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In his thousands of years of life, Loki very quickly learned what it was like to feel sorrow.
Sorrow was a background emotion he’d felt throughout his childhood, since he was constantly walking in the shadow of his brother. Though Thor himself never made him feel that way, Odin seemed to make this mission to always make Loki feel like he’d never be good enough.
He, however, had grown accustomed to the sorrow he felt in his heart, learning to push it back and keep it behind a locked door. Perhaps it had been at the forefront of his mind once, but he had been way too young to remember that feeling before it became routine to him.
However, when he’d received word that his mother, Freyja had passed away while he was locked in a prison cell, unable to attend her burial, that door busted wide open and flooded his heart with sorrow. It overtook him. He spent many nights afterwards wallowing in the blackness of it all, his tears seeming to never run dry.
But slowly, without him noticing, it faded into the background once more. The door shut and locked again. It was still there, but he seldom acknowledged it.
Then came the destruction of Asgard, and the door burst open again. He would never admit it out loud, but the cut of losing the place he’d called home, no matter how he’d been treated there, ran deep.
One night, as he wept in the privacy of his quarters, he heard footsteps outside his door. He quickly quieted his cries, hoping silently that whomever it was would just keep walking.
Instead the door opened, and there stood Thor.
Loki wanted nothing more than to tell him to go away and to leave him in peace, but the deep sorrow in his heart just caused his cries to start again.
Thor never said a word, and simply spent the night sitting by his brother’s side, a silent source of strength as they both mourned Asgard, and all they had known.
After that night, it was as if the door had again shut and locked, keeping his sorrow contained within.
Yes, Loki knew what sorrow was. He knew that at the start, it consumes you. You cry. You curse cruel fate. You perhaps do some regretful things. But then, you learn to tune it out. It becomes background noise once more. You lock the door.
He couldn’t remember when this cause or sorrow had gone back behind that locked door. Now, taking a sip of his wine, sat on the worn blanket he always brought with him to avoid the dirt of the earth from getting on his clothing, he eyed the two names on the gravestones in front of him for what could possibly be the billionth time:
ANTHONY EDWARD STARK
STEPHEN VINCENT STRANGE
He swirled the wine in his glass as he slowly shut his eyes and allowed himself to listen to the sounds around him; some bird’s mating call, the passing cars on the nearby road, the gentle wind blowing.
It must’ve looked odd, two elderly men accompanying their young-looking lover. If people didn’t know who the throuple were, it might’ve been assumed that he was some young sugar baby of theirs.
A smile crept across his lips as his eyes opened back up. He remebered Anthony had made several jokes in that regard once his hair went grey.
Anthony had been the one to go first. Not only was he the eldest between him and Stephen, but his Midgardian heart was severally damaged. It had honestly been a miracle he’d lived as long as he did.
And Loki and Stephen, though well prepared for the inevitable as Anthony became ill and slipped away, mourned for many days, both sharing in great sorrow.
Oddly enough, perhaps that sorrow flooding back through the door softened the blow for when Stephen passed away only seven years later. Still, as well prepared as once can be with the knowledge that you were doomed to outlive your lovers forever and watch them age and die, the sorrow stings as they take their last breath, and losing Stephen led to many nights of weeping by his lonesome, no longer having a partner to mourn with.
Then the door shut and locked again, and the sorrow became background noise.
Loki sipped his wine once more before evenly distributing the remainder between the two graves as he always did when he came to visit. He then stood, gathered the blanket, kissed his palm, placed it on Stephen’s headstone, and did the same for Anthony’s, before making his way out of the cemetery.
Two things were constant in Loki’s life- the years immortality granted him, and the fact that he would face floods of sorrow.
But there was nothing he could except let it come, feel it, and then lock it up once more.