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Loki would have liked to say that this had been the first time he’d stumbled through a Timedoor to find his life immediately in danger. It was, though, the first time he’d found himself threatened by a small girl wielding a gigantic axe that looked impossible for her to lift, much less actually use. It was the dead of night. Surely that was too late for children to be out alone. Even if they were armed with a weapon that could cleave the Hulk in two.
His hands came up defensively. “Hi, hello. I imagine this all must appear very strange but if you’ll just let me-”
“Love? What is it?”
An all-too-familiar voice came from the near distance and left an almost physical ache in Loki.
The menacing little girl didn’t budge from her position nor did the hold on her axe waver an inch. “A weird man stepped through an even weirder door, Papa.”
“Papa…?” Loki hardly had time to absorb that detail. Thor charged through the brush to face him, both of them freezing upon seeing the other.
Loki had thought himself prepared for this moment. He’d practiced what he’d say a million times and imagined how Thor would react in a variety of scenarios. Anger. Doubt. Joy. All possible responses to Loki appearing as though he was back from the dead. Again.
He wasn’t prepared for Thor to simply stare at him with no reaction at all.
Loki carefully took a step forward. “Brother.”
That seemed to snap Thor out of his stupor. Loki backed away frantically as Thor came forward to plant himself next to the little girl and called for Mjölnir.
“Thor, it’s me,” Loki pleaded, wincing as the hammer slammed into Thor’s palm. “I know how this must look, but please, I can explain.”
“You always have an explanation,” Thor grumbled. He aimed Mjölnir at Loki. There was no fire to his gaze, only a deep rooted numbness. Loki wasn’t certain that was any better than facing Thor’s rage. “You always have some story. Some lie. Which is it this time, Loki? Have you come to confess some lie or start a new one?”
Loki sighed and forced himself to relax. If he didn’t stay on the defensive, perhaps Thor would calm. He hadn’t expected a warm reception necessarily. That Thor still saw him as nothing more than a liar after all this time hurt but Loki couldn’t say he was surprised by it. He’d seen the file - or as much of it as he could see until the confrontation with Thanos. They hadn’t exactly been close between New York and the Statesman. And maybe that was something he could set to rights.
Loki gave Thor a cautious smile. “Neither. But at least you know I’m me.”
“That could be a lie itself,” Thor pointed out. He lowered Mjölnir fractionally and tipped his head to the girl next to him. “Go on home, Love. I can handle whatever this Trickster has for me.”
The girl gave Thor a dubious look and narrowed her eyes at Loki in clear warning before stomping off, her battle axe dragging behind her. Loki didn’t miss the fond protective look on Thor’s face as he watched the girl leave.
He’d missed so much.
Finally alone, they appraised each other. Loki was sure a thousand thoughts were flitting through Thor’s head - they certainly were doing the same in his own. Thor still seemed to be sizing him up, so Loki tried to break the tension.
“Papa?” he asked.
Thor’s eyes narrowed and Loki wondered if the girl came by the same look naturally or if she’d picked it up from Thor. “Leave her out of your schemes.”
“Oh, for the love…” Loki ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “I don’t have any schemes, Thor. I wish I had time for schemes. I only asked-”
“My daughter,” Thor said, cutting him off. “Love is my daughter.”
There was an odd twinge in Loki’s chest upon hearing that. With whom, he couldn’t help but wonder. That human woman? It had to have been. Curiosity itched under his skin but their mother raised them better and Loki wouldn’t be impolite. Or risk setting Thor off. “Congratulations. Sincerely, brother.”
Thor studied Loki a moment longer and nodded, seemingly content that Loki wasn’t playing some game with his well-wishes. Thor lowered his arm, letting his hammer hang from his hand. “Come sit by the fire with me then. If you intend to do us mischief, then at least stay and talk with me first. You owe me that.”
Loki followed Thor through the brush to a metal dwelling that looked more like an aeroplane or other rocket ship than Loki would have guessed for Thor’s shelter. Thor gestured to two chairs, setting Mjölnir between them on the ground, the threat evident. Whatever restraint Thor had shown him thus far was tenuous at best and Loki knew it. Loki settled into the chair and Thor summoned a bolt of lightning to ignite a fire circle.
He didn’t realize he was smiling until Thor said something. “What’s that look?”
“Pride, I suppose.” Loki shrugged, leaning back into his chair and making sure to keep his hands visible. “Seeing you with such control over your birthright and the power of it makes me feel proud of you.”
Thor huffed as he dropped himself into his seat. “You’ve seen it before.”
At that, Loki shifted uneasily. “In truth, I haven’t.”
Thor’s head fell back, eyes on the stars overhead. When he spoke, the words sounded weary. “Go on then. Tell me your latest story.”
He’d prepared for this. Loki had gone over how to explain variants and timelines and the mess of it again and again in his head. He just didn’t know if Thor would believe any of it.
“The Loki you knew, the one who fought with you against Hela, who mourned Frigga’s and Odin’s deaths, who… who died by the Mad Titan’s hand… that Loki is not me.” Thor made no comment so Loki continued. “In New York, after the battle, there was a moment. Something called a nexus event.” Loki sighed as he struggled to explain concepts once so foreign that were now ingrained in his mind. He leaned forward in his chair, palms together and then separating his hands to demonstrate. “I deviated from the path of the Loki you knew. I made myself a Variant. What you know to have happened did happen. But not to me - I made a choice and created a separate path, with a different life. A variance.”
“But you know what happened to you? To this other you, the one I knew?” Thor lowered his chin and stared Loki down. “How?”
“The place I was taken after my nexus event, where I’ve been since New York, it’s known as the Time Variance Authority. They exist out of time and place. They track all these deviations from the timelines and the resulting Variants. There, they have floors and floors of files on all the timelines. I was shown mine. Or what was supposed to have been mine.” Loki closed his eyes, the memory of his shock in seeing Frigga’s death and his own still as fresh as when he first felt it. “I saw everything. Until Thanos.” Even now the name triggered Loki’s need to run. To hide. To cower. He did his best to hide it.
Thor sat silently, his gaze finally moving off Loki and to the fire. “I felt as though I lost everything that day. Heimdall. Our people. You. When you… Before you died, I had hope for us. Even when things seemed so bleak for our people, I thought I would be able to rule with you at my side. Instead, the Mad Titan took that from me. From us.” Lightning crackled at Thor’s fingertips, making Loki tense almost as much as his memories of Thanos did. “My fury consumed me until there was naught else but a vast emptiness.” Thor spread his fingers wide, the sparks harmlessly fading out.
Loki bent his head, his voice hushed. “I’m sorry. For all your losses, I’m sorry.”
Thor slouched back into his chair. “Much has happened since then. Time is the great healer and I know I shall see our people when I come into Valhalla.”
Loki didn’t quite agree about time being healing, not anymore, but he wasn’t there to argue philosophical concepts with his brother. They sat quietly before the fire, thoughts lost on the past, watching the flames jump and dance in the air. If Loki shifted his perception, if he let his mind meander into memories, he would almost think they were simply recuperating at a campfire after glorious battle.
In a way, Loki supposed that was still true.
“Why now, Loki?” Thor shook his head as he spoke, pulling Loki from his reminiscing. Thor gestured to the darkness beyond the fire. “Why did you wait until now to come to me? If this Time Variance Authority is not bound by such a thing, then you could have come back to me at any time. Years ago. Yesterday. Why wait until tonight?”
Loki didn’t know how to answer that. Truthfully, he hadn’t given much thought to where on Thor’s timeline he would go. If he had, he might have taken the coward’s way and not found him at all. “Would you believe it was because I was spending much of my initial time at the TVA hunting down another Variant of myself?”
Thor didn’t react at first but then he laughed. It wasn’t one of Thor’s full, booming laughs but it heartened Loki nonetheless. “Yes, I believe I would.”
Loki settled back, smiling softly to himself. “Would there have been a better time for me to come?” Loki mimicked Thor’s gesture, waving to the emptiness surrounding them. There were no other fires in the distance. No muted sounds of drinking and merriment. No shelters save the one they sat before. “You aren’t with what remains of Asgard. Are you a king in exile, brother?”
“I abdicated.”
“I beg your pardon?!”
Thor smirked and Loki was impressed that Thor knew how. Perhaps his Variant had rubbed off on his brother before… before Thanos. “I abdicated and gave the throne to Val. She is Asgard’s king now and woe betide any who endanger our people now.”
Loki didn’t know who this “Val” was but from how Thor said her name, it must have been someone his other self had known. It hardly mattered in light of the knowledge that Thor had relinquished his birthright. Millennia of blood line and Thor walked away from it. Loki was torn between screaming and cackling. He felt like he’d lost his mind.
“All that strife between us over Odin’s throne and you just gave it away.” Loki muttered as he rubbed his forehead. If they’d known as children that Thor would reject his position… If Loki had had any inkling… He laughed at himself. It wouldn’t have changed a thing between them back then. He had wanted the throne so desperately. Mobius had been right: Loki had caused death and destruction simply to possess some small semblance of power. Knowing Thor would willingly step down would only have made Loki more frenzied in his attempts to usurp the throne.
He had to force his thoughts to another topic. There was no point to giving into madness now. Loki waved his hand in the direction of the shelter. “Then the child…? Is she yours and your Midgardian’s?”
Thor’s jaw clenched, eyes closing as though Loki had dealt him a physical blow. “No. She is not… Love is… Jane died,” Thor finally said in a tight voice.
Loki winced. The child seemed the appropriate age and that human had been the last woman Thor had been with, to Loki’s knowledge. It had been a reasonable assumption to Loki’s view rather than a callous one. From Thor’s tone, the loss was apparently still fresh too. “Thor, I-”
“Jane died a death worthy of any of Asgardian’s champions,” Thor explained, his throat working to keep his emotions controlled. “She… Jane was sick. I did not know for some time. She was dying and… and yet, Jane wielded Mjölnir to stand at my side in my fight with Gorr. The would-be god butcher. Jane sacrificed herself during our final battle.”
Loki lowered his head in respect. While he had mocked Thor for his infatuation after Odin’s exile, he believed Jane had indeed been Thor’s beloved. If she died in battle at Thor’s side, then proper respect and recognition were due.
“For those who have died the glorious death,” he murmured.
Thor nodded, blinking away tears. “May I see her again when I reach the halls of Valhalla.”
Loki waited until the pain didn’t appear like a haunted scar in Thor’s eyes. “Then the child? Love, was it?”
“Gorr’s.” Loki’s shock must have shown on his face, prompting Thor to explain further. “Gorr did not live much longer after Jane fell. Love is his daughter.”
“Then, you’ve adopted her?” Thor nodded to Loki’s question. Thor had always been good with children. When they were younger, Loki had expected him to have a passel of them by this point in their lives. That Thor had a child was not the surprise; it was the way in which he became a father. It reminded him of a confrontation, long ago, in Odin’s vault. Of secrets and lies and rage and pain. It somehow didn’t hurt as much to look back on now.
Loki gave Thor a wry grin. “It seems the House of Odin has a habit of taking in children from the battlefield,” he teased.
Thor merely blinked at him. As though he was waiting for some follow-up barb to fall from Loki’s tongue. When Loki didn’t give him one, Thor’s eyes flicked over Loki. Loki sat easy under Thor’s reconsidering appraisal. He was the Loki Thor knew - and also a Loki Thor didn’t know at all. The experiences they’d shared after New York, the things that had shaped them, shaped their relationships were all things Loki had never endured. No, instead his choice with the Tesseract had forced him into a new life. New ordeals. New opportunities for growth. Separate from Thor. It made Loki wistful but he couldn’t regret something that had never been possible for him.
“Hunh,” Thor grunted, eloquent as ever. “And you, brother? Have you any children?”
“Me? No. Absolutely not.” The very thought was laughable, but Thor’s next question had him choking on air.
“There must be at least one admirer missing you then, yes?”
Missing him?! Loki rubbed at his mouth to give himself time to recover. Sylvie had all but told him to stay away from her. And he didn’t think he could confess to Thor that he’d… formed a connection with a Variant of himself. Though he could admit doing so was rather on-brand for him if one thought about it. Be that as it may, it didn’t mean Sylvie would ever miss him. And Mobius? Mobius might be searching for him, but that didn’t mean the agent missed him. To say nothing of either of them being his admirers! If anything…
Loki groaned and wiped his hand over his face. If anything?
He missed them.
Thor chuckled and reached over to pat Loki’s shoulder. His pats were really more thuds of attempted comfort and Loki couldn’t resist rolling his eyes. It only made Thor’s smile grow.
“Tell me,” Thor prodded.
“I think I would like a drink in that case.”
Loki used the brief reprieve to collect his thoughts. By the time Thor returned and offered Loki a bottle of what passed for Midgardian ale, Loki felt like he could adequately put his feelings into words his brother would understand.
Loki took a long pull of the ale, frowning at its weak taste. “You drink this?”
“You get used to it.”
“Might as well stay sober then.” Thor extended his hand to take the bottle if it was so offensive to Loki. Loki, however, dodged his reach, taking another lengthy drink. “I didn’t say I wanted to be sober.”
That, finally that, made Thor throw his head back with laughter, the sound reverberating around them and into Loki’s bones.
There was a certain sense of being home when one was around family, no matter where one was, Loki supposed.
“She’s a fighter,” Loki began, eyes on the fire as he talked. “A demon with a blade. Smart. Dangerous. Lovely. Fearless. Her magic might possibly rival our mother’s. Frequently puts me in my place. Doesn’t need me one bit.” Loki didn’t add how much he needed her. “She makes me want to do better. You’d like her.”
Thor nodded. “It sounds like-”
“And he ,” Loki cut Thor off. If Loki stopped, he would never get the words out. Thor’s mouth slammed shut. “He’s smart too, in a different way than her. He challenges me. Doesn’t take my shit. Confident. Steadfast.” Loki pursed his lips, picking at the label of his bottle with a fingernail. “He makes me want to be better. You’d like him too.”
He didn’t feel like he’d done justice in describing either Sylvie or Mobius. He’d only given Thor an abbreviated list of qualities Loki admired in them. The words were nothing near the scope of what they’d all been through and the depth of how Loki felt. He hoped it would be enough to satisfy his brother all the same.
Loki cut his eyes to Thor to find him wearing an infuriatingly bemused smile. He must have picked that up from Loki’s other self as well. Thor hummed as he took a drink of his ale.
“...and is he lovely too?”
Fratricide. Fratricide was suddenly very much an option in Loki’s mind. But Thor laughed good-naturedly and leaned over to clink their bottles together. Loki huffed but he obligingly drank. He could feel his cheeks warming which he would blame on the alcohol and the fire. Certainly not Thor’s joke.
“I’d say more of a rugged sort of handsome,” Loki admitted.
“I wish you the luck of it then. With both of them.” They drank in companionable silence for some time. When Loki’s ale was dry, Thor fetched them each another, grinning when Loki accepted a second without complaints this time.
“So you really weren’t on the Statesman with me then?” Thor asked. Loki shook his head. “And you really weren’t with me on the Grandmaster’s trash planet? Or during the battle with Hela?” Loki wasn’t entirely sure who the Grandmaster was, would never willingly go to a so-called trash planet, and had never met Hela. He shook his head again. “And when I… when we lost Father. That wasn’t you either.”
“Right. And wrong.” Loki leaned his head on his fist. “Those things happened to the Loki I would have been had I not picked up the Tesseract and escaped after the attack on New York.”
“But you didn’t escape. I brought you back to Asgard.”
Loki could understand Thor’s confusion. He hadn’t comprehended it at first himself. He’d insisted he was the prime Loki and the others all impostors. In truth, they were all parts of a whole. Threads woven together. Some snapped, frayed, unraveled. Others held strong no matter what treatment they were subjected to.
He wished he could have been the latter.
“You brought a Loki back to Asgard. Not me.” Loki shifted to face Thor. “Think on it this way. If you had let me go. If you had turned on the Avengers and released me. That would have been a nexus event and the TVA would have stopped you as they stopped me.”
Thor seemed to be considering something as he processed Loki’s hypothetical. “How did they stop you?”
“Apparently it isn’t very hard. A bunch of miscreant Midgardian riffraff accomplished it.”
“Loki.”
He waved off Thor’s warning. “Alright, alright. They sent their Minutemen, their soldiers, to apprehend me. They threatened to prune me. Their weaponry is like nothing we’ve encountered. They absconded with me back to the TVA itself where, thankfully for them, magic didn’t work, and put a collar on me. Did you know there was a collar on the Loki I was meant to be in the TVA’s film too. Why does everyone like putting me in collars?”
Loki frowned at himself. Perhaps the ale wasn’t as weak as he’d thought. His tongue was too loose. Not that Thor noticed.
“So this TVA… they kidnapped you? A rightful prince of Asgard?” Loki arched a brow at that, wondering just where Thor’s questions would lead. “They threatened and imprisoned you. Do they yet control you?”
“Ah.” Loki sighed. “Thor, if they still held me captive, do you think I would be here?”
“Yes.”
The immediate answer surprised him. He’d never been aware that Thor thought so highly of his skills. It was, well, it was nice to learn Thor could appreciate Loki’s talents. “While I do appreciate your belief in me, at your side would be the most obvious place to look for me. I wouldn’t come to you if I was on the run.” He would have been reluctant to endanger Thor in addition to being found, moreso now that there was a child involved. He wasn’t going to say that though. He pointed at his brother accusingly with the bottle. “And just what do you think your Avengers would have done to me, had they not let you drag me back to Asgard? Muzzled and in chains, might I add?” Loki humphed and slouched back into his chair.
Thor’s voice was quiet but resolved. “Nothing. I did not intend to give them the chance.”
This night was full of surprises then. Loki took a thoughtful drink. “I’m not sure if I should thank you for trying to deliver me to Odin.”
“I was taking you home,” Thor pointed out.
“Mm, not me, remember?” Thor’s grumbling brought a half smile to Loki’s face. “To answer your other question, no. No, the TVA doesn’t control me. I’m as free as I can be within the confines of their timelines.”
Thor didn’t seem like that answer set well with him. “Forgive me. It’s only that, with all this talk of New York, I remember Thanos and-”
“And we are not going there.” Loki struggled not to shut down. He frowned at his empty bottle. “What happened to me… before the attack on New York…” Loki blew a deep breath out through his nose. “Before I attacked New York. That was difficult enough. What the Loki you knew went through on the Statesman? Death was a kindness.”
“To whom?” Thor pushed himself to his feet, moving to the fire to prod at it. The logs shifted, sending a shower of sparks into the night sky. Thor and Loki followed them with their eyes. “I have mourned you thrice now. Once with our family. Once with Jane. Once on my own.” He turned to Loki, arms crossed over his chest, but Loki caught a shimmer to Thor’s eyes in the firelight. “Will I have to mourn you with my daughter now?”
Loki’s throat closed up. He remembered Thor telling him how they’d mourned his loss after the fall from the Bifrost. He hadn’t thought… He’d only come back the once, never intending to do it again. That the Loki he should have been had died again and again? Unfathomable. But then he’d had another resurrection at the TVA, hadn’t he? Returning from The Void, coming back from what all had thought was death.
“I never…” Loki pressed his lips together, unable to meet Thor’s eyes. “When I fell, and after… after the Mad Titan, I didn’t think anyone would mourn me. Mother, mayhaps, but I thought… I assumed even she would feel some relief that I was gone.”
“Then you’re a fool, brother.”
Loki nodded, swiping shaky fingers at his eyes. “I have been, yes. Self-centered too. I’m learning to be better. Trying to be.”
Thor closed the distance between them, looming over Loki. “Then will I have to mourn you again?”
“Not by my choice,” Loki said, lifting his face. For all his movement up and down the timelines, he couldn’t guess what his future held. That he wouldn’t go unto death deliberately would have to be enough.
Thor offered his hand, pulling Loki to his feet and into one of his all-encompassing embraces. “See that it stays that way.” He thudded a hand on Loki’s back, both of them sniffling as they separated.
“Love!” Thor shouted, making Loki wince at the volume. “Love, come here. Come meet your Uncle Loki.”
“Uncle?”
“Uncle?” Loki’s question came echoed back to him in the little girl’s voice, her head popping from the doorway to their home. She hopped down the steps, thankfully without her axe this time, skidding to a stop before them. Love squinted up at Loki. “I thought you said Uncle Loki died, Papa,” she said.
Thor laughed and scooped Love up into his arms. “Well, Love. He’s come back. You’ll learn your Uncle Loki doesn’t like to stay dead.”
“It’s a bad habit, really,” Loki offered meekly. He couldn’t blame Thor for not trying to explain the whole TVA of it all to a child, but something in her eyes told Loki she might understand better than either of them. Standing with his brother, looking at his… his niece’s face, and hearing both of them call him uncle… Loki supposed he could be excused for feeling so sentimental. Unlike Thor, he’d never been good with kids. A tentative truce could be reached at best. At worst? Children simply had avoided him. Loki had no reason to think Love, even with her wise eyes, would be any different.
He held out his hand for Love’s to shake it. “Perhaps we can have a proper greeting now. Sans weapons.”
Love glanced at his hand and back to Thor, who nodded encouragingly.
Which was all the warning Loki received before Love launched herself from her father’s arms to Loki’s. He caught her with a small grunt, stumbling back a step. Her arms wrapped over his shoulders and she confidently settled into his hold as he got his feet back under them.
“Papa said you’re magic. Like farmor Frigga. Show me, Uncle Loki,” she demanded.
Loki stared down at her. At his niece. Her boldness and strength would have marked her as Thor’s easily. Loki couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it when he arrived. It was her precociousness however, her expectation that she get her way, that made Loki’s heart swell.
“Love, no.” Thor tried to chide her. “Don’t be rude.” He held out his hands to take her, but Loki twisted away.
Loki tsked at Thor. “Don’t listen to your Papa.” He shifted Love to sit on his hip, freeing a hand. He held it up at her eye level, palm upwards. Colorful sparks bloomed from his hand, soft hisses and pops of the magical fireworks filling the air. Love was enchanted, resting her head on his shoulder. He let his cheek fall onto the top of her head, murmuring softly to not disturb her. “You’re a princess of Asgard, Love. When you want something, you get it.”
She poked at the fireworks which sparkled harmlessly around her finger. “But Papa’s not king.”
“Technicalities,” Loki told her. “You’re not going to let something as silly as that hold you back, are you?”
Thor shook his head. “You’re going to be a bad influence on her.”
Loki grinned shamelessly over his niece’s head. “Is there any other kind?”
“Look, Papa. Uncle Loki.” Love pointed off to the horizon in the distance. The sky was starting to lighten, colors more beautiful than Loki’s fireworks spreading along the edge of the world. He closed his hand, dissipating the magic, as they watched the sky shift from dark blue and purple to pink and orange.
Loki handed Love back to Thor, rubbing her back as she cuddled into her father’s chest.
“You have to go, don’t you?” Thor asked him.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Will you come back?”
Loki ran his fingers through his hair, trying to smooth out the dark locks. “I’ll try.”
Thor smiled but there was a sadness in his eyes. “Liar.”
The sun crested the horizon, its light bathing the beach before them, stretching closer to where they stood with every second.
“Thor-”
“Wait,” Thor told him. “Just wait.”
Loki felt like he’d already lingered too long but he obliged Thor. After all the things he and the he he was supposed to be had put Thor through, he could at least wait a few more minutes.
The early morning sun’s rays were weak, not yet warm, and it felt good to stand with the sun on his face. Loki closed his eyes and savored the sensation. He didn’t want to leave. He knew he couldn’t stay. A part of him would always feel like he straddled two worlds: the life he’d made himself at the TVA, the friends he’d made there, and on the other side…
He blinked his eyes open, finding Thor watching him. On the other, the life he might have had. A life that might have been cut shorter than he liked, but he would have had his family. A family Loki had died to protect.
Would still die to protect.
“Thor, I-”
“Do you know what you said to me? What your last words to me were?” Thor glanced toward the sun and this time, Loki didn’t try to correct his brother. “Were they in the TVA’s files?”
“N-no,” Loki choked. He tried to deflect from the overwhelming emotion he could feel building. “I’m sure it was something exceedingly witty or obnoxious.”
Thor turned to him, his daughter held tight in his arms, a lifetime of experiences between the brothers. The sun glowed in the sky as it began its daily trek, banishing the shadows and distance, its light enveloping them with promise.
“I assure you, brother, the sun will shine on us again,” Thor quoted to him.
There was a certain peace to Thor’s tone. A resolution. That no matter what, no matter their fights or the distance or the time, they would always be family. Not even death could change that.
Loki cleared his throat, turning his face away to wipe at his eyes. “It seems I’ve kept my promise then.”
Thor gathered Love into one arm and held the other open for Loki. He never would have gone willingly before but now, Loki fit himself against his brother’s side. The hug was awkward, both of them laughing as Love wrapped an arm around each of them as well. Thor kissed his daughter’s head and Loki gently brushed her hair off her face.
“Take care of your Papa, okay? Make sure he uses his head sometimes, not just his muscles.”
“I will, Uncle Loki.”
Loki unhooked her arm from around him and pulled back from Thor’s hold. With a lump in his throat and a deep familial love he didn’t think he’d ever find, Loki pulled his TemPad from his pocket to summon a Timedoor.
“Loki?” He turned to Thor with a quizzical look. “Don’t let too much time pass.”
Loki glanced at the muted orange glow of the Timedoor and back to his brother where he stood in the sunlight.
“May the sun always shine on you, brother,” Loki told him before stepping through the Timedoor, departing from Thor’s life once again.
For now.