A/N: Warning for mind control.
It isn't like he'd thought it would be.
He doesn't feel wrong. In fact, he feels right. Very right. Simple, that's the word. He forgives himself for needing a moment, as he's a little busy shooting at the people he once thought could be his friends to focus on that right now.
He almost laughs at himself for ever thinking that, as though they could ever make him complete
But one thing he's certain of is that he could get very used to this feeling. The feeling of belonging. Of freedom from the needless strive to impress everybody, to prove himself worthy. To prove himself as being enough. Still every part the little boy screaming for daddies attention. Now, he followed, he complied and so he was enough. He was useful. He belonged. All he had to do was submit, and it was enough. It seemed so simple, too simple, but he didn't doubt it. Never doubt it.
Don't look a gift Norse in the mouth and all that.
Everything he thought he knew about what he needed to be, who he needed to be, was irrelevant now. Trying to figure out what people wanted him to be, what they wanted from him, so he could yearn to be it - to give it - while never ever dreaming of actually allowing himself to do that. He wanted to be the thing people loved, wanted to earn it or buy it, but knew he never would. Knew they never would, so he'd pretended not to care. Acted as though he felt it were them who were unworthy of him. Playing game after game with people so they'd never expect him to face reality. Because every aspect of his reality was a lie.
It all seemed so obvious now.
Of course he lied. Of course they lied. Everybody lied. That was the truth Loki had implanted in his mind. Everybody betrayed. Everybody took and took and took without ever giving back - that he knew both from Loki and himself - just leaving you a dry husk.
But he was better now.
He wasn't empty anymore.
He had purpose.
He had Loki.