Disclaimer: Rights belong to Marvel, I'm not making any profit from this, etc.
AN: Wrote this while trying to process my love for this movie. I seriously can't wait for 'Infinity War'. I can't stress this enough: This story contains SPOILERS for the new Thor movie. I'm also putting a major character death warning here, in case anyone doesn't like that.
There was a time when Loki strived to make Thor hate him. To make his brother understand that there was no one worth saving, that he would always be the God of Mischief, the betrayer, the un-trustable.
Then, one day, Thor understood.
He didn't hate Loki. He only understood.
He understood his brother's tricks. He saw the betrayal coming a mile away. He said to Loki, You will never change. You will always be the God of Mischief.
And on that day, Loki found that getting exactly what he wanted made him feel nothing but empty.
And he, too, understood. He finally understood.
It was not what he wanted. Some things would never change, and he would always be the God of Tricks and Mischief…but never a betrayer. Never again.
"If you were really here I might give you a hug."
The bottle lid flew towards him. Thor's newfound habit was smart, a safety measure in case he was wrong.
This time he was wrong.
Loki caught the lid.
"I'm here."
He thought Thor wouldn't follow through on his words.
He was wrong.
The Tesseract brought back too many bad memories to count. A prisoner of Thanos, beaten over and over, his mind twisted until he could barely remember himself or any kind of love that still lingered for his family.
He'd fought against it. At least enough to create failsafes in his plan. And failsafes within failsafes.
"There is no throne. There is no version of this where you come out on top."
He'd known. He wasn't stupid. The Avengers were lucky that he'd been playing to lose. To get away from Thanos and the punishment of success, because Loki knew without a doubt that the Titan would never have held up his end of the bargain.
So, Loki held no love for the Tesseract, and he almost left it behind. Surtur wouldn't destroy it – an Infinity Stone could never be destroyed – but it would be buried in the rubble of what remained of Asgard. Let Thanos dig for it himself.
Two things made him take it. One: He reminded himself of how bad an idea it would be for Thanos to get all the Stones. Two: Being found by Thanos with the Tesseract was a far better option than being found without it.
And it was a matter of when, not if.
Loki wasn't surprised when the giant ship loomed over their own.
He attempted to throw himself under the bus and let Thanos take both him and the Tesseract. Thor, predictably, wasn't having any of that.
Heimdall managed to get the civilians into escape pods. Warriors, be they Asgardian or alien, fought the Children of Thanos.
Inevitably, Thanos won.
Thor and the Hulk were lost in the chaos of the ship's crash, and Loki found himself stood among the rubble and bodies of those who hadn't been able to escape in time. He pushed down the guilt and faced Thanos head on. The tormenter in his nightmares.
He knelt and held out the Tesseract.
Thanos took it without a word. He turned his back. He ordered one of his children to wrap things up.
Loki was prepared to go down fighting, but nevertheless, he expected death.
He didn't expect the Valkyrie to jump to his defence.
"We need to get to Earth," said Loki. "Two stones reside there. It'll be too good an opportunity for him to pass up."
The Valkyrie nodded. "Why keep them so close together?"
"They should know better." He doubted that Stark and his Avengers knew the true nature of the Stones, but those Sorcerers should. He'd sensed one, when in the company of that infuriating Sorcerer in New York. The Time Stone, he guessed. And the Mind Stone was there too, if not still in his sceptre then hopefully it was at least with the Avengers.
That was going to be a joy to handle. Convincing Earth's Mightiest Heroes that he was on their side. He'd been relying on Thor to help him out with that.
He flinched. Thor.
He prayed to the Norns and hoped that his brother was alive.
The man with the bow nearly put an arrow in his eye, but that was to be expected.
And it was fun to see the Widow taken down a peg by the Valkyrie, even if the entire fight was counterproductive to the entire point of them being there.
Some girl with abilities that matched his own finally convinced them that he could be trusted. Loki could feel her inside his head, and no matter the walls he put up she broke right through them, determined to get the truth from him.
When it was over and she confirmed that he was there to help, she sent him a pitying look.
He hated pity.
His willingness to help was further confirmed by the surprising arrival of Gamora and Nebula, Children of Thanos, though his familiarity with them initially led to another fight with the two of them against the Widow and the Valkyrie (which was just as entertaining as it sounded).
They'd broken free from control of Thanos. Loki surprised himself with a feeling of admiration for them, and willingness to work with them and exchange in friendly discussion. Shared torture and nightmares of the same torturer made for strange bedfellows, he supposed.
Though maybe it was also because Gamora told him that Thor was still alive.
There was always a first time for everything.
And that had been the first time someone had thrown a planet at him.
Chaos surrounded him. It was not the type of chaos he usually loved, the type he typically caused just for fun. This was different, deadlier, and one he would never ever wish upon anyone again.
He'd caught a glimpse of his brother, but Thor had vanished before he could call out to him.
Their army was scattered. He had no idea if anyone was dead, though some of them were lying unconscious. Even those that weren't looked defeated, worn down, tired and utterly unable to continue fighting. Against an unstoppable force like Thanos, he didn't blame anyone.
Beside him was the Valkyrie, armour torn and battered and dirty, but she still had her swords and she was still ready for a fight. Even if it was a fight they were losing.
"I see thunder," she said. Her gaze was fixed ahead.
He saw it, too. Streaks of blue lightning thundering down, and in the distance Thanos was shaking them off like they were nothing.
His stubborn brother. Even in the face of failure, he never gave up.
Loki started running.
Thor's cries became louder the closer he got.
"Thor!"
He wasn't close enough. Not close enough.
"Your brother was a delight to play with, King of Asgard. I enjoyed his pain. I think I'll continue enjoying it."
Then came Thor's angry roar. He'd already figured it out; had figured it out back when Thanos attacked their ship, saw right through the lies Loki told and the façade he threw up to hide his pain and suffering.
Brother, I am sorry, he had said. If I had known…
It was too late for apologies. The damage had been done.
Too late.
The cries became painful again.
"THOR!"
Loki could see them. Could see his brother's head in the grasp of the Titan, in the hand that didn't wear the Infinity Gauntlet.
"Loki, run!"
He ran, but towards them, getting closer and closer, with the Valkyrie behind him. His blood was pumping, his heartbeat screaming in his ears, but he had to keep running, had to save his brother (because he hadn't been able to save their mother).
It was only when he was within reach, when he thought that maybe he could help…
SNAP.
…did he realize that it was exactly what Thanos had been waiting for.
Loki froze.
Too late.
"Brother…"
Thor's eyes were closed as his body fell to the ground. His neck was twisted. He didn't move.
"BROTHER!"
He didn't breathe.
"NO!"
The world exploded around them.
It was a blur.
Anger. Grief. Pain. Rage.
It was all he knew.
He only pieced things together later, with the others explaining what they'd seen and using what little he remembered, which wasn't much.
The Sorcerer said he'd used raw and untamed magic to subdue the Children of Thanos. They'd "dropped like logs", according to Stark. And Gamora had told him with appreciation and gratitude that, somehow, he'd managed to put an actual dent in Thanos. Hadn't killed him, which was a pity, but it sent him packing.
They'd only found him after Thanos was gone and the battle was won. The Valkyrie had been standing over him, guarding him, because he had been unable to guard himself.
He'd been curled up on Thor's body like a child, lost to the world, and weeping.
Because the universe apparently hated him, it was of course right after Thor died that the escape pods full of Asgardians finally arrived on Earth. But that wasn't the issue.
The issue was who else was with them. Heimdall had been able to track down Lady Sif, who was none too pleased with all that had happened since her self-imposed exile.
He didn't hate her for her attack on him. She'd loved Thor. Her grief was like his. He understood why she blamed him. If only he hadn't seized Asgard's throne, banishing Odin and opening the doorway for Hela. If only he hadn't ended up in the clutches of Thanos, mixing his family up in the affairs of a Titan.
If only he hadn't left Thor's side.
The Valkyrie prevented Sif from killing him. He certainly wasn't stopping her.
She'd come to him later, apologising, but he barely listened to her. He barely listened to anyone these days. (Though he knew that the Avengers didn't have the heart to verbally belittle him like they did before. Not even Stark nor the Hawk had it in them.)
Loki was numb.
He was alone.
There was nothing left for him, other than revenge.
Thanos was still out there, and he would make certain that the Titan fell.
The bottle was placed in front of him.
"I salvaged it from Sakaar before we escaped. Thought you could use some."
The Valkyrie sat beside him. Loki didn't move, only watched as she reached over the bar and retrieved two glasses.
No one else was around. The Avengers Headquarters wasn't empty by any means, but the rest of their army – those who had survived Thanos's first onslaught – were elsewhere, planning for the Titan's inevitable return.
Loki knew he should be with them, but he couldn't.
He was still recovering from Thor's funeral.
The image of his brother lying in that boat, floating out to sea, the Hawk firing a flaming arrow and setting it alight, Thor's body dissolving and becoming one with the universe…
And what had followed. The expectant looks from the Asgardians, waiting for him to claim himself as their King and join them in the colony they'd begun to build in Norway.
He had once wanted the throne more than anything.
Now he wanted nothing to do with it.
(He ignored how far the Asgardians had come, that they were willing to take a Frost Giant as their King.)
The Valkyrie handed him the glass, and he took it. He downed it in one go and asked for another. She complied without complaint, having downed her own in seconds.
"Brunnhilde."
He looked at her. "Pardon?"
"My name," she said. "You're always calling me 'The Valkyrie'. But that's what I am, not who I am."
"What you are is who you are."
"Not all the time. Frost Giants are usually monsters, and you're not a monster."
"Are you sure about that?"
"I've seen monsters. Trust me. You're not one of them. Annoying and self-centred, sure."
He smiled for the first time since Thor's death.
Neither of them knew how it happened.
They understood each other's pain. Sure, the other Avengers had lost loved ones in the past, but they hadn't lived for thousands of years.
Brunnhilde listened. She didn't judge. She'd done plenty of horrible things in the past, raised as a warrior of Odin back when he was a warmonger. When they got exceptionally drunk, she listed and described the faces of everyone she'd killed – at least, those who hadn't deserved it.
He did the same. Because he remembered faces even when he didn't want to.
"I was Freya's daughter," she confessed two nights afterwards. She spoke the name of the famed leader of the Valkyries with the same disdain he'd once reserved for Odin. "And she wasn't kind in raising me, turning me into a Valkyrie before I'd even decided if it was what I wanted to be."
"Do you regret it?"
She shook her head. "Fighting gives me purpose. And I don't know what else I'd want to be, if I ever quit."
"Ever fancied being a queen?"
It had been a joke (he thought?), but that was how it started.
It ended with them both naked in bed, sweaty and panting.
Time passed. The Avengers and the Guardians planned for the return of Thanos. Loki and Brunnhilde helped wherever they could.
When they weren't planning, they were doing one of three things: drinking, talking, or having sex.
Sometimes they did two of those things at the same time.
Brunnhilde's head was resting on his chest and his hand was entangled in her hair when she started talking about the battle against Hela. Not the one they'd fought in together that ended in Ragnarok, but the one she had rode into thousands of years ago, alongside her fellow Valkyries.
"Mother fell first," she said. "We were…well, sort of like you and the Allfather, I suppose. It was complicated. But it still hurt."
"It cannot be helped." He remembered the pain he felt when Odin had died before his eyes.
"It distracted me. Starbuck was confused and he flew in the wrong direction, and one of her blades sliced right through him. I fell."
"I fell once, too."
"Did you get up again?"
"After a while."
She sighed. It was a few minutes before she started talking again. "I charged Hela. I nearly died. I would've done had it not been for Gunnr."
"Who?"
For the first time since he'd met her, Brunnhilde shed a tear. "We were… She was… My everything. She died saving me. But I think part of me died that day, anyway."
Loki touched her forehead and received an image of Gunnr. A woman with golden blonde hair and blue eyes deep and sea-blue. A vision of beauty and courage, a Valkyrie in heart and spirit. He watched as she leapt in the way and took the blade meant for Brunnhilde. He heard Brunnhilde's scream as she was pushed backwards.
When he opened his eyes, tears were flowing freely down her face.
He found himself gently kissing them away.
That was the first time the sex was tender and loving and slow, instead of hard and rough and fast.
One night, he suggested he shape-shift into a woman.
Her excitement affected him (in a good way) more than he thought it would.
It was a matter of time before she came to him.
"I'm sorry I punched you that time."
"I deserved it."
Jane Foster was far less annoying than he remembered. Then again, the woman before him was the intelligent scientist who defeated the Dark Elves with her brains (and help from his brother of course, but mostly her brains), instead of the giggling schoolgirl who kept making mooneyes at Thor.
"He forgave you."
Loki sighed. Thor had never said that he forgave him, but actions sometimes spoke louder than words…
"Maybe."
"I wish I forgave him," she admitted. "It was mutual, our split, but I brought it up. He just…took off without consulting me, and he said it was an emergency, but… He didn't even talk to me. He kept coming back and then leaving again, and I was getting tired of it. The same thing, over and over again. It's like he didn't learn."
Her words sounded too familiar for his liking.
"I sat him down and I told him that unless he could settle down, we couldn't be together anymore," she continued. "And he said that…that as much as he loved me, he couldn't stop being a hero. He couldn't stop doing the right thing. And honestly? I loved that he chose to keep doing that. Because it was the right choice." She gazed off into the distance. "I still wish I'd forgiven him."
"There was nothing to forgive," said Loki. Unlike with me, where there was everything to forgive, he didn't add aloud. Though judging by the sympathetic look Jane gave him, he hadn't needed to say it.
Most days, Loki only felt two things: numbness and rage.
The numbness came when he was alone with his thoughts, doing anything other than planning for Thanos and sparring with anyone who was willing. Those times, he was in a state of cold and silent rage, and he was surprised that anyone other than Brunnhilde wanted to fight with him when it all came out.
"Good practise," the Widow told him once. He imagined it was the same with the Captain and his friend, the one with the metal arm.
But there were times when he felt other things. Those times were becoming more frequent. Though he supposed it was because he kept seeking her out, wanting to feel something positive for a change.
Brunnhilde made him feel things…things that were scary but exciting all at once, feelings that he knew she felt too, but neither of them wanted to put a name to those feelings because then they would become real. And it wasn't who either of them were, to admit these things and let other people see them vulnerable and open.
The sex became love-making. Neither were sure when the lines blurred.
One night when they were lying in bed and snuggling (he didn't want to use that word, but was there really any other word he could use?) Brunnhilde told him, "I sort of lied before."
"About what?"
"My name," she said. "It's my Valkyrie name. We choose one when we finish our training and are initiated into the army. The name has to be worthy of the warrior we would become. Brunnhilde means 'armoured battle maiden'. My mother helped me choose it. But…it's not my real name."
"And what is your real name?"
She was silent for a moment. "Mother said that my father chose it. I never knew him, and I wonder why she kept it. She…she spoke of him so hurtfully, scorn that I know he didn't deserve, but for a long time I was ashamed of my father-given name. Now I wonder if I would have been better off with him than with her."
"I would never have met you."
An actual smile lit her face. And then she looked up at him, and said,
"Sigyn. My name is Sigyn."
It was only when Loki finally understood and accepted his feelings, that Thanos returned.
There was only one way to stop him.
Unfortunately, he would have to die to accomplish it.
"It was the right choice."
The choice Thor made. The choice that Loki would make, too.
Because it was right.
Even if it meant leaving her.
"I have to. I need to."
He hated that he had to hurt her, like she'd been hurt before. But as they stood there in the middle of the fight, fire around them and death wherever they looked, he could see the understanding sink in. She'd faced it once.
Her eyes told him that she'd face it again.
"We should've had more time," she said.
He agreed.
His last words to her were whispered in her ear.
And, as he pulled away, he placed one of his daggers in her hand. The dagger his mother had given to him, all those years ago.
She would have something to remember him by.
He'd unknowingly given her more than that.
That night, Loki died with a smile on his face, knowing that he would be re-joining his family in Valhalla. At least, he hoped he would be.
And no one else heard the words he'd whispered to the Valkyrie – his Brunnhilde, his Sigyn. Only she knew them, and she told no one what he'd said. Told no one the three little words that both broke her heart and gave her hope.
Three words that had given light to his darkness.
I love you.
Nine months later, Loki's other gifts arrived.
The twins held Sigyn's heart and would be her greatest love until the day she died. She named the girl (the youngest) Nari, a fierce soul in all the right ways, who would become the bravest protector that New Asgardia would ever know.
She named the boy (the eldest) Narfi, a mischievous soul with his father's cunning and smarts – but also his father's green, emerald eyes.
And his rule as King would be spoken of for eons to come.
For anyone who's interested in Norse Mythology:
1. A lot of people associate Freya (or Freyja) with being the Goddess of Beauty and forget that she's also a very formidable warrior. She receives half of those slain in battle (Odin receives the other half) which gives her a connection to the Valkyries.
2. Brunnhilde and Sigyn are not the same character. Not in the comics, nor in mythology. I just decided to add this little twist as a way of including Sigyn in the MCU. (After writing the story I realized that Valkyrie's name is never mentioned in the film at all, so there's actually room for Marvel to use a different name if they wish to).
3. Yes, I know Loki and Sigyn's twins are both boys. But I wanted them to have a daughter as well. (And before you complain - Váli being Loki's son is actually quite controversial, since many believe that it was a mis-translation, and the Váli mentioned in the poem in question is actually Odin's son. I believe this theory, because having two characters named Váli in the same story is just confusing.)