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Not for the first time, Loki wonders if He Who Remains ever felt lonely in his mansion at the end of time.
Loki certainly feels alone atop his crumbling golden throne bound in branches of time.
It is a startling realization for the God of Mischief, who has spent so much of his life placing himself above others, to realize there are people he misses.
He finds it strange to be surrounded by a multitude of universes, an endless forest of countless lives and to feel so alone.
The branches that twine around him give him a glimpse into an infinite amount of universes and in each universe there is a Loki making the same mistakes he has.
Most end up where he did once upon a time, in defeat at the hands of the Avengers or dead in the vastness of space with Thanos’ fist clenched around their throats.
In a smaller number of universes, the Lokis find themselves victorious. He avoids these branches more than the others. Something about the hollowness these Lokis find in the aftermath of their victories feels too similar to where he sits now.
He thinks about words said in an interrogation room between two people who would be friends but weren’t quite yet, and how he agrees this purpose feels more burden than glorious.
More often than not he finds himself lingering instead over the branches where two sons and their father play in a perfect yard on a quiet street of a bland suburb.
Or where a beat up pick up truck sits in the parking lot of a McDonald’s waiting for its owner to finish their shift.
Time passes.
.
.
How much time he does not know.
.
.
And then things change.
A Loki comes to earth to taunt his brother and finds himself caught by the sight of a diner selling truly atrocious slices of green pie. The waiter has an equally atrocious moustache, but a friendly smile and Loki admits he forgets why he came to earth in the first place.
Years later, in another branch, there is a pit fighter with golden horns, deadly daggers and a sharp tongue. They are exactly the type of person Loki expects to find on Sakaar and the last person he ever expects to like. Still he thinks about friends in unlikely places as the crowd roars.
Then there are moments in between.
Leaving a gala in Germany full of spite and arrogance, Loki forces people to kneel. A man with straw blonde hair and a drab brown suit is not the only one to remain standing, but he does stand apart. His hands are tucked in his pockets like he’s waiting for the bus and not facing down a god.
And in the wake of his mother’s death, another Loki sits in an Asgardian prison and finds solace in a snarky cellmate and a dagger passed back and forth through the wall with a flash of green. It doesn’t make the hurt disappear, but it does cut a little less deeply with every shared barb.
Each of these moments lead to new branches full of new possibilities. Loki finds that out of all the branches he likes these the best.
.
.
.
It is a startling realization for the God of Mischief to realize there are people he misses. It is an even more startling realization to realize that those people miss him too.