Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The halls are dark, lit by a single fire burning in its hearth up ahead. The air is festive. For everyone, except Hela.

Not that she isn’t… excited. Hela was born to be queen. She was born for this, but by the night’s end, she will be queen of all of Asgard and the Nine Realms. Perhaps more, someday. But she will be the one to make decisions, to decide the fate of her people and that of many others.

Yes, she will have Loki at her side, as she always has, but it is different than anything she has ever lived.

Should she be excited? Her cousin, Baldr, always speaks of the future as if it’s a thing to be excited for. So does Brunnhilde. All the Valkyrie do.

Hela is just terrified.

It’s a nerve-wracking experience, even if it is what she has been looking forward to her entire life.

She hears a soft set of footsteps, feels a prickling soft presence of an approaching life, a light shining in the blankness of non-living. Loki, her twin brother, the one who she shares her life with, the one she hopes to find a way to share the throne with, too.

This is her brother, and for all his chaos and despite how exhausting he can be, there is no one she’d rather have at her side as she rules.

“Are you nervous, sister?” Loki’s voice is teasing, but Hela knows the undernote of concern. He knows her better than anyone. She’ll climb those steps before the night ends, kneel and take the vows, mount that throne, and be queen for the next four thousand years until her or Loki’s child takes the throne instead.

No level of preparation or training or council could prepare her for this. Nothing even Frigga could say was enough

Hela laughs instead. “When am I ever nervous?”

“Nornheim,” Loki offers, lips quirking into a smirk.

“Ah, Nornheim.” Hela shakes her head. She’s smiling with mild amusement, appreciating the distraction. “It was mostly mere fun.”

Loki laughs. He shifts on his feet, fidgeting – he is as terrified as Hela herself. “Just a bit of fun,” he agrees. “You know, if we take the kingdom like this, it might not be so bad.”

Ruling Asgard isn’t fun. It doesn’t come with games or simplicity. Hela knows that, and so does he. Hela is the Goddess of Death. She knows not nervousness. It is only calm or humor, fear or rage. And she hates how scared she is.

Being on the brink of battle… is easy. She can fight. There has never been a time she could not fight off an opponent, never has been a time she was injured enough to get her down. Her powers do not grant certain immortality, but she is – with certainty – one of the strongest leaders Asgard has ever had.

“Only one of you may rule, but you were both born for the throne.”

Odin had told them that when they were children, but Hela does not believe that. Her and Loki are different. They’re twins. They share the same heart and blood – and if any two can rule Asgard as one, it’s her and Loki.

But as the elder, she is the one to which everyone will look to as queen. As leader.

“Are you planning any…” Hela waggles her fingers.

Loki laughs at her pathetic imitation of his magic. “Well, you may just have to wait and see, won’t you?” He swings his arm over her playful attempt to elbow him.

It’s almost time. The minutes are ticking by.

Pity she can’t have this postponed until tomorrow.

She turns Mjolnir over in her hand, willing herself to hold together. Cross the room, take the vows, have the feast, try to pay attention to the servants and speak to people as Father once would.

Hela will be seated at the head of the main table tonight. Not Father. Loki will be at her side, as he should be. But…

Not in the way she wants. Not really.

When they were little, Hela had insisted she’d pick Loki as the king, and he her. It had been centuries before they realized the role of the king and queen was to produce an heir, which means their thoughts and dreams could never come into being. It’s almost humiliating, now, that they were able to believe something so outrageous, and yet she wishes more than anything that she could have Loki rule with her. He’s… wise. He has a patience that Hela does not. And she does not understand her brother’s ability to connect with others. Hela has always lacked that.

She’s the Goddess of Death. She is meant to be a queen, but she is also a weapon, a fighter – and how to be a queen of a peaceful kingdom, Hela has no idea.

Slowly, she lifts her hands, brushing her hair back with a touch of seidr, her multi-pointed helmet rising from her head. Loki’s eyes lift along with the tops of her crown, a slight smirk on his lips. Hela’s gaze flicks to his, and he looks away, though his smirk doesn’t fade.

Hela is relatively certain that she looks normal, the way she should, but her brother’s face is making her wary. “How do I look?” Hela asks, brushing at her clothes. “In need of more green, perhaps?”

“Like a spider,” Loki quips, “Stuck on its back. With broken legs.”

He will never cease mocking her crown, nor she, his. They designed them when they were little, though Odin had been the one to assign Hela’s to her, which is likely half of the reason Loki finds it so worth mocking. She had been young, sparsely half this size and beginning to grow into her powers when he gave her the crown to aid in containing the wildness of her powers.

“At least my crown cannot be so easily knocked off. Unlike yours.”

“No, it can’t,” he protests.

“Really?” Hela’s hand snaps up to grab his perfectly yank-able helmet.

Loki grabs her wrist, jerking her arm up. Hela twirls around, kicking his knee. Her brother drops with a yelp, raising his hand –

And Hela freezes at the footsteps in the hall behind them, the soft, flowery presence rolling into her line of sight.

She pulls Loki back to his feet before Frigga chews her out for fighting with her brother two minutes before being crowned queen in her place.

Loki was doing well at distracting her. It was a more than welcome one. A play fight with her brother would do wonders in easing tension and draining this frustrating amount of pent-up energy buzzing beneath Hela’s skin, but they also have to be prepared for the coronation, and Mother says it’s impolite to attend public meetings with not-perfect clothes.

But Hela’s not Loki. So long as she is not the walking dead, she has no consideration for her looks. She will not spend hours combing every last strand of hair into place, unlike her brother. And most Asgardians, apparently.

If the Valkyries went through a Loki-level momentous effort to prepare for her coronation, she will scream. But perpetual neat-ness is something Loki clearly inherited from Frigga.

“Fighting again?”

“Just fun,” Loki objects, “Hela is… nervous.”

Hela laughs. “I said no such thing, brother. I am perfectly ready to be queen of Asgard. What else could I have been born for?”

“Loki, go inside,” Frigga orders, nodding to the door, “The ceremony will begin in a few minutes.”

Her brother hates waiting. He’ll be in the royal part, not far from Mother once she arrives, but until then, he’ll be seated by Baldr, and her brother has undue conflict with their cousin for reasons Hela cannot fathom. Hela feels a twitch of sympathy, but she needs to have this conversation with her mother.

“Hela.”

She turns to her mother, away from watching her brother’s disappearing form up the steps.

“It’s alright to be nervous.”

There is no use lying to Frigga. She always sees a side of Hela that no one else ever could. “I am about to replace you as queen of Asgard.”

“You will be queen, but you will fill the role of the king. And you had something even the great All-Father never had.” Frigga is smiling softly, a gentle and encouraging affection shining in her blue eyes. A little bit of the tension fades away, though Hela is beginning to realize that is, in fact, her worse problem.

She can replace Odin. That is not what she fears. It’s replacing Frigga and trying to understand her Mother’s level of kindness and compassion when those are not things she has ever been trained to feel. “A much pointier crown, to be sure,” Hela snarks, even if she knows for certain that is not to which her mother refers. “Definitely a better taste of clothing.”

Frigga smiles. “Me for a mother,” she corrects.

Hela can’t actually think of a response to that, but the blow of the ceremonial horn sounds.

“Don’t keep your father waiting,” Frigga says, briefly touching her shoulder.

Hela turns away, inhaling deeply, squaring her shoulders, and walking forwards. She will most assuredly not trip, faceplant, throw up, or any number of other undignified things in front of the throne. She knows what to do. Walk down the hall. Across the throne-room. Between the rows of cheering Asgardians.

Hela waits a moment longer, breathing and gathering herself, before entering the room, head held high.

Her eyes roam the room, making out where Frigga is getting herself situated among some of her sisters and friends. A few visitors from other realms have gathered to witness it as well. Many of Asgard’s royal army. Up above, Loki, who smiles, though she detects a pained note which Hela chalks up to remembering the many times they discussed this when they were children.

Baldr, seated by Loki, blond hair falling around his shoulders, a light glow about him, a constant present symbol of his powers of Light. He's the only son of Odin’s younger sister, and though his mother died long ago, Baldr is still close to the royal family. He nods, face otherwise impassive.

All these people are looking at her to be the queen. Their leader.

This is scarcely a moment to savor.

She’s a princess. She is not going to throw up or faint in front of her people.

Hela continues onwards towards the throne, anyway, to where her father – and king – is seated, Gungnir in his hand.

Hela lowers herself to her knees in front of Odin, lying Mjolnir on the ground beside her.

Brunnhilde, the leader of the Valkyrie and one of Hela’s closest friends, is standing on the stairs. Several other members of the Valkyrie are there too. Hela briefly recognizes Hildegarde and Valtrauta.

Odin stands, thumping Gungnir on the ground, and the crowd hushes.

“Hela Odinsdottir, my heir.” Loki must feel something at that. Hela does not know how she would feel if Loki had been chosen to be king instead of her. It would have hurt. “My first-born. So long entrusted with the mighty hammer, Mjolnir. Forged in the heart of a dying star. As a weapon to destroy life, and as a tool to build it. A fit companion for a ruler. I have defended Asgard, and the lives of the innocent across the Nine Realms, in the time of the Great Beginning. And though the day has come for a new King and Queen.”

“Do you swear to guard the Nine Realms?”

“I swear,” Hela answers firmly. That one is easy. An oath she has already taken upon herself, as she trained in battle. As she trained alongside Brunnhilde and the other Valkyrie. Even as she fought Odin to do so.

“Do you swear to preserve the peace?”

That one is harder, truthfully. Hela means peace, but she only knows how to fight for it. And yet, it is what is expected of her. “I swear.”

Something is shifting. Hela can feel death from far away, death not caused by her hand. It always feels like a hole, something being slowly sucked out and replaced by a dark, endless void, taking and taking. There should be none amidst the rejoicing of this moment, and yet –

“Do you swear to cast aside all selfish ambition and pledge yourself only to the good of all the Realms?”

Something is wrong something is wrong something –

“I swear,” she repeats, anyway. The familiar sensation of souls slipping through the veil between life and death is… oddly close. It shouldn’t be. All should be fine today. There is no battle. And yet, someone is dying?

“Then on this day, I, Odin Allfather, will proclaim you – ” Odin pauses, gaze shifting to something unseen. “The Frost Giants,” he says, urgency in his voice.

Hela can feel more life ripping away the moment he says it. They’re being attacked, aren’t they? Today?

Odin’s already rising from his throne and that’s enough for her to know that the ceremony is being interrupted. Considering that Asgard is potentially under attack by Jotunheim, they need to deal with it now.

Hela rises swiftly, picking up Mjolnir and following Odin as he leaves the room.

The crowd’s former excitement has shifted to alarm as they go.

Loki joins up with them as they leave, heading for the weapons vault where the disturbance came from. He seems on edge, as he should be. She’s on edge, too, and braced for a fight.

She fully expects to enter the Vault to an army, but all she sees instead is bodies. The shattered and melting ice along with the burned bodies of Frost Giants clearly show what happened. The Destroyer’s massive, purple glowing form is disappearing back behind the wall where it is kept unless needed.

Two bodies of Aesir guards are on the floor. Both dead.

Odin takes in the scene, face impassive.

“What course of action will we take?” Hela asks finally. She’s itching to summon her spears, but she knows there is no longer an imminent threat. The Destroyer would not have returned to its place if there was. The remnants of its magic blasts are still buzzing in the air, purple sparks fuzzing out across the floor.

“None,” Odin answers simply. “The Destroyer did its work, the Casket is safe, and all is well.”

“All is well?” Hela can’t hold back a semi-hysterical laugh. “I see. That three Frost Giants somehow managed to sneak through all your well-placed defenses into the most well-guarded room on Asgard is well. Remind me why we have guards? We could just hand the Casket back to them, for all it’s worth.” This was her home. 

Odin looks at her sharply. “And the Destroyer dealt with them. I have a truce with Laufey, King of the Jotun.”

“Some truce,” Hela mocks.

“Enough,” Odin says sharply, “We will find the breach in our defenses, and it will be sealed.”

“Alright. We’ll wait until we’re attacked with a full army to concern ourselves with a potential threat. Even I couldn’t do better as the new queen.”

“You’re not queen yet,” Odin replies icily.

Loki’s shifted back into the shadows and looks like he’s trying hard to be invisible.

The ceremony was almost finished. But he hadn’t actually said she was queen so – yes, no she isn’t. This is the day she’s been preparing for, for decades really. And now that it’s ruined, she has no idea what that’s going to mean. She isn’t ready for the burden, truthfully, but that doesn’t mean she’s not upset. And mostly, Hela is concerned over how the Jotuns got here. And Odin doesn’t even care. This is what their kingship and world have come to?

“You’ll just let the Jotuns get away with what they’ve done?”

“As your king, I will handle the situation as I deem necessary without inciting a needless war.” His tone is sharp, an obvious indication that it’s time for her to shut up, but she’s too angry to care right now.

Sure. No reason not to rub in her face that her coronation wasn’t completed. The timing wasn’t any coincidence. This could be part of a much greater plan. It’s likely that it is. How can she be assured they aren’t planning a war? What else would they have come here for? It could have been an act by just a few idiots, but also might not have been.

Hela’s senses tell her never to take a chance like that. She may not be queen yet, but she is still a princess, and she has still taken it upon herself to protect her kingdom. Her home. The one that Asgard’s worst enemy somehow successfully infiltrated. And even Heimdall saw nothing. No one saw anything, and Hela didn’t feel the deaths until far too late to stop it.

This was her home, and what are they to do if someone is willing to attack Asgard at its very heart, the place which should be most well-guarded in all the cosmos? Perhaps her father is right, and it was just the act of a few, but Hela has no care to wait for the chance Jotunheim may be organizing for a full-fledged war. It would be safer to take the battle to them than have it here on Asgard.

“Alright,” Hela snips, “Let Asgard rest while Jotunheim may prepares for war. What could ever go wrong? It is not as if they haven’t already entered the palace itself.” She spins on her heel and walks out before Odin can say another word. Maybe he is unwilling to act, but Hela is not. She will not sit idly by as her home and people are threatened with war.

Chapter Text

The walk back to her room is long. Hela has no intentions of going anywhere else today, though – she should be at the feast right now, celebrating her crowning. Hela is, admittedly, grateful that it can be put off for a short while longer, but that makes her no less appreciative of how it happened or that it happened only minutes before the end of the ceremony.

And now there’s not even anything she can do to find out what’s going on with Jotunheim.

She cannot complain she has not replaced her parents as queen. No, what bothers her most is that Odin refuses to act on it . They should go to Jotunheim, and make an example of them to ensure no one will ever dare trespass on Asgard ever again. She doesn’t want the throne because it is her right. Hela is beginning to realize that now. She wants the throne because she wants to be free of Odin, forever. And she wants to make choices that will protect her realm from Odin’s stupidity.

She recognizes the approaching footsteps as Loki’s but doesn’t slow her pace.

“Sister, wait.”

She stops at Loki’s voice, sighing in frustration. “You know, your presence will not undo the damage that has already been done to Asgard.” What ruins will she be granted queenship of? No, Hela cannot stand by for this. And how to get through Heimdall, she does not yet know. She has to find a way to Jotunheim on her own.

“If it’s any consolation, I think you’re right,” Loki says. His helmet is gone now, as is the armor he was wearing for the coronation, replaced by something more casual. He means it for naught, and yet it feels more as though rubbing in what occurred today. “About the Frost Giants, about Laufey, about everything. If they found a way to penetrate the Asgard defenses once, who’s to say they won’t try again? Next time, with an army.”

“Ah.” Hela turns to him, her hair falling limply and loosely into her face. “At least, one who understands some common sense. We were made to see eye to eye, weren’t we?”

“Well, we are twins.” Loki’s smile is soft, but fleeting. “But there’s nothing we can do. Not without defying Father.”

“I swore an oath to protect Asgard, and that’s what I intend on doing.”

“Hela.” Loki visibly pales. “I cannot claim to know what you’re planning, but it will not end well.”

“Could be no worse than the end of this coronation.” Hela looks over her brother’s shoulder as Baldr approaches, his enchanted sword – Elderstahl – on his belt. She’s been to Jotunheim once before. They all were, when they found her friend’s sword embedded into a mountain. It was one of their first missions, and thanks to Loki’s knowledge of world walking and portals, he was able to take them through to Vanaheim where the bifrost picked them up. Odin had not been happy about the entire ordeal, but no one was harmed, and the Frost Giants never knew.

Or at least Hela thought they never knew.

Hela has Mjolnir already, and Loki uses daggers. The sword would do neither of them good, so it was gifted to Baldr. Odin nearly murdered them when he found out, but no one had been harmed, and the treaty unbroken.

Her friend approaches, studying them both. Brunnhilde is here, too, several paces behind.

Loki must have called them all in. She feels an instant swell of gratitude to her little brother, though at present, Hela is not at speaking terms with anyone.

“It could be much, much worse,” Loki argues.

“There will be no kingdom left to protect if we do not make an example out of Jotunheim.”

“Do you forget we once trespassed on Jotunheim?” Brunnhilde asks.

“No, Hela’s right,” Baldr objects, “For all we know, Jotunheim could be preparing for war. We must know who led the Frost Giants into Asgard and what their goal was. There is more at play than we know.”

“Odin may consider it treasonous, but we must go to Jotunheim,” Hela decides, looking around between her brother and friends.

“It’s forbidden,” Brunnhilde bulks. “The All-Father will not take kindly to this breach of his treaty a second time. And Jotunheim is not like Midgard where you can get spears and horns, and everyone will worship you as a goddess.”

“Is the Valkyrie truly backing down from a fight?” Hela asks. Truly, she knows that is not what is happening here, but after Odin’s complete lack of action, she will not tolerate any more of it.

“What? No,” Brunnhidle argues, shaking her head, “But if we defy the king –”

“There will be no king left if our kingdom falls,” Hela argues fiercely, “We all swore an oath to protect Asgard. Even at the cost of our lives. If that means going against the All-Father himself, I will not hesitate.” She does not fear the Frost Giants. They have no power with which to hurt her. And if Odin stands between her ability to protect her home, she will go through him, too.

“This is madness ,” Loki protests.

“Or, it’s the wisest choice we have ever made,” Baldr throws back.

“I’m just saying, if the Frost Giants don’t kill us, Father will,” Loki says over him.

Hela twirls Mjolnir. Truthfully, when it comes to protecting her very home, the one place safe for them all, she will do anything. She does not care what that will include. “I won’t let him.’

“When do we leave?” Baldr asks.

“I’ll see if I can pull together some of my sisters,” Brunnhilde says, “If this comes to war, we can’t go alone.”

“Oh, good,” Hela snips. “The more, the merrier.”

***

“Are we taking our horses?” Loki inquires, climbing his own as Hela occupies herself with rubbing Fenris’s neck and the wolf licks her hand. She would have liked to bring him into her coronation, too, seeing as he would have been replacing Sleipnir, but that will have to wait.

“Loki, you and Baldr are the only ones with horses,” Brunnhilde tells him flatly, mounting her Pegasus.

“What do you say, darling?” Hela asks, stroking Fenris’s snout. “Would you like to accompany us to Jotunheim for a feast?”

Fenris barks affirmatively.

“The more we bring, the more the Jotuns will see a threat,” Brunnhilde warns, “Just so we are clear.”

“They would do well to fear us,” Baldr tells her, “We are Asgardian.” At least someone sees this the same way as her. 

Fenris breaks into a run upon her command, running down the long walk to the Rainbow Bridge, and then farther yet across that. Hela pulls him to a stop a short distance from where she sees Heimdall standing in front of the Observatory.

Loki dismounts, first. “Leave this to me,” he requests, moving forwards.

Hela nods, sitting back, content to watch. Loki is good with words, and Heimdall was an aspect she never knew how to get through. If anyone can convince him to help, it would be Loki. Hela would much prefer to punch, smash, or slash her way through anything, not sit down for a talk.

“Good Heimdall --”

“You’re not dressed warmly enough,” he states flatly. Hela immediately tenses. Logically, she knows he already knew they were coming and why they’re here, but she has no way of predicting whether he will alert Odin.

“I’m sorry?”

“Do you think that you can deceive me?”

There will be none of that, evidently. He had been watching them this entire time. Of course, he was. Hela climbs off Fenris to speak to Heimdall herself. 

“You must be mistaken –”

“ Enough ,” Heimdall snaps, and Loki twitches, mouth snapping shut and looking away. He looks hurt, and normally that would get her hackles raised, but they have to maintain focus on the kingdom’s safety itself right now.

“Will you let us pass?” Hela inquires instead, standing beside her brother. They will find another way through if they must. If it means she has to fight to get Hofund, too, she will.

“Never has an enemy slipped my watch, until this day. I wish to know how that happened.”

“Then send no word to Odin of our absence until we return victorious.”

“On one condition will I let you through,” Heimdall answers.

“Yes?” Hela’s getting impatient.

“The Valkyrie is right. It is best for you to leave your mounts here. Starting a war is not what we need. You will only go for answers.”

Heimdall can’t stop them once they’re there. That’s fine. It only means Fenris won’t be able to come. He’ll get another chance, anyway. “If that is your only condition.”

Heimdall is studying her assessingly. He does not believe in her reassurance, which is wise of him. He should not, but Hela will return victorious. She always does. Because she is Hela, daughter of Odin, Goddess of Death, and failure will never be a part of her life.

She paces ahead of the others, the Valkyrie slowly following her to the front of the bifrost. Baldr joins her a moment later, smirking faintly. Loki comes to stand beside her, shuffling, head down. He’s not looking at anyone. Hela would normally stop to inquire of his wellbeing, but they are minutes away from battle. Now is not a good time to start a conversation.

Heimdall fires the bifrost.

They’re leaving. She is not nervous about this, at least. Battle makes sense. Perhaps the throne truly does belong to Loki, and the fighting should fall on her.

Hela reaches for her brother’s hand, taking it in hers.

Baldr’s mirth falls a little. Hela is well-accustomed to his constant rivalry with her brother, and she has also grown well-accustomed to ignoring it. They fight well together. And, in honest, Baldr has embraced her fight. The same one which everyone else has shunned, but they do not understand. Odin can’t make her into his weapon and expect that to change. She can’t protect Loki and her kingdom if she can’t fight.

Loki is the one who had never liked fighting. If Odin wishes to complain about Hela starting war, he should have chosen him instead. It is not as though he had no choice.

“Be warned,” Heimdall speaks from atop the observatory’s center. “I will honor my sworn oath, to protect this Realm as its Gatekeeper. If your return threatens the safety of Asgard, Bifrost will remain closed to you, and you’ll be left to die in the cold wastes of Jotunheim.”

That is of no concern to them. “Many have wanted to kill me, and none have managed yet.”

“There is a first time for all,” Heimdall replies darkly.

“Could you not leave the bifrost open for our return?” Brunnhilde inquires.

“To leave the bridge open, would unleash the full power of the Bifrost, and destroy Jotunheim with you upon it,” Heimdall answers, twisting Hofund into the bifrost, and it whirs, sucking them all through.

The familiar feel of flying weightlessly through space rushes over her as they’re jerked forwards into the rainbow light. It would have been far easier if Fenris was accompanying them, though he is not one for bifrost travel. He whines about it every time, and takes minutes to shake it off, pacing and growling, before throwing himself into battle.

Hela knows she would still feel better with her wolf’s presence, though. She and Loki found him when he was but a pup, and they raised him together. People fear him, and Odin had been mildly disapproving – as he is of everything – but they do not know Fenris. He is playful unless threatened. Or hungry.

The bifrost lands them all on their feet, lifting, and Hela looks around, taking in surroundings, scanning for threats. The freezing air of the planet is already nipping at her skin. The world’s surface is dark and ice-covered.

Hela scans the scene, jagged carvings and formations of ice covering the landscape in every direction, an uneasy feeling suddenly creeping over her. In the distance, she makes out what looks like the ruins of what was once a city. She can sense life forms a distance away, but sees nothing.

“We shouldn’t be here,” one of the Valkyrie murmurs quietly.

“We are here for the good of Asgard.”

“Where are they all?” Brunnhilde asks, looking around. “I see nothing.”

“In hiding, quite clearly,” Hela answers, “Look at their bravery. Perhaps they are less prepared for an attack on Asgard than I feared.” Not that she’s going to take her chances. They could just be bracing for a much larger attack.

“Perhaps we should wait,” Loki says suggests anxiously.

Hela looks over her shoulder at him, raising an eyebrow. “ Wait ? For what ?”

“To survey the enemy,” he offers, “Gauge their strengths and weaknesses from a distance.”

“Or, we could go on and get what we came for.” Hela keeps walking.

Loki sighs.

“Do you fear the Frost Giants?” Baldr asks, eyeing Loki.

“Cease bickering,” Hela grumbles, “You’re raising my ire.”

She can almost not believe they are both instantly silent.

She can feel flickers of life nearby. They aren’t alone out here. Several towering blue skinned figures are in the shadows, their red eyes almost glowing in the darkness. It’s easy to see why they’re called giants and monsters, just by looking at them.

“You’ve come a long way to die, Asgardians,” a voice rings out.

“ We did?” Hela drawls, “Bold words said by the one who violated the treaty with Asgard.”

“Those were actions of but a few,” he replies calmly. From how he’s the one talking and everyone else are standing defensively around him, braced for attack, she thinks he might be Laufey. It looks vaguely like the painting she saw of him, too. “I have no intention of violating the treaty .” The way he says that word with disgust makes her doubt his claim further.

“Really?” she asks dryly, “So a few of you somehow found a path to Asgard, that also was conveniently out of Heimdall’s sight and as king, you knew nothing about it?”

“The path was not one we found. The house of Odin is full of traitors,” he replies.

…What?

The words leave her instantly unsettled, even if she doesn’t believe him. He’s trying to make her start doubting her people, to confuse instead of allowing her to confront the real threat. It is true, though, that the Jotuns shouldn’t have had a way to do this. And if they had, she doesn’t know why they wouldn’t have made a move long ago.

“Is that a confession?” Hela asks, “That you’ve been attempting to infiltrate Asgard far longer than we believed?”

“I know why you have come,” he responds coolly, “You know not what your actions would unleash. Go now, while I still allow it.”

“Is that a threat?” she asks, smirking, “From the one who already lost the last war? No, I have no intention of leaving until I know what it is you are planning.”

“We seek no conflict with Asgard. You are the one who longs for battle.”

“If you’re a threat to my home, then yes, I am more than ready for battle. For the fight you asked for.” She reaches up, running her fingers through her hair as she summons her crown. The meaning is obvious enough.

Laufey isn’t going to give any answers willingly, and she’s more than ready for whatever fight is to come.

“Hela,” Loki hisses, shifting closer to her, “Stop and think. Look around you. We are outnumbered.”

“We’ve faced worse odds before,” she replies, never taking her gaze off the Jotuns.

Baldr shifts a little closer in silent support. Brunnhilde seems wary, but Hela knows she’ll follow her when this comes to battle.

“This is your last chance to leave,” Laufey warns. He’s done with talking, too.

Good.

So is she .

“We will accept your most gracious offer,” Loki says, jerking forward.

What?

She did not agree to that. He may have a point that this could be a foolish course of action, but it also might be their only chance at finding answers.

Hela throws a glance at Loki, wavering for a moment. Her twin rarely speaks in opposition to her in public unless it’s something he really believes. And she knows Loki’s not stupid. He’s not a warrior like her. Maybe he’s right. But they’ve already come this far, and it will only make Asgard look weaker to their enemies if they just back out now.

Brunnhilde and Loki both look so hopeful at the chance to leave, though, obviously just wanting to get out.

“We’re really just going to walk away?” Baldr hisses in a whisper, “You’ll let them doubt your ability to rule? Your mere name should strike fear among them. Now they treat you as a joke.”

Hela stills. He’s not wrong about that and if she’s going to be queen, she’s not going to lead the way Odin did.

“Run back home, little princess,” one of the Jotuns sneers.

She’s had enough mocking and belittling from them. Or maybe it’s not just from them. She’s had her fill of it from Odin long before.

Hela turns, flinging Mjolnir at the Jotun who spoke. It smacks him full-force in the chest, throwing him to the ground and she pins him there. “Do you have something more to say?” she asks lightly, “Perhaps the name of who it was that allowed you onto Asgard to begin with?”

One of the Jotuns flings an ice spear at her. Icicles in the shape of weapons are forming in their hands now. So much for not wanting a fight. She could almost laugh. Hela dodges the ice spear, jerking Mjolnir back to her and flinging it at a group of Jotuns as they charge them.

Baldr and Brunnnhilde draw their swords, meeting the Jotuns head-on.

There’s a flicker of green as one of the Jotuns dives right through Loki and the illusion of him disappears. The Jotun falls to the ground and Loki flings a dagger at him before he’s vanishing again. Her brother can more than handle himself. She turns all her focus to the oncoming Jotuns.

This is what she’s always been good at. Fights to the death, where she inevitably comes out the victor, no matter the challenges she faces on the way.

She summons a spear to one hand, throwing it through one of their chests as she knocks more aside with Mjolnir. None of them are coming even close, not that she’s going to waste the breath to mock them for it right now.

More and more keep coming, but she’s not getting tired at all. She could do this for hours.

A Jotun grabs Brunhilde’s arm, and she hears the Valkyrie suck in a sharp breath, even as she runs a sword through his chest. “Don’t let them touch you,” Brunnhilde calls in warning.

Hela throws her a swift glance, enough to see her arm is frozen over with a deep blue. Serious frost bite, by the looks of it. Very unpleasant.

It’s definitely a warning she’s going to heed, not that she has any intention of letting a Jotun get close enough to touch her to begin with.

Baldr’s doing just as well with his enchanted sword. Elderstahl is glowing with fire as he attacks the Jotuns, and that’s something they have no defense against. Their weapons are made of ice, and the ice melts the instant it comes into contact with the fire. The sword only burns when he chooses it to, and it’s certainly useful. It casts an eerie glow across the battlefield, providing far more light than the sun itself is here.

It's blinding the Jotuns. They’re not used to anything, but darkness and the light from the fire is too bright for them. And probably far too hot.

Hela tosses Mjolnir at another group of Frost Giants, dodging another ice spear, but then her foot squishes right into melting ice and she nearly slides. The ice spear stabs her in the side though her armor protects her enough that it doesn’t penetrate.

Why is the ice beneath them melting suddenly?

Wait –

One quick glance back at Baldr is enough to see why. All the ice around him is melting from the heat of the sword.

Hildegarde trips, splashing in the ice turning to slush on the ground. “Turn that thing off,” she huffs, rolling back to her feet barely in time to avoid getting stabbed, “My boots are full of water!”

Hela’s just glad she’s too far away for that to matter. They actually seem to be winning, right now at least.

The ground trembles suddenly, and she hears a roar. Something’s moving out of the shadows toward them and Hela’s too busy stabbing her way through the next group of attackers to notice until one of the other Valkyrie yells at them to run. She looks up then, in time to see a creature many times her height charging them.

Baldr jumps at it first, stabbing his flaming sword into its leg. The creature howls, swinging its other foot up and batting him away. He goes flying, smacking into a nearby ice structure and landing on his back. The creature jumps at him, jaws snapping. He lifts his sword, aiming it at the things face and it turns away with a snarl – animals are never too fond of fire.

But that’s when another Jotun jumps him, ice spear stabbing into his side between the joints of his armor. That looked deep.

Baldr can’t die – or, he’s basically immortal. Frigga spelled him to keep him safe, so he’ll immediately start healing from any injury, but that doesn’t stop Hela’s instinctive flicker of worry. Nor does it stop her anger at the Jotuns for hurting him.

Monsters . She is going to slaughter every single one of them.

She hears his strangled gasp, and he swings his sword around to cut down the Jotun, but the creature goes for his head . That’s not something he can heal from. Hela spins Mjolnir flying off the ground out of the group of Jotuns attacking her and flying at the creature, flinging her hammer at its head as she lands on the ground next to it.

It spins away from her cousin, growing lowly and she summons a spear, throwing it through the creature’s head. It stumbles back howling but falls to the ground, the ice beneath it cracking as it starts to fall through the surface. The ground melting is getting a little dangerous. Jotunheim has ice layers, she’s starting to realize. And if this layer cracks, they’ll fall down to the next, and that’s if they survive the first crack. Using Elderstahl was not a good idea.

Hela turns away, back to survey the damage, in time to see dozens – if not hundreds – more Jotuns charging them from all sides. She’s about to just attack them again when there’s a blinding flash of light as the Bifrost drops down right near them.

When the brilliance fades, it’s for her to see Odin atop Sleipnir.

This… is not good. Her Father was obviously going to find out eventually, but that doesn’t mean she expected it to be this soon. A tense silence hangs over the battlefield, everyone going still – on both sides.

“All-father,” Laufey is the first to speak, moving closer, “You look weary.”

“Laufey,” Odin replies curtly. He’s very angry. Hela doesn’t even need her magic to tell that much. “End this now.”

“Your girl sought this out,” he retaliates.

“You’re right,” Odin responds bluntly, throwing a pointed glance at Hela. As if all of this was somehow on her. Though coming to Jotunheim was and she has the distinct feeling saying anything right now wouldn’t be wise. “These are the actions of a child. Treat them as such. You and I can end this, here and now, before there is further bloodshed.”

“We are beyond diplomacy now, All-father,” Laufey says darkly, “She will get what she came for. War and death.”

She didn’t expect any differently from them. They’ve been looking for battle since the moment they first came to Asgard. Whatever fight is to come, she’s ready for it.

“So be it,” is all Odin says before the Bifrost drops down around all of them, yanking all six of them into the rainbow-colored swirls.

Chapter Text

All Loki knows the moment they find themselves standing back in the Observatory on Asgard is that they are in so much trouble. Everything spiraled entirely out of control, and this is not what Loki intended to cause when he… did what he had.

He knew what Hela’s coronation could cause, and he couldn’t let that happen. She always thinks of fighting and war, and he knows much of that is only a result of those she is close with, but he can’t risk that damage befalling all the Nine. He knows he had to act, though that does little to stop the guilt.

He knows what the coronation meant to Hela. He’d been looking forward to it, too, but… Then he began to realize what it meant. The chaos, the death – he couldn’t let it happen. Not with the risk of Baldr becoming king on top of it.

But he had no idea things were going to go this far. He never intended to make Odin this angry at Hela either. That’s always bad and he has no idea what’s about to happen. They’ve never initiated a war between realms by mistake before. He doesn’t know what’s about to happen, but he wants to be elsewhere.

“Do you realize what you’ve done?” Odin yells, “What you’ve started ?”

“What I started?” Hela asks and Loki has no idea how she manages to sound amused and mocking right now. “The Jotuns started this while you were too afraid to take action.”

Baldr and the Valkyrie quickly leave the room behind them. Loki hardly spares them a glance, except to see that Heimdall backs out just as quickly along with them.

“You have learned nothing of what I taught you to be a ruler,” Odin retaliates, glowering, “A time comes when a warrior must lay down their weapons and use a method other than bloodshed.”

Hela just laughs. “That’s rich,” she says, “You wanting me to give up the fight when that’s all you’ve ever raised me to do? You see, Father, without a fight, I’m no one . And I was protecting my home.”

“You cannot protect your friends,” Odin replies sharply, “How can you hope to protect a kingdom?”

“Perhaps by acting in self-defense and defending Asgard and myself when attacked,” she replies dryly, “Unlike you.”

“I told you the matter was already resolved, and as your king and father, you will obey,” Odin warns.

“And if I refuse?” Hela drawls.

Loki nearly winces. He has a really bad feeling about where this is going to end. Hela won’t stop , which is true frequently enough, but he knows fighting with Odin now, when he’s this angry, is the stupidest, most suicidal thing anyone could do.

“Then you will be forced to!” Odin yells.

She still manages to smirk, spreading her hands. “How? How can you stop the Goddess of Death when you fear our enemies themselves too much to take action?”

“Your recklessness is a greater danger to the Nine Realms than Jotunheim itself!” Odin shouts back.

Hela’s expression flickers. It’s the first time Loki’s noticed visible anger and hurt on her, which always means that she’s about to do something very rash – “Is it my action, or your inaction ?” She swings Mjolnir up suddenly and throws it right at Odin’s face.

Loki stands frozen, helpless, wide-eyed, horror and panic coiling in his gut. His blood is ice in his veins.

Odin lifts a hand, catching the hammer, energy crackling around it.

Hela’s eyes widen as she tries and fails to yank the hammer away from him.

There’s a blinding explosion of light and the hammer shatters, falling in pieces at Odin’s feet. How did he do that?

“My child, no god should have dominion over death who has so little appreciation for life,” Odin says, and he suddenly sounds way too calm.

This is – very, very bad. He’s never like that unless he’s about to do something truly awful and Loki doesn’t want to know what. Not when he’s about to hurt Hela , whatever it is.

This was Loki’s fault from the start . He can’t let Hela take the fall for this. “Father,” Loki starts, jerking forward.

Odin yells wordlessly before Loki can get out another sound.

He flinches back, snapping his mouth shut.

So much for that.

Odin’s obviously not going to listen to a word he has to say right now. Trying to keep talking anyway isn’t going to get them anywhere. His heart is pounding and all he can do is watch. And wait, with the dreading knowledge that his sister is going to be hurt because of his own stupidity.

Hela looks scared now. There’s a flicker of it in her eyes which no one else would notice, but Loki definitely does. This is all his fault –

“Hela Odinsdottir,” Odin starts, “You have betrayed the express command of your king. Through your arrogance and stupidity, you have opened these peaceful Realms and innocent lives to the horror and desolation of war.”

He lifts a hand, and Hela’s helmet flies to him. Her hair spills loosely down her back. “What – ” she starts. She’s panicking as much as Loki is now. He has no idea what’s happening or maybe it’s that he does and he can’t –

“You are unworthy of these Realms. Unworthy of your title,” Odin goes on, “You’re unworthy of the loved ones you have betrayed. I now take you from you your power!”

“Father, you cannot do this to me,” she protests. “You will not .”

Odin ignores her entirely, as he uses Gugnir to activate the Bifrost. A blur of colors appears behind Hela and all Loki can do is watch frozen.

“In the name of my father and his father before –”

“No, no !” Hela yells frantically, eyes widening.

“ – I cast you out!” He finishes and a blast of energy from Gugnir catches her, flinging her backwards through the portal and out of sight.

“Whoever wears this crown, should she know mercy, shall possess the power of Hela.” Odin murmurs in a whisper, magic coiling over the grown, and then he throws it into the bifrost after her. The portal closes, leaving Loki alone and his sister… gone.

Where is she?

He should have gone after her. He would have if he weren’t too afraid to move. And he’s just going to leave her to face this alone ?

What did Odin even –

What…

Odin yanks Gugnir from the Bifrost, striding from the room without another word or so much as glancing as Loki again.

***

The others are seated around the room, resting. Recovering.

Loki sees it all and feels nothing. He just stands there, in the center of the room, numb and unmoving. The explosion as Mjolnir blew up in front of his face and Hela’s frantic pleading as Odin cast her out is all he can hear.

His twin sister.

Is she? Is that what she is?

Is – nothing makes sense.

Hela is gone.

Hela’s gone .

His sister is gone and Loki wishes he could’ve followed her and he doesn’t even know why he didn’t. He should have. Instead, Hela’s lost and alone in a realm somewhere she knows nothing of, and Loki stands here in her place. Loki had to come back and tell her friends that she’s gone when it should have been him who –

He would’ve gladly taken that fall instead of her. He didn’t care what would happen. He would gladly take it.

When Loki called the Jotuns into Asgard, he never intended this to happen. He was trying to – oh, he doesn’t even know what he was trying to do anymore. Hela wasn’t ready to be queen, and he was trying to show her and Odin that, because none of them would listen to him, and he was trying to stop any of Baldr’s intent of ascending to the throne most of all, because if Hela is queen they will still need a king and he knows of their cousin’s intentions, but Loki never intended… this .

His sister is gone .

Loki does not know if or when he will ever see her again.

“We should never have let her go,” Brunnhilde sighs, slumped on the ends of one of the couches.

“Going to Jotunheim was the right thing to do,” Baldr replies, rubbing at where one of the Frost Giants stabbed him. He doesn’t even have the courtesy of looking at them.

Loki also can’t remember the last time he wanted to take a dagger to somebody’s throat so badly. He also feels awful about it because this is his cousin and they’re family and he shouldn’t be so bitter with him but he can’t help it. When they were younger, when Baldr wasn’t around them nearly as much, it was different. He and Hela were far closer before their cousin came in, starting playing a much bigger role in their lives, and taking so much of his sister’s attention while ignoring Loki entirely. He knows he should not feel this bitter resentment. But he still can’t make it stop.

“It was for the good of Asgard. It’s not Hela’s fault that Odin refuses to see that,” Baldr goes on.

“It is unwise to speak against the All-Father,” one of the other Valkyrie warns. Loki agrees, though he has to grudgingly admit that the Baldr’s sole redeeming quality is his dislike for Odin, whether he’s his uncle or not. Though he could seriously do without the uncomfortableness of Baldr’s willingness to voice it in public .

“You know it’s true,” he argues.

Loki’s temper coils viciously. “My sister would still be here had you not aided her decision to go to Jotunheim.”

“At least she was banished, not killed,” Brunnhilde intervenes. “Which is probably where we’d be if that guard hadn’t told Odin.”

“How did he even know?” Hildegarde asks.

“I told him,” Loki answers shortly, looking up.

“ What? ” Baldr’s head snaps up from his wound.

“I told him to go to Odin after we’d left. He should be flogged for taking so long. We should have never reached Jotunheim.” They started a war now, and Hela’s gone . Odin would have been angry at them, perhaps confined Hela to the palace, but he would never have banished her if they had not made it there .

His sister is gone, and Loki has no idea how to operate without her.

Baldr stands. “ You told the guard?”

“I saved our lives,” he argues, “And Hela’s. I had no idea Father would banish her for what she did.”

“You don’t know that.” Baldr takes a few steps closer. “We had Hela. And I had Elderstahl. We could have pulled ourselves out.”

Hela can be maddening, but there is no one on Asgard who makes Loki wish to put someone’s head through a brick wall harder than Baldr. Frigga enchanted him to be virtually immortal. She did the same to Hela.

Not Loki.

Not Loki , because Baldr is more their son than Loki is, even though he’s not .

He has a special, legendary weapon, even though Loki doesn’t .

He hates how much he wishes Frigga hadn’t enchanted him. He hates that he wishes something would just – just – off him and remove him entirely from Loki’s life. He shouldn’t even think something so awful because Baldr is family too, but he just – it doesn’t even feel like he is. It doesn’t feel like he wants Loki to be his family at all, either. All he’s been doing for centuries is intentionally driving a wedge between Loki and Hela, one his sister is entirely oblivious of, and he spends as much time mocking and belittling Loki as he can.

Always out of Hela’s view, of course. She would slaughter anyone else who dared speak to Loki in such a manner. Unless it was Father. Or Heimdall.

Baldr isn’t a prince .

Not the way Loki himself is, at least.

He’s not even set to be the next king, even if Loki’s parents seem to have already assumed so. Even if everyone has assumed so. That’s Hela’s choice, no one else.

And then there’s Loki, always hidden and unseen no matter what he does. This entire disaster is on Baldr even more than Hela, and he slid away freely, just as he always does.

The moment he enters the room, he draws attention from everyone. That may, in part, be to the dull white shimmer he always gives off, being the alleged God of Light and all, but the way everyone, even Frigga instantly looks at him and softens drives something deep in Loki’s heart.

Baldr isn’t her son.

Loki is .

And then he remembers how his hand shifted to blue instead of burning, and he has to wonder. Because it makes sense . Why the son of a random nobleman would be more fit to be king than Loki. Why it's always Hela who Odin looks at and speaks to, why she’s permitted to speak when Loki is not and never has been, even when they were children.

Not that Loki wants a fancy fire sword. He’s never liked fire or heat.

Just like Jotuns can’t see in light and die in heat.

But that can’t be, because he’s Hela’s twin brother . They’re twins . They are . They’re two halves of a whole. Two that are one.

And that , a dark part of his mind whispers, could just be it. They explained your presence by matching it with Hela’s.

No. It can’t be. He can’t – he’s not…

Baldr is standing in front of him. A few feet away. Loki can’t keep zoning out. He’s a prince – it’s humiliating. This is Baldr. He could stab Loki with a smirk on his face and probably no one would notice.

You should be kinder to him , a voice that is definitely Frigga’s chides in the back of Loki’s head. He has no mother . As if that his mother was a Valkyrie who died in battle when he was young gives Baldr a free pass on being mindlessly cruel. Or maybe it’s just that Loki is the God of Chaos and that means he deserves to be hurt. Oh, right – Baldr is far, far too Pure and Good to hurt anyone, so Loki has just lost his mind. He has been told that before. Hence why he long since ceased speaking to anyone about Hela’s friend.

He tries to feel sympathy for him. Loki cannot imagine a life without Frigga, but he cannot muster even the slightest bit of pity. Having no mother should not mean Loki’s mother turns half of her attention onto him. Many on Asgard are half-orphans. A tragedy, yes, but it happens . Baldr’s part of their family, yes, but… That doesn’t make him Frigga’s son. Maybe he is being selfish, though. He doesn’t even know.

Loki had tried telling her that once. His mother had said it meant he was being ungrateful for the time she spent teaching him his seidr. He never breathed a word about it to her again, and he bites his lip enough it bleeds every time he’s faced with a drawn-out conversation with the not-prince ever since.

“You still have a chance to right this, Loki. Go to the All-Father, and convince him to bring Hela home.”

Loki doesn’t mind orders. Most of the time. They’re a part of his life, and he thinks little of them, until Baldr gives him orders unasked and without reason, as though it were his decision to tell his prince who and who not to speak with. How it is that someone can morph his name into a curse, Loki has no idea.

He tries to hold back the thousand things he longs to fling back. He can try, because he cannot refuse, and – Odin will not allow him to speak now, either. “And if I do, then what? Father was right that Hela is not yet ready. She’s still reckless, still –” He sighs. Behind Baldr, he sees Brunnhilde look away. She cannot argue with him, and he is grateful for that. It’s a reassurance that at least someone understands. “That is not what Asgard needs for its Queen.”

He wishes it was.

But whatever he does, he’s never going to be whole again.

***

“The day will come when one of you will have to defend that peace.” Odin stands in front of the Casket, it’s dim blue glow lighting the Vault. This is Loki’s first time in here. It’s so big .

“Do the Frost Giants still live?” Loki asks. They’ve been learning about the Frost Giants, and Odin has been telling them about the history of their fight with Asgard for a while now. Their father took it upon him to explain the victory in detail himself, seeing as he is the most reliable accountant of it. And Loki truthfully doesn’t know what to think about them. They’re monsters, but he can’t help feeling a little bad for them.

It's so easy to call a people monsters without knowing what they really are.

How can an entire species just be gone?

“Some do,” their father answers.

“Will they attack again?”

“I have a truce with Laufey, king of the Jotuns. One that he is not likely to break.”

“What if he does?” Hela asks, looking up at Odin.

“Then it would mean war,” Odin replies, “And he knows what the cost of that could be.”

“I’ll be ready to fight,” Hela chips, smiling. Her smile is contagious. When she throws a glance at him, he returns it.

“A wise ruler never seeks out war, but must always be ready for it.”

Odin turns to leave the Vault, and Hela and Loki run to catch up, each taking his hand.

“I already am,” Hela says eagerly.

“So am I,” Loki adds quietly but he hopes it’s not something he’ll ever have to do. He doesn’t want to have to fight and kill needlessly.

“I want to be a Valkyrie when I’m older,” Hela insists.

“You must learn to fight,” Odin tells her, “But you’re a princess first. Only one of you can ascend to the throne, but both of you were born to be rulers.”

Loki did not wish to reenter the Vault, much less like this. Not as dawn sets over them, shining through the wall of the Vault and the hold where the Destroyer is contained, lighting the room a dim gold. He knows what he saw, and he knows of only one way to find the answers he deserves, even if it is a question he would much prefer never to have answered.

But he has to know.

The Casket lies in front of him, and Loki just requires the will to lift it. The will is immense, he must say.

He does not want to know, and he has never begged for anything to hurt so much when he reaches for the bars on the case, fingers closing around the cold metal.

“Stop!” Odin’s voice is sharp, but this once, Loki does not comply. He has come too far to stop here.

He almost can’t look, but he feels the magic washing over him, sees his palms and fingers slowly fading to the same blue, then watches it spread across his arms and to where Loki is certain goes further up. “Am I cursed?” It comes out a strangled whisper where he can only stare in raw horror at the discolored blue of his arms.

“No.”

“What am I?” Loki slowly lowers the Casket, turning to face Odin. The All-Father stands atop the stairs on the other side of the Vault. He looks exhausted. Far more tired than he ought to. Loki would wonder if Hela’s banishment has taken a toll on him, too, but if it had – he should never have harmed her in the first place. And right now, he doesn’t much care.

All he wants is the truth.

“You’re my son.”

“What more than that?” he demands, slowly walking across the Vault. He knows his entire body is blue, and his eyes are Jotun red. “The Casket wasn’t the only thing you took from Jotunheim that day, was it?”

Odin doesn’t speak until Loki is already at the foot of the stairs. “No. In the aftermath of the battle, I went into the Temple, and I found a baby. Small for a giant’s offspring, abandoned, suffering, left to die. Laufey’s son.”

“Laufey’s son,” Loki whispers. He’s not Hela’s twin brother . He’s not anything. He’s just – he’s Jotun . He’s Jotun. Laufey’s son , the son of Asgard’s worst sworn enemy. Laufey . He feels faint. Dizzy. He is going to be sick.

“Yes.” Odin’s voice is quiet, but too calm, too flippant with the enormity of what happened , of all the lies that Loki’s lived.

“ Why ?” His voice sounds so broken and strangled he barely even recognizes it. “You were knee-deep in Jotun blood. Why would you take me ?”

“You were an innocent child.”

He has had it with all these lies . That is always all there is, always lies , never reality and he doesn’t know who or what to believe anymore. “No,” Loki says sharply, “You took me for a purpose. What was it?” Odin says nothing. He just looks at him, a staircase apart, face blank. He’s not going to answer. “ Tell me !” Loki yells.

“I thought we could unite our kingdoms one day, bring about an alliance, bring about a permanent peace. Through you.”

“What?” he breathes. Loki knew it was bad. He knew it was – could never have been taken out of pity, because Odin would not have sympathy for a child of his enemy and take him in as his own. And Loki is tired of being lied to. But he still thought, he –

Was powerful, maybe.

Not this.

“But those plans no longer matter.”

“So I am no more than another stolen relic , locked up here until you might have use of me?” His entire life was a lie. Loki never mattered to them, because he was never their son. He was never – anything . 

“Why do you twist my words?”

As if? “You could have told me what I was from the beginning. Why didn’t you?”

“You are my son. I wanted only to protect you from the truth.”

“What? Because I – I – I – I’m the monster that parents tell their children about at night?” He feels sick. Dizzy. The room is spinning even though he’s standing right-side-up. He can’t –

“No,” Odin argues, slowly lowering himself to the floor. He’s exhausted, and Loki knows that, but he’s too angry to care. He lied to him and used him as a tool his entire life, and he threw Hela into oblivion, left her somewhere for dead as she begged him to stop, never to come home. “No –”

“You know, it all makes sense now! Why you favored Hela and acted as though Baldr was more your son than I – because no matter how much you claim to love me, you could never have a Frost Giant sitting on the Throne of Asgard! ” His chest is heaving, and he can’t think. He wants to scream until his throat is raw, and he’s so angry, but Odin is on the floor, motionless. He’s been holding off Odinsleep for a long time and Loki knows that could’ve overwhelmed him.

Loki slowly crouches next to him. What did he – he didn’t mean to do this why does he keep making stupid mistakes and hurting his family?

He’s still breathing. Loki has to check him over with his seidr, just to be sure, anyway, but he’s already fallen under. Right here, right now, at the worst time there could’ve been.

He’s alive, but – but Loki isn’t stupid. He knows there is a reason Odin has been holding this off. They need to get him somewhere else.

Chapter Text

“Father!” Hela yells, heart pounding. She stumbles as she hits the ground somewhere , the Bifrost disappearing around her. Just leaving her here.

She feels – different. Wrong.  She can’t feel any life around her. Everything feels dead, like the constant buzz of energy inside her chest that she’s felt all her life was just ripped out. Because it was.

Odin did that too. He just – took her power . She hardly even knew that was possible. And then he just threw her out of Asgard.

Banished.

“Father?” she yells again frantically, but there’s still nothing. And there’s no way he and Heimdall can’t see but they’re just ignoring her. Leaving her here.

What –

Why?

She doesn’t even know where she is. And she can’t feel anything . Is this even an inhabited realm or – or – She has no way to know.

Hela looks around wildly. The sky is dark but there’s trees and… lights in the distance. That means life of some kind, right?

What is she even supposed to do ? What does Odin expect her to do out here? This isn’t like when she was on an adventure with Loki and her friends, when they survived out in the wilderness for the thrill of the adventure.

And what happened to Loki? He’s back on Asgard without her and she has no idea if Odin’s going to do something to him, either. And he has no idea what happened to her either probably, and –

“You are unworthy of the loved ones you have betrayed .”

As if she betrayed anyone. She was trying to protect Asgard. Protect her brother. Like she’s always tried to since she was little.

She still can’t believe Odin just…

She has no idea how long she’s been standing there, before it starts to sink in that he’s really left her here. What is she supposed to do ? She doesn’t have anywhere to go. But this could be a realm that knows Asgard well. They could help her get back home or… something , at least. Give her a place to stay, something.

Hela starts walking, and the closer she gets to the lights on the horizon, the more she begins to realize that this place actually looks familiar. Especially when she nears some kind of road and sees the transportation method – that is very obviously not horses. It looks different than when she was last here but still familiar.

“Ugh. Midgard. Wonderful.” Why did Odin have to send her to a world of mortals ?

Does being stripped of her powers mean she’s also mortal? That can’t be right. It can’t be.

She keeps walking, crossing the street and nearly getting run over by one of the –

Cars? Or something. She vaguely remembers hearing that when she was last here over fifty years ago. Loki’s been here more than her. He’d know better.

There are a few trees here and there, along the roads and buildings are everywhere on the horizon. It looks almost like a busier city than Asgard. The buildings look so different, too. Mortals evolve fast.

She spots someone passing by on the street and hastily approaches them. “Excuse me,” Hela calls.

The person stops, eyeing her oddly.

His clothes look weird.

“I’m Hela, of Asgard,” she starts.

His expression goes from dubious to annoyed. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have time for people playing dress up right now.” He turns and keeps walking.

Wha –

Hey .

That is so rude.

Hela rolls her eyes skywards. Fine. Wonderful. See if they still think that way when she crows herself queen of this realm.

She hasn’t had people be so dismissive of her – ever, actually. Even those who dislike her either respect or fear her power, or simply because she’s the princess of Asgard. They’re never brush her off unless they are completely oblivious as to who she is.

And she’s hungry.

The longer she walks, the more she’s starting to notice it. She hasn’t eaten since – was it only this morning before her coronation?  She’d been too nervous to really think about food, and she was waiting for the feast which was never held, and then… then Jotunheim happened.

Not that it’s something she really can think about when she’s stranded in the middle of nowhere and she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do. Everything feels unreal. It can’t…

Her eyes fall on a building up ahead labeled “restaurant”. There are windows and she can see people eating inside.

Well.

Maybe going in here should help.

She enters, trying to ask about getting food, but all they’re asking her about is something about “credit cards” or cash whatever that even means, and tell her to leave if she doesn’t have either.

And leave her in the street all over again just like Odin.

A desperate helplessness that’s bleeding to rage is building and building in her chest. A pity she can’t find a good excuse to beat someone up, truly, because the energy building in her is more than she can stand, but every time she tries to summon a weapon, the power doesn’t come to her hands.

Where does she go?

But now that she’s outside again, she can feel… something.

A nagging pull deep in her chest. Something calling her. Finally, something she can sense other than a gaping emptiness of something misting in her chest.

It’s her helmet. The source of her power. She’s certain of it. If that’s here on Midgard, too, then all she needs to do is find it and then – She’ll worry about the and then after that. But she will have words with Odin, no doubt.

***

It takes hours to get there, though it’s still dark out when she does.

But it looks like there’s other people who are also here. There’s a bunch of cars surrounding the area and on the nearby streets, and there’s people everywhere.

The Midgardian army? Or something. She doesn’t know how it works here.

It’s foolish of them to think they’ll be able to do anything with her crown. She can see it from here, embedded on a rock a distance away.

She’ll just have to get through all these people to do it.

Not as though that would be hard.

She walks up to one of the mortals. “Is that my crown?” she asks curtly, pointing at the dark object in question through the ridiculous number of people in the area.

He stares at her. “ That ?” he asks, gesturing in its direction. “It’s SHIELD property.”

She cannot believe these mortals.

“I do appreciate a mortal who’s brave enough to attempt this,” she says dryly. She doesn’t know if these people are more brave or outright stupid . “Most people do well to fear me.”

He doesn’t look impressed. “Stand down,” he orders, “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Hmm, I think not. I’m the Goddess of Death,” Hela replies, instinctively reaching for her hair to run her fingers through it as she tries to summon her helmet.

The man just looks at her.

“That usually gets a bigger reaction,” she muses, and then it clicks that – Nothing happened. Of course. She can’t just summon her helmet right now.

She tries to call on her spears instead only for… nothing . All she feels instead is the flaring ache of emptiness in her chest. Oh, come on. Fine. There are other ways to fight.

Hela swings a fist for the man’s face. He’s flung to the ground before he even moves.

That, predictably, gets the attention of those nearby, including one who’s dressed in red, blue, and white, and has some ridiculous shaped and even stupider colored shield strapped on his back. It just makes him look like a screaming target. She can’t decide if he’s more brave or stupid. He looks completely insane.

 “Get her,” the one she attacked calls, scraping himself of the ground. The others are raising some kind of weapons, and one of them jumps her. She tries to react to the blow the way she always would but it has far more force than she anticipated. The punch throws her face first to the ground.

No mortal should be able to do that. Not unless it’s because she really has been made mortal too, at least mostly. No, no. That’s not –

The agents are closing in on her, the Shield-Man moving to the front. Now isn’t the time to start panicking.

“No, no, no,” she protests, feigning panic, or not totally feigning , but mortals are ridiculous about morals and most would hesitate to hit someone they think is harmless. “Please. I promise you, show mercy on me. I’m just a helpless woman.”

They all freeze, looking awkwardly at each other.

Hela jerks to her feet, kicking the Suited-Mortal in the face before she takes off. She sprints past him, running for her crown.

Light glints off something behind her and she looks over her shoulder just in time for the shield to smack her in the side. It’s sudden and hard enough that the force of it throws her to the ground. She bats it aside, rolling to her feet as the man approaches, side aching from the contact.

She jumps him without waiting. Except he’s stronger than she expected. Way too strong for a mortal. She doesn’t know what it would be like if she was at her full skill, but no mortal should be like this. Is he mortal?

Either way, she will admit that she’s grudgingly impressed. Even if mostly just frustrated, because she shouldn’t be this weak, and she needs to get to her helmet. She needs to go home.

They land on the ground, trading blows. She finally rolls out of the way, landing next to his shield and picks it up, throwing it at him before he gets near enough. It’s enough to shove him back a few steps and Hela breaks into a run, dodging the other people who try to get in her way as she makes it the rest of the way to her helmet.

All she needs to do is put it on and then the mortal would do well not to challenge her again.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees someone gesturing to the others, including the Shield-Man to stay back as she approaches her helmet. They’re all watching her. Foolish of them.

She reaches for it, hands closing around the curved, black edges, and pulls .

But –

Nothing happens?

What?

No, no, this isn’t –

She yanks again, straining against it. “Well, it’s… really lodged in there, isn’t it?” she mutters, more to herself than anything else. That must be it. It’s got to be. It’s just – would have hit the rock pretty hard when Odin through it between realms. It fell down the bifrost.

She yanks again, but still nothing happens.

“How does gravity work on Midgard anyway?” she asks breathlessly, “You know what, doesn’t matter.”

She yanks again as hard as she can, but it’s still nothing.

Nothing’s working.

And that means – it means – No, no, no. This can’t be for real. It can’t be. Her powers are bound right here, and she could get them back if she could lift this, but she can’t because Odin took that away from her.

“Father, please don’t do this to me,” she breathes.

But nothing’s happening.

Nothing.

She’s hit with the sudden, desperate urge to cry. This can’t be real. How is she even – She can’t be trapped her like this forever. Or until – she has no idea what.

She doesn’t know if she wants to cry or start screaming more, actually. Not that she’ll do either in front of these mortals, but –

When is she even going to see Loki again? Or any of Asgard? Or –

The Shield-Man is standing the closest, watching her.

The other agents swarm forward the moment she lets go of her helmet, surrounding her. They’re fully intent on arresting her or whatever this is. And she’s a little too out of it to resist right now. And if she did, then what? She has nowhere to go.

***

They don’t take her far. They take her to some building that she thinks they called a “police station”, or something equally ludicrous, but she’s hardly paying attention.

Some bald agent and a brown-haired man take her to a room before the first leaves. The second tells her she can have a seat, so she stays standing, just to be aggravating.

“You made my men, some of the most highly trained professionals in the world, look like a bunch of minimum wage mall cops. That's hurtful,” he says finally, standing in front of her. “And you were even able to stand up against Captain America.”

Half the words go over her head, but it’s enough for Hela to tell that they’re actually complementing her abilities. And insulting their own. She doesn’t know if that’s more amusing or ridiculous. “You’re all mortals,” she drawls, “What did you expect?” Maybe her mortal form still as at least somewhat Asgardian. It takes the slightest edge off the sheer helplessness crawling in her gut. But only a little.

The man doesn’t look impressed. “Who are you?”

“You know, it’s almost offensive none on Midgard remember.”

The man’s eyebrows raise. “ Midgard ?”

“You’ve forgotten the name of your own realm?” Yes, she’s just trying to be difficult now. But seriously, how does no one on Midgard remember Asgardians? “No wonder you all lost so pitifully in a fight.”

His eyes narrow the slightest bit. “Where are you from? Where did you receive your training? Pakistan? Chechnya? Afghanistan?”

Are those words supposed to mean something to her? “You really think I could have received my training from mortals?” she asks dryly.

“Why do you keep referring to us as mortals ? Where are you from?”

“Asgard,” she replies flippantly. “I’m Hela, Goddess of Death.”

The man doesn’t look impressed, which is enough to say that he doesn’t believe her at all. “You’re telling me you’re not from Earth?” he asks disbelievingly.

“Of course, I’m not.” She is honestly disgusted.

“What are your intentions here?”

“I assure you, I mean you no harm,” she says, “My only quarrel is with my father and… maybe that other hairless mortal you work with. And – the king of the Frost Giants, since he invaded my home the other day.” Honestly, she has no idea what that other agent did to his hair but it’s assaulting her eyes terribly. Hair is important on Asgard. You don’t just get rid of it. But seriously . Mortals have such strange beliefs. How could a person just cut off all of their hair? “But mostly just my father and the king of the Frost Giants. So I guess it’s those three. But no threat to your realm.” 

“What are you doing here?” the man demands.

“I’m sure my father could answer your questions,” she replies, smiling ferally at him. She has little desire to get into the explanation of how her powers were stripped from her and she was cast out here all alone.

“You must have come for some purpose, wherever you’re really from. One way or another, we found out what we need to know. We’re good at that.”

“Is that a threat?” Hela asks dryly.

His expression barely twitches. “It doesn’t need to be.”

“Hmm, well you should work on your threats. They’re not very intimidating.”

There’s some ringing sound and the man pauses, pulling out a strange device and looking at it. It’s the device that’s ringing, she realizes. “I’ll be back,” he says, “Don’t go anywhere.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Hela snips as he heads out.

She sinks into the chair the moment he’s gone, hardly sure why she’s not just walking out. Maybe it’s that she has nowhere to go anyway. Nothing to – do. She’s trapped and alone here. Odin just left her here. Threw her into the street with no way to survive as if he could care less what happens to her. How is Loki handling this? Odin hasn’t hurt Baldr or Brunnhilde for what they did, did he? Because she wouldn’t be surprised.

The sound of someone approaching makes her lift her eyes from the floor, but it’s not the same agent who enters. It’s the man with the strange red, blue, and white suit.

“Should I assume you’re here for brutal murder?” she inquires flippantly. But really, if the other was serious about carrying out some kind of threat , he’d need someone far more capable of hurting her than he is himself. She’d rather not think about how easily these mortals could harm if they were trying. She’s not worried about that, but it’s more the knowledge that they could now and there’s only so much she could do to stop it when once, there was never any threat that could phase her.

The man blinks, looking a bit taken aback. “What? Of course not.”

“Oh. Forgive me for assuming the other agent sent you here as a wretched effort at terrorizing me in his place.”

“I don’t know what he said to you,” the man replies, “But I don’t think they need to keep you locked in here.”

Her eyebrows raise. Did he just say something in her favor? Really? He doesn’t look the type for manipulation.

“But I would like to know who you are. Coulson thinks you’re lying.”

“That I’m Hela of Asgard? Why would I waste my breath lying about that?”

He looks a bit lost. “Where is… Asgard?”

She huffs. This is insane. Do mortals forget their history this quickly? “Everyone here has forgotten me, it appears.”

He shifts and she has no idea why she’s getting the vibe that the comment was a bit personal for him. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know what you mortals know of what lies beyond Midgard,” she replies, “But there are countless other realms out there, including Asgard where I am from.”

“So, you’re telling me you really are an alien?” he asks, almost amused. He doesn’t seem quite as blatantly disbelieving as Coulson, though.

“If that’s what you refer to it as, yes. You believe me?” Not that she much cares but she’s just a little surprised. He’s the first person who’s paid any attention to what she’s saying since this all started.

“I know you’re not human,” he responds consideringly, “Unless you have the serum, too.”

Serum ? “At last, someone who uses reason,” Hela snips, “But you’re not a normal mortal either. Who are you?”

Surprise flits across his face. “You really aren’t from around here,” he muses.

“Why? Everyone know you around here?”

“Everyone knows Captain America. A… title they gave me during World War II. I’m Steve Rogers.”

Some kind of mortal civil war? She shouldn’t be too surprised. But what sticks out the most to her is that he’s a soldier. “I don’t suppose I could interest you in taking up arms in my name?”

He blinks, looking totally befuddled. “…What for?”

“Well, my father left me here so… against him.” She doesn’t know that she’s serious about that, but it feels like she’s drowning in helplessness and desperation so much it’s smothering her and it’s only making her so angry.

“I’m not really aware of the details of the conflict you have with him –”

Oh, fine. She didn’t expect anything else. “That sounds like a pass. Yes, totally get it. I don’t suppose you would know of any other mortal here who’s looking for better work than they have now?”

“I don’t think I could help you with that, but I can offer you somewhere to go. I assume you don’t have anywhere to stay here.”

He’s offering to help her? That’s – not really what she expected. No one’s offered that so far and she has nothing here. “I don’t.”

“I convinced SHIELD to let you go,” Steve says, “I can take you to my apartment.”

Hmm. Better than nothing. “My thanks,” Hela supplies a little awkwardly as she follows him out the door.

They pass Agent Coulson on the way out. He pauses to say something to Steve privately that she can totally hear, thank you very much mortal, about how he needs to keep a close eye on her because they can’t trust her. Though he seems to be tripping over every word and spluttering like there’s no one he worships more when Steve assures him that he has it handled.

She’s not overly surprised or bothered that this mortal organization wants to watch her. Did Steve offer because they wanted him to or because… he wanted to? She doesn’t really know, but in the end, what matters is that she has somewhere to stay for now.

“What was that all about?” Hela asks, amused, as they go over to one of these… cars, or whatever mortals call them.

Steve looks a bit uncomfortable. “I’m a bit famous around here.”

“Oh,” she supplies, nodding. “That can be annoying.” She’s used to it considering her role as princess and it’s pretty expected, but there’s moments that… Well, she gets why Steve might be a bit flustered from it.

She gets into the seat opposite the driver’s seat, eyeing the controls dubiously as Steve drives them away. “I must say, I do prefer horses.” The machine is making a noise that’s annoying her for reasons she can’t even explain, considering that horses make far more noise.

“I’m not used to this kind of car either,” Steve tells her.

“Why not?”

“I’ve been…” He sighs. “I’m sorry. Most people know this already. World War II was almost seventy years ago. I crashed a plane in the arctic. Water spilled in, and it froze, with me inside. I was found… about a month ago. And I came back to this.”

Seventy years isn’t that long to an Asgardian. To mortals, that’s almost an entire lifetime . Hela can’t imagine what that would be like – missing a life and coming back to a different world. 

But for all she knows, that could be what’s about to happen to her.

Chapter Text

Loki’s been in Odin’s chamber before, but it feels different now. Different with Odin asleep. Loki remembers other times when his father fell into Odinsleep, but Hela was always had Hela with him. Frigga had temporarily taken the throne, but things are different now, and the sleep never lasted long. He doesn’t know what to expect from this.

Now, here he is, sitting across from his mother, separated by his father’s bed, with Hela stranded on some far-off world, maybe never to return.

Loki doesn’t even remember how they got onto this topic. It just came out in a tumbling rush, the what am I why did you lie why couldn’t you tell me I was a monster why did you make Asgard hate what I was what am I. And here they are now.

“I asked him to be honest with you from the beginning. There should be no secrets in a family,” His mother is saying, and Loki can’t help blinking at her disbelievingly.

“So why did he lie?”

“He kept the truth from you so that you would never feel different. You are in every way our son, Loki, and we are your family. You must know that.”

No. He doesn’t. None of this makes sense. “You told me I was Hela’s twin.” And I am nothing. Just something to be left and forgotten. A tool. To be used and discarded. Never to be seen. Never to be important . “Why?”

“It was simpler than explaining how we could have had a child unnoticed. Hela was born a few months prior to your father’s return. We don’t know your exact birth date… but we estimated it was the same. Perhaps slightly younger. If you were our child by birth, you would have been twins.”

She says it so simply, but it changes everything . Loki’s entire world. Because he and Hela weren’t born and made and forged and shaped together. Because they aren’t one . They weren’t born to be one. They were born to be enemies, to fight and hate each other. Because Hela is not his sister. She is not…  “How – how can I look just like her?”

When things changed, when they started sliding, when they started growing apart – they had always taken comfort in that. They were the same. Loki had always told himself they were.

He was wrong.

Tears burn his eyes, misting and threatening to fall again, as though he hasn’t already cried himself out. He’s cried so much today.

“You were meant to be Hela’s equal. Her twin brother. Our son.”

Loki’s gaze drops to Odin. He wants to say something. To demand a furious array of how could you do this to us how could I have lived my entire life a lie how could you but guilt wells up, too, hot and fierce. It’s Loki’s fault that he fell into Odinsleep prematurely. It’s not supposed to happen so unexpected. They usually spend days preparing. This was all too much for him, and Loki understands that, but he wants to scream, anyway.

The most powerful person in the Nine Realms. His father.

And he just passed out when Loki needed him .

The door slowly creaks, and Loki jerks at a very familiar presence. A brilliant light, bright enough he wants to scrub his skin off to get it off . “My queen? May I enter?”

Loki wants to throw a dagger at him and spell the door shut. He doesn’t move.

Frigga stands. “Yes, Baldr. Of course.”

He enters, with his silver and gold armor and red-orange cape. He has Elderstahl, too, and Loki bites his tongue to hold back a scathing remark about how he’s entering the king’s chamber. He’s not prevented from entering, as he’s part of the royal family, but he’s not one of Odin’s children.

But what? Loki isn’t, either.

“Forgive me for intruding,” he says, “I merely had a matter I wished to bring up with the All-Father. The Einherjar informed me he had fallen into Odinsleep?”

Frigga sighs. “Yes, he has. Usually, we are more prepared than this. It was so unexpected. He was to establish Hela’s queenship first.”

“I am here on the matter of Hela,” Baldr says, “I wished to ask that we end her banishment.”

Ah. Of course , it is – he did not trust Loki to care for his own sister – not his sister – enough to try himself. He ducks his head to avoid their gazes, not as though either one of them is looking at him. They rarely do.

Frigga steps back, looking at Odin. “There is always a purpose to everything the All-Father does,” she promises. Like this ? Lying to him? Loki chokes on a scream. He wants to throw something. Feel metal crush and twist under his hands. Maybe – melt something. He loves Hela with everything he has, and no one believes it because everyone knew it wasn’t real but him and maybe her. Hela wouldn’t have known. She wouldn’t have – Jotunheim is his home planet . She wouldn’t have gone there to kill all of them if she knew, would she? Would she? “But we musn’t loose hope my daughter will return to us.”

“There is a chance she may?” Baldr brightens at that.

“Yes. Her banishment was not indefinite. Do not fear.” Frigga’s hands lift to squeeze his shoulders. As though Hela is his sister. Perhaps she is more his than Loki’s.

At least they’re related. Loki has no place here at all. Is that why as time goes on, Hela looks to Baldr more than she does to Loki ?

He sinks further into his chair, unmoving.

“Thank you, my queen.” Baldr bows his head. “You are so kind.”

Loud, approaching footsteps has them all pausing, looking up. Loki stands, on instant guard. He knows it is likely no more than his own paranoia, but he – he did a lot. He is the one who let the Jotuns into Asgard. Hela should be on the throne right now, and she is not. Because of him. No matter what purpose he did it for, it changes nothing.

Treason is treason.

But when the doors open, the Einherjar line the hall. One of them steps forwards with Gungnir, and they bow to him.

Loki throws a semi-panicked glance at Frigga. He doesn’t know what’s happening . Baldr tenses, hands fisting at his sides.

“Hela is banished. The line of succession falls to you Loki,” Frigga tells him, “Until Odin awakens, Asgard is yours. “

His . Asgard is – Loki’s mind tries to catch up with that. He can’t compute. He’s – he’s king .

Loki is the king of Asgard. Something he never wanted to be. Something he was always meant to be. He was born to be king. That’s what Odin had always told him. Except he was meant to be king of Jotunheim .

Not of Asgard.

These – these aren’t his people. This isn’t his world.

He doesn’t want this.

Whatever he’s about to do, he has to do it right .

His mother nods to him, and Loki slowly reaches up, taking Gungnir.

He sees Baldr’s face darken. It’s so fast, Loki thinks he imagined it. He could swear it did, but maybe it’s just that he imagined it.

“Make your father proud,” Frigga tells him with a nod and smile.

It feels fake. Everything feels fake. Gugnir radiates power, a type of magic that instantly has Loki intrigued, but this was not meant to be his. It feels wrong. It burns his hands. He wants to throw it down and run .

King.

He’s king .

Make your father proud .

Hela’s gone. His twin sister, his other half who was – evidently – nothing to him – is gone and she should be the one holding this weapon. He should be where she is.

Make –

Loki goes.

***

Asgard is yours.

Was that to be reassuring? No orders. No advice. Just a command to somehow make something right to Odin, to do something that his father might actually approve of, pretending that could be a thing for Loki when Odin is –

Loki’s a monster.

And he sits on the throne of Asgard, Gugnir in hand, where Father was yesterday, and everything was fine. His gut churns with bitter hurt. He needed to – understand. Figure out how to deal with what was happening, and then Baldr came in, and Loki has no idea when he’s going to be able to see his mother again. He needed her , and that entire thing was just… ruined.

He doesn’t have the luxury to break down here, so Loki tries to steel himself and just… sit .

He feels so wrong.

“You could never have a Frost Giant sitting on the Throne of Asgard .”

He needs to find a way to stop the war. He already knows how. He – he has to because he’s not one of them and he needs – needs to –

“Make your father proud.”

Loki feels sick. He feels lightheaded, dizzy, like if he tries to stand, he’ll probably fall and the world is blurring around him.

This is wrong. It’s so, so wrong. He wants to sleep. He doesn’t get to. Someone should’ve told Hela being a queen meant she could never sleep. Loki would have liked to know that.

That’s still where he is when Baldr comes in.

Loki straightens, hand tightening over Gugnir.

Brunnihilde is with him, too, following beside and a little behind. Her face is set and composed, but he’s still under the implication that she’s uncomfortable. Did Baldr tell her about the kingship change? Is that why she’s… twitchy?

“My friends,” Loki greets, nodding to them. It feels good to be here when he speaks to Baldr. It feels – he doesn’t know how that makes him feel, actually. He’s a horrible person to be sitting here, smug that he can look down on someone. He’s just glad he can’t be pushed around by him anymore, really, but that doesn’t mean…

Baldr and Brunnhilde exchange glances.

“My king,” Brunnhilde greets, bowing.

“We are here to ask that you end Hela’s banishment,” Baldr continues bluntly. Ah. Loki is unsurprised with his bluntness, and he appreciates that he’s not going to talk pleasantries first that he doesn’t feel anything of, but Loki is his king now. He still expected, perhaps, some level of respect.

And what is Loki to say to that?

“My first command as king of Asgard cannot be to undo the All-Father’s last,” he objects, even if he would love nothing more than to run to Midgard, forget about the war, forget about everything except Hela. But how can he go to her, how can he bring her back into this? Jotunheim was his own disaster. It’s not fair for Hela to be the one to sort that out.

It’s Loki’s . And he’s going to clean up his own mess, first, before dragging his sister back. First, he – he needs to end the war. He knows what to do, maybe, and if Hela comes back to hear what happened… (If she comes back to a world where Jotunheim is gone , maybe she won’t hate him. Maybe it won’t change everything. Maybe - why is he lying to himself? Their entire life has already been a lie.)

“You would leave her there?” Baldr asks.

No. He’s not. But Loki has faith in his sister, too – he knows Hela can survive for a short time, even if he doesn’t want to leave her there for a second longer. His sister should come home . He needs to deal with Jotunheim, but everything is progressing… slowly. “Mother forbade her return.”

“I respect Queen Frigga,” Baldr answers, “Deeply. But as king of Asgard, the choice is yours.”

Is it? It doesn’t feel like it. Even Odin had his father to guide him through the initial years of his kingship. Loki just has Frigga. Who is not his mother. He doesn’t even know who he is or what he’s doing here. He’s not Asgardian.

He’s Jotun.

He’s a monster.

It’s no wonder he hates Baldr. Or Baldr hates him. Whichever. Both, perhaps, but maybe Baldr is the only Asgardian able to see through the mask Odin put over him, to see what Loki truly is. Maybe…

This is Loki’s choice. It is, and the guilt is crushing him enough that he can’t breathe. Air feels burning. It doesn’t feel right. Loki can make his own choices.

It was a week ago, when he went to Jotunheim, that he realized he’s scarcely made a single choice in his entire life. It wasn’t until then that he realized how helpless and crippled he’d been. Little choices are one thing. Life-altering ones… another. All his actions have been dictated either by Odin, Hela, or Frigga. He’s never chosen anything for himself.

Much less for an entire kingdom , and he feels like he’s drowning. In over his head. Like water, crushing and splashing, and he can’t get out .

Breathe. He needs to breathe . It will be very embarrassing if he suffocates in front of Baldr.

“And I choose,” Loki answers thinly, “To respect my mother.”

Brunnhilde bows to him again, fleeting, but there. “Thank you for allowing us the time to speak with you.” She nudges Baldr, turning away to leave.

He stands there a moment longer, blue eyes narrowed. “That’s not what this is about, is it?” Baldr demands, “You wanted to take the throne from Hela.”

Loki stiffens.

He’s unsurprised that Baldr would think this, but that he’s bold enough to state it even while in public, while Loki is his king, is something else. His heart is pounding anyway, because – does Baldr suspect something about Jotunheim? He shouldn’t, but he’s edgy, anyway. It’s probably merely his guilt speaking, but he doesn’t know .

Brunnhilde throws Baldr a veiled glare.

“Hela is meant to be queen,” Loki responds evenly, “But I will serve as king so long as I must.”  He hopes that’s enough to make Baldr back off.

“Thank you for hearing our request, Your Majesty,” Brunnhilde says, throwing Baldr a pointed look before she heads for the door.

He gives Loki a final hard look before he turns to follow her.

If someone spoke to Odin this way, they’d probably be banished the way Hela is now.

But Baldr already well knows Loki could do little against him even now that he’s king. 

Still . Some things never change.

***

The sheer, gutting reality of it doesn’t sink in until he retires, and he can’t go to his own room. He can’t. It’s too dark, too empty, too lonely, too fake , and Loki is tired of fake. He doesn’t want to do this anymore. He’s not who he was. Who he thought he was.

So, instead, he goes to Hela’s, like that might solve something in his life. It can’t. He knows that. It doesn’t stop him. The room is empty. He should leave. This is Hela’s room, and she’s not here, but –

She’s not here.

Because Loki was an idiot.

And Hela was an idiot.

And Odin is an idiot.

Family honors, must be.

He wants to laugh. He wants to cry.

Loki sinks to his knees in the center of the room and just – sits there .

“It doesn’t matter what they say.” Hela’s hand is on his, just a bit slenderer than his own now that they’ve grown.

Anyone else and he would look away, but this is Hela, and he looks into the bright green of her eyes. He wants to find a snarky comment, but with the warmth of tears burning in his eyes and the still aching soreness of being beat up by one of Einherjar, he can’t find one.

It was embarrassing. Training is harsh, because life and battle are harsh, but Loki didn’t expect to get beaten so easily . It was in public. People were watching . He’d tried to use his magic instead. Seidr is his strength, not swords.

He should have won because he used seidr. Everyone said it didn’t count.

Hela had stalked in and pulled him out, and here he is, in the corner of a nearby hall trying to catch his breath and pretending his arm isn’t bleeding, that there’s not warm, red liquid trickling down the limb, because that would just make it worse.

He’s not strong. He’s not like the other Asgardians. He never has been. But he’s just started training .

But Hela’s wrong, because it does matter. It matters – everything. He can’t be a prince if no one respects him.

“You’re my brother,” Hela’s hands squeeze his. “We’re the same. And we always will be.”

The memory hits him with a wave of tears, and he curses even remembering it. She hadn’t known. She couldn’t have. Neither of them did, and they spent their lives believing lies about each other. Because they are not the same. They never could be.

Hela’s gone.

His sister is gone, because Loki was being an idiot and got her banished. He tried his best to stop it from going that far, and he failed .

Hela would’ve already brought him back. He knows she would’ve. Because that’s what she did. But Loki is so focused on fixing the mess that is Asgard that his sister is gone . Except Hela isn’t his sister.

Years they spent together, centuries, and all of it was a lie.

He loves her so much, but none of it is real. None if it was ever – Odin made him look like her, didn’t he? They were made to be the same. But that doesn’t change what Loki really is, and he wishes she was here so they could deal with this together . Like they should be. Like before Odin ripped them apart.

The room still looks like hers. Like theirs . Still covered with the black and greens that they both share. The colors they both chose.

But it was –

It was fake.

How can he bring his sister back and tell her their entire lives were fake ?

Loki doesn’t leave the room that night. He curls up in his sister’s bed instead, clinging to her blankets like that might do him so good, like it could bring her back. It doesn’t. Can’t. Won’t.

Her blankets still smell like her, and Loki doesn’t move. He never wants to move. He wants to stay here forever, soaking up the last bits of Hela and their childhood before his sister comes home and what’s left of their lives is inevitably shaken upside down over his head, trying to find the strength to do what he knows needs to be done.

She’s going to hate him. She should. Loki wishes she would.

He just wants to be one of them. And he knows he never will be .

(And when he sleeps, he dreams of fragments, whisps of someone, of a face he can never quite remember, of someone he keeps trying to reach for and always disappears, of that face and laugh that’s haunted him his whole life, only to wake to a world of emptiness where everything aches.)

Chapter Text

Steve’s apartment is small, but Hela’s just glad to have somewhere to stay. She’s had worse accommodations when on adventures in the past, even if this can hardly be called an adventure. It’s morning now. She never slept at all last night, but she thinks she’s too restless to even try.

They sit down for a meal together. Normally, Hela would have a lot more to say but the more time drags on, the more real this is starting to feel. And the emptier she feels.

“What was that back there?” Steve inquires after a long stretch of silence, “What you were after.”

“My helmet?” Hela asks, looking up from her plate.

“That’s what that is?”

“What? You think it looks like a spider with broken legs, too?” Her amusement dies quickly when mentioning that sends a sharp pang through her. Loki. They’ve been apart for a time before in the past, but never indefinitely. She misses him badly enough it’s hard to breathe.

“I wouldn’t put it like that,” he replies, a bit amused, “But it was a bit… unusual looking.”

“It’s my helmet,” she reiterates, “My powers are bound to it.” Even now, she can feel the faintest tingling sensation deep inside, a constant reminder that what always made her the Goddess of Death is right there, but still out of reach. Did Odin do that on purpose? Just to rub it in her face that she’s apparently unworthy?

“Powers?” Steve repeats, confused.

How clueless are Midgardians?

She nods. “My magic. What… made me the Goddess of Death.”

He looks no less mind-blown than before. “You’re saying you have magic?”

“Is that really something mortals no nothing of anymore?”

“Unless things changed while I was in the ice, magic has only ever been known as a myth or something… fictional.” He seems somewhere between incredulous and amused.

“I assure you that it’s quite real,” Hela replies, “I would show you, but I can’t reach it anymore.” The constant emptiness in her chest is driving her insane. She can’t even feel that Steve is a living person even if it’s obvious. That’s probably half of what’s making her feel so lost and empty and alone. Her powers feel life. They feed on life. But here, it’s just… empty. Her magic is gone. It feels like the life is gone, too.

“What happened?” he asks, “You mentioned your father… left you here?”

“He banished me,” she says bitterly, before remembering that he really knows nothing about Asgard. That he doesn’t know or respect Odin frees something inside her. It means she can speak without fear of reprimand. That was one thing that made being around Baldr so easy. “He’s the king of Asgard. I’m the crown princess. I was going to be queen.”

“You’re a princess?” he repeats, “I didn’t realize I was inviting a princess over.”

Hela waves a hand. “Sometimes having everyone deify you can be aggravating.”

“I know.” She gets the feeling he’s brooding. It’s not hard to guess why. He lost everything he used to know the same way she just did.

“Is there no one left who knows you instead of your… title?” she queries.

“Not anymore.” He hesitates, expression shadowing. “Well, there is one, but she’s… She lived so much of her life while I was gone.”

“Unpleasant,” Hela offers. That’s not going to happen with her and Loki, is it? “Have you spoken to her?”

He sighs quietly. “Not yet.”

Saying things to lighten the mood is Loki’s forte, not hers. She doesn’t really know what to tell him, so she turns back to her plate, finishing the rest of her food.

Steve goes to deal with dishes, and after a moment, Hela follows awkwardly to see if she can be of help. Normally, she’d never do this, but she’s pretty sure Frigga would define that as polite in these circumstances.

“How long are you… banished for?” Steve asks, turning to her once they’re finishing up, “Does that mean you’re never allowed to go back to your home?”

“He was as enlightening as conceivable in answering all my inquiries about it,” Hela says, “I do not know how long this is for, or if he ever intends to allow my return.”

He looks a bit appalled. “What did he banish you for? That’s not a thing we do on Earth.”

“Perhaps Midgard is more sophisticated than it sometimes appears,” she grumbles. “I was to become queen, but in the middle of the ceremony, the palace was attacked by the Frost Giants. They’re creatures from Jotunheim, another of the Nine Realms. Savage monsters. They attacked Midgard centuries ago, trying to destroy the planet. Asgard stopped them. Drove them back to their homeland and took the source of their power – the Casket – lest they attempt anything like it again. A peace treaty was formed, but the Jotuns broke it when they attacked our palace. They tried to recover the Casket. We were able to stop them, but I did not believe it was an attack by only a few. Odin refused to take action, so I took matters into my own hands. I went to Jotunheim, and a battle broke out. He banished me for my going there and defending my home.”

“You didn’t try negotiating with them before attacking?”

“They chose to break the treaty,” she argues. “They’re monsters. They sought out their fate.”

“How can you call an entire race monsters?” Steve demands incredulously.

It reminds her for a jarring moment of Loki, how he hadn’t wanted to go. And in the past, he’s never been one to speak of the Jotuns the same as the rest of Asgard. He doesn’t like fighting. Hela’s always known that, and that’s part of what’s made her try so hard to become the fighter she is. Asgard may look down on Loki for what he is, but she never could – she’s more than willing to fight for them both, to protect him, if he ever needs it.

“Midgard may have forgotten, but they nearly destroyed your planet,” Hela points out.

“That doesn’t mean the entire race is the same. I can’t imagine they could all have supported it. I don’t know the circumstances of your conflict but these… Jotuns are people, too.”

She knows that, but –

When she tries to think of another reason to point out that the Jotuns are monsters, she… really can’t think of a good reason. It’s just what she’s always been told. Loki never really understood it when he was little. And now she can’t help thinking that maybe he was right she wasn’t being rational. She had ignored him.

And –

Okay, maybe she doesn’t want to concede that, because it means that Odin may have been right. But that doesn’t mean he had an excuse to throw her out.

Laufey was threatening war. What’s happening about that? Is Asgard at war while she’s trapped here? At the very least, if this was truly her mistake, she should be the one to help clean it up. Her brother shouldn’t be dealing with it alone. Not that she can change it now.

***

Since she has no idea how long she’s going to be on Midgard, Steve points out that she’s going to need clothes.

“Asgard will compensate you in gold,” Hela promises because doesn’t quite know how else to express her thanks, and it’s only fair.

“Gold?” he repeats, a bit incredulous and amused, “That’s hardly necessary.”

“It would be unbefitting not to.” She’ll worry about how to figure out how much gold this paper money is worth later. Who makes money out of paper? It’s completely worthless, unless there’s something special about this paper that she is unaware of. Maybe it’s magically imbued.

The store they go to is nothing like any Hela’s seen on Asgard. And now that she’s looking over the different clothing options, neither are those.

“Is that intended as a skirt?” Hela queries, dubiously eyeing the very thin strip of fabric, “One may as well wear nothing.”

“I don’t understand modern clothing styles either,” Steve replies dryly, “It was nothing like this from what I remember.”

She keeps moving down the aisles, until an assistant comes over, asking if she’d like help in choosing something.

Except, she doesn’t appreciate any of their suggestions anymore.

“That is only suited for farmers,” Hela grumbles, eyeing the pants. She’s a fighter, so she generally has to wear pants, but not ones of a such a terrible shade of dirty, dingy blue. It’s appalling.

Steve just thanks the assistant for their efforts and assures them that they can handle it on their own. Which reminds her a little of Loki trying to smooth things over on an occasion when Hela was being too… expressive of her opinion.

She doesn’t understand why he’s trying so hard to help her. He doesn’t have any family left or even friends, though. That would be as lonely and empty as she’s feeling now, except he doesn’t have anything to go back to.

Hela throws a final distasteful glance at the row of clothes the assistant had suggested. “He should be flogged for insinuating I wear something like this.”

“That’s not something they actually do on Asgard, is it?” Steve asks. Hela can’t quite tell if he sounds more alarmed or amused.

“I was merely jesting,” she replies, amused.

Well… mostly.

She’s not telling Steve otherwise, though she doesn’t entirely understand why mortals find these things appalling. She’s used to it, though Hela still finds herself thinking of her brother again, of how his gentleness is always something he’s been mocked for.

Hela opts to keep on moving, and it takes a while, but eventually she finds some dresses that actually look wearable.

***

“Is this bewitched?” Hela asks warily, eyeing the very flat machine that Steve says is called a laptop. It reminds her of the books that are spelled to have moving pictures, but it seems to be more advanced than that. And it’s not magic. Or at least Hela doesn’t think it is.

“No,” he assures, amused, “They don’t have anything like this on Asgard?”

“No. Why is it so flat?”

“I don’t know. They didn’t have anything like this before I went into the ice, either.”

Hmm.

It’s nice to have someone who’s just as clueless about some of the strange things on Midgard as she is herself. Since she really has nothing else to do here, and it doesn’t really seem like Steve has much to do right now either, she settles for investigating this ‘laptop’ on her own for a while.

She pushes the keys over and over again for a while, just because it’s funny to feel how they move. And to see what they do.

“Who decided letters should be ordered with no order whatsoever?”

“I wondered that, too,” Steve replies, looking up from some kind of files he’s looking at, “It took a long time to get used to typing. The mouse can be hard to manage sometimes.”

“So I have realized. You know, Loki – my brother – would find this fascinating, I think. He uses magic extensively, unlike most on Asgard.”

“I’d like to see what magic is like,” he comments.

“Maybe if he comes to Midgard some time, he can show you.” Will he come? She can’t imagine that he won’t but for all she knows, Odin could have forbidden that, too. She is almost surprised he has not found a way to yet. It is unlike him to blindly obey Odin on something like this. Something else may have happened.

She turns her attention back to the laptop to try not to think about it, and along the way figures out with some help from Steve that ‘googling’ is a thing.

What do you do if your dad is a jerk? She types in, smirking, just to see what will happen.

“That’s the first thing you want to know?” Steve asks, a bit incredulous, looking at the screen over her shoulder.

“There is no greater inquiry I have ever had,” Hela says bluntly, “My father saw the fight in me. He nurtured it, exploited it, and then he calls me a monster.” She knows the mortals don’t look well on what she did either, and she can’t stop thinking now about how much Loki was right and she wasn’t thinking right, but Odin is the one who made her what she is.

Steve’s quiet for a long pause. “You don’t have to be what he made you into. Not anymore, at least.”

“I don’t know how to be anything else.” This isn’t a conversation she’s ever had with anyone before. Normally, she’d never admit something that… vulnerable, except to Loki or maybe Baldr, but… She trusts this mortal for reasons she’s hardly sure of herself. He’s kind. Or maybe it’s just that he’s mortal, and he couldn’t hurt her even if he tried.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” he admits, “But maybe while you’re away from him, that’s something you can figure out.”

That’s… a fair point. It’s probably not what Odin intended for when he threw her into the street but maybe that’s what she should be using this time away for. Assuming this time away is ever going to end. She doesn’t even know where to start.

“I don’t know what to do,” Hela admits, “This is the first time in my life I have no purpose, no family. I just… am.” She looks up at him almost searchingly. “What do you do?”

She can see something like longing flicker across his face. “The world has mostly the same problems now as it did when I went under,” he says finally. “I’ll just do what I can to help. If they need someone to look to, someone to fight for them, I’ll be there.”

“I want to help you,” she says, almost without thinking. But Midgard is still under Asgard’s protection and there’s got to be battles here that she can help fight and win. Without unintentionally starting a war that maybe could have been avoided.

His gaze snaps to hers, looking a bit surprised.

She huffs. “Steve, just because I don’t have my powers doesn’t mean I can’t fight. I’ve had centuries of experience. And I don’t know how long I’m going to be here, but I might as well be of use.”

“Do you mean centuries literally?”

“Asgardians live for thousands of years. I’ve been on Midgard many times before. Over a century ago.”

“That’s why you thought someone would know you,” he realizes.

“I may have forgotten how short mortals' lives are.”

“SHIELD asked me to work for them,” Steve tells her, “I’m sure there will be things you can help with, if that’s really what you want.”

“That lovely organization,” Hela drawls, “Well, I have no intention of signing up to do their chores, but I am willing to help on my own if there’s ever a way.”

She glances back at the screen, scrolling through the results of her search. “I have never heard such helpful advice before. Move out once I turn eighteen. I was eighteen years old when I was a baby. That would have been a sight. And I cannot simply move out. That is not how it works.”

She keeps scrolling. “Speak to a relationship counselor. What is that?”

“We never had those either, but it sounds like someone who gives advice on relationships.”

“Oh my, I’m sure Odin would be so thrilled that a mere mortal intends to instruct him on how to raise his children. That would go over seamlessly.”

“I’m not sure what to think of your dad,” he admits, looking up from his files again.

“Most aren’t.” She deletes her search and looks up her name instead. “I’m a fictional character?” She laughs. “Mortals are so foolish.” Something that she’s beginning to discover is more and more true, the more she scrolls through all the information she can find about herself and Asgard.

“Baldr is not Odin’s son! He is not my brother.”

“…Who is Thor? Odin has on such son. And if he did, he certainly would not be my brother. He sounds truly irritating. The god of thunder? What glory.”

“…I’m Loki’s daughter?” Hela laughs until she nearly cries. “Truly impressive really. And they even believe Fenris to be his son as well.” Which isn’t far from the truth since she and Loki did adopt and raise the wolf since he was a puppy, but that is a serious stretch.

“…Odin’s horse is now my brother?”

“…And I have another brother who is a serpent? The next time I find a serpent, I will take it home to Asgard at once for Loki to adopt. He may rather like it.”

“…Odin did not trade his eye for wisdom, though perhaps if he had, all the Realms would be a better spot now.” She feels unreasonably smug at feeling comfortable enough to say that aloud.

Even more so that Steve seems to find it mildly amusing.

He doesn’t act like Odin is a god the way nearly everyone on Asgard does and that helps. It makes her feel freer to talk.

“Whoever recorded this mythology was drunk out of their mind. Perhaps it was good none remembered me with all their inaccuracies.”

She keeps scrolling through the information for a while, before finally closing it, turning to where Steve has gone back to his files. She catches sight of the several pages on top. Pictures of people, and all the pages have the word deceased stamped on them.

People he once knew, most likely.

All of whom are dead.

She really can’t imagine that, but she shifts closer, trying to think of something to say. “They are your… family?” she guests finally.

“Friends,” he replies quietly, “I fought with them during the war.” He starts restacking the papers but then freezes at one of them.

James Buchanon Barnes, the name reads.

“Who’s that?” she blurts, though now may not be the time for such personal questions.

He doesn’t tear his eyes away from the picture. “Bucky. He was… We grew up together.” It’s easy to hear the grief in his voice.

“So, he was like your brother, then,” she realizes. And he’s gone too now. It instantly has her thinking about Loki again and how much she wants to see him.

Steve nods, but hastily puts the papers away.

The silence that hangs over them feels heavy now.

“How do you do it?” Hela asks, “Being alone this way?”

“There isn’t much other choice,” he points out, sighing, “But it’s not easy.”

“It wouldn’t be,” she agrees solemnly.

“His family was mine, too,” Steve goes on after a pause, staring down at the closed file but not looking like he’s really seeing it, “His sisters’ children are all still alive. But… they only know of me as something from history now.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that.  But it would be… hard is an understatement. “Not to worry,” Hela supplies finally, “If you ever get lost to time again, I will still be there. For the next… several thousand years.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he says, though she thinks he’s far too miserable to find it amusing right now.

Understandably.

Will she actually be around for the next several thousand years if she’s mostly mortal, though? How fast is she aging now? She doesn’t know but – Doesn’t want to think about it right now either. She can’t just leave Loki all alone.

“Could you tell me about this… war you fought in?” Hela queries, “I know little of Midgardian’s recent affairs.”

 And if she’s going to be of any use on the planet, it’s something she’ll need to be up to date on. It’s not like she has anything else to do right now anyway.

“SHIELD gave me this to get me caught up on what’s happened in more recent history,” he tells her, holding out one of the folders.

She takes it, flipping through the pages and starts reading. Some of what it’s talking about is going over her head entirely and just reading things has never interested her much before. That was always her brother’s thing.

But the more she reads, the more she can’t help thinking that Odin’s rule really isn’t near as good as he claims it to be. There is so much more war and death on Midgard. Far more senseless than the conflict between the Jotuns and Asgard. Maybe while she’s here, she can at least try to do some good.

Chapter Text

Frigga is the one who arrives to wake him. It’s an illusion, rather than his mother in person, seeing as she isn’t leaving Odin’s chambers. He wishes she would come in person. He also understands why she doesn’t. All she gives is a request to speak with him before flickering out.

She looks disturbed, which could be about anything, but Loki still braces himself for the worst. He can’t help it. Something just feels… off .

Odin looks the same when he gets to the bedchamber. Loki will never get over seeing him this way. It’s terrifying.

His mother is seated at Odin’s side, her face ashen. She’s not angry, but there is something troubling her. Loki doesn’t know what to say to her, either. Truthfully, everything feels wrong now, and the last time he was here, the time where he really needed her, Baldr came in and completely… ruined it.

He still has so many questions, but he can’t bring himself to say any of them. He doesn’t have the strength to have a conversation about this again.

“Someone has brought something to my attention,” his mother says, watching him. “I wished to ask you about it.”

The way she says it makes his gut churn uncomfortably. His hands are cold. He’s had enough lies. Enough – deception. Enough everything . He just wants to sleep. “What is it, mother?”

“The Jotuns that came into Asgard,” Frigga says, “Do you know how they may have entered?”

He shifts a little subconsciously. Loki has grown used to trying to hide, but he wasn’t prepared to talk to Frigga about it. She…

He can’t disappoint her. He can’t misuse the magic she taught him. She’ll…

“I know there are ways between worlds other than the bifrost,” Loki goes for finally, picking at his palm.

“Ways you’ve been exploring for a while.”

It was Baldr. Instantly, Loki knows that – somehow, he figured out, and he took it to Frigga. He’s trying to destabilize everything. If not for the circumstances, Loki would deal with it. Maybe. But he is king of Asgard now, and their kingdom, their home needs stability when on the brink of war. “Yes. Perhaps I unknowingly alerted them when I ventured too close to one of the paths.”

“Someone let them in,” Frigga muses, “And found a way to hide them from Heimdall’s sight. That this happened…”

“I will find the weakness,” Loki promises, “And seal it. Just as Father promised he would. Jotunheim will be dealt with.” It feels so lame and light.

Words are passing around. Or the war. Of… Everything is uncertain.

He knows Asgard’s leading Council doesn’t like him. They didn’t like Hela much, either, but they like Loki even less. He’s too, well, bright . He’s uncovered more than one scandal without even trying, which was dealt with, and it didn’t shed too much good light on him. Or some of the others weren’t very appreciative.

Loki has seen parts of Asgard that others either haven’t or have ignored. There have been many times when he was young that Loki went to the outskirts of Asgard, to the commoners, to help them instead of those higher up. Times when Hela was injured or otherwise occupied. Times that he couldn’t be with his sister. And he always tried to help them.

Asgard is rich, but like all worlds, it has people who are forgotten, those who serve the king and are ignored unless causing trouble. He’s seen them enough times to know what life among them is like, to see how much they have been forgotten.

Those are the people Loki is ruling Asgard for. Them and his sister – who has been forgotten, too, as though she were not a princess. Hela .

Loki doesn’t even know what to say. He knows what to do, and he hates that he’s scared to act on doing anything. He thought being king would be an easier job than it is. It’s not a weight that should rest on one person.

Lives . There are so many lives in his hands.

He has to keep Asgard safe. Jotunheim will be mounting an attack.

“I will speak to Laufey today. See if there is not an agreement we can reach.” That is not entirely his intention, but it – it won’t matter. He knows what he has to do.

Frigga nods to him, reaching to take Odin’s hand. He’s still unmoving. People usually at least move in their sleep, but he hasn’t shifted at all. It’s… scary. (Will he die? ) “Go,” she tells him.

Loki leaves, mind a whirling mess. He’s been approached by enough people to know the worries about the war is growing. It’s getting worse. People are afraid, and Loki can’t pinpoint anything, or name anyone, but it’s not too far to guess that there are some people doing it intentionally. Someone who… doesn’t want him as king.

***

He never got a name from his mother, but he didn’t need one. Part of being the God of Lies means knowing how to find them. It means seeing things, being able to read truths when no one else can, and Loki hates it. He sees them everywhere. Feels them everywhere. And he knows Asgard needs to be redone. Restarted. It needs… work.

And it stings .

Frigga is his mother, but Baldr told her something demeaning about Loki, and she’s all willing to jump all over it.

She had good reason. Loki tries to keep telling himself that. If he does, maybe the hurt will go away.

It doesn’t . It buries under his skin, gnawing and twisting and burning, never lifting. And it hurts . Frigga trusted Baldr’s word over Loki’s. Over her son – except Loki’s not her real son. He’s not even the same race . He’s something entirely different.

All this time he spent wondering why he didn’t belong and now he has the answer. But what he doesn’t understand still is what happened with his birth parents. Laufey left him to die. When he was a baby. Frigga and Odin weren’t the first parents who didn’t want him. Laufey apparently didn’t either. He wanted him dead.

He doesn’t see Laufey as a parent. Never could.

So, he doesn’t know why he can’t shake the deep seated anger and betrayal burning inside of him whenever he thinks about the Jotun. He left Loki to die.

And he hasn’t been wanted any more on Asgard.

What was he? A pity case?? Frigga has always had a soft spot for those.

Baldr started as one, too.

Loki doesn’t know what they are now.

But with how unstable and unsteady things are, Loki would not find it hard to believe his rule could be easily toppled. He knows there’s a high chance someone will… act, be it an Asgardian or Jotun.

He goes to Jotunheim first, to deal with the Frost Giants. There is no way to negotiate peace with them. They already told Odin that, but Loki has other ideas – whether it be a good idea or not. He’s going to try.

Baldr isn’t the only one twitchy about him.

Loki already knew that, but when he comes back from Jotunheim, Heimdall is watching him closely. He’s angry. Loki knows that, and for all that he goes for easy , he knows something is wrong.

“I turned my gaze upon you in Jotunheim, but could neither see you or hear you. You were shrouded from me, like the Frost Giants had entered this Realm,” Heimdall tells him. It’s insinuating enough. He’s been watching Loki for a while, evidently. Likely ever since Baldr came to Frigga about his concerns.

“Perhaps your senses have weakened after your many years of service,” Loki replies evenly. It’s not untrue. Heimdall believes his power means he can see everything, unwilling to admit that there are important facts everyone misses.

“Or perhaps someone has found a way to hide, that which he does not wish me to see.”

“You have great power, Heimdall,” Loki comments. “Did Odin ever fear you?”

There’s a brief pause. “No.”

“And why is that?”

“Because he is my King. And I'm sworn to obey him.”

“He was your King,” Loki amends. “And you are sworn to obey me now. Yes?”

Heimdall’s pause is long, and Loki knows what it means. He does need to fear Heimdall, because the Gatekeeper bears no loyalty to him, either. No matter how Loki was his prince and is now his king. “Yes.”

“Then you'll open the Bifrost to no one, until I tell you otherwise.”

To make this work, Loki will need to get Baldr off of Asgard, and he knows how to do it, but he must ensure everything else is at play first. Time’s running short.

Hela’s is, too.

***

Loki goes to the Vault. He knows he will have to frame this as Laufey’s work, and he needs to keep the Casket with him. It belongs to him, rightfully, anyway, and after the Jotuns infiltrated the vault once, he does not want to risk them doing it again. And truthfully, he needs something unexpected if someone were to betray him.

He’s waiting for it.

Counting.

Wondering who will be first.

Heimdall, or Baldr? Or is it someone else?

But when Loki enters the vault, as all other times, his eyes are drawn away from the items of importance and towards the one stand to the side, sorely out of place. Loki does not know what it is. a machine, that he remembers from his dreams. He had asked Odin about it when he and Hela were first here, but he said it was a lesson for another time. He never answered, and Loki was never sure how to broach the topic.

If not for how frequently he has dreamed of it after seeing it the first time, Loki would not have seen reason to inquire about it.

And past that is a silver helmet. It’s not a normal Asgardian helmet. Not exactly – it’s silver, and instead of horns, it has… wings . Loki called it the feather-helmet years ago, and he never understands why seeing it clenches his heart with such a sharp amount of pain. He should know it. He thinks he should, and he doesn’t know why something as stupid as a helmet would strike him with such a sharp form of déjà vu.

Loki approaches it slowly, Casket temporarily forgotten.

He pokes it carefully, wary of a magic trap, because why else would there be a helmet in the Vault? But there is nothing. No spelling, no magic. Just a silver helmet.

Loki lifts it slowly, turning it over in his hands. What is it? There is nothing special about this helmet. It is not meant as a magic channel, either. Why did Odin lock it in the Vault? Why is it here ? He wishes he could ask, but his father could not answer. Maybe – later. If he has that chance.

He knows it . He’s seen this a thousand times before, but he hasn’t . It looks ridiculous . Loki’s mind keeps looping back to that. He very, very badly wants to find its owner and ask him what in the Norns he thought he was doing . Why would you ever put feathers on a helmet ?

It hurts that he can’t, and that doesn’t make sense.

“I know you.” Loki stares down at the helmet. He should leave, but there is something… else being hidden from him. “So, who are you?”

He can see a flicker in his mind, the one in his dreams – he knows this helmet. He knows it from his dreams. They’re always of the same person. Someone who’s face he can never vividly picture.

Blonde. He had blond hair. Like Baldr. He looked – similar, Loki thinks, and jarringly, he thinks he understands why that makes him want to stab the boy so badly. Because he’s not – this. Whoever this is meant to be to him. But everyone acts like he is.

He thinks of the many times he’s pulled out of training, school, just – things. Important things, heart aching with a ceaseless longing for someone he’s never met in his life. He always hated himself for it, because he had Hela , and Loki should never want anyone else. And those were never feelings she shared.

Hela was always happy. She was always full.

Loki wasn’t , and he never knew why.

After the past couple of days, Loki was starting to think it was maybe because he’s Jotun. Now that he sees this helmet again, he doesn’t know. But there was supposed to be someone here.

Odin cared about him, too. He knows.

Loki doesn’t know if Frigga does, and he’s too afraid to ask.

But his family’s been apart for long enough. Far too long.

He needs to bring Hela home.

***

He can bring Laufey here as soon as Baldr is gone. If he’s here, he’ll interfere with everything. Loki doesn’t need that.

Loki goes to find them both himself. It’s an official order, but he doesn’t want to rub his status in their faces, either. Telling them to just come to him when they’re – allegedly – his friends – feels wrong.

They’re in the training room, Baldr speaking to a group of a few gathered people. Loki can’t hear what they’re saying, but he makes out a few words that sound more as though they’re speaking on preparing for war. Which are not Loki’s orders – he gave strict orders not to act, least it be seen further as an opposition or threat. He has it handled. There is no concern to fight. He’s not bringing war to Asgard. For so long as he’s here, he’s determined to make sure it never comes. These are his people. He won’t let them die.

“Loki?” Brunnhilde asks when she sees him, distracted, twitching. She realizes the slip up a moment later but smooths right over it. Loki doesn’t point it out, either. She is his friend, and even if they fight sometimes, she’s still his friend, and he cares about her.

“Baldr,” Loki calls sharply, and the Asgardian twitches, turning sharply to face him. The others nearby melt away when they see him, though Loki feels the looks. The glares.

He tries to ignore it.

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

“I am sending you both to Midgard to find Hela. Remain with her until I have resolved the tensions with Jotunheim.”

“You would send the best warriors off Asgard in preparation for war?” Baldr asks.

He should have had this discussion elsewhere. Loki sees the ripple of looks and whispers – the people agree with Baldr. There is no trust for Loki. As though he needs their help or to rely on them. He never has. The only person he has ever relied upon is his sister, and he doesn’t have her anymore, either.

It still hurts. He wishes it would stop .

“You may take Fenris with you,” Loki adds in answer, turning away, cape swirling.

He knows they’re angry, and he can’t let the very obvious chance at pranking them a bit slide. He knows what he’s doing. And if they actually obey him, everything will go well and Asgard will be safe. He understands, now, that being king means being faced with difficult choices. Impossible ones. And he honestly regrets not taking that more seriously earlier.

***

Loki goes to get Fenris from the stables himself. Mostly, because he needs to talk to Brunnhilde. He has to speak with her alone, and there wasn’t time earlier. He enters the stable where she’s grooming her Pegasus before taking it out. Most of the Valkyrie are close with their horses. Loki respects that about them. Many Asgardians aren’t that close with their mounts, but it’s that bond which helps a lot during battle.

“Brunnhilde,” Loki requests, shifting. Gungnir feels wrong in his hands still. It takes getting used to. Time he doesn’t have. He needs to deal with Laufey, and soon . “There is one more thing I must ask of you.”

“Yes?”

“Keep Baldr on Midgard. He is stirring unrest among the people. I believe there is a chance he is…”

“What do you think of him as doing?” Brunnhilde asks.

Trying to usurp the throne, honestly. But Loki has no evidence with which to tell her so. “Keep an eye on him,” he requests, “Something is amiss.”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” Brunnhilde shrugs, returning to her pegasus.

Loki nods his thanks to her and heads out in search of Fenris, opening the door to where he stays. The wolf is usually lazy, lounging in his pen and licking his paws, or asleep to the point where he has to be poked awake. He is absolutely feral in battle, and a force to be reckoned with. Whatever Hela doesn’t manage to take down on time, Loki or Fenris does.

He rests a lot and makes up for it well when they have to fight or even go for ride races. But Fenris is faster than any horse, except maybe some of the Pegasi, because they can fly. Hence why Loki rides him, too.

Today, though, opening the door means getting a loud bark and faceful of tongue.

He does not mean to yelp as loudly as he does. “Off, boy,” he protests, flailing to find the wolf’s nose. Fenris is up for overly aggressive playtime, today, then. Hela will be happy to see him. He’s pretty sure someone is laughing at him, not that Loki can even blame them for that.

“I’m sending you to Midgard to Hela,” Loki tells him. Fenris is a wolf, but he can understand more than most animals. He’s extra intelligent. Loki and Hela found him when he was little. He’s part of some species which was wiped out in a war, and they brought him home. He was the last that they found, and they’re… Asgardian wolves, but much friendlier.

“You’re going to Midgard. No fighting, just Hela.”

Fenris pulls back, lowering his head, grinning playfully. Loki reaches up, rubbing his neck. The wolf likes being petted, too, and Loki is usually more than happy to oblige, but right now, they’re running tight on time.

“Alright. Good. Go with Brunnhilde and Baldr. Hela will take care of you, and don’t eat anyone .”

Fenris barks at him, nosing his head on Loki’s chest in request for more pets.

…

He is impossible to deny.

Chapter Text

Hela’s been lying here on the couch for hours now, and it’s the middle of the night, but she hasn’t really slept at all. Yes, she’s exhausted, but she can’t stop thinking about so many things. Her mind ends up drifting back to what Steve had told her earlier. She’s always thought of all the Jotuns as monsters – everyone on Asgard does – but as much as most of her screams in protest, she has to admit he has a point.

The things that the Frost Giants are considered monsters for did happen thousands of years ago, and things can change. Perhaps they did not all want war. Not that it changes how they broke a peace treaty that had been implemented from the time she was a baby. They can’t expect things to go over smoothly. 

Maybe… Loki really was right, and now she just feels awful for ignoring him. He’d warned her, and she’d listened to Baldr instead. She knows Baldr was just trying to help, but she should have known who to listen. Even if it’s too late for regrets now.

Didn’t they have families? A dark, rebellious part of her mind whispers. Don’t the Jotuns have feelings? At least for each other? She doesn’t know how many of them died there, but it was a lot. She never counted. And that, most of it anyway, is her fault. There’s nothing she can do about it. Not anymore. She’ll just have to live with it. And how many other lives has she taken unnecessarily? She can’t change the past.

Was this what Odin wanted her to realize when he banished her? It hardly makes sense considering that he’s not much better. Why couldn’t he have just told her, instead of stripping away part of her very soul and leaving her to die on a far away realm? She does her best not to think that the moment Baldr and Brunnhilde walked out of the Observatory together, both of them injured from the fight. That could be the last time she ever sees him. She never even had time to say a proper goodbye to her brother.

The rest of the night passes with more restless rolling around, and she can hear Steve is having the same problem. If it were Loki, she’d go in there, but she barely knows Steve. That would be way, way too awkward, so she just waits outside until he finally gives up sleeping and rejoins her in the living room. It’s too early to be up, but she doesn’t really want to go back to sleep and she doubts Steve does either or he wouldn’t be out here.

It’s too early to be up, but neither of them mention anything to the other about it. She can understand he’s still dealing with losing everyone he used to know, and so is she. There’s nothing to say.

It’s still early in the morning when it happens. A sudden bright light catches her eye. Her first thought is no, no, that’s impossible. But she’d recognize the light anywhere and is sprinting to the window before she registers standing. The Bifrost touches down on the ground a distance away from the apartment before promptly disappearing. Someone just came, and she can only guess they’re here for her. To visit, perhaps?

“What was that?” Steve asks, instantly on his feet.

“It’s the Bifrost,” Hela answers breathlessly. “Someone from Asgard is coming. I must go meet them.” Assuming whoever it is has come for her, anyway. At the very least, she needs answers as to how her realm is fairing. It could be Loki or it could be her friends or – Just someone and she needs to go see who it is. Her heart is pounding with a sudden hope and excitement.

“I’ll come,” Steve decides as she moves for the door.

She hurries outside of the apartment, spotting the visitors the same time they spot her.

It’s Baldr and Brunnhilde, and Fenris who’s standing a short ways behind them.

Seeing them again reminds her so jarringly of home that it’s gutting. It’s also a sharp reminder of how she can’t feel anything. She would have been able to sense instantly that it was the three of them coming before, but now all she still feels is a vacant emptiness.

But most of all, she’s so happy to see them. Why isn’t Loki here, though? She would have expected him to be the first, to already be fussing and hovering over her and smothering her in a hug until she couldn’t even breathe. It’s ridiculous how much it stings that he’s not here even when she doesn’t even know why he’s not.

“Friends,” Hela greets, genuinely smiling for perhaps the first time since she came here.

“Hela,” Brunnhilde greets, visibly brightening.

“I almost didn’t believe it would be so easy to find you,” Baldr says, approaching her.

She steps closer, briefly hugging him. “I am glad to see you. But why have you come?”

“We came to take you home,” he replies.

“Home?” Hela repeats, confused, “But I can’t go back. Odin would not allow it.”

“The Allfather has fallen into Odinsleep,” Brunnhilde speaks up, “Loki rules in his stead. He sent us to retrieve you.”

Her eyes widen. “Loki’s king ?” Of all the news she expected, that certainly was not it. Well… that does explain why he’s not here. She has no idea what kind of chaos Asgard is presently in and even if it weren’t, being the ruler is a lot of work.

She can’t help how she still wishes that he’d be here, though. She’s been missing him obsessively all along, and he’s got to have missed her just as deeply.

“He is,” Baldr agrees, a bit stiffly. “But Asgard is still on the brink of war. We need you to return.”

“How is he?” she asks anxiously.

“I know he trained along with you, but I fear he is not taking the aggressive action needed – ” Baldr’s cut off at Fenris’ low growl.

Her gaze snaps to him. She was going to go greet him, but then the other two had started talking. She didn’t really understand why the wolf was hanging back so far. She expected him to be all over her instantly, slobbering her until she could hardly breathe. Not having Loki to clean up the mess all over her clothes would be gross. But now that she’s looking at him, something in his eyes looks positively feral . The way he looks at a threat and he’s looking right at… her?

The other two turn around slowly.

Fenris snarls, and then he’s bounding down the street towards them, jaws snapping.

“Fenris?” Hela calls, confused, “What’s wrong?”

The wolf just growls, leaping at her. She rolls out of the way purely on instinct, and the wolf whips around, coming at her again.

This is Fenris, the wolf she’s raised since a puppy, who’s basically one of her best friends as much as an animal ever could be, and he’s trying to eat her. What –

“This is your pet wolf?” Steve calls.

“Something’s wrong with him!” Hela yells back breathlessly as she rolls out of his way barely in time to avoid getting bitten again. “I don’t know what!” But that she’s not going to hurt him goes without saying. She doesn’t need to know what it is – And if she had her powers, she’d actually be able to sense it.

Baldr whips out his fire sword, flames burning fiercely around it and waves the thing in Fenris’ face. The wolf backs off a few steps, growling lowly, but turns its head away from the fire.

“What’s wrong with him?” Hela demands, looking desperately to the other two. Brunnhilde doesn’t use magic at all, so she probably has no idea, but Baldr does at least have it. Who she could really use right now, though, is Loki.

“I don’t understand it,” Baldr says, face tensed with concentration as he presumably prods at the thing with his magic. “It feels like he’s been spelled .”

Fenris snarls, backing away from the fire and circling around, trying to come at them again. Brunnhilde draws her spear flinging at him, but still far enough way to miss. At least it distracts the wolf away from Hela momentarily.

“By who?” she demands.

“It feels like… Loki’s magic?”

Wha –

“That’s impossible!”

“It doesn’t make sense to me, either – ” Baldr doesn’t even have the chance to finish speaking before Fenris is flying at them again. And it’s near impossible to fight him off when she doesn’t want to hurt him and doesn’t have any weapons. 

Steve jumps the wolf with no weapons whatsoever and seems to be attempting to have a wrestling match with it. One that only ends with him nearly getting his head bitten clean off before getting batted dozens of feet away.

And then Fenris turns to come at her again. “Fenris,” she calls breathlessly, but the wolf doesn’t even respond to his name . He always responds to his name. “Can you do anything?” she yells, taking off as the wolf gives chase.

“I can try to shatter the spell if you keep him distracted,” Baldr calls back.

“I have abundant other options!” she yells back. It’s her who Fenris wants to eat. What can she do other than keep him distracted?

A paw slams into her, flinging her to the ground. Teeth flash in front of her vision and she frantically tries to roll out of the way. He’s about to eat her. She’s going to die here by Fenris and it’s not – What happened – How could he – What – 

There’s a blinding flash of light above them suddenly and then the Bifrost is dropping down right at the original landing sight. When the light fades, it’s to reveal the Destroyer.

And that means –

If Loki’s king, then he sent the Destroyer to help her. Which means there’s no way Baldr could be right about what he was sensing. Right?

There’s a faint glow of light around Fenris, and then the wolf suddenly pauses, taking a few steps back, staring at Hela.

“What’s that?” Steve asks, coming to stand beside her as he eyes the Destroyer warily.

It’s well over ten feet, made entirely of the same kind of metal most of their weapons are forged out of. In the center of its head is one eye shaped opening, glowing purple.

It’s fueled by the Power Stone, and considering that it’s the power of one sixth of the universe, it’s a nearly invincible foe. The original Destroyer was destroyed over a thousand years ago and was rebuilt with the Stone to make it indestructible. It was never something she asked for the details about. It was another history lesson which was, well, important, but Hela never found it too interesting.

Even without her magic, Hela can feel a ripple of energy from the Stone. It’s too powerful for anyone not to, she expects.

How is the Destroyer planning to aid them in stopping Fenris without killing him? Loki wouldn’t hurt their puppy. Something’s wrong. This doesn’t –

“It’s on our side,” Hela assures Steve, before stepping closer to the Destroyer, “You’re a bit late.”

The Destroyer shifts and then between its joints she can see the way it’s glowing purple. Its eye is glowing brighter and brighter. It’s powering up and she doesn’t know what it’s about to –

A blast of purple energy rips through the ground right in front of Fenris, the force of it enough to send him flying. It’s probably not near enough to hurt him, but the way he goes flying, landing limply on his side makes her heart skip a beat, and she runs for him. Even if she’s wary of how he could still try eating her. “Fenris?”

The wolf barks weakly as it slowly rolls back to its feet. Its eyes look wild and frantic and it stumbles toward her, licking her face. It feels like it’s intended as a frantic apology. She reaches up, patting his nose. “It’s alright. We’ll figure out what happened.”

Baldr’s got to be mistaken. Hela wishes she could sense herself what was going on but she can’t with her powers bound.

“Hela!” Brunnhilde yells in warning and she whips around.

The Destroyer is about to fire again. With her magic, she would have sensed it coming already but she can’t duck fast enough and it rips through the ground around her, flinging her and Fenris back again.

She smacks into a nearby car, hitting the ground with a muffled groan. She can hear people screaming suddenly. People running for cover. Their surroundings are smoking. Her head is also spinning. How bad was that blast? What’s happening –

Steve appears at her side a moment later, giving her a hand to pull her to feet. “I thought you said it wasn’t a threat?”

“That’s what I thought, too!” She looks around wildly. She has no idea what’s happening anymore. This doesn’t make sense. What does Loki think he’s doing? Because this is not helpful. Fenris is on the ground and the Destroyer is moving closer. She goes for the nearest stick – a stupid weapon but still – and flings it at the Destroyer. It clanks harmlessly off the metal, falling to the ground.

“Leave!” she yells at it, “You’re helping nothing.” She has no idea exactly how much of a mind of its own this has versus being controlled by Asgard’s king, but this doesn’t –

It might actually make sense to her if it was Odin doing this. But Loki? That’s –

The Destroyer’s turning to face her when she sees Baldr running up from behind it. He flips onto its back, driving his flaming sword between its joints. The thing starts to power down, but then she sees as it starts shifting, turning itself around so its head is facing at Baldr instead.

He jumps off it right as it fires again. The blast misses him and it rips right through the wall of a nearby apartment building.

The buildings are burning. It wouldn’t have phased her much once, but this destruction is senseless. Needless. It’s hurting people who did nothing. They are neither involved in this conflict, nor have the means of fighting in it.

“Steve,” Hela calls, “Maybe you can clear the people out. And get that shield. Or both.” It’s maybe the only thing that could stand up against these blasts. She doesn’t know.

He nods, taking off.

Baldr appears at Hela’s side a moment later, as the Destroyer starts powering up again.

“I’m beginning to question if it really came to stop Fenris,” he says breathlessly, “Or if it came for the same reason as… whatever was done to him.”

No, no.

She knows what he’s saying and that’s not – “No,” Hela throws back sharply, “Loki would never – ”

“Hela, he controls the Destroyer.”

She knows that and it doesn’t make any sense. He wouldn’t do this. He never would, but she knows how this works. She knows Odin always controlled the thing and –

“Maybe it got out of control,” she protests desperately, heart pounding. The disbelief and hurt even if she refuses to accept it is enough to take her breath away on its own. Enough to feel like the Destroyer already hit her with a blast through the heart. Loki would never try to hurt either of them, and magical spells can be tricky.

“One thing your brother never has been is incompetent when it comes to magic.” She wants to argue with that, but how can she? “And why else did Fenris feel of his magic?”

She doesn’t know. She never felt it, but Baldr wouldn’t lie to her. He wouldn’t –

Her cousin draws his sword again, stepping forward and spinning it, throwing a flaming blast into the Destroyer’s face. Not that it’s near enough to damage the metal.

All Hela can do is stare, her mind screaming in denial. But there’s no time for this. It’s not – Figure out what’s wrong later or they’re all going to die here.

“Brunnhilde?” she asks desperately, throwing a glance at her other friend when she appears at her side, sword drawn.

“I don’t understand,” Brunnhilde replies, shaking her head, “All I know is that… when Loki sent me to Midgard, he told me to stall returning – ” The rest of her words are drowned out by another blast of energy that flings Baldr backwards.

Fenris is on his feet again and he charges the Destroyer. Which is fully intent on blasting him again. Human or no, Hela runs forward, yanking Brunnhilde’s sword out of the ground where it was stuck and throws it at the Destroyer’s eye. She tries to aim for damage even if she has no idea if it would ever be enough.

There’s a violent crackle of purple energy and it turns away from Fenris, in time to direct the blast right at her.

She has no idea if it’s the energy or something else but she’s hitting something and she thinks she might’ve maybe blacked out somewhere along the way. All she knows is that she’s on her back and she can feel blood on her face and –

Is she dying?

This soon?

Probably easier than living out the next mere decades here knowing its all the time she’ll ever have but –

She’ll never get to see her brother again. Never get to demand to know what he’s doing.

Never get to make any of the mess she got Asgard into right. She’s caused so much destruction, the way the Destroyer has. So much – She’ll never get the chance to change any of that either. And everyone here, her friends and all the bystanders, are going to die here because of the Destroyer, because there’s nothing she can do to stop it.

Loki, what are you doing ?

Something is awakening inside of her. Shifting. Changing. Brightening. The world feels bright in a way that’s – 

Her magic.

She reaches for it instinctively, and it answers to her call easily. She felt like she was dying moments ago. Now, she just has a massive headache but really, she’s had much worse. She can feel how many hundreds of people live right in this area. Feel the way lives are fading out of existence right now. Dying for no reason.

She can feel the way her friends are in serious danger, as is Fenris.

Hela opens her eyes, rising to her feet far more steadily than she has since she first got blasted. She’s injured, but it’s nothing. She can already feel it healing.

Fenris is attempting to maul the Destroyer, and he’s going to be hurt.

She reaches outwards and feels it when her crown answers her call. There’s a blurred flash of it in the sky before it’s landing on her head. She summons a spear, hurling it at the Destroyer’s back, hard enough to get between the joints. It starts to turn and she doesn’t wait, throwing spear after spear at it. It tries to blast her again, but she’s already dodging out of the way.

It tries to move toward her, but when it’s been stabbed with well over a dozen spears, the metal groans dangerously.

She throws a few more spears at it as she advances, then jumps for its face, stabbing a spear at its eye. It actually goes in when she uses the right amount of force and something purple sparks wildly. It’s trying to power up again, but she must’ve damaged whatever mechanism fires outwards so the blast tears through the inside of it when it fires again.

Pieces of the Destroyer rip free, scattering across the ground and it falls, landing on its back, the glowing purple fading.

It’s still repairable, but it’s down. They need to move while they can.

Baldr and Brunnhilde run up to her moments later.

“We must return to Asgard,” Hela says. She doesn’t want to think about what happened but she needs answers. Now.

“Then let’s go,” Baldr says.

“Just – There is one thing I must deal with first.” She turns, taking off down the street in search of Steve. But she doesn’t have to go far. He’s already coming to find her, holding his shield. 

“You took it down?” he asks.

She nods. “And I must return to Asgard to see what caused this.”

“I thought you couldn’t go back,” Steve says. She thinks he’s maybe slightly disappointed even if also happy for her.

“Things are changing. But… thank you for your aid.” And your friendship, she wants to say, but that’s way, way too sappy for Hela’s taste.

He nods, smiling faintly.

“I will be back,” she promises and she means it. She hardly knew him but there’s still things they understand about each other no one else can, even if Hela’s back to herself now.

“Good luck,” he replies, holding out a hand.

She blinks in confusion for a moment before remembering that this is a weird Midgardian custom. She takes it a bit awkwardly, lingering another moment before she turns and runs back to where the others are waiting.

Fenris trots up, nuzzling against her, slobbering her hair and face. She doesn’t even have the heart to be annoyed fight now. She’s just glad that he’s alive, and that he’s not trying to eat her anymore. Fenris in his normal form would rather starve than try to hurt one of them. He’s loyal.

He feels like Baldr’s magic, but he’s the one who broke the spell. There’s no way for her to know what it was like before.

But it’s time for her to get answers now.

She thought returning to Asgard, reuniting with her brother, would be happy, but now she’s just dreading whatever’s coming.

Chapter Text

He is exhausted. This is nerve wracking , truthfully. It’s treasonous, and he needs to play his part to perfection.

He feels nothing when he hits Laufey with a blast of magic from Gungnir. “ Your death came by the son of Odin ,” feels right in his mouth, but he still feels nothing.

Laufey’s son.

He’s Laufey’s son.

This is his birth father, but Loki’s not his son . He’s – he’s Asgardian, even if not by birth, and he has to do this he has to .

Frigga picks herself from the floor where Laufey threw her. It fills him with a surge of rage and disgust. She might be a fighter, but that’s his mother , and Laufey – “Loki, you saved him,” she breathes, drawing him into a hug.

“I swear to you, Mother, that they will pay for what they have done today,” Loki promises. And he means it .

The door is practically batted open, and Loki whirls around, genuinely expecting another intruder, but instead, in the doorway, stands Hela , her spider-crown atop her head, and Baldr. They’re panting, like they’ve run a long ways, but they both look angry.

And for a moment, he stops breathing.

He told Brunnhilde to keep Baldr distracted. To keep him away so he didn’t ruin this. It was supposed to be Loki’s moment. The time where he finally has a chance to prove himself. He gave Heimdall strict orders, again, not to reactivate the Bifrost after sending them to Midgard. They were meant to stay there for a time, until Asgard was safe for Hela’s return.

“ Loki!” He doesn’t know, honestly, if Hela sounds more hurt or furious, and the knowledge confuses and terrifies him all at once.

“Hela!” Frigga breaks away from him and runs to embrace her daughter. “I knew you’d return to us.”

Baldr’s eyes are narrowed angrily on Loki. His hand is on his sword hilt. They’ve never come close to physical violence with each other, definitely not in public . Not in Hela or Frigga’s presences, so Loki doesn’t understand what’s happening, but he wants to run.

To get out . To get far, far away .

Something about Hela and Baldr, standing side-by-side, looks wrong . Perhaps it’s the room’s lighting, or the fact that it has been days since he saw his twin sister, but he could swear that Baldr is not radiating the dim, white glow he always does. But now – it looks almost as though Hela is glowing. Almost . It’s not a glow, but somehow, in the dimness, she stands out brighter against the surroundings, while Baldr is… darker .

He never has time to think about it.

“If you were attempting to aid in the return of my powers, I must say, I am rather unimpressed with your methods.” Hela shifts away from Frigga. She’s braced, ready for battle.

Loki’s eyes jump between him and Baldr, confused. His heart is racing and his chest hurts and he wishes it would stop . “What?”

Baldr shakes his head disgustedly. “You aren’t going to admit it, are you?”

Loki’s hands tighten on Gungnir. His hand aches from the grip. He needs to go. He needs –“Admit what ?”

“Why would you send the Destroyer?” Hela. It’s too blunt of a question, too lacking quips or teasing. She’s angry .

He didn’t know what was happening. He never told Hela that he spelled her, either. It was, he recalls with a painful jolt, something he and Baldr had joked about once. When Hela had rushed off into battle, and it took them a long while to track her down, well on the other side of the planet, Loki had worried. It’s – strange. To remember that they have had conversations other than pure arguments. Brunnhilde was there, too, as was another member of the Valkyrie.

Loki put a spell on her, and it trips whenever she’s in danger, to alert him if he’s not there. He felt that on Midgard. He sent the Destroyer in to keep her safe , and he was with Laufey when it happened – keeping the Jotuns cloaked from Heimdall’s sight and sneaking them through the palace was hard. Not at the throne. He couldn’t see what was happening. He doesn’t know all the magical workings of being king.

He never had time to prepare.

“You were under threat.”

“By you ,” Baldr accuses darkly.

“Ah, so, you sent the Destroyer to Midgard to kill Fenris ?” Hela is angry. It’s a sort of cold, biting fury, and Loki knows being on the receiving end is always hard. Hela doesn’t hit. It’d be easier if she did.

Fenris ? No. No – that can’t be right. “ Fenris attacked you?”

“Yes, it appears he was spelled,” Hela answers angrily, “Though I can’t imagine why my dear brother would do such a thing.”

Is he okay? Loki wants to ask, the question burning in his throat, but he can’t get it out. They wouldn’t believe him, anyway, and he feels sick and dizzy and no no no this isn’t right something’s wrong. Something is so so wrong – “I promise you, sister, I will find whoever did this,” he starts saying.

“Enough,” Baldr snarls, eyes flashing with rage, ripping Elderstahl from its sheath. “We know it was you.”

He’s furious, and Loki reacts more on years and years of panicked instinct than intended reality when he whips Gungnir upright. The magic blasts him through the wall, the flames of Elderstahl tracing a burning hole through the roof.

He just –

Baldr just tried to kill him .

At this point, Loki isn’t even surprised, and he doesn’t know if he wants to laugh or cry more.

Hela’s head whips to the side, and she flicks her wrists, black spears snapping into her hands before she dives at Loki with a yell of rage. Frigga is saying something. He thinks. Yelling at them to stop, maybe. Neither of them listens. They’ve never been good at that.

The first spear is batted aside by Gungnir, onto the floor, and the second clangs on metal.

Loki stumbles back, swinging around, not really meaning to hit her, but he’s terrified and angry and nothing makes sense except that Hela is trying to stab him and he tries to maneuver the blade’s end away, so it doesn’t hit him someplace lethal. She summons another spear, crossing them to shove Gungnir away from her.

The first narrowly misses his hip and Loki swings Gungnir around, smacking her weapons and shoving her back a few steps.

And from there, he’s just angry . Because Baldr said it was him and Hela believed him , just like Frigga and everyone else he’s ever met. It’s always Baldr. Somehow. Every piece of Loki’s life is ruined by him, and now he and Hela are falling apart and she just tried to stab him and Loki is –

Is fighting for his life against the one person he never questioned loving him.

One of her spears clatters to the floor and Loki lifts his hand, sending a blast of seidr at her chest. He’s not going to hurt her. Even if Hela tries to kill him, he won’t hurt his sister. Hela’s flung across the room, rolling over and hitting the wall ungracefully. Loki doesn’t stay to finish watching her fall. He has to deal with Jotunheim, first. Then he can deal with whichever idiot sorcerer is attempting to impersonate him.

( Something isn’t right – )

***

Heimdall accuses him of treason and doesn’t let him pass. Loki isn’t even surprised at the betrayal this time, and he brought the Casket for a reason . He admittedly feels very little remorse for freezing the Gatekeeper in a solid block of ice. It is not as though he weren’t trying to behead Loki as he was doing so.

He doesn’t know if that’s the part of him speaking from years and years of hurt and betrayal or an awful, dark part of him that finds it genuinely amusing to freeze someone who always stands dead still.

He’s pretty sure it’s the first.

Gungnir powers up the bifrost, and Loki pulls it out, freezing the mechanism in its place. It’s aimed at Jotunheim, and it will build until the planet is ripped apart before he stops it. because he’s the only one who can stop it, except that Baldr has a fire sword, and he can melt the ice.

Which just means he needs to keep the only two weapons able to open the bifrost safely away from either him or Hela.

He doesn’t know what happened to Fenris. He hasn’t seen or heard of him, and he’s afraid to ask.

He’s terrified to ask.

If Loki hurt him, Fenris , the pup they took in and raised and fed and cared for him – he doesn’t know what that would make him. Monster always a monster always breaking always ruining there is never one who loves him. Fen…

Did Loki kill him?

He looks back to where Hela and Baldr arrive. Baldr’s horse is here, but he doesn’t see Fenris . They’re talking.

 “Get Heimdall to the healers,” he hears Hela saying, “I’ll deal with my brother myself.”

“But –”

“ Go .” Hela steps into the bifrost, spears in hands, looking around. “Oh,” she says, “Redecorating, I see.”

Loki’s hands clench sharply. “The bifrost will build until it rips Jotunheim apart.”

Hela shakes her head. Her crown’s still up. She’s on the defensive, ready to fight. And there is no stopping her. “Why?”

It’s the sheer logicalness of the question that jars him. Loki doesn’t understand it. “To prove to Father that I am a worthy son,” he answers instead. His voice is sharp, maybe a bit too curt. He doesn’t understand and Odin will be angry at him if he wakes now . Fenris – is Fenris okay ? “When he wakes, I will have saved his life, and I will have destroyed that race of monsters.” And I will have proved myself one of you , he wants to scream. Because you are my sister and I love you why is this happening –

“Don’t you think you’ve done enough attempted killings for the day?”

His chest aches, hot and burning. Attempted . Was someone else hurt? Or is Fenris alright? He wants to scream a raw and gutted it wasn’t me I don’t know what happened but it would sound like a lie and it feels like a lie because it should be a lie but it’s not because someone – somehow – is trying to frame him and it doesn’t make sense . None of it makes sense. He wants to cry and he doesn’t –

“Loki, turn it off.”

He freezes, stilling, staring . “What?” It comes out a whisper, raw and hurt.

“Turn it off ,” she repeats, louder, “You can’t do this.”

“Why not?” Loki asks. He wants to scream or throw something . Throwing something sounds nice. He envies Hela’s spears, but he’s not going to throw his daggers at her. “And since when have you ever passed on a chance to end lives? You could have killed them all with your bare hands.”

Hela smiles, though it looks brittle. Bitter. “It’s as Father said. No god should have dominion over death who has so little appreciation for life.”

The bitterness is echoed in Loki, too. He’s felt it before. There have been times, so many times, when Loki tried to resolve a situation through talking . He hated fighting when he was little. He’s seen what it can do. What rage and vengeance can do. He tried so hard to stop it.

He tried to stop her , but Hela would let nothing hold her back.

Not even him .

Not times they argued, no time did Loki try to keep her from killing or hurting did she ever listen , and suddenly, she comes back from Midgard, comes back to stop him from the only chance Loki has to prove himself.

Hela, his twin sister, the other half he was born to do everything beside.

Who is also none of those things .

He’s shaking. His hands are shaking. It’s cold. Everything’s cold. He hates cold . He used to love it. He hates it now. Hates that he did. Hates what it stands for. Whatareyouwhatareyoumonstermonstermonster – “What happened on Earth that made you so soft ?”

Hela flicks one of her spears in her hands. She swings out, throwing it towards the ice. She’s going to break it.

Loki blasts the spear to pieces with Gungnir. It hits the floor in sparking, metal bits. Why is she stopping him? It doesn’t make sense and he wants to cry – again – and he’s so, so angry . “You won’t stop me.”

“I’m starting to think you’re as possessed as Fenris.”

Loki swings Gungnir at her with a cry of raw, gutted, fury . Days of hurt and wondering, years of being ignored every time he tried to say that Baldr was hurting him tearing them apart –

“He’s ripping us apart, Hela don’t you see that?”

“He’s our cousin , Loki.”

Hela jumps at him, too, spears swinging. Loki drives her back. It’s been a constant squabble for years between the two of them of who’s stronger. He drives her back, and Hela hits the floor on her back with a disgruntled yelp. She swings her leg up, kicking him in the stomach and flipping him over her head.

Loki rolls to his feet, ignoring the sting of her boot. That might bruise. He’s glad he didn’t eat.

He dodges another flying spear, though it embeds itself in the ice, cracking it. Loki watches with a swell of welling panic, swinging Gungnir at her again.

Hela comes at him, too, their weapons clanging together. Their moves are fast, familiar, but never deadly, for all the times they’ve fought. But somehow, she grips Gungnir, ripping it from his hands and flinging him into the wall.

Pain flares through Loki’s back, and he smacks the floor. Ice is sharp. It hurts even through armor, but the ice is cracking. For all that he tried to set it.

Gungnir is gone.

Loki goes for the Casket instead. It spins into his hands, and he knows shooting ice at his sister is stupid, but he’s panicking, and he needs to fix the damage and –

Hela ducks into a roll with a yelp, and the ice strikes the other side of the bifrost instead. She summons a spear, whacking the item from his hands. It tumbles away, skidding across the floor out of the Observatory.

Loki reaches out, summoning Gungnir to his hands with a touch of magic telekinesis. Hela’s jumping at him, and Loki doesn’t think. He’s acting on instinct, brutal, awful instinct, and the blast explodes. Something explodes. It was so fast – and then Loki’s being flung backwards, and he’s hitting the ground somewhere on the rainbow bridge.

The blinding light of the bifrost buzzes in front of him. His head feels fuzzy.

His helmet fell off somewhere, clanking beside him. Loki doesn’t pick it up again. He doesn’t feel like a king.

And then Hela’s just on him. She rips Gungnir away, and their wrestling match ends in what’s probably ten seconds with her knee slamming into his chest, her hands on his shoulders. “What happened to you, brother?” she asks.

Anything. Nothing. He can’t think. Can’t breathe. She’s shorter than he is, and somehow thinner, but she’s heavy . He doesn’t know the answer. Nothing makes sense. His head is spinning. Fuzzy. Unclear. Confusing. He feels – dead. He’s just – not real. Nothing is real. That’s what this is. This isn’t his family and he wants it to be because that’s what he lived for and that’s…

This is all he has but he means nothing to them no matter what he’s tried to do.

I’m not your twin our entire life is a lie and nothing is real and I’m not even Asgardian I’m a monster and a few days ago you would’ve killed me, too, and someone told you I tried to kill you and you believed it.

“I’m not your brother,” he snarls back, grabbing Hela’s arm and yanking her down, flipping her off of him over his head. Loki rolls to his feet.

Hela is pushing herself up again. Her image flickers. White. He thinks he sees white. Then she’s standing and her clothes are black and green again like they ought to be. Like an illusion. Like this isn’t real, but she’s real. If there’s a spell on her, he can’t tell.

Maybe he’s just losing his mind completely. Or it’s just the white of the building bifrost.

“That’s some excuse to try and kill us.”

He grits his teeth, exhausted frustration washing over him. “I didn’t try to hurt you.”

“You control the Destroyer.”

“You were under threat.”

“Then who spelled Fenris ?” Hela isn’t yelling, but she’s close, and she’s scary . They have fought before, but it was never this real, and Loki has never genuinely feared getting a spear flung through his chest before. Not from Hela .

“It wasn’t me !” Loki yells at her, “I would not know, since I was not there , and from as soon as he was not with me, he would have been with you. Perhaps your mortal form alerted him, I wouldn’t know !”

“Then shut this off.”

“No.”

Hela exhales. She looks exhausted. Loki thinks some of her anger is gone. He’s too afraid to hope and the hurt isn’t gone, but it’s being eaten over by a bone-deep exhaustion. He doesn’t want to fight her. He doesn’t think she wants to fight him, either.

“Don’t,” he orders. “I’m doing what you always told me I had to.”

“Which was?”

“ I chose to fight !”

“Well, maybe I was wrong!” Hela yells back, exhaling again and shaking her head. “You’re going to destroy an entire realm.”

“Belonging to a race of monsters. All of Asgard would celebrate their extermination.” Including mine. “So would you.”

Hela doesn’t move. She’s ready to draw her weapons again, but she doesn’t make the first move.

Loki does.

He reaches for Gungnir again, and it clangs from his hands when she swings a spear at him, knocking it aside. His back hits the ground, again – he is going to be so bruised from falling at this point – and right when Loki’s about to kick her feet from beneath her, she stabs her spear at him.

There’s a heart-stopping moment of panic where he thinks she’s going to hit him , but it stabs through his sleeve instead and into the rainbow bridge beneath them. It cracks from the force.

“Stay there,” Hela orders, spinning around and sprinting towards the still-running bifrost. Her helmet’s disappeared, hair falling back and spilling down her back, blowing in the wind.

It’s going to have done – a lot of damage by now. That’s –

(It’s supposed to be good but it just makes him feel sick.)

Loki rolls over, anyway, free hand wrapping around the black spear and yanking. She stabbed it well, and somehow in just the right spot to nearly cut him when trying to get it out while not hurting to put it in.

His throat feels tight. It’s so – her . She thinks he tried to kill her and she still doesn’t want to hurt him.

Hela’s conjured another weapon. An axe. The bridge trembles when she brings it down, cracks spreading across it. She can’t shut the bifrost off, so she’s destroying it. Impulsive, but brilliant. It’s only been a few days, but Loki’s missed her so much . He doesn’t know how he could survive without her even one more.

The rainbow bridge shudders again. It’s going to explode, blowing up in her face, and she’s standing way, way too close to the shattering edge.

He should’ve moved faster.

Loki realizes that a second too late, but when the rainbow bridge cracks all the way through, the bifrost explodes . It blows in their faces, flinging them back. Loki’s still able to grab Hela’s arm, hauling her back and shoving her towards the safe edge of the bridge.

Hela tries to grab for him.

She misses, and he falls.

Chapter Text

The bridge explodes. Or maybe it’s the bifrost, Hela doesn’t know, but either way, her vision whites out. Loki’s hand grabs her arm, flinging her back. Hela thinks she misses, though barely. She must’ve because she’s still falling but all she can think about is that Loki is below her , and then someone grabs her ankle, jerking her to a stop.

Loki’s hand is inches from hers, and Hela strains, trying to reach him .

She doesn’t.

He’s too far away. Just inches away, and Loki falls. Hela screams. The Goddess of Death and she can’t even keep her own brother safe. She can’t keep him from dying. She can’t keep him from falling.

“ Loki !”

He falls through the darkness of space, off the edge of the rainbow bridge, and Hela can just watch in raw, gutted horror as he spirals down towards a wormhole or something far below.

“Let go!” she snarls, trying to wrench free of the hands hauling her up. Her brother is falling, spiraling down down down into the unknown of space and Hela needs to keep him safe. She needs to get him out and all she can do is struggle and thrash against the hands dragging her up.

Loki’s gone. Her brother is gone. Loki .

Baldr drags her up, but she can’t stop struggling. She doesn’t care if he saved her life. She doesn’t care – Loki’s gone . Nothing matters other than that.

“Daughter.” Odin. She recognizes Odin’s voice.

Hela lifts her head to see her father, hair parting somewhat when she tilts her head.

Odin, who stripped her of her power and banished her to a world of mortals.

Odin, who she also attacked with Mjolnir because she was being an absolute moron and wouldn’t listen to him or Loki when they both tried their hardest to make her stop. Hela wants to yell, but all there is inside her is a gaping void of hopeless grief.

It’s her brother who just – just –

It was also Odin’s son .

So, when he pulls her from Baldr’s arms, Hela collapses into Odin’s arms, shaking. Hela never cries, but now, she can’t stop.

Loki’s gone. Her brother’s gone .

All the while, Loki’s fallen helmet stares up at her accusingly.

“Don’t worry, brother. I’ll protect you.”

His green eyes hold the weight of a trust Hela can scarcely fathom. “I know.”

***

Odin left to take the Casket back to the Vault.

Loki’s helmet vanished. Hela couldn’t say where it went to save her life.

She’s just sitting here, holding a glass of warm something in her freezing hands and staring at the rising steam. She feels nothing but numb.

Loki is gone. What is there to feel? To live ?

“I tried to get him, Mother,” Hela whispers, “I just couldn’t reach him.” She wishes Baldr had let her go. Let her fall. She’d rather be there with Loki than anywhere else. As long as she lives, she’ll never get out of her head the last moments she saw of him as he was swallowed by the Void.

And she shouldn’t.

Loki is gone because she wasn’t fast enough to stop him.

Her brother. Loki .

Hela never realized she knew what it meant to love. It’s never been a thing she really thought about. Love or loss. Life or death. Because she’s never loved anyone who died before now.

Before Loki , and she realizes for the first time that she has no idea what to do.

Loki is her twin brother, and she has no idea how to breathe without him.

Frigga is crying. It should hurt, but Hela mostly just feels numb. Nothing.

She was supposed to take care of him, and she failed magnificently .

“I don’t understand what went wrong.” And now she’ll never know. He’ll never be here again. Never be able to answer any of the million questions she has or – anything. He’s gone.  

Hela doesn’t bother to blink back the tears that threaten to spill. The only one here is Frigga anyway – the only person she’d ever let see her this emotional. “It’s not your fault this happened, Hela,” her mother says softly, the pain in her voice evident. In some ways it seems like Frigga is the only one other than her who is truly mourning Loki. At least that she’s seen and she doesn’t understand why. She doesn’t understand how the entire realm could be continuing to function as though nothing’s wrong when there’s nothing that isn’t. 

“We should have told you this a long time ago,” Frigga finally speaks up again.

Hela frowns. Something about that has her instantly on edge, even if she’s not sure why. 

“Told me what?” she asks in confusion, drawing in a deep breath to keep her voice from shaking.

“About Loki,” she replies. She’s barely managing to remain composed herself.

“What? What about him?” she demands. Whatever this is, she suddenly doesn’t have a very good feeling about it. Which doesn’t make any sense because what could her mother possibly have to tell her about Loki that she doesn’t already know?

“Your father and I adopted him.

For a moment, the world seems to stand still. “ What ?” Hela hisses finally. But that – That doesn’t even make sense. Loki’s her twin. That’s not possible. What – ?

“He was taken from Jotunheim,” Frigga continues, “Laufey had left him to die, but your father brought him back to Asgard. We never told him or anyone, because we didn’t want him to feel different.”

All Hela can do is stare at her, her blood running cold. Loki was adopted. He’s… a Jotun. He’s not her twin. He’s not even her brother at all. But that doesn’t —

“I’m not your brother.”

What – 

Loki knew that?!

“But we’re twins,” Hela protests, denial hitting her next. This doesn’t make sense and it can’t make sense because they’re two halves of a whole and they always have been.

Frigga shakes her head, gaze pained. “You were close enough in age that you could have been, but no, you weren’t.”

This can’t be true. It can’t be, but on some horrible level, she knows it is. Suddenly everything he was doing and saying down by the Bifrost makes far more sense. It’s –

To prove to Father that I am worthy son.

Because he’s not Odin’s son at all . He’s a Jotun and that doesn’t change anything of the fact that they were raised together and have done nearly everything together for over a thousand years, but they were lied to. Her parents lied to them about what they were. They grew up believing a lie. Everything about what they thought they were to each other was a lie.

And their parents taught them to hate what Loki truly is. Hela killed so many of the Jotuns, Loki’s real people apparently, without remorse. Is that why he –

“When did Loki find out?” Hela demands, heart pounding. He couldn’t always have known, could he? He wouldn’t have lied to her about that.

“After you went to Jotunheim with him.”

She stumbles shakily to her feet. No wonder he was acting like he was. Her horror and shock are slowly being replaced by anger. “You lied to us ,” she accuses, “Did you never once think of what it would mean for us when we found out ? What could possibly have gone wrong with teaching us to hate the very thing Loki was ? It could only have gone over splendidly , couldn’t it?”

Loki being a Jotun doesn’t mean anything for how much she still loves him with every fiber of her being and even deeper, but that doesn’t change that – Everything with them was a lie.

“We made a mistake, Hela,” Frigga admits quietly, “And now we’re dealing with the consequences.” 

Yeah. Because she’s not the one who saw her twin brother fall into the Void of space, never to be seen again, unable to even be granted a funeral , because he’s gone . Hela tries to force that bitterness away, because it isn’t fair . Frigga lost her son . That’s important, too.

“You taught us to hate what he was. You taught him to hate it,” she says, because that, she doesn’t know how to stop thinking about. That’s why he was lost.

“We couldn’t have shielded you from what all of Asgard believed,” Frigga replies quietly. “Even had we tried.”

Maybe that’s true, but it doesn’t feel like her or Odin should get to act half as helpless about the whole thing as she is. It’s too late now, maybe, but it’s just –

“Did you ever plan to tell us?” she demands. Loki’s not her twin. Adopted or no, he’s still her brother, but they can’t just be adopted twins.

“When the time was right.”

That sounds basically like a no, not that has the energy to comment on that right now. She doesn’t have the energy to do anything anymore. Except wish that she’d fallen into the Void after Loki.

“If I could make any different choice now, I would,” Frigga says finally.

Which Hela does believe, but it doesn’t change anything. It won’t bring her little brother back. Nothing can.

***

Hela doesn’t want to leave her room. It’s been days, but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t want to – anything . Except for Loki to come back, to just – undo what just happened and – and –

She keeps remembering what happened on Midgard and now she’ll never get answers about that. Why did Loki nearly kill her and Fenris? She’ll never understand what happened , what it ever was that changed while she was gone that could’ve made that happen. She’ll never know. Maybe it had to do with him finding out he was Jotun, but how did that make him turn on her like that?

She still can’t believe her parents never told that he wasn’t her twin. He never was. Does that have something to do with why he turned on her? But that – doesn’t make sense because the knowledge that Loki isn’t her twin has her so angry at their parents for never just saying so and it feels like something irreparably lost, but that doesn’t make her love him any less. And she doesn’t know how the same couldn’t have been true for him.

She’ll never get to talk to him again. To tease him again. To – anything with him again and so she doesn’t really want to do anything else at all now.

Someone knocks on her door.

Ugh, no.

She may have duties as a crown princess, but she doesn’t much care. The entire cosmos can’t keep moving as though the fact that Loki’s gone doesn’t even matter. It’s not fair.

“What is it?” she asks shortly.

“It’s me, Hela,” Baldr calls.

She sighs. “Come in.”  It wouldn’t be nice to tell him to leave, even if she’s tempted for a wild moment. But she’s not going to be so rude, even if she really, really wants to.

He pushes the door open, stepping inside. She’s sitting on the couch, idly fingering a spear like she has been for the last hour.

Baldr crosses the room, coming to sit next to her.

There's a long pause of silence. She’s almost glad that he doesn’t start talking right off.

“You know, I miss him, too,” Baldr says quietly.

Pain lances sharply through her heart, whatever it is that’s even left of it at this point. Not that it’s stopped hurting for even a moment. It never could. She wants to cry suddenly, but more than that she wants to start screaming and never stop. At least someone else notices that he’s gone. “Asgard is really abounding with those who do,” she mutters bitterly. 

“Many don’t remember him for who he was,” he offers sympathetically, reaching over to lay a hand on her leg. 

She reaches down slowly, taking Baldr’s offered hand. She rarely has done this with anyone but Loki.

“I never thought things would go this far,” Baldr goes on.  “I just wanted to understand how he could have done what he did to you.”

She’s been thinking obsessively herself that if they’d approached it differently, maybe – maybe it wouldn’t have ended the same. She’d been too angry to think straight. “I don’t wish to speak of that now.” She can hardly think about it at all when everything is whited out from the pain of how her brother is dead.

Baldr nods. “There’s nothing we can do to change it now, anyway.”

She knows that. She wants to rip through time itself to undo it. Probably would if there was a way, but there’s not. She wants to scream and she hurls the spear she’s holding across the room without even thinking. It imbeds itself in the wall, looking sorely out of place.

Baldr doesn’t comment. She’s unreasonably grateful for that. Frigga would scold her for ruining her room, princess or no. She thinks the permanent hole in the wall is going to be a fitting reminder of the permanent hole in her heart, though. It’s not something anything will ever fill. For a wild, ridiculous moment, she almost wishes she had stayed mortal because then she wouldn’t have to spend more than a few decades living with this knowledge. Now she has… millennia. Basically eternity. She’s still young and her brother is gone forever.

Baldr just stays with her, saying nothing more. 

She doesn’t want to talk anyway so she’s grateful for that. And that he’s taking the time to be here even if it feels like she deserves to be alone right now.

The way Loki was when he died in the emptiness of space.

***

Huge feasts have never been Hela’s thing, though she’s always forced to attend them anyway because it would be inappropriate for the crown princess not to. It’s something she’s learned to tolerate, but right now, that’s the last thing in the world she wants to be doing.

Loki is gone.

So why in the world is everyone celebrating ? Yes, she destroyed the Destroyer. So what ? It’s not like impossible feats are anything new with her.

She wasn’t going to come at all, but Frigga had come to get her, helping do her hair herself to get her ready. She would’ve appreciated in under any other circumstances. Now, she’s just unreasonably bitter that she’s being forced to go at all.

She can hear people laughing and joking with each other and can’t help but feel a flare of anger. Do they even notice that Loki is gone? It wasn’t until now, that Loki is gone that she can’t help wondering just how much he’s always been ignored considering how little everyone seems to care that he’s gone. She knows he was often overlooked, except when he pulled a prank that made everyone mad at him. She just doesn’t think she ever thought about how bad it was until now.

At least Brunnhilde has the decency to look as though she isn’t having the time of her life, but she’s practically the only one. Hela hasn’t caught sight of Odin at all. Baldr’s here and he looks more reserved than some, but he’s clearly a bit carried away with the festivities right now.

Finally, Hela just can’t keep sitting there anymore – it’s not like she can even bring herself to eat anyway – so, seeing that everyone is otherwise occupied anyway, she stands up, slipping out of the room. She’s standing on a palace balcony, staring up at the sky when she hears Brunnhilde approaching. She comes to stand next to her, but doesn’t immediately speak, for which Hela is grateful. She needs some time to her thoughts right now, even if she’s silently grateful that Brunnhilde came out here to be with her.

How things have changed from only weeks ago when everyone was excitedly preparing for her crowning as queen. She’d been so excited for it and now… all it brought was endless pain. 

She glances over at Brunnhilde again, who’s still standing silently next to her. “Are you up for a spar?” Brunnhilde asks.

Hela blinks. “No.” She doesn’t want to think about doing anything right now, really.

“I only mentioned it because I have found it helpful sometimes,” she replies, looking away, “When some of the Valkyrie I was close with were lost in battle. But at least they got to a die a warrior’s death.”

Not just a random accident like it was with Loki, not that Hela thinks she would feel any better if that had been true, anyway. Brunnhilde might have a point, though. Maybe. She does just want to punch something into the ground and sparring would give her a good excuse for that.

She looks back up at the sky again, at the darkening sky that’s starting to look to much like the Void. The Void that took away her brother. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to stand looking at this ever again. All she can see in her mind’s eye is Loki falling and she feel her heart rate starting to pick up, just standing here.

She hasn’t looked at the broken Rainbow Bridge once since it happened. Doesn’t think she ever could. For a moment, she finds herself thinking of Steve. He’s probably wondering what happened to her. But she doesn’t have a way to go back and the Bifrost is gone. Even if it weren’t, she doesn’t think she could handle being anywhere near it again.

It doesn’t feel fair for her to go get to have fun with her friends – if it can be called fun when it feels like she’s five seconds short of tears no matter what she’s doing – when Loki never can again. When she can’t help thinking now how many people even care about what happened to him.

“Did you ever see him as a friend?” The word’s escape Hela’s mouth without her really thinking.

Brunnhilde blinks. “Pardon?”

“Loki,” she repeats, “Did you ever consider him a friend?”

“On… some level,” she says, thoughtfully, “I never knew him the way I know you and at first he was very much… just your brother, but he was also my prince.”

Hela nods numbly, looking away, hand clenching on the balcony railing. She knows Loki had somewhat of a friendship with Brunnhilde and Baldr but with Baldr, it was always strained and with Brunnhilde, it was… distant. He was never truly close with anyone but her. And Frigga.

“What is it?” Brunnhilde asks quietly, eyeing her.

“He’s gone and no one even cares,” Hela snaps.

The Valkyrie frowns. “That’s not –”

“Yes, it is true,” she retorts, “Everyone is falling over themselves in celebration for nothing and no one has noticed he’s gone. I should have seen it before, how much he was mocked for being different and using magic.” Or for being soft and not wanting to fight. She never minded that about him and stood up to anyone who did, but…

Now she can’t help morbidly wondering how much of those differences are because he was never Asgardian, and… No wonder he lost it when he found out he wasn’t either. For a moment she almost wants to tell her about how Loki is Jotun, but… doesn’t. This isn’t something that should get out. She’s not sure how Asgard would react to knowing that the prince of their realm was a frost giant – a hate monster they all wanted to exterminate.

Midgardians think being soft is a strength. Steve had told her that. Maybe she was the one who was wrong. About Jotunheim, about everything. Loki’s the only one she ever truly knew.

And he was always so kind.

“I did see it,” Brunnhilde admits, a bit uncomfortably, “But I never saw it being as bad as what you said.”

“We – Asgard – is responsible for his fate,” she says bitterly, even if she can’t explain more than that.

Brunnhilde shifts. “He is the one who tried to destroy another realm.”

She doesn’t think her friend means it bad, but it sends a sharp stab of anger through her anyway. “Something we would have happily done together but a few weeks ago.”

Brunnhilde doesn’t respond or deny the point.

Silence falls between them again, and this time Hela leaves it that way. There isn’t much else to say. What happened, happened, and there’s no going back. 

***

Loki’s room looks entirely untouched since that day. It’s been weeks now, but Hela doesn’t think anyone’s come in here but her. His things are still carefully arranged with the ridiculous orderliness he always had.

It hurts so much to be in here it’s hard to breath, but it’s also the easiest place to go when she just wants to be alone. She’s not sure the gnawing ache inside of her is ever going to go away. It shouldn’t. She hopes it doesn’t.

The room shouldn’t feel like she’s staring at a ghost of the past when it shouldn’t be the past but it is. There’s no going back. Everything is too still, too empty.

But she won’t move anything because she wants it to look exactly the way it did when Loki was here. This is the last thing she even has of him anymore. She almost wishes she still had his helmet – still doesn’t know what happened to it. Did it fall into the Void, too?

Hela sinks on the edge of the bed, fingers lightly running over the green blankets. Everything in here is green, for the most part. Just like in her room.

Two halves of a whole, who were never two halves at all.

She doesn’t bother to stop the rush of tears when it comes. She’s cried more now than she has in her entire life. Sometimes it feels like that’s about all she’s capable of doing anymore.

She stays in Loki’s room that night, burying her face in the pillows and hugging the blanket as though it’s Loki himself, as though it’s going to do anything to bring him back.

But she ultimately knows the truth. Nothing ever will.

Chapter Text

There’s just darkness. Everything is darkness. Stars blur together, dancing dots at the edges of his vision. And he can’t breathe. It’s just falling, rushing, where there should be air there is nothing. Hela tried to reach him. She tried. She missed. Her hand was so close .

She could’ve reached him. She could have.

She tried .

She tried and that means a lot. It means enough.

But here, there’s nothing. Just darkness.

Loki can’t breathe . He tries. He can’t. The world looks like it’s blurring at its edges but that could be the darkness, too. He’s falling. Of course, it’s blurry. He doesn’t know where he’s going, what he’s headed towards, what –

He can’t move. He tries to turn, to – move but he can’t. He has no way to leverage himself around. He’s just falling. Dropping from the sky into something unknown.

And it’s so, so quiet. Somehow, Loki never thought space was quiet. There’s no air. There’s – nothing. Just him and the screaming sounds of his own mind.

He could’ve destroyed Jotunheim. He could have but Hela stopped him and now he’s here and –

That wasn’t her fault.

He doesn’t blame her for any of it. He just wishes he could hear something again .

What’s happening? Is – Badlr was there. He saved Hela. Loki is grudgingly grateful to him for that, because his sister did nothing to deserve this fate. Too fall forever, never to be remembered. Seen again. Found. Why has Heimdall not found him?

Right , he remembers humorlessly. Because you froze him in a block of ice and maybe he’s happy to never see you again. Maybe he can see you and is glad he can’t find you .

The bifrost is gone, so there is no way for them to get him back. If they would want him back, anyway. Because Loki really, really doesn’t know. He’s not one of them. He never has been. He’s going to die with Hela believing he tried to kill her and Fenris and he doesn’t even know if their wolf is alive .

Someone set this up . Loki knows that, or maybe it’s just the confused panic blurring in his about-to-die mind. Somewhat knew he would make the mistake with the Destroyer and spelled Fenris, somehow without his knowledge and Loki never sensed anything on him.

And, conveniently, neither did Hela, Baldr, or Brunnhilde.

Or – at least that is roughly what he gathered from his sister.

He wishes more than anything that he’d actually talked to her, that he’d asked what happened and truthfully tried to get to the bottom of it instead of promising he would only to never see her again.

The last thing he did was fight Hela . Truly a noble thing to die doing.

His sister. His twin. The only one Loki has never doubted for a second that loved him. Perhaps, too, the only one he can say he truly loved.

And he’s never going to see her again.

 How long has it been? Minutes? Hours? Days ? It feels like years.

Years and years before a dark, distant shadow fades into Loki’s vision, and everything fades into dark.

***

When Loki wakes again, his wrists are chained to – something. He’s on something cold. It’s dark. So, so dark. Is he dead? Is this hell? He’s achy and sore all over. The room is dark. Is it a room? Loki has no idea, but when he shifts, he hears a rustle. He hears sound . He’s on – something. The ground is vibrating, and he could cry from being able to feel that.

He needs to go home. How long has it been ? Do they miss him? Does Hela miss him?

Of course she does. She’s his sister .

(No, she’s not.)

This isn’t a planet. He’s in a ship , which means he could be held by anything. Asgaridans don’t use ships. None of their people do. They use magic, so whoever it is – they must be some level of mortal. Some of the more… advanced species.

So, not Midgardians.

They are way too behind-time, not that the rest of the universe is too far ahead.

He groans softly, genuinely amazed he can hear his own voice. He can hear again. He can breathe again.

He’s exhausted, though.

He needs to get home. There are voices in the hall. Loki limps upright, blinking at the darkness. He can see better than Hela in the dark, and Loki understands why now. The door’s locked. They locked him in here? That’s almost insulting, actually.

And that they thought they could keep him here?

It’s too dark and too quiet, but that he can hear at all is all the relief Loki needs right now. There’s no need to force his way out and rile up hostilities when he doesn’t even know where he is or who he’s with right now.

Loki waits. He doesn’t know how long it is. Time blurs together, around him, in his head, looping together in a blur. Minutes. Hours. He can feel something again. That’s a relief. It’s something . Something other than nothing.

The creatures holding him are called the Chitauri, Loki realizes it when he first sees him. They’re just leaving him here, for some reason. Loki doesn’t know why. But he has to go home and get back to figure out what was happening, and he’s tired of waiting.

He’s being irrational, he knows, because the only weapons he has are his daggers , and he doesn’t know if he should stab first.

But he feels something else here. A brilliant magical light, pulling and pulsing, singing a loud song. He’s never felt anything like it.

He doesn’t know if it’s a weapon, but it’s something that belongs on Asgard, safely away from any mortal hands. He has to keep it from the wrong hands.

The Chitauri are only good fighters in numbers. Loki realizes that fast. He basically wipes the floor with the few he runs into in the hall. No casualties. He doesn’t know if Hela would be proud or disgusted. She’s always telling him he’s too soft, that he should fight harder, shouldn’t be so afraid of killing.

But Loki knows what he’s doing.

He thinks .

Well, he honestly thought he did, until someone nearly twice his height and equally wide lumbers into the hall with a growl.

“Hello,” Loki says lightly, “I don’t believe we’ve acquainted.”

The creature growls, and if not for the vaguely humanoid shape, Loki wouldn’t think it was sentient for the level of snarling and stomping it’s doing. It – he? – tries to grab Loki by the front of his tunic. He dodges a punch, drawing his daggers.

It runs at him, and Loki flings it back with a wave of magic.

“Would you prefer to go again, or would you like to tell me where I am?” He may be speaking playfully, but he is not feeling playful in the slightest. He is angry . Very angry.

He needs to go home .

When it charges again, some sort of axe raised, Loki flings a dagger at him. It digs into the creature’s shoulder, and it roars with rage. Loki doesn’t duck before it yanks him up by his cape and throws him at the wall.

And through the wall – metal twists and snaps and breaks and Loki gasps as at least one rib snaps. He can’t tell if it’s fractured or broken, but his back is on fire and his head is spinning from where it hit the wall. Stars blur in his vision. Loki shakes his head, trying to clear them.

So much for don’t be lethal . If these brutes will try to kill him, he’s more than happy to return the favor.

Breathing sends a violent stab of shooting pain through him as he tries to move, tries to pick himself off the floor. He gets up, but not before the snarling being is on him again, yanking him up by his neck.

Loki summons another dagger, stabbing towards his neck when a flicker of unfamiliar magic flares, freezing his hand.

“I didn’t need your help!” the large creature snarls.

“Take him to Sire,” the sorcerer orders, and they haul Loki forwards.

The walk to whatever room in question is long, and the entire ship is dark. Loki realizes that fast enough. He hates it here. He’d do anything to get to see the sun again. To get to see Hela .

But at least he’s making progress.

There’s a throne in it. It’s laughable, almost. To see this, that this being claims to be a king. They’re all mortals.

The magic pulsing is stronger this way. This is where he needs to go. It shines outwards like a beacon of light, glistening amid the darkness and void of space. He’s still in space. Far from the comforting warmth of Asgard, where everything is layered on layers of magic.

In the center, on the throne, sits another being. A titan. He’s… large .

The one holding Loki throws him onto the floor. He lands on his hands, a soft grunt of pain escaping him, bracing to keep his face from connecting with the hard ground. “Father, we found this one attempting escape from the prison levels,” he growls.

Oh, it talks .

Breathing is hard. The jolting movement has his lungs burning, and tears prick at his eyes. Loki shakes his head, forcing himself up. His body is swaying, but he tries to make it to his feet, anyway.

The titan makes a sound. Is he bored ? He sounds bored.

At his right, on the arm of his throne, is a small… case . Decorative. The magic Loki was feeling, the one that’s so parallel to the one the Destroyer radiates, is resonating from that.

There are other people in the room. Loki sees four of them. They’re all trained fighters.

The sorcerer flicks his fingers, and something metal sprouts from the floor, tangling around Loki’s wrists and yanking him down. “You speak to Thanos ,” he hisses as though that name has meaning. “Kneel.”

“I’m Loki, prince of Asgard,” he throws back, “I’m a god. I kneel to no one.” They hurt him, and they will declare war on Asgard itself. No one would be so foolish.

He thinks one of them are about to hit him, but the Titan – Thanos? – motions them to stop. He stands from his throne, approaching them slowly. Loki glares up at him. “You think yourself a god?”

Loki’s eyes narrow. Perhaps he said too much too fast, but he thought if they knew the severity of the situation, they would behave… rationally. “I am.”

“And yet, you eat, you drink, just like any of us.”

“That’s what being alive means.”

Thanos’s head tilts consideringly. It makes Loki’s skin crawl. He’s dangerous . He can tell that by looking at someone. Has fought in enough warns to gauge a threat long before it ever becomes one. Or maybe that’s just part of what it means to be the god of lies. Because he can see them .

“Who are you?” Loki asks.

“I am Thanos,” he replies, “And I mean to balance the scales of the universe.”

Loki doesn’t like the way he says that. “What do you mean?”

“For being a god, you should see the danger this threat faces to all life itself already,” Thanos responds, staring down at him, “The universe has too many mouths and not enough to go around. If it continues as it is now, life will cease to exist.”

Yes, he knows overpopulation may be an issue in some areas, but the way Thanos is saying it is… “And you propose what as a solution?” Loki queries dubiously.

“Destroy half, and the remainder will thrive,” he answers simply.

He speaks the truth. Loki feels it.

“Do you know what this is?” Thanos asks.

The magical artifact. The energy feels familiar, reminds him of the Power Stone imbedded into the Destroyer because it is another stone . “The Mind Stone,” Loki asserts, eyes narrowed.  “You think yourself capable of wielding an Infinity Stone?”

“If I possess all six Infinity Stones, I will be able to do it with a mere snap of the fingers. It will be a mercy.”

“No being is worthy of wielding all six stones, or capable.” They’re the core of the universe. Of course, Loki knows what they are – he wrote about them. In school. When he was seven hundred years old. Hela hated that class. Loki had always found the stones fascinating. “And even if you tried, you could never find them.”

“Help me find them, bring the universe back into balance, and I will return you home. You are powerful. Your aid in my plans could be… useful.”

He might be an outcast. He might not be a real Asgardian, might be a monster, but Loki still knows right from wrong, on some level or another, and he will never help Thanos.

“You’re asking that I help you eradicate half of life ?”

“I am. It is inevitable.”

I’m so sorry, Hela. “I’m afraid I’ll have to decline.”

An explosion of magic sends everything in the room thrown. The large creature – comes at him with his axe, and Loki whirls away, splitting into illusions.

Loki reaches out, drawing in a fog, blinding everyone. It’s dangerous on him, too, but Loki has the advantage. He can sense them, which is something only well-trained sorcerers are capable of. Everyone falls for this trick, except Hela, because she can sense life.

Loki dives for the tipped over throne and the Mind Stone where its case landed nest to it as the chair smashed through the back wall. He actually didn’t see where Thanos went. Through the wall, perhaps. Hopefully.

The sorcerer conjures some sort of metal-rock chain thing that hooks around his ankle and throws him onto his face. Loki hits the floor with a grunt, gasping at the sharp shooting pain through his ribs. The Mind Stone is just inches from his reach.

He spins one of his illusions towards the sorcerer. The giant creature from before is still chasing it, and with a blur falls through his illusion and smacks his brother over the head with the hilt of his axe before realizing his own actions.

Loki reaches out, about to call the Mind Stone to him with telekinesis when someone’s boot slams down on his hand.

It makes an awful crunching snaping sound, but more than that is the sharp, blinding pain shooting through his palm and fingers, radiating up his arm.

He gasps, lashing out and breaking the spell over these stupid chains, rolling over and swinging his leg up, twisting, kicking the girl’s leg from beneath her. She stumbles back, but when she stands again, Loki is standing, too. Her skin is green, and Loki’s heard of her species before but can’t recall the name at present.

The girl flicks a sword around, slashing at him.

Loki duplicates himself again, reaching to grab her arm when she goes after the wrong one. It’s awful and petty, but Loki’s done worse things than that, so he tightens his hand over her wrist.

She yells, half pain, half rage, and kicks at his leg, but Loki was expecting it and swings aside. Something breaks and the girl stumbles back, panting, switching hands. She slashes at him again and Loki shoves the blade back. Her back hits the wall and he shoves harder, bringing the blade back down towards her neck.

She pulls another knife from somewhere else, and he bats it aside with his vambrace, the blade clanging onto the floor.

A metal hand grabs his wrist and yanks it back with a yell. Fighting one-handed is hard. There’s blood trickling down his hand, soaking across his vambrace and up his arm. The bleeding is a bad sign. Loki swings around, anyway, twisting the cyborg’s arm over her head and trying to dodge when her sword slams into his gut. It doesn’t cut, but it flares with electricity that jolts violently through his veins.

Moving his right hand is agonizing, but he swings forwards, slamming his palm to her forehead with a burst of magic, drawing forth a particularly nasty spell to relive a good number of worst memories.

Loki rips free from her, taking her sword as someone else jumps at him with a yell. She’s fighting with a spear-type weapon, the end crackling with electricity.

Three are down, and three more to go, minus Thanos, who he can’t see through the smoke, but can tell is nearby, watching. Waiting. For something .

Loki swings around, shoving the weapon’s end aside to avoid getting stabbed. He’s exhausted, already. He needs to get the Stone.

Loki backs up, duplicating himself multiple times. She splits off after the wrong one, and he rolls aside as someone else stabs at him, drawing the fog in again.

He gets eyes on the large creature, snarling and slashing through all the fake Loki’s, and throws the sword at him. It spins through the air, lodging itself into his chest and dropping him.

The green girl jumps at him, trying to tackle him. Loki throws a wave of magic at her, flinging her through the ceiling.

The other girl circles in on him again. Loki catches the blade just below the electric end with his vambraces, arms crossed and shoving it aside. His right arm is shaking, shuddering from violent stabs of pain. Putting weight on it is hard, but he pulls back, drawing a dagger and flinging it at her thigh.

It often takes a feign or injury to get a neck or head-wound. Loki’s seen that many times. She tries to headbutt him, and Loki promptly returns the favor, flinging her to the floor.

The sixth finally gets on him, weapon flying at what would’ve been his head.

Loki ducks into a roll but the other is on him instantly, tackling him. His back hits the floor again, and he grits his teeth from the burning pain. He can’t breathe . Hands are on his neck, then, crushing, closing his airway and smothering. Loki struggles, choking, hand lifting to claw at the fingers over his throat. He can’t breathe . He’s not going to die here. He won’t.

Loki struggles, grabbing his arm and yanking downwards, flipping them over, dislodging the grip. Air is good. Feels good, even if it’s humid and sticky. He summons a dagger, bringing it down towards his neck.

Another hand grabs his wrist, pulling back. He hardly sensed this one. It’s shielded. Another sorcerer. A hand hits his forehead, and then they’re standing somewhere else.

They’re on a rock. A moon, maybe.

His hand is burning and his ribs are burning and every inhale is agonizing . Landing again jarred it, being crushed again jarred and shifted the bones. His neck stings. It was an impressively close to lethal chokehold.

This isn’t real. Loki knows an illusion when he sees it. This being is… different. Telepathy. Impressively good at that.

He shoves back, lashing out with a shattering wave of magic.

Loki comes back to himself, panting. Tries to move. Someone steps on his arm and the ceiling blurs over him. He blames the fog.

The same sorcerer as before is awake again, and debris pieces from Loki’s destruction heist wind around his wrists, tying them together. The pressure on his right hand sends another sharp wave of breathtaking pain through it. The same spell tightens over his neck, strangling. He’s going to die here. He –

“Stop.” Thanos’s voice blurs in. He sounds far, far away.

Loki shifts, trying to lift his head, trying to breathe . His lungs are on fire. Inhaling sends his ribs off hurting again and he can’t stop the strangled gasping.

“This one might be of use to us yet. Return him to his cell.”

“I will never,” Loki vows, a quiet snarl through strangled panting. “Serve you .”

Thanos’s hand touches his face lifting his head. Loki snarls at him quietly. He wants to stab him. He wants to – “We will see .”

Chapter Text

It hasn’t even been a month since Loki was lost, but it feels like they’ve already been apart a lifetime. Mostly, Hela has no idea how she’s supposed to spend the rest of her life like this at all. She’s too exhausted to do… anything most of the time anymore. The more time passes, the more it feels like she’s feeling worse. Maybe it’s just that it’s starting to feel more and more real that her brother isn’t coming back.

But she has to get herself looking semi-presentable and drag herself out of her room when she hears Odin’s giving some speech to Asgard. About how Loki was adopted and is a Jotun.

Why did he have to tell the public that???

More than likely, he only did that to avoid a scandal if word started getting out. Hela had already heard some whispers though she has no idea where they could have stemmed from. Telling them the truth would be easier than letting a scandal start.

But now, she has no idea how Asgard is going to see him. But, she can’t help thinking bitterly and miserably, it hardly matters now that he’s gone and no one misses him, anyway. Knowing that he’s Jotun now is hardly going to make them mourn him any less.

She’s back to brooding in her room and working on a sculpting project – it’s one of the few non-warrior related pass times that she has – when Baldr comes to find her.

“Did you know all along?” he inquires. It’s not hard to guess what he’s referring to. It’s always anyone’s heard whispering of now.

“No. They never told us. All this time, Loki and I believed we were twins. Until the end.”

I’m not your brother.

Now – now – she’ll never be able to understand how he could’ve said that and actually meant it, even if it’s true. If he actually did mean what he said.

Baldr grimaces. “That must have been hard to hear.” He doesn’t seem upset at Loki’s mere existence for being Jotun, at least. And it’s… relieving to see that.

“I question now where Loki truly learned his art of lying from,” Hela replies bitterly. He grew up in a lie. They both did. Hela just thinks she was the one more oblivious to it.

“They should have told you both, at least,” he agrees.

“While I was away, Loki found out. I believe that is why he was being so – different at the end. I do not know what happened.” She hasn’t told that to anyone all this time, but the questions have been haunting her ceaselessly. Questions she’ll never have answer to. Did something far more extreme happen while she was away that changed him?

“You mean because he’s… Jotun?” Baldr guesses.

She used that as a blatant insult once. Now, it makes her coil with rage to hear someone use it like one. Even if she still automatically finds herself disliking the Jotuns as a whole. “ No ,” she says more harshly than she intended.

“I did not… intend it that way,” he apologizes, “I just don’t really understand what it was that happened. Something changed.”

She shakes her head, sighing, “I don’t either.” But she can’t help thinking for a wild moment, that… something doesn’t make sense of how the Jotuns are always referred to. Loki was always looked down on for being soft, the exact opposite of what the Jotuns are looked down on for.

What if it’s the Asgardians who are truly the monsters? What if they’re –

That can’t be all right, but she just… can’t help thinking that Asgard isn’t what she though it was. And she has no idea what that means for future.

***

Being at the stables now hurts as much as being anywhere does now. Loki’s horse looks so lonely, in its stall next to all the others.

She moves past the horses after a minute, going over to Fenris. She… hasn’t been out here nearly as much as she should’ve been. Fenris misses Loki too.

The wolf barks eagerly, when he sees her but she could swear there’s still something forlorn about him now. She goes into his stall, reaching up to pet his nose and he licks her face eagerly, drooling all over her.

No Loki to get rid of it anymore.

Fenris backs off after a moment, looking past her and sniffing the air.

He wants to know where Loki is.

“He’s gone, Fenris,” she whispers, eyes flooding with tears again.

The wolf growls softly, moving closer and nosing her again. She runs her hand across the fur on his head, letting the tears fall. Fenris snuggles against her and she thinks he understands on some level, but not quite enough to stop expecting him to come.

The stable is not a place to sleep but she sinks onto the floor next to her wolf, leaning her head against his side and just… stays there. He’s warm and snuggly, and she doesn’t want to leave. Her and Loki raised him together.

She still remembers when they brought him as a puppy into the palace and tried to keep him in their rooms. Odin had ordered them to take him to the stables immediately because they couldn’t have him running through the palace halls. Hela still doesn’t get what the fuss was all about.

Fenris leans closer, slobbering her face again. “Hey,” she yelps, still giggling as she tries to dodge him.

Loki giggles next to her, and the wolf turns away, going to assault him with its tongue next.

The wolf doesn’t stop until they’re both thoroughly drenched in dog slobber. Eww. She leans closer, trying to rub her face on his fur.

“You’re just going to get fur all over you,” Loki tells her cheerfully.

“Mother would not be happy if we got this all over our clothes,” Hela protests. Not that she’ll necessarily have to know.

“Maybe I can try to…” Loki lifts his hands, trying to focus on doing a spell. He’s starting to learn magic and his spells are still a bit simple, but they’re far more advanced than anything Hela knows how to do.

They’re so absorbed in playing with Fenris in the hall outside their bedrooms that they don’t even notice it when Odin’s approaching.

There’s a clank of metal and a chain locks around Fenris’ neck.

Hela jerks back, looking up sharply.

Fenris whines as the leash around his neck yanks him back.

Loki jerks, staring wide-eyed.

“No!” Hela cries, stumbling to her feet, so hurt and confused, “Father, why did you chain him? He doesn’t mean any harm.”

“He does not belong in the palace halls, daughter,” Odin replies, though he crouches to lay a hand on her and Loki’s shoulders. “And he has the heart of a fighter. A king must tame his threats, so they fight for him.”

She doesn’t intend to fall asleep, but she doesn’t wake until she hears movement in the stable. She can feel life coming and – Odin.

She really doesn’t want to run into him right now, so she’s fully intent on staying entirely out of sight alongside Fenris and hoping no one comes anywhere near here when she senses movement coming closer.

“Daughter,” Odin calls sharply.

So much for staying out of sight.

Hela very reluctantly stands, trying to shake the fur off herself. “Yes, Father?”

His tone has her on edge even if she has no idea if something’s actually wrong or if he’s just in a mood like usual. She can never see him without remembering when he ripped her powers out of her and then threw her through that portal so it’s hard to expect anything else. Whether or not her own foolish actions were what led to that, when she should have just listened to Loki, doesn’t seem to change that.

“Sleeping in the stales is entirely unbefitting of a princess.”

“Sleep may have overtaken me by mistake,” she snips because it’s what she ought to say rather than telling him to just leave her own like she wants to – which would be very unwise. Doesn’t mean she can’t think it viciously in her mind.

“You have duties to attend to, daughter, and you have been… neglectful of it lately,” he replies, still watching her.

She reluctantly shifts away from Fenris, leaving this stall without pausing to pet him goodbye only because she’s not overly comfortable with that in front of Odin. “Forgive me for finding my brother’s absence more crucial than duties that can be done by anyone.”

“The realms do not stop moving.”

“Oh, do they? I could not possibly have noticed on my own.” Because they certainly ought to. And maybe she’s not being fair but she doesn’t care. 

“Do you believe you alone mourn Loki?” Odin asks, “He was my only son.”

And your only child ? Hela wants to throw bitterly back in his face. Instead, she smirks. It’s a lazy smile, and maybe she’s being a bit cruel, but she’s too angry to care when it’s his fault this all deteriorated in the first place. “Yes.”

He’s quiet a moment, reeling, and Hela pushes on.

“Who is it that keeps holding these… fancy feasts when we should be mourning the loss of our prince? Or king? The one who should rightfully be seated on that big, fancy throne?”

“ Enough ,” he snaps harshly. “I am your father, and your king –”

“And it was your own actions that led to Loki falling into the Void.” Hela’s eyes narrow, and she’s standing now. She knows better than to lash out, but that doesn’t stop her from wanting to. If she had Mjolnir, she’d be perfectly happy to hurl the weapon in his face again. How dare he? After the life of lies he forced them to live, the things he had them believe about each other, how can he judge Hela for being unable to let go of Loki , the brother Odin taught her to believe was her second half?

“And you are the one who destroyed the Bifrost,” Odin replies icily.

Hela nearly flinches.

Does he blame her for that? She has no idea but she certainly has not stopped blaming herself. She has no idea what she was supposed to do but she have found any other way to stop Loki, had she known what the consequences would be.

“Had you not lied to us all our lives about what Loki was, we would never have fought. For being such a powerful king, how couldn’t you foresee that ?” Hela snaps back, stalking past him and leaving the stable without a backward glance.

It hurts even more somehow, as foolish as that is, that Odin doesn’t try to stop her.

***

Hela has hardly talked to Odin at all since Loki fell into the void. Since her banishment, actually, and she can’t say she really regrets avoiding him, but he’s her father, and he’s one of the only members of her family left now.

She doesn’t know what steers her out to find him, but she can’t stop thinking about Loki , and when she finally drags herself out in search of him, Hela finds him at the end of the rainbow bridge, staring into the dark void of space.

There is nothing to see here, though every time she sees this place from a distance, she finds herself reliving her brother’s last moments.

“I owe an apology,” Hela says finally, shuffling forwards.

He looks tired. She realizes that when she sees him again, a sort of bone-deep exhaustion that she knows she wears now herself. Odin glances are her, fleeting. “Yes,” he answers shortly. “To be king, or queen, bears a heavy load. To destroy the bifrost showed me you are indeed ready.”

“I could never be as ready as Loki.”

“Your brother was never meant to be king.”

She looks up at him, temper flaring, hot and whirling. “Why? Because he’s Jotun?”

“No. Because being a king, or a queen, means sacrifice. That is something Loki could never do.”

Because he loved too deeply. No one appreciated that in him while he was here, and yet it’s the part they all miss most. Hela can understand, no matter how devastating it may be, what led her brother to make the choices he did. With Jotunheim. Not with the Destroyer, or with Fenris – that is foreign, something she could never understand, but with Jotunheim – because it has her brother’s fingerprints all over it.

“All of Asgard mocked him for his heart.” She remembers way back, when they started training in fighting. He enjoyed the thrill, just like her, but he could never land the killing blow. That was always what made him different. What marked him as different. Because Loki could never hurt anyone. And she understands so well why he changed. “He attacked Jotunheim to try to prove himself one of us. And he died thinking he never could be.”

Hela doesn’t care if Odin thinks she’s ready to be queen. She doesn’t want to be, anyway. She failed Loki. Nothing matters except for that.

***

The room is dark.

It’s cold. It’s always cold. Everything burns. Everything hurts and he wishes he could prop his head up a bit but he can’t move his arms because it pulls the skin on his back and stretches the endless layers of wounds, but it feels like he’s drowning.

He is drowning.

Time is a blur. Time is – immaterial out here, really. He would do anything to see Hela again.

There’s a hand on his hair, stroking it gently. Loki wishes he could still say he had the energy to want to stab him. He doesn’t. Because the few minutes Thanos is here are the few where it doesn’t hurt worse.

Until it does – the Mind Stone crashing rolling waves against his mind again. He’s run through so many things that Loki’s mind is blurring over, losing track of reality, loosing track of up and down and what’s – anything. It’s just blurred. Burry.

He tries to shove against it, but his seidr is so damaged now, so trapped struggling to heal his damaged body that it doesn’t have the time or strength to fight back like it once would have. He has no idea what Thanos has and hasn’t seen of his mind, of his life now. He can’t stop fighting. Loki can’t stop fighting because he’s the last line there is between this madman and the Infinity Stones.

He’s not a hero, but he’s not dooming half the universe, either.

He thinks of Hela, because he always does, his sister at his side, the warmth of what it felt like so long ago to lean on her shoulder, for her to carry him if he were ever injured enough to need it – but as they tell him over and over, he was left here to die. Because he was. Or Asgard would have found him already.

“There is a balance in all things,” Thanos’s voice fades in. It’s murky. Everything is murky. Loki wishes he could still fight. He would find it remarkable if he could do more than twitch a finger now. “Of two, one will be sacrificed, and the other will prosper. Who will it be? You, or your sister?”

He squeezes his eyes shut. No. No, not – “You can’t hurt her.” Tears burn at his eyes. He’s cried so much it hurts to cry any longer, and his eyes are hot and burning all the time. They hurt .

Hela can’t die.

A life without her isn’t a life worth living.

“If that is the only way to restore balance, I will.”

He means it. Loki knows he does but there’s nothing he can do to fight him. Barely has the energy to even try thinking of some threat to throw back at him – and anything he could say would be a joke at this point. He can’t even move. He doesn’t have the energy to get out. He’ll never be out of here again, unless Thanos wills it.

Or unless Asgard finds him. And if they were even looking, if they even cared, they would have long ago.

“Hela has nothing to – do with this,” he rasps weakly. Even if he knows how untrue that is.

The Mind Stone is prodding at his mind again, trying to rip past his shields. It’s all he can do to still try to resist it.

“I will go to Asgard,” Thanos muses, consideringly, “And I will find her and bring her here. Her death will tip the universe’s scales toward balance, even if you refuse to cooperate.”

His heart is pounding, and he can’t – breathe. Can’t –

Thanos means it. He’ll do it. He will. “You couldn’t – get to Asgard.” He doesn’t believe his own words, though. The Titan is insane and he has an Infinity Stone, and –

“None of the worlds I have gone to have ever withstood me for long,” he replies, slowly stepping back.

It makes Loki’s heart lurch with panic, and he can’t –

He can’t let Hela die. He’s not thinking, doesn’t have the mind to think past his panic, but when the Mind Stone prods at him again, he doesn’t fight.

He just – breaks , and the world fades into darkness .

Chapter Text

Hela should have known it would only be a short time before her life was turned upside down once more. She’s in her room, working idly, mindlessly on some of her sculpting projects that Loki would have loved to see when a guard comes to her door to tell her to head to the throne room immediately. The urgency of the matter strikes her as odd, but Hela complies with a lot of muttering that Odin never needs to hear.

When she enters, Heimdall stands in front of the throne, and Hela slowly makes her way past him to stand near her father.

“A threat has arisen on Midgard,” he says, “Loki has returned from beyond the Nine Realms. He has allied himself with a force called the Chitauri. He prepares to invade Midgard as we speak.”

… What?

For a moment, all Hela can do is stare.

Loki’s alive?

But – he fell into the void. He – “He’s alive ?” is the most she can come up with, heart pounding. Her brother, her twin, is alive. It’s not possible, is it?

“He is,” Heimdall replies.

“But – how could you not have seen it long ago?” She wants to believe this is true. She does but it seems so impossible. And yet, isn’t Loki truly dying even more impossible? It should be, but all this time she’s grieved him, and –

“He fell from sight.”

That is not supposed to be possible, but it is, and all Hela can think about is that her brother’s still alive . And, quite honestly, she cares about nothing else. Loki’s still alive , which means she can still see him again, can still get the answers she needs and can bring him home .

“Father,” Hela requests, “If I may, I would like to go to Midgard and bring him home.”

“You will need the Tesseract to return to Asgard,” Odin replies, “I will have no way of bringing you back once you are there.”

She doesn’t care. She doesn’t care about anything except that her brother is still out there . “Then I will find it.” 

“Be warned,” Odin speaks after a long pause, “If he would go so far as to attack one of the Nine Realms, he may not be willing to return peacefully.”

“He has an army,” Heimdall adds, “An alliance with the Chitauri.”

“Attacking Midgard this way is an act of war against Asgard,” Odin says gravely.

That –

Hela knows it’s true. But it just doesn’t make any sense. Why would Loki attack Midgard? Why wouldn’t he just come back home the moment he had the chance? Where has he been all this time?

She doesn’t know what to think. Something doesn’t make sense here. She tries to ignore the traitorous voice whispering in her mind that she has no idea what was going on with Loki at the end, considering the Destroyer incident, and she doesn’t know how much of that is still affecting what he’s doing now.

There can’t be any way he’s not as eager to see her as she is to see him so – what?

She’ll have to be careful. She knows that much, even if all she can still focus on is that her brother is alive and as long as that’s true, everything else can be worked out. Right?

***

Hela’s mind is still spinning. She can’t stop thinking about Loki and she’s about to get to see her brother again. She nearly trips into Baldr, having not even seen him until she’s nearly smacking into him. She should’ve at least sensed him, but she’s so distracted she nearly didn’t .

“Where’re you off to?” Baldr asks.

“Loki’s alive,” Hela answers shortly, “I’m going to bring him home.”

“ Alive ? But I thought…” He looks overwhelmed, confused. Odin hasn’t made the announcement about her brother’s survival yet. They both saw him fall. “Where is he?” he asks, “Is he alright?”

“Midgard. Heimdall says he’s attacking.” Which isn’t right, but Hela will see for herself when she gets there.

“ Attacking ?” Baldr repeats, bewildered. “What would have led him to attack a planet of mortals ?”

“I’ll see what possessed my brother when I get there.”

“Be safe,” Baldr requests, “If you have to fight him again…”

“It’s him I would be concerned about.” She can fight Loki. He could never hurt her. She’s more worried about how she could hurt him .

“Even so,” Baldr replies, “Be safe, and bring him back.”

Or what’s left of him. Because this – it isn’t right . None of this makes sense. Midgard did nothing to deserve her brother’s wrath. And even if they had, Hela cannot imagine why Loki would ever declare war on them. Heimdall said he had an army . “Despite how you flatter me, I will be perfectly fine.”

“I did not mean physically.”

She can handle it, anyway. Maybe. She thinks of how her last fight with Loki ended and has to wonder again. Would she? Could she truly fight her brother again?

But he disappeared for a year and made everyone think he was dead . He didn’t come back. Didn’t try to contact them. Didn’t anything , and Hela is angry, too, even if she’s… impatient to see him. She wants to yell at him. She wants to hug him. She knows she’ll do both.

Because it doesn’t matter what they were or weren’t when they were born. He is still her twin brother, and he will always be what she loves.

Because he’ll always be Loki .

I don’t care what he does , she wants to say. What he tries to do. Because I’ve never been happier the moment that I heard he was still alive and even if he kills me at least he’s still here .

“Loki will not hurt me,” she promises instead, “Tell Fenris we’ll be coming home?”

“I will,” he promises, “And the Valkyrie.”

Loki’s alive . That’s the only real thought buzzing in her mind, and nothing else matters.

***

“Hela.” Odin stands in front of her, Gungnir gripped tightly in his hand. “Before you depart, you must be aware that, when you return to Asgard, Loki may be a prisoner.”

Not to me. Hela’s eyes narrow. “I know.” They insisted she bring the magical-restraining chains, just in case, but she has no desire to use them.

“The Tesseract will be your only way of return.”

Loki never told her where the portals between realms were. Not even when he had been studying them. Hela heard that he was blamed for letting the Jotuns into Asgard, but she hadn’t cared at the time. She still doesn’t now, so long as he’s alive. “Loki is my only way of return,” she replies, “Until I find him, I won’t come back.”

And when she does, she prays she will finally be whole again.

“Bring my son home.” Frigga requests, watching. Her eyes are wet. Hela suspects she may have been crying.

She wants to cry. Hela has always held herself together through rock and stone but Loki…

Loki is what makes and tears her apart.

And what of your daughter, she wants to ask, but Frigga doesn’t mean that .

The portal rips open. Hela squares her shoulders and steps through.

She’s not going there as a queen, or princess, or the Goddess of Death. She’s just Hela, and she wants her brother back.

It’s nighttime. The sky is dark, though the streets are lit by many lights. Midgard is getting advanced.

With the warning of the Chitauri, she expected to feel death. There is none. It looks normal, until Hela hears the noise . It’s a battle in the middle of a street behind a large building. Something is burning nearby, because she smells the smoke.

Chaos, not death.

Very Loki.

Hela smiles despite herself.

Voices reach her ears next, distorted and muffled by distance and sound.

But in the plaza is Loki, fighting with Steve and another man with a bow and arrow . Mortals still use those?

If there is a threat to the world, Steve would be the one to go, but Hela did not expect to run into him in the first minute . She looks up from where he fell, thumping onto the ground where he was thrown, to Loki .

Her brother, standing in the center, in all his black and green glory, the ridiculous gold helmet on his head and his hair combed infuriatingly neatly, and his flowing cape.

Loki .

Her brother, who died and she mourned for so, so long .

He’s holding some kind of scepter that reminds her a bit of Gungnir, but it hums of a totally different sort of power.

Hela also doesn’t care.

This is her brother . She doesn’t care about anything else.

He’s raising the scepter towards the other man, and Hela sprints forwards, grabbing the weapon and yanking it from his hands, throwing it onto the ground.

Loki stumbles, turning back.

He’s a foot from her. Loki .

Hela looks up, and their eyes meet.

She can’t breathe.

Loki smirks, first. “Good to see you, too, sister.”

She wants to scream. To shake and rattle him. He’s been gone for a year . Why didn’t he say anything? She wants him home . To where they can be on Asgard and hide in his room and make up for their lost time. Not to stand here, foreign and unfamiliar.

But he’s alive . He’s still alive.

“What are you doing here?” Hela demands, reaching out, gripping the front of her brother’s armor. He’s here . She can feel the leather and he’s real . He’s real. He’s not an illusion. He’s not a dream. He’s here . “Why didn’t you come home ? Why didn’t you come back to us?”

Loki just tilts his head, as though he’s confused as to why she’s angry. “To what?”

“What?” Hela echoes, lips dipping into a confused frown.

“You should thank me,” he answers with a careless shrug. “With the Bifrost gone how much dark energy did the Allfather have to muster to conjure you here?”

What’s wrong with him? Hela shakes his shoulder. “You were dead!” she hisses, “You died to us, and you never said a word about where you’ve been for an entire year .”

“Did you mourn?”

How can he sound so careless? As though the days and weeks she spent in her room, unmoving, unable to think of anything except how she failed her brother wasn’t the worst time in her life ? “You’re my brother.”

He scoffs, shoving her arm away and backing up. “I’m not your brother.”

Hurt swells up in her heart, hot and burning. How can he deny everything they were to each other? “I don’t care what we were born as. Give me the Tesseract, and we can go home together.”

“ Asgard’s not my home !” Loki yells.

Hela flinches back, lips parting, some of her determination sliding. Baldr was right. She’s not ready for this. She never could be. Because this is not even the same Loki who fell into the void of space. It’s the one who was lost and suffered for a year because she failed to protect him, and rightfully, blames her for it all. “That doesn’t mean you get Earth. Midgard is under Asgard’s protection.”

Behind him, Steve is on his feet, shield in hand, braced for action. The other man has a bow out, arrow aimed at Loki, though they’re both waiting to attack.

Loki laughs. “You’re all doing a marvelous job with that,” he scoffs, turning away, pacing. “The humans slaughter each other in droves, while you idly threaten. I mean to rule them. And why should I not?”

“When did you start to care so much for a throne?” Hela asks incredulously. This doesn’t make any sense. This isn’t the brother she knew , and she doesn’t know what happened to him.

“I’m the rightful king of Asgard. And you won’t stand in my way again.”

He dives for the scepter.

Hela flicks a sword out, slamming it down on the weapon. An arrow fires, but Loki dodges it with a roll. He splits off. Illusions. Not that it bothers Hela – she can always feel exactly where the source of her brother’s magic is. They collide with a loud clang, and Hela tries to twist it away from him, but Loki’s good with staffs. Second best, right up under daggers. Hela’s never been one for such close-range combat.

Loki brings his other hand up, gripping her wrist and trying to twist the sword from her hand. Hela grits her teeth at the sharp stab of pain where he twists it. He’s actually hurting her. She didn’t think he would. Hela jerks her arm down, swinging herself upwards and hooking a leg around his neck, slamming them both into the ground. She rolls over, and Loki swings the scepter up even if he’s down, a blast of magic hitting her square in the gut and throwing her backwards into some nearby stairs.

Her back throbs at the impact. Her spine yowls in protest at the jerking movement. It’s a good thing she didn’t eat recently.

Ow .

Hela groans softly, bracing herself on concrete and trying to push herself up. That’s a blast that would kill a mortal. It would probably incinerate them – it’s laced by some type of magic. Not magic like Gungnir – this is more . Far deadlier.

With a woosh of air, someone else lands, armored in red and gold. Loki’s bringing the scepter up when the new arrival raises his hands, a blast of some sort of goldish energy hitting him in the chest. It’s not magic. Must be some sort of new mortal invention.

Loki lands, rolling over.

Hela flings herself upright, sword drawn and aimed at her brother’s neck.

“Make your move, Reindeer Games,” the new arrival says – it’s a man, not a voice Hela recognizes. Not that she would even had she seen him before.

Loki looks up, slowly raising his hands, magic shimmering over him and disappearing his helmet and most of his armor.

“Good move,” the armored man says, lowering his hands and whatever weapons in his suit snap back beneath the shiny armor.

“Mr. Stark,” Steve says, briefly glancing in the newcomer’s direction.

“Captain,” he answers shortly.

“Well, that was something,” the bow-and-arrow man says, standing and picking a few stray arrows. “Where’d you come from?”

“Asgard,” Hela answers shortly. Loki doesn’t look at her, not even when she tries offering him a hand to pull him up. Her back still hurts, and so does her gut where he shot her. She thinks it’s burned. It feels like it is. Moving is painful. It’ll be healed in a few hours, but until then, she’ll be uncomfortably limping around. “Loki, where’s the Tesseract?”

“Far out of your reach,” he replies smugly. “I’ve sent it off, and I know not where.”

Hela shakes her head, gritting her teeth. She hates what she’s doing. Having to do this. But she doesn’t have a choice. Loki shouldn’t be a prisoner – he’s her brother , and she could never see him this way, but he was attacking these people. Trying to kill them.

This isn’t him .

Something’s not right.

“We need to get him to the jet,” Steve tells her.

“Come with me,” she orders, nudging her brother towards the waiting jet in question a short distance off.

Loki does, without resistance. He could put up a much bigger fight if he wanted to, but he’s not. It makes her on edge to know – why. What else he’s playing at. She loathes even more. It's something she needs to be afraid of. And she doesn’t understand. Why is any of this happening? What happened to the brother she always thought she knew?

Steve, the archer, and suited-man follow her onto the jet. The archer goes to power it up and they take off.

“I gotta say, I didn’t expect to see you now,” Steve comments, turning to her. “I was starting to wonder if you were going to come back.”

Hela tears her gaze away from Loki where he’s sitting in the corner, saying nothing. She just wants to know what’s wrong with him. She wants him to come home. Why is it so hard? “I meant to come back. But the bifrost was destroyed, severing my only way of return,” she replies.

He nods. “Well, it’s… good to see you again, even if I’d rather it be under other circumstances.”

“Wow,” the suited-man pipes up, “Capsicle knows Hades here? That does fit. You both were around at the same time as the dinosaurs.”

Dinosaurs? What’s that?

Steve doesn’t seem too impressed, whatever it is the suited-man is going on about.

“Do mortals always forget the identities of those who far outlive them?” she asks dryly. She has no idea where he got that name from. That is , in fact, the name of someone else. And nor is it someone she cares to be compared to.

“Well, you never did introduce yourself,” the suited-man waves it off, “But your spiky helmet reminds me a little of the goddess of death, since apparently Loki’s a real thing, too.”

“Impressive. There are mortals who remember,” Hela says dryly, “I am Hela, Goddess of Death. Sister of Loki.”

“Why do you keep calling us mortal ? It makes me think you are a dinosaur.”

“If she’s Asgardian, then she kind of is, right?” the archer calls from the front of the ship. “I’m Clint Barton, by the way.”

Hmm.

“Tony Stark,” the armored man says, looking back to Hela.

She nods in acknowledgement. She may care more to speak to these mortals under other circumstances but right now, she just wants to know what’s going on with her brother. He’s still sitting entirely silently in the corner and he seems very unconcerned about the situation. Almost like he’s waiting for something. Or getting captured was his plan from the start. She doesn’t like it. And she hates it’s something she needs to be worried about.

“I don’t like it,” Steve says quietly, a while later. He’s clearly thinking along the same lines as her.

“What?” Tony asks, “Rock of Ages giving up easily?”

What is it with this mortal calling everyone these stupid words? She doesn’t know if she finds it more amusing or irritating. Maybe it’s just that she’s on a short fuse right now.

“I don’t remember it ever being that easy,” Steve retorts.

“Loki is planning something. I cannot say what. He’s been pretty unpredictable as of late, and his plans far surpass anything you mortals could anticipate,” she says.

“Thanks for the confidence boost,” Clint says dryly, from the front.

“Be warned,” is all she can advise. Maybe they can talk more later, privately. Maybe.

Her gaze shifts back to Loki again. He doesn’t look back. The constant ache in her heart burns steadily deeper.

Chapter Text

Midgard has some sort of device they call cameras. They’re pretty handy, she has to say. Reminds her of Heimdall’s sight, and she’s tempted to ask if this is what it’s like for him. It gives her free reign to watch over her brother, even if she can’t be in the same room. He seems different now, and listening to him speaking with Fury makes that even more obvious. He just sounds… different .

The way he’s mocking Fury is different .

“It's an impressive cage,” her brother drawls, “Not built, I think, for me.”

“Built for something a lot stronger than you.”

“Oh, I've heard.” He sounds smug.

Hela heard. She heard about the Hulk on the way here, and a bit about this but standing here as her brother is imprisoned is harder than she gave it credit for. It feels wrong. She should be breaking him out as she would if he were ever imprisoned at any other time.

“The mindless beast, makes play he's still a man,” Loki continues, “How desperate are you, that you call upon such lost creatures to defend you?”

“How desperate am I?” Fury retaliates, “You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace, and you kill `cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did.”

This is wrong. This is all wrong. It isn’t the Loki who fell into the void, who she lost and missed and grieved.

“Ooh. It burns you to come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power . And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share, and then to be reminded what real power is.”

“Well, you let me know if Real Power wants a magazine or something,” Fury tells him, leaving the room.

“He really grows on you, doesn’t he?” Banner comments finally, breaking the quiet that hung over them.

“It sounds like Loki’s gonna drag this out,” Steve asserts, “Hela, do you know what he’s playing at?”

No. she doesn’t. Because she doesn’t know him anymore . It wears her brother’s face, but this is not her brother. “All we know is that he has an alliance with the Chitauri, and he will lead them on Midgard. But there is far more at play than we know.”

“Can you tell us what that means?” Barton asks.

“Whomever it is Fury’s imprisoned in a cage, pretending that is nearly enough to contain any Asgardian, is not the brother I knew.”

“I wanna know why Loki let us take him,” Steve says, “He's not leading an army from here .”

“I don't think we should be focusing on Loki,” Banner pipes up, “That guy's brain is a bag full of cats. You could smell crazy on him.”

Barton laughs.

Hela’s eyes narrow on them with a flare of agitation. “Take care how you speak of my brother,” she warns.

“Ah, sorry,” Barton says halfheartedly, “He’s already killed eighty people in the two days he’s been here, collapsed a few buildings, and put my best friend under some sort of spell.”

Only eighty?

He’s not even trying.

“What kind of spell?” That’s a lead they can start with.

“Don’t know,” Barton answers, “They just up and left with him. They drove him out. I suspect they’re the ones he left the Tesseract with.”

That doesn’t add up.

“This army you mentioned, it’s from outer space?” Steve guesses.

“Unless they’ve recently moved to your arctic.”

“Sounds like he's building another portal,” Banner adds, “That’s what he needs Jane Foster for.”

“ Who ?”

“She’s an astrophysicist,” he answers.

“SHIELD picked her up recently. Thought she could help with the Tesseract,” Barton answers, “Loki put her under the same spell as some of ours.”

“I think it's about the mechanics. Iridium, what did they need the Iridium for?” Banner asks.

“It's a stabilizing agent.” Stark breezes into the room, briefly speaking to a man Hela saw in passing earlier. Coulson turns off, and Stark fully enters the room. “Means the portal won't collapse on itself, like it did at SHIELD. Also, it means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long as Loki wants.” He looks around the room. “Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the top sails. That man is playing Galaga! Thought we wouldn't notice. But we did.” He pauses in the room’s center, covering an eye and slowly turning around. “How does Fury do this?”

“He turns,” Hill sasses back, arms crossed, side-eyeing him frustratedly.

“Well, that sounds exhausting,” Stark snarks back, swinging back to the topic at hand. “The rest of the raw materials, Agent Romanoff can get her hands on pretty easily. Only major component she still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube.”

“When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?” Hill asks.

“Last night. The packet, Foster’s notes, the Extraction Theory papers.” Stark scans the room disbelievingly, spreading his arms. “Am I the only one who did the reading?”

“Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?” Steve is quick to ask.

“He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier,” Banner answers. He’s fiddling with some small object, pacing. He’s visibly uncomfortable being here.

“Unless Foster has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect.”

“Well, if she could do that, she could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet.”

“Finally, someone who speaks English!” Stark announces.

“Is that what just happened?” Steve queries dryly.

“Yep.” Barton sits on the edge of the table Steve is sitting at. “Let the native English speakers have some fun while we go take a nap.”

Behind them, Stark is going on about the Hulk, and Fury interrupts, entering the room with a short “Dr. Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join him.”

“I'd start with that stick of his,” Steve volunteers, “It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon.”

HYDRA weapon? Hela has so many questions.

“I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube.”

Hela laughs. Mortals have a lot of technology now, but they are still wholly oblivious to anything magic-related. Fury gives her an irritated glance, but keeps speaking. “And I’d like to know how he turned two of the sharpest people I know into his personal flying monkeys.”

“The scepter bears a totally different magical signature than the Tesseract,” Hela interjects, “They are not the same. Understanding how the scepter works will give us answers about this… spell you speak of, but it won’t help find the Tesseract.”

“So, what do you say we do, Hades?” Stark asks.

“You do your thing and let me do mine.”

“What will you do?” Steve queries.

“I’m going to talk to Loki.”

“You think you can make Loki tell us what the Tesseract is?” Fury asks.

“I never said that,” Hela replies, and she doesn’t like the way he says it. It’s too… sharp . “My speaking to my brother is my own choice, and what I do to him is mine. But let you be warned that Loki is a prince of Asgard, and any harm that comes to my brother will lie on this realm alone.”

What? If he threatens Loki, she’ll threaten him, too.

Stark whistles. “I think you made Hades mad.”

“I’m just asking what you’re prepared to do,” Fury says.

“Ah, yes, as I am sure you are,” Hela tells him sweetly, “But I warn you, too, of the consequences of any harm that befalls my brother in this world.”

She turns, breezing out the door.

Perhaps her anger isn’t rightfully directed at Fury, but she’s still angry that he dare imply a threat on her brother. He may not have intended harm, but the threat was implicit enough.

Hela has made it halfway down the hall outside the room when she catches the sound of Steve’s footsteps following her. “I know this really isn’t the time to ask,” he says, but she pauses anyway, because he’s a friend. She trusts Steve, even if she doesn’t think she trusts anyone else aboard this boat. Or whatever Barton said it was called. “But, about Loki, he’s really nothing like how I thought he’d be.”

Hela exhales sharply. “Falling through the void of space for a year would drive even the softest hearts into insanity.” Though she thinks there is far more to it than this. There is something in her brother that did not feel normal . His murky, dark, but still unfailingly soft presence is blurring over with a twisted bright…

Something else.

The same magic from the scepter. She needs to see him again to be sure.

“I’m sorry?” Steve asks, confused.

Hela huffs a sigh. “He and I had… a bit of a disagreement, that led to the bifrost’s destruction. Loki saved my life at the cost of his own. We thought him dead until he was seen on Earth. But my brother has never been a killer. I see another’s hand in his actions.”

“You think he’s being controlled?”

It’s when Steve says it that Hela thinks it actually makes sense. The Scepter does resemble the Tesseract. Another Infinity Stone, perhaps? Which means her brother is the first known being to wield two .

She’s honestly proud.

If the Mind Stone is in the scepter, it explains the spell Loki allegedly has a few people under. It explains why his presence is merged with it. He’s being influenced by it. Though that raises the question of who is the Mind Stone’s real wielder?

“I’m almost certain.”

Steve exhales tiredly. “That does complicate things. I should take word to Stark and Banner.”

“Can you tell me anything we know about this spell? Foster? What was that other name?”

“Romanoff,” he sighs, “Natasha. She’s been a friend for a while. One of the first SHEILD agents who talked to me after I came out of the ice.”

“You work for SHIELD now?”

“The world’s still in chaos. It’s the only way I know to help.”

“Maybe Loki’s not so wrong. All the wars. The death. Mortals aren’t doing so well ruling themselves.”

Steve side-eyes her. “Yeah,” he concedes finally, “Guess you got a point.”

“I’m going to see my brother,” Hela tells him, “Try to keep Fury off my back.”

***

“Ah, sister,” Loki drawls, his eyes catching hers, and he stands inside his cell. The glass is greenish tinted, and that makes it harder for Hela to see his real form. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Good to see you, too.” Hela smiles humorlessly. “ Little brother .”

Loki scoffs, looking away.

She doesn’t know what route to take. The one as his sister, or one as a queen. She’s worried about him. Should she ask about him? Hela can feel his exhaustion. She cannot say how, but she has always had a sense of people’s wellbeing. Part of being the Goddess of Death.

And Loki looks half-starved and dead on his feet. It’s no wonder he’s sitting right now.

“After all this time, what made you come back?”

Loki chuckles lowly. “It wasn’t you.”

He keeps making the attacks personal, poking and prodding. He’s trying to get some sort of reaction, and Hela is determined not to give it to him, though resisting the urge to smash through the glass and try to physically shake some sense into him is growing increasingly difficult. “Certainly not. Else, you’d have returned to Asgard.”

“Towering golden palaces are no longer to my fancy. I’ve grown, Odinsdottir, in my exile.” Loki shifts, standing.

“Actually, I think you shrunk.”

Loki laughs, and Hela smirks, genuinely, for what is definitely the first time in years.

“You look like you haven’t eaten since the days of the Great War, and I can tell you haven’t looked at a mirror since then, either.”

“You think you can charm your way through to me. After you cast me out into an abyss?”

Loki made that choice when he chose to save Hela. He should’ve let her fall. She still wishes he did. She has never been able to let go of the guilt of what happened that night. She probably never will. Why is Loki poking at it so much? “You shouldn’t have chosen to save me.”

“I won’t make the same mistake again.”

“Good.” The room is quiet for a few minutes, filled with naught but the quiet sound of their breathing. Loki turns away, pacing across the cell.

“Tell me,” he asks, “Did you mourn?”

I cried for you every night and sometimes I couldn’t sleep at all and I’ve hardly talked to Father since because I blamed him for it, too, and I think he blames me, and I saw Mother cry even though she never cries, and I haven’t eaten a straight meal since . “You might say that,” she says instead. “Did you miss us?”

“What could Asgard have to offer that I should long for?”

“That’s it?” Hela asks shaking her head. “You didn’t even try to come home?”

“Asgard is not my home !” Loki yells sharply. “It never was.”

“I’m still your sister.” She walks closer to him, fingers gently pressing against the outside of the glass. “And you’re still a prince.”

“Not your prince.”

She usually knows what to say, even when Loki is being moody or broody and lashing out. Not this time. They’ve changed so much from who they were, and a year apart, for them as twins, feels like it’s destroyed the bond they once shared. She hates it. “No, you were my king. Until you tried to murder me.” She gives him a feigned, sweet smile. “Though the scepter, I must say – two Infinity Stones? You’re stronger than anyone gave you credit for.”

“Common mistake for Asgardians.”

“Yeah.” Hela nods. “Mother was right. You can do anything.” It is an Infinity Stone. At least he was cooperative about telling her that. He looks… wrong . The green color distorts his image, but his eyes look wrong. She blames it on the glass, though close up, with Loki a foot from her, save the glass separating them, she knows he’s somehow linked with the Mind Stone. It’s pulsing, pulling and pushing on repeat in rhythm like a heartbeat.

The scepter is the answer, and she has to find and fix it to get whichever madman decided to claim the prince of Asgard as something else out of her brother’s head.

“Oh, you might want to be careful about scratching that glass. If Fury sends you out that hole, I’ll have to take the scepter and teach them a lesson myself.”

***

She walks into Barton in the hallway, on pure accident. Almost literally walks into, actually, because for some reason Hela cannot even fathom , he drops out of the ceiling. “What were you doing up there?” she asks, lowering the sword she accidently pulled on him.

“Did you pull that out of you?” he retaliates, staring at her weapon.

“Yes,” Hela tells him, just to see his face.

“Wow. Sounds painful.”

“Were you in the ceiling?”

“Yeah, I was actually in the vents ,” Barton answers, “It’s a good lookout.”

“Expecting trouble?”

“We kinda got a slightly maniacal alien demigod imprisoned here. I’d say that qualifies as high-alert mode.” Barton shrugs. “Nice sword though.”

Must mortals speak so much? Hela may not have minded once. She minds now. She would like to be left for a while into the solitude of her own mind, but that’s probably months of constant depression speaking. It’ll take a good while to fade out. “Thank you,” she tells him dryly, “Where’d you get the fancy arrows?”

“Most of them I make myself. Natasha helped with some of them, though.”

“I didn’t even know mortals still used those things.”

“How are we more ‘mortal’ than you guys? Do you actually not die?”

“ Humans ,” Hela amends with an eye-roll, “Rarely outlive a hundred years. We live five thousand.”

“Wow. Guess Stark wasn’t much kidding when he said you were as old as the dinosaurs.”

“Actually, in your terms, Loki and I should be nineteen. Not that there’s an accurate translation.”

“Wow.” Barton blinks at her, a bit wide-eyed. “I thought you were like, way older than that. I lost a fight to a teenager. That’s actually embarrassing. I take it back, Loki has my respects.”

“As well he should. He is a prince.”

“Steve said… something about how you think there’s someone else involved?”

Barton and Steve must be friends, then. Hela never knew him when she was here. Probably another friendship Steve formed after she returned to Asgard. While she was mourning Loki. She hates how that feels unfair – Loki was not his brother. Though that is exactly it – because this entire time, it felt as though she was the only one who genuinely missed him.

“Someone thought it was to their fancy to possess my brother and turn him into a murderous monster. They’ll learn what they have done when I reign it down on them.”

“I’ll help,” Barton volunteers, “I want back at whoever took Natasha, too.”

“The more the better,” Hela vows darkly, “Because as soon as I find who is responsible, the armies of Asgard will march on them.”

“I’m sorry,” the man tells her with genuine sympathy, “I know he means a lot to you. Tasha does to me, too. So… I guess I get it.”

“Who is she?”

“She’s my best friend. Never put a name on it. Sister, maybe.” He shrugs. “She’s a lot younger than I am. Guess I’m lucky I got called out. Nat was filling in for me. I had to take care of some, uh, other things. It should’ve been me.”

“I know Loki would be glad it was him in my stead,” she says, even if the words taste like ash, “Not that I care.”

“Yeah.” Barton chuckles. “You’re a good sister. Threatening Fury? Very few people are that bold.”

“I’m the Goddess of Death. Most do well to fear me.” Because no one who crosses her brother will find a place to escape her wrath.

Chapter Text

Barton tows Hela into the lab where the others are gathered. She hears the angry voices all the way out in the hall, and all but rolls her eyes. Mortals. They are unbelievably petty.

When they enter, Banner jerks around a computer screen to show them something. It looks like some type of weapon plan. “Did you know about this?” he demands angrily.

Barton rocks back on his heels, not really keeping his distance, but still doing so. “Nope. Fury just tells me what I need to know for my missions. Anyone wanna take a break? You’ve been up here all night.”

“No,” Banner replies fiercely, “I’m not leaving because someone’s suddenly getting a little twitchy. I’d like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction.”

“Because mortals are undisputably petty creatures, keen on wiping out their own kind,” Hela answers flatly. Loki wasn’t all wrong. Someone needs to hold their hand.

“Because of her ,” Fury objects, pointing at Hela.

She laughs. “Yes, I imagine so. Had I gone on to become queen, as I should, I would have removed the Tesseract from your hands. None of you comprehend the power with which you are tampering.”

“Last year, Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that nearly leveled a good portion of a town near DC. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously , outgunned.”

“Steve did well against the Destroyer,” Hela argues, “Impressively well, I must say. Against one of the most powerful weapons in all the cosmos.”

“I think you’ve forgotten the part where Hela destroyed it,” Steve agrees.

“But she’s not the only one out there, is she? And she’s not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, they can't be controlled.”

“Like you controlled the cube?” Steve snaps back.

“You are fully aware it was your activating the Tesseract that brought Loki to this world, correct?” Hela queries, “You should be grateful it was merely my brother rather than a genuine threat.”

“You forced our hand. We had to come up with something,” Fury defends.

“Nuclear deterrent,” Stark snips, “‘cuz that always calms everything right down.”

“Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?”

“I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck deep –” Steve starts.

“Wait! Wait! Hold on! How is this now about me?” Stark yelps.

“I'm sorry, isn't everything?”

“Can you cease your constant chatter?” Hela asks, rolling her eyes. “The point of this that matter is that my dad clearly made one of his greatest mistakes when he entrusted your people with one of the greatest powers in the universe.”

“At least we didn’t take it to your planet to blow stuff up,” Fury accuses.

“Oh, no, you’ll level your own. Wipe another realm off the map. You think you know something of control, and look around you?” Hela spreads her arms. “Your entire history. Bloodshed and chaos. You accuse my brother of murder, and how many have you slaughtered?”

“It's his M.O., isn't it? I mean, what are we? A team? No, no, no, we're a chemical mixture that makes chaos,” Banner volunteers. “We're – we’re a time bomb.”

“You need to step away,” Fury argues. He’s getting angry, but that’s a joke.

So is Hela . Odin was a fool to send the Tesseract here.

“Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?” Stark asks, dropping a hand on Steve’s shoulder.

“You know why, back off !” Steve snaps, swatting his hand off.

Stark rounds on him. “Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me.”

“Big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?”

“Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.”

Barton laughs. “I’m sorry. When I was called in, I didn’t expect to be babysitting toddlers.”

“I know guys with none of that worth ten of you,” Steve snaps, ignoring Barton entirely. “Yeah, I've seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.”

“I think I would just cut the wire,” Stark shrugs.

Steve smiles fleetingly. “Always a way out? You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero.”

“A hero?” Stark spits out, “Like you ? You're a lab rat, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle!”

“Put on the suit, let's go a few rounds.”

Something in the air feels hot. Buzzing. Electric. She tilts her head a little, eyes narrowing on the scepter.

Hela moves past the others slowly. The scepter is glowing, the end flickering blue. It’s active. Right now.

“Everyone, shut up !” she yells abruptly, and the room just quiets.

“Wow,” Barton protests, “That’s harsh. I wasn’t saying anything.”

Hela gently nudges Banner aside. “Back away,” she orders. “I’m not asking twice.”

“What are you doing?” Steve queries, befuddled.

“I’m about to find out.” She reaches for the scepter, slowly lifting it. The end is shimmering, whispers of violence and rage. A rage she knows well, familiar but foreign, what’s a part of her but begging to explode. She feels Loki’s presence, murky and muddled, and she reaches for it.

Stupidly.

The force of magical energy crashes into her, screaming of death and violence and blood and an insatiable need to hurt .

Hela tries to rip away, throw up some sort of metal shield. Her head is pounding. Everything’s spinning. Someone’s hand is on her shoulder. Someone’s yelling her name – she can’t see . There was a flash, a dark world far away, but she can’t tell what it was. What anything was.

“Hela, can you hear me?” Steve.

“Naturally,” she rasps, irked, “You’re yelling in my ear.” Her head is pounding . It feels like someone took an axe through it and if she moves it’ll fall in half and Steve will spend hours cleaning the mess off his suit.

Banner’s here, checking her pulse, even if he looks more freaked out than she is. Whoever has control of the scepter lashed back when she tried to touch it, and it nearly wrestled its way around her mind, too. And it almost succeeded. She shoved it away so violently it nearly knocked her out. It’s an infinity stone – not even the strongest mind in the world could withstand its strength.

Hela groans, lifting a hand to her forehead, pressing against her skull, teeth gritted. She tries to pull away because Steve’s arm around her back and what she thinks is Barton’s hand on her shoulder just feels too – too much . She feels too much sees too much and she needs it to stop .

“What did you do?” Barton asks.

“The scepter,” she answers, “It’s controlling all of us.”

Barton looks up at Fury, shifting back from her.

Behind her, something beeps, but it’s too loud . Every sound grates in her skull, and even Stark’s not so loud “got it” and the sound of his footsteps crossing the room sends another sharp stab of shooting pain through his skull.

“Did we find it?” Banner asks.

“Yep,” Stark answers, turning for the door

“Wait,” Steve calls after, “You’re not going alone.”

“I can get there faster.”

“You want to die, be my guest.” Hela rolls her eyes. “The Tesseract was gifted you by my father centuries ago. It’s going back to Asgard.” None of them are behaving rationally. She needs to get the scepter out and then they can talk about this. That spurs her upwards, Steve steadying her. Her head is pounding and moving sends the world spinning, but the windows are right there and they’re over the ocean.

Fury can kill her for it later.

Hela dives forwards for the scepter, fully intent on throwing it out the window into the ocean where these idiots truly should have left the Tesseract when the entire room explodes .

Pain lances through her leg where some sort of metal something landed on it. Her head is on fire. Still burning. Hela groans, rolling over. The scepter. Loki –

Something’s burning. She smells the smoke, and instinct adrenaline forces her up. She sits up, shoving the debris off and limping to her feet, brushing her hair from her face and willing her crown on. Steve and Stark are disappearing through a doorway. The floor between them is missing.

Fury is struggling to stand, and Banner and Barton are nowhere to be seen.

Considering the hole in the floor, Hela would bet heavily on that . They probably fell.

The scepter .

Hela dives for it again, snatching it from its place, turning back to the mortal.

He waves her off, agitated, talking into some sort of mortal equipment, checking the situation.

Hela needs to get this thing as far from Loki as she can. There is no use checking on her brother – there is no stopping his escape, if he is not already out.

The explosion is a diversion. She needs to find the intruders, but mostly a way to get rid of this thing. She still thinks drowning it in the ocean may be her best decision.

***

Hela is making her way through one of the dark halls down below, heading for where she heard the intruders were headed. 

She knows they need to get the scepter out of here , and maybe it’s still influencing her to some level or other, but she has to get it as far from her brother as possible. She has to break the control.

Hela pauses midway in the walkway at a flickering light behind her. It’s not physical, but rather the way she senses all life. She serves aside barely in time to avoid a black-clothed figure jumping down at her, trying to seize the scepter. She grunts, swinging away from the red-head’s grip, but the other’s elbow slams into the edge of the scepter, flinging it over the railing.

They both watch it clattering down.

Hela looks up, eyes narrowing on the woman in question. She’s a redhead, and her eyes are blue. Totally blue and pupil-less. She’s under the control of the scepter.

Is she the one Barton and Steve were talking about?

Either way, Hela needs to stop her. But without killing her, preferably.

The woman comes at her again and Hela kicks her in the side, knocking her to the floor. She flips back to her feet easily, firing something off a band on her wrist. Hela doesn’t realize what it is until the tiny device is hitting her, electricity jolting through her.

It’s minor all things considered, but it still burns and it slows her down enough for the woman to get the jump on her, tackling her from behind. Hela lands awkwardly as she’s mid-ripping the electrocuting device off of her, but the woman already has a string around her neck, trying to strangle her. And it’s working. She tries to get her fingers around the string instinctively but there’s no way for her to get a grip on it and she can’t breathe and her vision is starting to swim. This is ridiculous . She’s not going to die here because of a mortal, especially not from being strangled by one. Trying to knock her off is pretty impossible when she doesn’t have any leverage and she can’t breathe.

This is such a stupid way to die.

Hela reaches up, twisting one of the woman’s hands to the side sharply, hopefully not enough to actually break it but she manages to slightly dislodge her hold. She knocks her off, getting to her feet and punching for her head. The woman ducks it though, catching ahold of the rail on one side of them to flip out of her way.

At least that gives Hela enough of a moment to try to catch her breath as she braces herself for another attack. The woman fires another one of the electrocuting devices and Hela fails to duck it in time again. This is getting ridiculous. But at least she knows it’s coming this time and yanks it off her, ignoring the spiking pain in her shoulder from it, before it gets too bad. But the woman is already trying to tackle her again.

Hela knocks her to the floor, going for her wrist band and ripping it off, crushing the device. Because for all that this woman is a good fighter, that doesn’t change that Hela is far stronger. They trade blows on the floor before Hela rolls back to her feet, kicking the woman in the head. She goes down with a thump and doesn’t move.

Hopefully that wasn’t hard enough to actually hurt her. She can still feel her life pulsing, though, so she’s not dead at least.

Hela scrambles to the railing, looking down to where the scepter fell below.

And it’s gone.

Because the day clearly couldn’t get any more complicated.

Loki or someone must’ve come through here while she was distracted, because it’s gone . Great.

There’s no stopping him now. She’ll have to find a different way to get the scepter back later.

Hela crouches next to the woman, checking her over. She seems fine, aside from the already forming bruise on the side of her head. She should probably get her somewhere out of this hall. And hope that the mind-control was broken though there’s a chance it wasn’t – she’ll have to be prepared for that.

She carries the woman to the medical area on the helicarrier, dropping her off with the warning that she doesn’t know what state her mind is in now. She doesn’t feel the scepter’s control over her anymore but if it left any permanent effect on her mind, she has no idea.

She’d wait around but she needs to find out the status.

She finds Barton first, standing in the middle of a room that’s entirely smashed up and there’s a hole in the floor a distance away, air whipping in.

“I see the attack went well here,” she snips, arms crossed.

“Banner turned into the Hulk,” Barton replies, with far too much cheer for what that fight must have looked like, “I shot out the ground from under him before he got too far.”

She blinks, warily approaching the hole that is way over the ground. “That fall could kill even an Asgardian.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s indestructible,” Barton objects, “I’m not sure even you could beat up someone that huge and green.”

She laughs. “I’m sure we’ll have another opportunity to find out.” She rather doubts what he’s saying but it is true that she has no idea what this Hulk even looks like.

“I hope not,” Barton says flatly, “But Loki escaped. I think we’ll be dealing with a lot more chaos shortly.”

She doesn’t doubt. “I found your… friend, I believe,” Hela tells him.

“Natasha?” Barton asks, instantly perking up but looking worried at once, “Where is she? Is she… alright?”

“If you define being unconscious in the medical bay as such, yes,” she replies, “But the scepter control may be broken.”

“I’m going to go see her now,” he decides, instantly moving to go.

Hela doesn’t stop him but keeps moving to see what the rest of the status is. By the looks of it, SHIELD fought off the attack even if the helicarrier nearly went down in the process. She picks up Steve along the way, who says he wants to come see Natasha too.

The red head is sitting up by the time they reach the room and Barton steps out when they enter.

“Are you alright?” Steve asks, moving closer.

She nods, though Hela doesn’t think it looks very convincing. “I’m fine. Now.”

“Impressive fighting, for a mortal,” Hela remarks, moving closer.

Natasha’s gaze jumps to her. “So, you’re Hela?” she guesses, “Clint told me who you were. Your… brother mentioned you too.” She doesn’t sound too happy at Loki’s mention.

Which is fair, but the mention of her brother instantly has all her attention. “Do you know where he is going now?” Hela queries.

“He never told me the details of the plan,” Natasha replies, “But he wanted Hulk unleashed so he could get out with the scepter. He’s planning some kind of invasion.”

“Couldn’t have figured that out on my own.” They already knew all that. She should’ve guessed Natasha wouldn’t know more, but she’s still disappointed.

“Whatever it is, I’m ready to help,” she says, firmly, “A lot of innocent people died here. I’m going to help stop him.”

“Were they truly innocent if they have killed no less than my brother?” Hela has to ask bluntly, even if she can understand the woman being shaken over it, considering it wasn’t in her control.

“It was senseless,” Natasha replies, “I’ve done that enough before. Not doing it anymore.” Must be some history there, something Hela doesn’t follow. It’s easy to see the guilt, though, even if it’s hidden.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Steve tells her quietly.

“I know.” She still looks visibly shaken, though.

“This is far beyond any training you could ever receive on Midgard. Even the strongest mind could not resist that pull,” Hela adds, “My brother could not either. The scepter is controlling him. Someone… powerful wields it, someone from beyond the Nine Realms, and has claimed his mind the way it claimed yours.”

“Nine Realms?” she echoes.

“The Realms Asgard has under its protection. Worlds far beyond Midgard.” She’s too impatient to find Loki, to find it amusing just how clueless so many of the mortals are.

She nods. “Steve mentioned a little about it. I almost thought he was making it up until right now.”

“He talked about me?” Hela asks, “I’m flattered.”

The woman huffs an amused laugh. “It’s interesting to meet my first alien. Maybe we can talk some more later. Do you know who’s controlling the scepter? Do we have a way to find them?”

“You mortals, no. But they won’t be hiding for long. They will face Asgard’s wrath.” She’ll make sure of it personally.

“I’ve got a score to even with them too,” she agrees, standing, “Let’s go.”

For a moment, Natasha reminds her a little of the Valkyrie. The fire is similar to so many of them. Hela hasn’t fought with them much in a long time.  Not since Bifrost was destroyed and Loki was lost.

It is nice to be working with her, even if Hela has a hard time appreciating anything anymore.

***

They don’t have to wait long for a lead on where Loki’s gone. Hela’s walking the halls alone when Steve, who’s fully dressed in his uniform, comes to find her. Natasha and Clint are following.

“It’s time to go,” Steve tells her.

“Finally have a lead?” Hela asks, instantly perked up.

He nods. “Loki’s been spotted at Stark Tower in New York.”

She has no idea where that is but so long as they can get her there, that’s what matters. “Then let’s go.”

Steve pauses, looking to the other two. “Can you fly one of those jets?”

“I can,” Clint confirms.

“You came to pick me up before asking him?” she asks dryly.

“We just joined up,” Natasha replies.

Hela follows them through the halls, and they pick up Stark as they near the jet. Apparently, they’re doing this without Fury’s approval for whatever reason. She doesn’t really care. She doesn’t much trust him anyway after he was threatening her brother. Maybe it’s for the best that this is an independent move on their parts.

They go on board the jet together and it feels a bit like – She hasn’t worked with a real team in her life before, aside from Baldr, Loki, Brunnhilde and some of the Valkyrie but that really feels like that’s what this is. Not that she has the time to reflect on it right now or focus on anything but Loki.

But now it’s finally time to find him and she won’t stop until she’s freed him and found a way to bring him back home.

Chapter Text

When they reach New York, Hela can already see out the front jet window that they’re too late. There’s a beam of bluish energy rising from the top of Stark tower, all the way up high into the sky. At the top of the beam is a portal. It’s dark, opening into a gaping emptiness of space above. An enormous thing is coming out. 

The Chitauri Leviathans. It must be carrying hundreds of Chitauri. The invasion has already begun.

A flash of iron streaks by in the sky and she catches sight of Stark. He’s shooting at some of the Chuiauri who are already down in the street.

“I will handle Loki,” she tells the others, moving for the back of the jet. As they fly closer to Stark Tower, she can see him down below. He’s standing on some platform near the top, where the portal machine is located. There’s a brown-haired woman standing next to it – that must be Jane Foster.

Clint pushes some control to open the back of the jet but that’s right as Loki moves the scepter and a blast of energy from it slams into the back of the jet. It jolts violently and starts spiraling.

Hela jumps out the back without waiting.

She falls, landing some paces away from her brother, dangerously close to the edge of the platform.

“Loki,” Hela calls, moving closer. Trying to reason with him won’t help because he can’t think right now but it’ll give her a moment to figure out what to do. She doesn’t know how that machine works. Smashing it isn’t going to do any good. Except it might tip it over and rip the portal open right through the planet’s surface itself and that would end Midgard real fast. “Nice portal you have, but I’ll have to ask you to shut it off.”

“No,” he retaliates, “There is no stopping this. There is only war.”

“War with a world of pathetic mortals? Sounds tedious.” She summons a spear, stepping closer. She doesn’t want to have to fight him again but she’ll have to get the scepter away somehow.

He lifts it, trying to blast her with it. She dodges the energy barely in time, jumping him. He shoves her back with the scepter and she blocks him with a spear – this isn’t a good way to fight. He’s far better at staffs than she is, as proved by how quickly he knocks her back. Hela flings her spear at him – not intending on hurting, of course, but he has armor so the chance of that is low -  but he bats it aside.

“This isn’t you, Loki,” she says.

Loki laughs. It’s his voice, but it doesn’t sound real. “I am more myself than I ever have. I’m free .”

“Free of what ?” Hela asks incredulously.

Loki just steps towards her, lifting the scepter. She can feel the magical energy pulsing around it, about to assault her mind. Is he trying to mind-control her? Or whoever it is that’s controlling him? A rush of anger and panic flood her, and Hela jumps him, knocking him to the ground and they exchange blows. He may be stronger, but she’s still faster – this was her forte, not Loki’s.

She tries to shove him down, kicking the scepter from his hand, but then she sees a glint of metal in his hand.

A dagger –

But it’s stabbing into her side before she has the chance to duck it.

Hela lets out a strangled gasp, reaching down to rip the blood covered dagger out and throw it aside as Loki stands.

He actually hurt her.

It’s not him, but it’s still hard to fight him. Still hard to –

She summons another spear, hurling it at him but he ducks it easily. She stumbles back to her feet, trying to ignore the burning in her side. It’s bad, but it’ll heal soon enough. Except Loki comes at her again, shoving her backwards –

She didn’t see it coming stupid ly – too focused on how this is her brother – and the next thing she knows, she’s falling over the side of the tower into empty space down below.

A fall that will definitely kill an Asgardian.

She’ll let Banner know of her sympathy for him if they both survive this.

Hela summons a spear, stabbing it into the side of a building as she falls. It scratches along the surface for a while, but it slows her fall a bit until it shatters some window and she’s falling again,

And then lands right on the back of one of the Chitauri’s flying vehicles.

She stabs a spear through the Chitauri, flinging it over the side and takes control of the vehicle herself. Figuring out how it works isn’t too hard, and she starts shooting at the other Chitauri flying past. She summons more spears as she goes, taking out all the others nearby.

But there’s so many and they’re everywhere and far above in the sky, she can see another Leviathan coming through the portal.

Down below in the streets, she can see her other friends gathering.

Hela directs the vehicle downwards to join them. They’ll need some kind of plan if they’re going to do this. She jumps off, going to join them.

“What’s the story upstairs?” Steve asks, as he finishes smashing a nearby Chitauri with his shield.

“Loki threw me off the tower,” she calls, “I’m about as far away from the scepter now as the rest of you.”

“What about the portal?”

“My brother would have built it to be impenetrable.” So she doesn’t know how they’re going to get it closed. The only ones who would know are Loki himself and Foster.

“We’ll have to deal with these guys,” Stark says, firing another blast at the nearby Chutauri as he lands.

“How do we do this?” Natasha queries, looking around. To be asking that, fighting in battles must not be her thing.

“As a team,” Steve replies, looking around, “Loki’s gonna keep this fight focused on us which is what we need. We’ve got Stark up top, he’s gonna need us…” He trails off at the sound of an engine.

Hela turns around to see Banner riding up on some kind of Midgardian technology.

“So, this all seems horrible,” he supplies.

“Yeah,” Clint agrees, “I think we could use some big green rage right now.”

“Stark?” Steve calls over comms, “We’ve got him.”

“Banner?” Starks’ voice asks, “Then tell him to suit up. I’m bringing the party to you.”

There’s a flash of armor above them and then Stark is flying in between the towers, leading an enormous Leviathan right towards them.

“I don’t see how that’s a party,” Natasha objects.

“I’ve been to worse parties,” Hela replies dryly.

Bruce turns towards the Leviathan and starts turning green. And growing enormous. He slams a fist into the front of the Leviathan, slowing it to a stop in the middle of the street.

Well, maybe Clint was right that she wouldn’t have a fun time fighting against him.

More Chitauri are coming through the portal now. Stark blasts a few more of them before he lands back on the ground near them. Hulk growls wordlessly at him.

“Guys,” Natasha warns warily, eyes on the sky.

This is not looking good.

“Alright, listen up,” Steve speaks, “Until we can close that portal, our priority is containment. Barton, I want you on that roof. Eyes on everything. Call out patterns and strays. Stark, you got the perimeter. Anything that gets past more than three blocks, you turn it back or you turn it to ash.”

Clint turns to Stark. “Can you give me a lift?”

“Right,” Stark agrees, calling Clint some random word Hela doesn’t follow before he picks him up and they streak away into the sky.

“Hela, is there any way you can slow them down from coming through?” Steve asks, looking to her.

“I can spear them all once they’re through and borrow some of their… flying things. I can handle it better than any of you.” Even if she gets hit with one of their energy blasts, she’d be able to take it. Probably.

Steve nods. “Get through as many as you can. Help Stark.”

She rarely takes orders from others but well – this is the mortals’ planet. They know it far better than she does. Hela nods, glancing around for where she left that flying vehicle. “I miss Mjolnir,” she grumbles.

“Who’s that?” Natasha asks, confused.

“It’s my hammer . I used to use it to fly.”

She and Steve look totally befuddled.

She expects one of them may have replied if a Chitauri hadn’t come down thes treet right then, blasting at them. Hela summons a spear, throwing it through them.

“You and me, we stay on the ground, keep the fighting here,” Steve says, turning to Natasha, “And Hulk?” The green beast turns to look down at him. “ Smash .”

Hulk grins ferally – she thinks Loki would find him adorable if they weren’t enemies – before he leaps dozens of meters into the air, landing on the wall of a building and starts ripping through the Chitauri there.

Hela fires up the engine of the vehicle and streaks away. As she flies between the buildings, she summons her spears, hurling them through every Chitauri she passes. She has a nearly endless supply of them and she moves as a blur of motion, taking down anyone in her path, letting the whispers of her magic warn her if she’s in danger.

She swerves past an area where dozens of Chitauri are on the street below, flinging well over a dozen spears down at them at once as she goes. Some Chitauri start pursuing her in the air, firing energy blasts at her. She jerks her own vehicle out of the way, flinging spears at them and dodging around the corner of another building to avoid nearly getting shot down.

There’s a Levithan coming around the next corner and she summons dozens more spears, hurling them at the thing. Its head is nearly impenetrable but it tries to turn away from the constant attack so she keeps throwing more – she’s obviously doing damage even if it’s going to take a long time to take down one of these things like this.

And then Hulk jumps out of nowhere, smashing it. Well then, she’ll let him finish the job. She swerves past, flying upwards to where more of the Leviathans are coming into the portal. She lands her vehicle on the top of a high building summons her spears, and flinging dozens into the air, trying to throw them hard enough to stab the thing all the way through. Which takes probably well over a hundred to make a difference but then the thing starts crashing. It lands on top one of the buildings and the entire thing shudders from the weight but at least another is down.

A group of Chitauri suddenly jump down on the roof behind her, a blast catching her in the side, flinging her to the ground.

Her side is burning, but it’s n othing. She forces herself up anyway, only for another shot to catch her shoulder and then a nearby Chitauri tries to jump her. She kicks it off, yanking out another spear and stabbing through a few others before she stumbles back to her feet.

And that’s when she catches sight of something else.

Between some of the buildings, she catches sight of his helmet glinting against the sunlight. He’s on one of the vehicles now, too.

This is not going to stop until she can get to her brother. She sprints for her own vehicle, swinging on and taking off, speeding after him. He has a long head start, though, and he rapidly disappears out of sight between some of the buildings.

She’d go after except as she’s flying over the ground, she sees well over two dozen Chitauri heading right towards Steve and Natasha’s position down on the ground. She jerks the vehicle down, speeding downwards as she flings spears through them including one that was just about to blast Natasha and she was losing the fight badly.

“Nice spears you have,” Natasha calls a bit breathlessly, as Hela slows the vehicle down a bit over the street below.

Another Chitauri abruptly comes around the shoulder, blasting Steve in the side. He goes down before he blocks it with his shield. Hela stabs the Chitauri without even looking at it, going over to Steve to give him a hand.

“Ready for more?” she snips.

“What? You gettin’ sleepy?” he throws back.

“I could do this for weeks,” she retorts sassily, racing back to her vehicle and climbing on.

“You found Loki yet?” Natasha asks, “Because none of this is gonna mean a thing if we don’t close that portal.”

“I’ll catch up to him,” she answers, firing up her vehicle and taking off again.

Now that she’s back in the air, it’s easy to see how far the damage is spreading. Stark is having a hard time containing the invasion. And more Chitauri are still coming through. A Leviathan goes straight through a building and the whole thing starts collapsing. She has no idea how many people were in there or if it was mostly cleared out but she can feel lives all across the city slipping away.

She catches sight of Loki a distance off, but he’s far ahead of her and he’s doing a good job at staying ahead. This isn’t working.

“Need some help?” a voice yells over all the blasting and shooting and she turns, catching sight of Clint on the roof she’s passing by.

She doesn’t have the breath to respond before he fires his arrow at Loki’s vehicle. It catches the thing and it explodes into flames. Loki jumps off, flipping onto the roof of a building slightly farther down. Hela winces, anyway – it looked like a painful landing, even if it worked. With Loki here, she’s starting to think she does need someone else making the calls. She doesn’t have the strength to do it herself. Just like before.

He won’t be hurt from the fall, at least not much, but that doesn’t make it easy to see. She slams the speed to full force, flying toward him. She needs to get there before he takes off again.

Loki’s already rolling back to his feet and he lifts the scepter, firing a blast of energy from it at her. She leaps off the vehicle and the blast catches that instead, exploding. Hela lands on the roof next to him and jumps him. They exchange blows as they roll across the roof.

At least she sees it coming this time when he draws a dagger. This isn’t him and she needs to stop this before he does something she knows he’ll never be able to let go of.

Like hurting her. She twists the dagger out of his grasp, summoning a few spears and stabbing them through his cape, pinning him to the ground. He’ll get those out easily, but it gives her a moment to scramble away from him, diving for the scepter. She picks it up, and a rush of energy slams into her mind hard enough to make her gasp. It’s trying to rip through her mind, trying to force her into submission but she’s Hela, Goddess of Death and she’s not giving in to the will of another. Least of all to one who has somehow claimed her brother’s mind.

She knows how this could end. She could be under control of it too and then Loki will never be free and all of Midgard will be doomed and she won’t let that happen. This might be an Infinity Stone but that means – it will respond to the will of whoever is wielding it. And whoever this being is, he no longer possesses it. She tightens her grip around it, throwing all her focus, all the magic she even knows how to use, into connecting with the stone, to ripping it away from the control of whoever was once wielding it.

For a moment, all she can feel is the crushing pressure against her mind, nearly enough to bring her to her knees, but she stubbornly fights against it.

Loki’s getting up again. If he takes the scepter now and uses it on her, she’ll fail. She won’t be able to fight the control because it’s about all she can do right now to resist it when no one is even wielding it.

She pushes back against the stone and then something shatters. She feels a ripple in its energy and she lands on her knees with a faint gasp. The sheer power of the stone is still overwhelming, drowning, but it’s not trying to overtake her mind anymore.

The power is in her grasp and she can actually wield it.

Hela lifts the scepter when Loki comes for her again, letting the energy of it crackle outwards, will in it to shatter the control over his mind. She feels it as the former control it had over him fades out.

Whatever spell it is over him just rips , crumbling, and Loki falls to his knees with a gasp.

Hela flings the scepter aside, and it clangs across the rooftop. In this moment, she forgets how he tried to kill her, forgets everything that went between them, and dives forwards to catch her brother before he hits the ground. Desperate not to see him fall again.

Loki slumps in her grip, head resting on her shoulder. He groans softly – she thinks he’s at least mostly unconscious. 

“Loki!” Hela pulls back, shaking her brother’s shoulder, mentally begging him to reply. She didn’t mean to hurt him. Did she hurt him? She can’t tell.

Loki groans softly, and she lowers him to the ground, begging him to wake and say or do something stupid, just – anything .

The scepter, whatever is in it, is clearly a powerful weapon, and it’s dangerous. It wouldn’t be hard to accidentally destroy someone’s mind with it, but she can only hope Loki being Loki is stronger than anything this thing could possibly have to do.

“Hela?” he whispers finally, eyes slowly drifting open.

She could almost cry in relief. “Loki, are you well?”

“Splendid,” her brother rasps. “You look awful.”

Hela scoffs, but she hugs him again, anyway, pressing him tightly against her chest. “As do you. We thought you were dead.”

Loki shifts back from her, looking around, face closing off. “How far are they?”

“How far do they plan to get?”

“Everywhere.”

“We’re working to contain them. We have to get that portal closed.” Hela lifts herself to her feet, extending her hand to her brother. “Come on.” He grabs it, and she hauls him to his feet, even if he’s leaning unsteadily against her.

“Do you have a vehicle?” Loki asks, watching the Chitauri, expression pinched. She wants to ask what happened to him, what led him to do this, but those are not answers Hela truly seeks. She could not bear the answer, in all the details she knows it will come in.

“You blew it up.” They stand there together, green capes blowing in the wind, watching the battle. “Well,” Hela grumbles, “I guess we’re walking.”

Chapter Text

Trying to climb up the side of Stark Tower is not Loki’s idea of a party. Not that he expected to wake into one, or wake at all. He can feel and think and move of his own freewill again, and that in and of itself is a relief he is grateful for and does not deserve.

Hela slid down the side of the building they were on with her swords, kicking off to spear through several more Chitauri. Loki dares not think about them, or the Other, or Thanos or the Black Order at all. Thanos is many things. A liar isn’t one of them. If he made a promise on Loki’s failure, he will carry through.

Loki doesn’t want to bargain with his sister’s life, but what choice has he? He will not fight her again, and he’s done enough. These people are innocent. They shouldn’t have to suffer. He’s already done enough to them.

The Chitauri are converging on them. Overwhelming. They know Loki’s down, and they’re trying to make up for it.

Hela flips herself off the building, backflipping onto one of the Chitauri’s speeders, kicking them off and throwing another spear towards another passing one. “I got us a ride. Come on.”

Loki swallows back the surge of panic nipping at his chest at having to jump, at falling and being so high , but he jumps onto the back of it, still holding the scepter, even if he never wants to touch the thing again.

He never wants to see or feel the scepter’s magic again, not after – after the Void. His head hurts and everything hurts but they have to shut that portal off .

Hela speeds them onwards, sending the speeder overhead Stark Tower towards a nearby Chitauri leviathan, and flips off. Loki jumps after, rolling across the surface and dropping the scepter again. The magic is burning at his hand, at his mind, even if none of it is real – and he wants to get away .

A sound draws his attention instantly towards where Foster is standing. She looks shaken, and maybe a bit awed.

She was mind controlled. She built this portal. Because Loki made her.

“Who’s this?” Hela asks, head turning towards him.

“Jane Foster,” Loki answers. “I, uh – I needed her to get the portal open.”

“Good. Then she’ll know how to close it.”

Loki nods. “You’ll have to use the scepter. It can get through the force field. We needed a lock, or the Tesseract’s energy would build until it exploded again.” A part of him wonders if he had her put it just for this, but it doesn’t matter – they just need to get it shut before something worse happens.

Something worse already will happen. Thanos knows Loki betrayed him, and he won’t forget.

“Hey.” Hela slowly moves over to the mortal, crouching in front of her. “I need you to find me the kill-switch in the portal. Can you help?”

“Yeah,” she nods, eyes darting past her to Loki. “What’s…?”

“It’s okay,” Hela promises, pulling her to her feet, “He was being controlled, too.”

Lady Foster nods, just accepting it right along, as though that’s far from the worst thing she’s heard. It really is, considering Loki was in her head and messing with it just like Thanos did with him. At least he wasn’t trying to hurt her. He just –

He feels sick.

Hela picks up the scepter, approaching the force field where it hums around the Tesseract.

Loki turns away from her, looking skywards in search of the approaching enemy. Hela needs to focus, and Loki will have to cover for her while she’s busy. He draws his daggers as some of them approach, but between the Hulk and Stark, they seem to have it fairly well-handled. He doesn’t see Captain America or Romanoff anywhere. Or Barton, for that matter. Hopefully they’re not dead.

“Alright,” Hela calls, and for a second, Loki thinks she’s gone insane, “I’m closing the portal.”

“Wait,” Stark’s voice says, distant and tiny – oh , she must have one of those communication things that the mortals have to talk to each other. Convenient. “We’ve got a nuke coming in. It’s gonna blow in less than a minute. I know just where to put it.”

“ Nukes ?” Loki asks disbelievingly, “Truly brilliant. Drop a nuke on New York and topple the portal where it can fall and build until it rips the Earth in half.”

“Good going, Stark,” Hela tells him dryly.

Loki stabs a few approaching Chitauri, watching for the streak of red and gold metal approaching. Hela has the scepter in the field, inches away from the kill switch itself, waiting for the thing to shut off.

“Make it fast,” Hela orders, “There’s another wave incoming.”

Stark swoops past them, pushing the nuke upwards, flying it straight up towards the portal. He could die there. He probably will, and he must know that.

He disappears it through the portal, cutting through space. Suit or no, he’s in the Void, and there’s a very low chance of any mortal’s survival and return.

Far above, something explodes. It starts as a dim light through the portal.

“Alright, Stark, if you’re hearing me, get back down here,” Hela orders. “I’m shutting this off.”

Basically, they have to shut the portal before the radiation and everything spreads and rains down on their heads, regardless. Let it be absorbed by the Black Order – the more of them that are gone, the better.

“Close it,” he hears Steve’s voice order.

Hela shoves the scepter further in, hitting the switch, and the energy ripples before the portal starts closing. “Stark’s still up there,” she says.

Loki says nothing. He doesn’t know these people. He only knows them from when Stark flew in and blasted him, from when he basically threatened him in the tower. And Loki threw him out the window.

Well – he kind of deserved that.

The portal shuts, and a figure is plummeting towards them, red glinting in the sun.

He made it through.

He’s dropping. Not flying, just dropping limply. “We have to slow his fall,” Loki warns. His magic is shaky and basically glitches worse than mortal’s old computer systems. It flickers and pulses, in and out, half dead and gone just like Loki himself feels. He still tries. Tries to reach out, to cast some semi-functional spell with which to catch him, because at the rate he’s falling, the landing will kill him – if he’s not already dead.

Stark hits the invisible shield Loki tried to throw up for him, and the hold lasts for a moment before it shatters , the stinging burn lancing down his palms, and he gasps, stumbling.

In the distance, he sees Hulk jump out of seemingly nowhere, grabbing Stark out of the air and hitting the side of a building, scraping down it. Good. That’s – good .

Foster is watching him. She looks shaken – she’s got to be. Loki just attacked her home . It doesn’t matter if it was his choice or not. He still did it. He still hurt her and her world. “I’m sorry,” he says, voice uncertain and mostly just shaky, rubbing at his hand.

“You attacked my home,” she replies flatly. “You were in my head , I don’t think I’m ready to hear an apology.”

That’s fair. “Sorry,” he mutters again, backtracking, sinking onto the edge of the tower. His head is throbbing. Everything is throbbing. Loki’s long since lost track of his virtually infinite list of injuries, and he’s not about to start counting.

“Rogers, is he okay?” Hela asks, throwing the scepter onto the floor. “Steve? You still alive?”

“Yes, we’re fine,” a distant voice says. “Hulk is, too.”

“Good. Hey, Barton. Clint?”

“I’m fine,” his voice promises.

“So am I,” Romanoff adds dryly, “Thank you for asking.”

Hela scoffs. “You’ll find us on top of Stark Tower.” She turns away from them and where the mortal still is, just blinking and trying to settle back into herself. Loki feels the same. It’s jarring not to have someone in his head. It’s been a long time since Thanos ripped his mind apart.

Hela sinks onto the roof’s edge beside him, reaching out to take his hand.

Loki grips hers, sighing, not speaking. He’s exhausted. He really, really wants a drink. Should’ve taken up Stark on that offer.

“Are you okay?” Hela asks finally.

He doesn’t know. Can hardly find the energy for a stupid quip anymore. The last time he saw her, they fought, and he fell into the Void. Fenris . Loki thinks about him all the time. What’s going to happen now? Thanos is still a threat, and he’s going to come for him and Hela.

He needs to worry about that, but right now, he just wants to breathe. It hurts to breathe. It always hurts.

Loki just shakes his head, wordless. He did so much to her, too.

Their shoulders touch, and Hela’s hand is cold in his own. This is familiar. They still look the same. Even if they’re not. The contact is nice. Loki can hardly remember what it was like for contact not to hurt anymore. It’s been a long time.

He’s too tired to think, to really do anything.

“Is – is Fenris…?”

“You’re son? I hope not.”

“What?”

Hela laughs. “Mortals have the most outrageous beliefs about us, brother. They think I’m your daughter.”

Loki turns his head to stare at her. “ Why ?”

“I have no idea,” she shrugs. “I am relatively convinced whoever wrote down these myths were probably drunk, or insane. But Fenris is fine.”

He could cry in relief. He didn’t know. He never asked, and he was too scared to ask, because he thought – he thought he killed him. He was so scared .

“You didn’t know?” Hela asks softly.

Loki shakes his head. “No. I – I wasn’t… there. I… I was trying to help you. I don’t know what…” He doesn’t understand any of what happened that day. He doesn’t want to think about it, either. He’s so tired. “Maybe we should talk about that… later.”

Hela nods against him.

How could someone think Hela was Loki’s daughter ? She’s his older sister. They are literally almost the same age. “They mistook Fenris for me?” Loki asks dryly, “And I for Odin?”

“Evidently. Oh, and they believe you have a brother named Thor.”

Loki scoffs. That word sounds familiar, though. It reminds him of something, pulls at something in his head – and then it snaps back over, just before he could swear he can remember someone’s face. His heart aches, the feeling of something empty, but he’s too tired for it to even matter.

“Also, Baldr is our brother. And you killed him. Allegedly.”

“Tempting,” Loki tells her flatly. He’s not going to think about how many times he genuinely wanted something to happen to Baldr.

“He missed you while you were away.”

Baldr missed him? Loki can’t imagine that. He and Hela see Baldr completely differently, and he doesn’t want to think about the Asgardian at all right now.

A door opens, and the Avengers spill in. Barton has his arrow out, and he doesn’t look happy. They’re all injured. Rogers has a scorch mark on his gut from where one of the Chitauri clearly shot him. Stark’s got a few cuts on his face, and his armor looks like it got ran through a grinder and lost all its paint. Romanoff has her hand on her gun, face closed off. Hulk is in the back, prowling and growling.

Loki waves. “If it’s all the same to you,” he calls, “I think I’ll have that drink now.”

Hulk growls.

“Hey, guys, are we done here?” Stark asks, “Can we take a day off? I want a day off.”

“Drink sounds good,” Barton agrees, slowly lowering his arrow.

Hela stands, and Loki follows suit, wincing. He aches everywhere. “Are your ridiculous mortal supervisors going to come apologize for their attempt at incinerating us?”

“You sound hopeful for something,” Barton remarks.

Hela grins widely. It’s terrifying. “I am.”

Loki stumbles a little when he tries walking, but he tries, anyway. Romanoff is still keeping a close eye on him, and his throat tightens. He was in her head, too. He turned her back into a mindless assassin, what she thought she’d never have to be again. Not as though it was too much worse than what SHEILD had her do.

None of them are virtuous.

Hela still has a small blood splotch on her clothes. And a burn from the hitauri’s weapons. He tries not to stare at them, but he can’t stop. She was hurt because of him, even if he tried so hard to keep her safe.

“Have you ever tried shawarma?” Stark asks, “There's a shawarma joint a few blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I wanna try it.”

“So long as it doesn’t taste like garbage,” Loki supplies.

“Aren’t you going to patch up first?” Hela queries, “Mortals don’t have rapid healing. And if you did, glass is hard to get out.”

***

Once they’re done ‘patching up’ – Loki looks over Hela’s stab wound and tries magic healing even if she fusses and whines and threatens to stab him. He sees Romanoff with Barton somewhere, and trying to hunt down Stark to pull the glass out of him from when Loki threw him head-first out a window is unreasonably hard.

He’s pretty sure Romanoff patches him up, too, with a lot of whining and yelling.

Foster is around somewhere. Loki lost track of her.

He’s half sleeping on Hela’s shoulder again, the scepter dumped on the floor on the far side of the room, and the Tesseract somewhere uncomfortably close, when the doors open. 

“STRIKE team’s here,” Stark announces, way too euphorically, “Coming to secure the magic wand.”

“Scepter,” Loki corrects grumpily, pushing himself to seating.

“We can take that off your hands,” one of them says, taking the scepter from Agent Romanoff.

“Ah, you again.” Hela rolls her eyes, tossing him the scepter. Loki admits to feeling smug seeing it thrown around after everything it did to him. “Take care with it.”

“Unless you want your mind erased,” Barton adds, “And probably not in a good way.”

“We promise to be careful,” the agent replies. Loki rolls his eyes, too, picking himself off the floor and brushing himself off a bit. He’s so tired. Stark insisted on grabbing a meal, and after that, he’s sleeping for a year. Though the bigger problem is going to be convincing these people he’s not a threat.

Hela watches, scowling, arms crossed as they put the Tesseract back into some kind of case. She doesn’t argue, though, and neither does Loki – this is some sort of mortal government proceedings. They demanded the Avengers babysit him and the ‘dangerous weapons’ until they came to secure them.

What needs to be secured, Loki decides miserably, is a very nice, soft bed with a lot of green. He’d even take the floor without complaint.

Rogers heads off, mumbling about going to coordinate search and rescue, and Loki has to bite down the urge to make fun of him so hard. He sounds ridiculous . All of Hela’s friends are ridiculous.

They head for the elevator next, piling inside, and Stark sits on the Tesseract case . Like an absolute moron .

“Move,” Hulk orders, lumbering in the elevator doorway.

“This is going well,” Loki mutters, and Hela smirks.

“Whoa, whoa. Hey, buddy,” Stark objects, “What do you think? Maximum occupancy has been reached.”

“You can take the stairs,” Loki offers cheerfully, pointing, just to be irritating.

“Yeah,” Stark agrees brightly.

“Stop. Stop!” Hulk roars, punching the door so hard it dents. “ Take the stairs! Hate the stairs !” Loki hears the green giant yelling distantly as the elevator carries them away.

Noted – Hulk is very easy to annoy.

But, on the bright side, the scepter is as far from them as possible, and the Stark has the Tesseract. Well, that is not good, but what counts for it is that he’ll be willing to give the thing back. Unless he turns it into a chair for the rest of his life, but Thanos would never think to look for a chair if he wanted the Space Stone, so that’s a double plus.

They make it to the lobby on the way out of the tower when they run into yet another group of people.

“May I ask you where you’re going?” the man in front says. He’s not a fighter – he’s dressed in casual attire. Must think he’s someone special. Loki doesn’t have a good feeling about any of them. They don’t look like good people. Not that looks alone says it.

“Darling,” Hela says sweetly, smiling nastily. “Is that any way to address a queen?”

“Actually, I don’t care who you are,” the man has the audacity to say, “I’m gonna have to ask you to turn that prisoner over to me.”

“He’s Alexander Piece,” Stark speaks up, because clearly the man in question has no voice of his own worth speaking of. “He’s the man, one of the folks behind Nick Fury.”

“ Ahhh ,” Hela drawls, smile widening. “What makes you think my brother is a prisoner?”

“He invaded our world and killed hundreds of people. He’s a global criminal.”

“And how many worlds have you invaded, darling?” Hela purrs, “How many have died at your hand?” She spreads her arms. “Do you believe me a fool? I know Midgard is like all other worlds. Your rank, your power , comes from those you slaughter. You have no right to call my brother anything lesser.”

Hela does so well at ruffling feathers. Loki’s missed this fierce protectiveness, that loyalty. It’s been away for too long. Half the people in the room are looking at him, and Loki gives a careless shrug.

“He’s gonna answer to us for his crimes on our world,” Peirce repeats, though he’s definitely ruffled. He’s lost so much of his calm. Loki wants to laugh. “And I’m gonna need that case, that's been SHIELD property for over 70 years.”

“Hand over the case, Stark,” one of the agents orders.

“I’m not gonna argue who’s got the higher authority here, all right?” Stark replies.

“I need the case.”

“I know you got a lotta pull. I’m just saying –”

“Okay. Then give me the case.”

“Get your hands off!” Stark yells when a number of agents try to rip the case away.

That’s their ticket home, and Hela miraculously runs out of patience before Loki. She brushes her hair back, flicking her wrist and drawing a spear. “Everyone, stay back !” she shouts, and the hall freezes. “Stay back,” she orders again, hauling Loki forwards with one arm and positioning herself between him and Stark. “The Tesseract belongs to Asgard. It has outgrown its welcome on Earth, as you all have well seen. I am taking it, and Loki, back to Asgard. If you have issue with this, I take it you can have an audience with the All-Father himself.”

Loki snorts.

Several people glare at him.

Beside him, Barton shrugs. “Well, I don’t know, it seems fair to me.”

“She’s got a point,” Romanoff adds with a small, smug smirk.

“The next person to advance on us will be missing a large portion of their guts,” Hela adds sweetly, “I don’t threaten.”

“She’s telling the truth,” Loki adds with a little evil smile of his own. Yes, terrorizing them will do no good, but he can’t resist. “Necroswords might look like mere blades, but if they touch you, they will rot you inside out.”

“Whoa,” Stark yelps, “Is that true? Hades, that true?”

“ NO STAIRS !!!” Hulk roars in answer, smashing his way through the wall.

The speed at which people flee from him is comical.

Hela draws Loki closer to her, and after being away so long, he can’t even protest being pressed so tight against her side. He’s safe here. With her.

***

An hour later, after they’ve calmed the Hulk, given Bruce a clothes change, had a meal, and dragged themselves back to Stark Tower, everyone crashes.

“The next person to wake me will find themselves facing my fury with only one eye,” Hela announces, pillowing her head on her arm.

No one wakes her for a long, long time.

Chapter Text

They’re at Stark’s tower now. Loki’s too exhausted to give his surroundings much thought. He’s pretty sure the tower is bigger than Asgard’s palace, though, which is impressive.

Hela’s still sleeping on one of the couches in the corner of the room when Loki awakes. Maybe it was the quiet talking and the knowledge that he and his sister are no longer the only ones in the room that wakes up first. After Thanos , he can no longer feel safe resting in anyone else’s presence if they aren’t… safe. Even if he doesn’t think any of Hela’s friends would actually harm him.

It's Stark and Banner. They’re both talking quietly.

Loki doesn’t know why they came in here to do it but it is some kind of common room.

He sits up and the two of them pause, glancing over at him.

“Hades here isn’t serious about her threat, is she?” Tony asks.

“Discover at your own peril,” Loki offers dryly.

“I think I’ll pass,” he decides, turning to go, and then pauses. “Hey, if you need anything, just ask JARVIS.”

Loki blinks, looking around the room that is empty aside from Dr. Banner, who’s first name is definitely not JARVIS. He thought it was Bruce?

And the other three Avengers are still elsewhere.

“Who’s JARVIS?”

“My AI,” he explains, before breezing out of the room.

His what – ?

Loki will just not ask. He sinks back against the couch again, just… sitting. He’s too exhausted to do anything else but too on edge to actually doze off right now. He can’t stop thinking about Thanos. The Titan will not let this go.

His gaze jumps to the window, unwittingly. He can still see the city smoking. He did so much damage. And Thanos wanted him to do… so much more.

“Hey.” He looks up, to see Bruce watching him. The mortal seems a bit uncomfortable, but he holds his gaze anyway.

“Yes?”

“You… never got checked up when everyone else did. And I saw that you’re hurt.”

Why is he even… “I attacked your world,” Loki replies bluntly, “Why would that concern you?” He’s just confused.

“Wel, it wasn’t really your choice, right?” Bruce asks, “And even if you were, you still deserve to have your injuries treated.”

Mortals are strange. No one on Asgard would ever say something like that. “Asgardians heal faster than mortals. I will recover,” Loki replies. “A Midgardian hospital could do little for me, as would your treatments here.”

“If you’re sure,” Bruce replies, a bit uncertainly. “Is there anything else I can get for you? You… didn’t really eat earlier.”

“Midgardian food is not to my fancy,” Loki supplies, which is half true, but he’d eat anything remotely edible at this point if he even could. But it’s been over a year since he even has and he has no idea how much time it would take to get used to food again. He still feels a bit sick from the little he ate earlier.

“The food out here is a bit strange sometimes,” Bruce remarks, “I’m more used to food in India now.”

Where’s that? “You see the food here as better or worse?”

“Both, depending on what food you’re talking about. Usually worse,” he replies, looking vaguely amused for a moment. “But if you… can’t eat much, you may find fruit more appealing. I can get you some of it if you want.”

Loki blinks. What – he never told him that. Was it that clear? How thin he is makes it probably obvious, to be fair. “Yes, thank you,” he says finally, because he can hardly say no to that.

Bruce returns not long later, with some fruit that actually does look a bit like the kind of thing eaten on Asgard. He starts eating it very cautiously, because he knows he may still react badly, regardless of how light this kind of food is.

Bruce looks like he has so many questions about his condition , but he doesn’t press for any details. Loki appreciates that.

“For having a green beast within you, you are no warrior,” he comments.

Bruce shifts, and Loki’s pretty sure he’s instantly uncomfortable again. The subject must be sensitive for him. He… did not mean for that.

“I used to be a researcher,” Bruce says, “Until that was destroyed by the other guy.”

“I know how it is,” Loki says, and maybe he really is that out of it because he has no idea why he’s bringing this up. “To have a monster inside of you.”

“From the mind control?” Bruce guesses.

“No.” Not only at least. He doesn’t know why he’s telling him this either. It’s not even this mortal’s concern. It’s something he will likely not even understand. “It is what I have always been, even when I did not know it. I’m part of a race of monsters, not Asgardian.”

The mortal frowns. “I thought you were Hela’s brother?”

“Adopted.” Doesn’t want to think about that part right now. And really, it doesn’t make her any less his sister. But it still hurts, burning constantly deep within him, that Odin and Frigga never told him. Because they still aren’t twins, even if Hela means no less to him.

Maybe that explains why he can’t stand Baldr. Because they really aren’t related. At least it makes him feel minorly better for how he’s always just wanted him to go away.

“Even so, an entire race can’t be monsters,” Bruce objects.

“You don’t know them. They attacked Midgard once and slaughtered countless of your ancestors. Asgard saved you from them.” So this actually makes Loki even more like the Jotuns than he first thought.

“What their people did doesn’t say anything about you ,” Bruce replies, “An entire race can’t be monsters. And what’s in your blood doesn’t say what you are.”

The mortal doesn’t know what he’s speaking of but Loki can’t help thinking about it for a moment anyway. But – “Have you ever applied that to yourself?” he has to ask, because it’s not hard to see how Bruce views the Hulk.

He sighs quietly. “I’ve seen what I can do.”

“So have I.”

Bruce doesn’t have anything to say to that so Loki lets it rest. At least the silence feels comfortable this time. And he can’t quite shake his words from mind, but… The conflict between Asgard and Jotunheim and all the endless history that’s gone done with him isn’t something Bruce could really understand.

***

Loki finally starts wandering through the tower, out of lack of anything else to do. He runs into Clint along the way. The mortal stiffens the moment he enters the room, turning to face him.

“So, you’re up and about now?” Clint asks lightly, but there’s still a tension in his eyes.

Not that Loki blames him. “I would prefer not to sleep the entire time I am on Midgard.” He hasn’t seen anything at all but the gaping void of space or the walls of his cell in a long time. And he doesn’t really know what’ll happen after he goes back to Asgard. He doesn’t want to think about that right now.

“What about Hela?” Clint asks, “Is she still keen on her threat to remove someone’s eye?”

“I don’t intend to find out.” And why does everyone keep asking him that?

The silence that falls is strained. “I’m sorry for what I did to your friend,” Loki says finally. He knows it’s not near enough, but from everything Natasha told him, he knows that she knows Clint the best. “Is she… well?” It doesn’t even feel like he has the right to ask, but he keeps thinking about it. He had her tell him everything under the control of the Stone and he knows a little of her past. He knows that she used to be an assassin and she believes she was doing differently under SHIELD.

“She’ll be fine in time,” Clint replies, a bit tightly, even if he’s not really acting outwardly angry.

Loki nods.

He knows she can’t be handling it well and he doesn’t expect more of an answer either.

“I know it wasn’t you wielding the scepter,” Clint comments, “But who was it? Is that something we need to be worried about?”

He stills.

No one’s straight up asked him that yet. He needs to tell Hela about Thanos but he doesn’t even know how. The Titan warned him of what would happen if he did. Not that he isn’t in trouble from him already . “He is a threat from far beyond Midgard. Not one you are likely to see again soon,” Loki answers finally. Or at least he can hope.

He definitely owes it to Hela to explain that to her first. Even if he really doesn’t want to begin getting into it.

“Quite some threat, for sending a kid out here to do his work – whatever exactly it is he wants.”

A kid? “I am over one thousand years old.”

“You don’t look nearly that old,” Clint replies dryly.

“Naturally,” Loki snips, “Midgardians are nothing but skeletons by that age.”

Clint snorts. “True enough. But how old are you in our terms?”

“Nineteen?” he offers. Trying to translate it to human terms is a bit messy, but it’s something like that. Not that he’s really sure – it’s strange to think of the wildly different aging rates.

“Well,” he supplies, “You and Hela really are still kids. So my point still stands. How long are you going to be sticking around?”

“Until we have means of return to Asgard.” Something he’s still not looking forwards to.

“Eager to get back home, then?” Clint guesses.

Home.

As if he could call Asgard that anymore.

Sometimes, he doesn’t know that it ever truly was. Hela is his home, more than the place itself.

“Inconceivably excited,” Loki deadpans.

Clint frowns. “What? Is something… wrong?”

“I was not on the best of terms with Asgard when I was lost.” He turns away, breathing out heavily. This definitely isn’t something he wants to get into right now.

“You have parents there, right? I’m sure they’d be happy to know you’re alive.”

Maybe. Probably. He doesn’t want to think about facing Odin right now, even if he… misses before.

“My father is king. I will be answering to him for my crimes,” Loki answers shortly.

“But he knows it wasn’t you’re doing,” Clint objects, his frown growing a bit, “I suppose I don’t know how those things go on Asgard, but… feel free to come back to Earth if things go south there.”

Is he serious?

Why would he offer something like that?

Mortals are so strange.

Clint shoots him a teasing smile. “Let your sister know. Besides, it’s not every day I get to meet aliens.”

All he can do is mindlessly nod. He doesn’t know if that’s a chance he’ll get or if he’s just being paranoid for nothing, but that someone would offer something like this still means… a lot.

***

Loki’s still wandering through Stark tower when he runs into Seve.  He doesn’t really know what to think of him, but he’s the first mortal friend Hela had and he helped her after Odin abandoned her out here so that means… something.

“I thought you were coordinating rescue,” he supplies.

“I was,” Steve replies, “But the situation is under control right now.”

He nods wordlessly. Doesn’t really have much to say. He doesn’t know these people even if they are his twin’s friends. He’s been apart from Hela for so long. This past year is the longest they’ve ever been apart and so much has happened.

“Hela talked about you a lot,” Steve comments, eyeing him. “She said you were the best brother – ”

“I’m her only brother,” Loki interjects. He has no idea why something whispers in his mind, of how that’s not entirely true and the person he thinks of when he sees that is definitely not Baldr. It’s someone else.

“-- I was going to say the best brother that anyone could have,” he replies dryly.

It doesn’t really surprise him that Hela would say that. It still means a lot, though. Especially after everything that happened on the Bifrost before he fell. It still makes his heart ache to think about all the time fallen between them. 

“That may be slightly inaccurate,” Loki supplies.

“I don’t really understand what… happened between you two. She said you were close and then that… Destroyer? showed up. Her friends seemed convinced it was you who were responsible.”

He wonders, for a fleeting wild moment, if there’s something to that . Hela didn’t have her powers and she wouldn’t have known if something was off. But –

No, that doesn’t make sense. “I sent it to protect her. I was… otherwise occupied and I did not realize the damage it would cause.” He needs to tell that to Hela somehow, but it’s hard to even think about their fight at all. “She was not of the mind to believe me when I spoke to her about it then.”

“Can you try explaining it to her now?” Steve suggests.

Now he thinks she would, even if he really doesn’t want to have to talk about that at all. He’s still so tired. “I will. But I may have been able to before if her other… friend had not been present,” he can’t help adding.

“You don’t get along with them?” he guesses.

“With Baldr, no. We have never been able to. That may be merely because it is only Hela he ever desires to be around. She is the crown princess and she… is the one everyone seeks attention from. Sometimes as a friend, but often in the hopes of getting something from her.”

“I can’t imagine what it would be like to be royalty, but… I can understand how it is to know that everyone around you only is because of the title they see you as,” he says.

That –

He never really thought about it like that. Everything he heard from Natasha when she was being mind-controlled was about the iconic hero Captain America allegedly is. He doesn’t really know much about him as a person. “Is that how it is with all the Captain America talk?” He frankly thinks the amount mortals worship someone alleged to be a war hero is unreasonably foolish.

Steve nods. “The first person I talked to after coming out of the ice, who didn’t only expect someone they read about I history was Hela.”

That would explain the closeness of the friendship they seem to share. And why he seems more friendly than Loki expected. “Everyone else you know is gone?”

“Yes.” There’s something heavy in his eyes now. “But I can’t imagine growing up with that kind of attention. No one even knew who I was when I was younger. I… had a close friend, then. Maybe close to a brother. He was the everyone gave attention to back then.”

Loki doesn’t even need his magic to sense the other’s pain at mentioning whoever this is. “That’s similar to how it was with Hela and I,” he says, “We have always been close and that is enough but… I was rarely noticed by anyone.”

And the attention that doesn’t go to Hela goes to Baldr.