, willed. The other Loki had taken him down without blinking. Thor would fare even more poorly.
Thor, as always, was determined to act in the most foolish way. “I don't know who you are or what sorcery this is, but I promise you, you will rue the day you were born. How dare you attack my brother and wear his face—”
Not your brother. “He speaks the truth,” Loki croaks. The words taste like ash. He wished it was an enemy. But the things the man said were so awful they could only be true. He’d proved at least one of them true.
Thor scanned him, freezing at the sight of his arm. It was still blue. “What did you do to him?”
“He’s Jotunn,” other-Loki said, and only from this close could Loki tell how he shuddered at the term. “He’s having a little crisis about it.”
This was not a little crisis. This was his world upended, everything he’d known a lie.
“You— I—” Thor shook his head, growling. “Get off him before I make you.”
The older Loki laughed at that, the sound pounding into his aching body. “It would be unwise of you to try. I might slit his throat by accident.”
"Why are you doing this? He's you!"
That's the point, he didn't say. “I ally with the greatest enemy the Nine has faced. I invade Midgard, that backwater planet you come to cherish so dearly. I lead our mother to her death. I make you think I am dead. I usurp Odin and rule over Asgard. I bring war, ruin, death wherever I go." The older Loki spread his hands, shaking. "Now tell me, king-to-be, what would you do with such a monster?"
Thor, in the greatest act of stupidity Loki had seen in centuries — and there had been many — tackled his older self right off him. He pushed himself up in a panic, dreading a familiar flash of green, a yell of pain. What he saw was infinitely worse.
Hugging. Thor was hugging his homicidal, crazy future self. He was possibly delirious.
"What are you doing?" His older self snapped, clearly as disgruntled as he was. So it wasn’t a hallucination. "Get off!”
"I don't know what happened to make you so," Thor said, surprisingly earnest for someone who was threatening murder only a moment ago, "but we can help. This won’t fix anything."
A pause. A choked laugh. "I wasn’t spinning tales, brother. Those things will happen. Killing him— us, may be the best thing for the universe yet."
Your birthright was to die. He shuddered, curling up tighter.
“Violence doesn’t solve everything,” Thor said, the hypocrite. “We can talk. If I let you go, will you try and kill him again?”
“I didn’t try,” other-Loki said in a distinctly offended tone. “If I truly wanted him dead, he would be.”
Thor spluttered, gesturing at Loki. “Then what do you call that?”
“Cathartic.”
That should not have been as reassuring as it was. A hand on his shoulder jarred him back into cold, painful reality. Thor peered at him worriedly. "Are you alright, brother?"
"Great." He rasped. "Just trying not to die while you were colluding with my evil older self."
Thor scanned him again, shoulders sagging in relief, before turning away. "Fix him."
"I'm not a healer."
"I don't care," Thor growled, every inch an imperious prince, "you nearly killed him, now you fix it."
With a long suffering sigh, the older Loki stalked towards him. He recoiled, hissing when his back hit the wall.
"I'm not going to hurt you," other-Loki snapped, somewhat exasperatedly.
“You already did.”
“As the Midgardians say, suck it up. You think you know pain?" The man abruptly fell silent and began treating his injuries. Loki exchanged a confused glance with Thor.
"Did you really return to the past to commit premeditated murder?"
“It wasn’t premeditated,” the older Loki said. “More of a spontaneous decision. I didn't plan to come here."
They waited for an elaboration. He didn't offer one.
“Unpremeditated murder," Loki said with no small amount of bitterness. It was rather insulting. "You spontaneously decided to wreck the timeline.”
“I didn’t wreck it. You’re alive, aren’t you?”
Thor, thankfully, stepped in. “Norns, you are sick. Where’s the version of me in the future? Surely he wouldn’t let you be in such a state.”
“At this very moment? Possibly cursing me for leaving. More likely crashing into walls and trying to regain hand-eye coordination. You lost an eye.”
Thor looked alarmed. “I lose an eye?”
“And your hammer. To your dear, murderous big sister.” He laughed at their faces, this time bitterly. “As I said. Lies upon lies.”
Loki didn't like this future. “And where does that leave you?”
His tone cooled. “A prince in exile on an orgy spaceship containing the remains of Asgard.”
None of the words made sense together. “...what?”
Thor demonstrated surprising acuity of mind. “What remains?”
“1274 people.” Other-Loki’s voice had gone flat. “Refugees, really.”
Thor paled. “Asgard is gone?”
“Asgard’s not a place, it’s a people.” They stared at him blankly. He muttered a curse. “Tell Odin the Mad Titan is hunting the Infinity Stones and succeeding. The Dark Elves are alive. And ask him about Hela. If he refuses, tell him his beloved firstborn unleashes all hell and decimates our people and Thor and I had to burn all of Asgard to stop her. That’s the legacy he leaves.”
Loki's head was pounding again. “Why don’t you tell him yourself? And Mother, they’d want to see you—”
“No,” the older Loki snarled, and they both flinched. He closed his eyes and took a shaky breath. “No,” he repeated, quieter. "The last time I saw her— saw Odin— it's done. I can’t see them."
The sheer want was screaming from him. Loki wasn't going to call him out.
“Okay,” Thor said cautiously. “Any other crucial information you were withholding?”
“That would be telling.” Norns, surely he wasn’t this insufferable. Other-Loki leaned against the wall, looking exhausted all of a sudden. “Do what you will with that. Maybe you get a better ending. Maybe it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Maybe it gets worse, though I can hardly imagine how.” He couldn’t, either.
His older self straightened, head cocked like he heard something. “Time for me to leave. Final warning, brat. Don’t let go.”
"What does that even mean?" Loki asked to an empty space. He'd disappeared in a blink. If not for his aching body, Loki would have chalked it all up to a dream.
Thor shifted uncomfortably, likely preparing one of his sentimental speeches. Loki cast for a suitable diversion. It was ridiculously easy. “What possessed you to hug him? He could’ve killed you!”
Thor laughed, and hugged him. It had been years since they did that, with age and distance and jealousy in the way, an ever growing gulf. But Loki found himself clutching him just as tightly, like he was a child again, believing his big brother would protect him. “If he were you, he’d listen to me.”
“I don’t listen to you,” Loki said into his shoulder.
“Not always,” Thor agreed. “But it worked, didn’t it?” “That was foolish.”
“You’re my brother,” Thor said simply, like the past hour never happened, like the truth of his adoption didn’t matter. “Which makes him my brother, no matter how he acts. We should inform Father of this.”
With great reluctance, Loki pulled away. The horrors of the past hour lurked just outside his mind, waiting to overwhelm him. But he had to face them. And possibly, hopefully, change his fate. “You’re not him,” Thor said, a promise, a declaration. “You won’t be him.”
Loki clung to it like a lifeline to shore.
“I’m telling you,” Loki yells, “he’s dangerous. He’s mad. He’ll kill us all if he wasn’t so obsessed with halves, do you understand?”
“What I understand is,” Thor shouts back while ushering people into escape pods, “you want me to flee like a cowered dog and leave our people behind—”
“You’re going with them, you utter buffoon—”
“And leaving you behind!” Thor flashes a reassuring smile at the old woman he was helping before resuming his tirade. It probably says something that none of the Asgardians even blink at their argument. “He’s going to kill you—”
“Actually, he’s going to make me wish for something as sweet as—”
“I got that,” Thor roars, truly furious now. “And you want me— no, you believe I would leave you to suffer that.”
It’s not that hard, Loki barely bites back. “A necessary sacrifice. Isn’t that what heroes do?”
Screams echo off the walls. Crying. Clashes of metal. Sounds of their people dying, because they’re here arguing like fools. Because he had to create trouble, bring the Tesseract with them, practically a siren for Thanos to find his way here.
He made this mess. He has to fix it.
“I’m not losing you again,” Thor says, softer now. Loki closes his eyes.
“That’s not up to you.”
The last escape pod takes off. Valkyrie had long gone, leading however many they could fit to Earth. He almost missed her. She would’ve knocked sense into Thor.
They regard each other. Thor steps away. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“Fine,” Loki says. He waits for Thor to relax minutely, then strikes with his sedir, pinning him to the wall.
“Loki,” Thor hisses, struggling furiously, “what did I just say, you absolute bastard.”
His heartbeat pounds in his ears. He feels rather like he’s watching himself from the outside, an audience to a tragedy about to unfold. “Sit tight, brother. I’ll end this.”
“Oh,” a familiar voice says behind him. “This is truly a dark future.” He whirls around, almost gutting his younger self. As if he doesn’t have enough problems. “What are you doing here.”
Thor stops cursing. “Loki?”
“What happened?” A blast hits the ship, making them stumble. The wretch corrects himself, glancing out of a window. “Is that Thanos’ ship? What’s happening?”
“I would very much like to know as well,” Thor says. They both ignore him.
"My people are getting murdered by a genocidal maniac," Loki snaps. Leave it to him to sabotage himself so well. "If you’re here for revenge, kindly delay it for another time.”
“Oh. Need help with that?”
He waves a hand at Thor, who curses again. “Make sure he doesn’t come after me.”
“Loki,” Thor pleads. Damn the Nine Realms, it breaks his heart. “Don’t do this.”
They’re the same person, and so the brat catches on quickly. “Why do all your plans involve death?”
He wants to laugh. Does it count as death if he didn’t truly die? "It's me or him. If I don't die, he will."
"There has to be a better way."
He does laugh at that, a high hysterical sound. “There is no other way. This is the end, more than I deserved.” He doesn't look at Thor. There’s nothing to hide now, with death looming, reaching for him. Maybe this time she won’t turn him away. “Go back to your time if you will not help. You won’t have long before you end up here.”
“No.”
“No, what?”
“I won’t end up like you.” The kid lifts his chin, absolute certainty in his tone. “And I’m not leaving.”
It clicks. “Congratulations, you missed the Titan’s hospitality,” he sneers. It comes out more resentful than scathing. “It means nothing. He comes for us all in the end.”
His younger self glares at him. “Listen, I didn’t come to watch a tragedy. I’m helping, whether you want it or not, and if you’re going to get in my way then you can take Thor’s place, because at least he isn’t wallowing in despair.”
Thor gawks, actually stilling in shock. He’s sure he looks just as foolish.
Other-him rolls his eyes. “Surely you didn’t endure all that to give up so easily.”
He’s goading him, the little shit.
“There’s no other way,” he repeats, because it must be true. There’s no hope, no way out, and something about that futility comforts him. Hope is a cruel, fatal thing.
“Brother,” Thor says.
…But other impossible things have happened.
He shuts his eyes, calculates the probability of success — pathetic, abysmal, but not zero. Thinks, you could be more. Thinks, we’re all we have left. Thinks, for the first time in a while, I don't want to die. Not like this.
Well. Let it not be said that he gives up without a fight.
“Fine,” he says, opening his eyes. “What’s the plan?”
The kid smiles, razor sharp.
His part is laughably easy, and the hardest thing he’s ever done.
"Unlike you," the kid says with a sniff, "I've been working on my healing skills. Really came in handy when I got impaled, because my future self didn’t warn me.”
Didn’t he? Well. It has been a busy decade. "You can’t heal a dead person," he snaps back. “If you want to be useful, get Thor off the ship.”
He freezes, enveloped in blue light.
"Undying," Thanos says. Loki's been around the Titan long enough to recognise the glint in his eyes, the thirst for pain, for death. He reaches out and snaps his wrist, easy as a twig. His knife clatters to the ground. "Maybe you should choose your words more wisely."
“You’re not going to die,” the kid says, absurdly certain. “Not permanently, at least.”
A hand circles around his throat, cuts off air and any semblance of rational thought. He's lifted up until he's dangling in the air. Despite himself he struggles, instinctual fear pounding through him. Each moment feels like an infinity. His lungs threaten to burst, he gasps for air and finds none, he tries to look for Thor but all he sees is the smirk on Thanos' ugly face, distant screaming, howling, and the kid was wrong, he's going to die, but maybe Thor will live, he has to live, and all he's thinking about is that Asgardians are awfully hard to kill by strangulation, but he's not an Asgardian—
The next crack is fire erupting throughout his body, consuming him, and then, nothing.
"Loki."
Voices ring out around him, overlapping, echoing. He's floating in the dark. There's nothing here, no pain, no fear. Just oblivion.
"He's dead. There's no way he survived that."
"That's what you thought the past two times." This voice is strained, terribly familiar and foreign all at once. "Believe in your cockroach of a brother."
Silence. "I find it very hard to believe in a broken spine."
Pain strikes, swift and vicious as a whip. He flinches.
"Loki?" The rumbling voice draws nearer. Clearer. "What did you—"
"Saved his life, that's what." The other voice sounds even more strained than before. "Get ready."
For what? Loki wonders, before the pain comes back with a vengeance, all encompassing and dizzying, dragging him somewhere. The darkness tears at him, unwilling to give him up. A new kind of pain shoots through him, familiar, bright, chasing away the darkness. Thor's lightning.
With a gasp, he lurches upright— or tries to, at any rate. He succeeds in turning over, an arm propping him up. There's people around, voices, but all he's really concerned with at the moment is trying to breathe.
Finally, air trickles into his windpipe. He wheezes, knowing he must be a pathetic sight but not mustering enough energy to care.
"Loki," Thor is saying. He realises he's been calling him for a while now. "Loki."
He reaches out weakly. Thor grasps his arm, warm and real. He glares at his younger self. "You...could've helped."
"You're welcome for saving your sorry life," younger-him grumbles. He looks so awful Loki doesn't want to know what he looks like himself.
"Thank you," he says through gritted teeth, because the brat is right. "You didn't have to."
At that, the kid softens. He wants to punch the look off his face. "Just paying back a debt."
He inhales a little too sharply, which proves to be too much for his recently crushed windpipe. He chokes on his next breath, which launches him into an incredibly painful coughing fit. He glares through pain induced tears when he's done. "A debt? I almost killed you!"
"What," Thor says, alarmed. Right. He hadn't told him about that yet.
"You stopped me from going down your path. It's a life debt, really."
He hisses a few choice curses. Thor's hand doesn't leave his shoulder, a comforting weight.
"We will have words, Loki." Great. Yet another nauseatingly emotional conversation. To his younger self Thor says, “thank you. For stopping my brother and saving him.”
Younger-him shrugs. “Sounds like it would have been bad if I weren’t here.”
"I would've done it," Loki says, and they both look at him. Damn. He didn’t mean to say it out loud. Maybe it’s the adrenaline and the temporary death, loosening his tongue. "If— if he hadn't been here. I'd have died anyway."
"Don't say that."
"I would've done it," he repeats. "The world needs you, and I can't— you've done it before, without me."
Thor looks— looks like he's watching him die all over again. He reaches out, hesitates, grabs him by the arms instead and draws their foreheads together. "Not really. You could live with half a heart, perhaps, but is that really living?"
"But if it had to be anyone," he says, and stops. He'd accepted his death long ago, but that didn't lessen the bone deep terror or the agony.
“You two are depressing,” his younger self says. “I’m almost glad you tried to kill me. No way I'd want to live in this future.”
"I can try again," he growls, except it's not so threatening when he sounds like ground gravel.
"Try living, for a change," the kid says, entirely unimpressed.
“Insolent brat."
"Stubborn old man."
"You’re three years younger, and literally me—"
"But better," the kid concludes smugly. Thor bursts out laughing.
He is, though. Better. It makes him wonder how much things could have changed. How many times he'd ignored the side road to continue on his doomed path. How much hurt could've been avoided. Death. He sweeps it all aside to be picked up when he actually has a moment to himself.
"We are the same." Younger-him says, more seriously. “I…I get it.”
"You changed." The words are ash on his tongue. So much wasted time. So much destruction.
"I didn't let go." It is a strange feeling, like knocking a joint back into place, cleaning a festered wound. “Well, I tried. But they caught me. And it would have been humiliating to try a second time.”
"You should listen to him, brother. He's much less maudlin."
“Falling into the Void is but one problem,” Loki says. “You cannot possibly fix them all.”
A pause. The kid tilts his head in acknowledgement. “Not everything has changed. But enough. Asgard lives. Our parents…do not.”
He’d expected that. It hurt, anyway.
“Some things cannot be avoided,” Thor says, reaching forward and squeezing his shoulder. "How did you get here?"
Younger-him smiles. "A little help from a Midgardian sorcerer."
He sneers instinctively. “Him?”
“His time stone, to be exact.” “How did you get him to lend you that?”
He grins. “A little persuasion.”
Thor frowns now. “Loki…” “He deserved it,” they both say, and recoil at the synchronicity. “Besides,” younger Loki says, “he won’t miss a thing. I’m leaving now, anyway. Don’t execute anymore death related plans.”
“Maybe the fate of the universe depends on it.”
“Surely you learnt something from this,” younger-Loki says, gesturing in exasperation. A green glow surrounds him, and in the next moment he vanishes.
Loki leans back against the wall, suddenly exhausted.
"You tried to kill your past self," Thor says, and Loki briefly considers jumping out of the ship. "Were you…trying to…"
"No," he snaps, catching on. "Gods, no. It would've branched out into a different timeline where I died. That's all."
Then, because he can't help himself, he adds, "at least, that's the theory."
Thor heaves a sigh, looking centuries older. A flash of guilt. “I suppose it is a good thing that you didn’t.”
You could be more. He’d tried, however little and late it was. “It worked out, didn’t it?”
“Yes,” Thor says. “It is. We need to find our people. And contact Midgard. Thanos is likely on his way. Where to first?”
"Earth," he says, thinking of Thor's allies, the threat that is to come, the reckoning that'll make Ragnarok seem like child's play. He’d changed his past, intentionally or not. Why not the future? "We're going to kill a Titan."