Title: Missing Scene
Rating: PG
Word Count:
Characters: Loki
Genre: Angst
Summary: Loki is falling. Loki is thinking. It is a dangerous combination.
Notes: First Thor/Avengers fic. Warnings for rambly headcanon and over-abuse of semi-colons.
"No, Loki."
At the end of everything, dangling off the shattered edge of the Bifrost—Loki's liar tongue is stilled at last; all his lies run out, dried up, in the hot light of that one hideous truth. But Loki is Loki, and even now his mind will not rest but seethe and scheme, and in that moment he sees, with blinding, painful clarity, as if the Sight had come upon him, the future: as the focus of Asgard's hatred and prejudices, his false family's stifling pity. He foresees a lifetime of grovelling repentance in exchange for the honor of a place in Thor's shadow, a satellite locked in permanent orbit around the brilliance of his brother's sun and permitted only to reflect, never to shine on its own. He sees himself, a Jotun in Asgard clothed in stolen skin; living the lie that he is redeemed, and loved.
And Loki, master of lies and never the mastered, cannot abide that.
So he lets go, for death is another path, a better path than what will happen if he does not. It is a coward's escape, but then is not cowardice what he has always been accused of, with his lies and tricks and magic?
Thor is screaming. Thor's face is twisted in anguish, as though he had not nearly died at Loki's hand but hours hence; as though nothing had changed between them, their shared blood and history ghosting into smoke as substantial as just another of Loki's skillfully woven illusions. Loki thinks, if their positions had been reversed he would not be so foolish. Thor should hate passionately, and without mercy. He should be glad that Loki has chosen to fall and spared him the stain of a monster's blood on his precious Mjolnir.
The storm swallows him whole, engulfing him in a disorienting, psychedelic riot of color and sound. Distantly he feels his bones snap under the force of the howling cosmic wind, tastes blood in his teeth from white-bitten lips. Loki is so tired, the last few days filled with too much plotting and too little rest as one by one the delicate complicated mechanisms of his plans had spun rapidly out of control, bringing the whole edifice tottering into ruin. He stares blankly at the destruction he has wrought, the terrible beauty raging all around him and in the heart of his agony, the midst of the white noise clawing at the walls of his mind he finds a strange contradictory peace where he can shut his eyes and breathe deep and finally, sleep.
He comes to in the middle of nothingness.
Loki suffers but a second of fleeting hope; for the dead do not bleed, or ache so sorely with bruises and the grind of slow-knitting bones. The storm is ended or has long left him behind; he hangs now in the dark space between worlds, the rabbit-quick jumps of his heart and the ragged gasps of his breaths the only sounds in the vast silence. But a scarce handful of days past and so long ago at the beginning of everything he had been here, travelling the secret roads to and back from Jotunheim in the first step of his plot to humble his arrogant brother. He remembers how pleased he had been with his own cleverness, his certainty of success. He remembers his glee at how trustingly the frost giants had followed him like lambs to the slaughter, at how eagerly his dunce of a brother had jumped to chomp at the dangled bait to lop off a monster's head or two. He remembers...
The air kicks out of his lungs, his body folding under the blow of a violent sob, then another, and another, the dam wall cracking under the pressure of pent-up emotion. His hands come up before his face instinctively though he is alone and there is no one watching he need shield his shame from. This is what Loki Skywalker, master of magic and once-king of Asgard has sunk to—a helpless babe weeping pitifully in the darkness which should be his domain. His trembling hands will not still and shape the precise gestures of his art, weave the spells that will show him the holes in the fabric of reality he can slip through; his concentration scatters under the memories crowding in unwanted until he thinks he will drown under their weight. And why should he bother? There is nothing left for him anywhere in the realms; he has nowhere to go and so he stays nowhere, elbows and knees drawn protectively close to his chest in echo of childish habit as though he would guard himself from the thoughts writhing in his head deadly and restless as a nest of vipers.
No, Loki...
If only, if only—Loki is not usually one to regret, to dwell on paths untaken or choices sealed and done with, but he does so now. He imagines his plans abandoned before they come to fruition, Thor seated on the golden throne with his little brother of course close to hand, playing out the roles of king and advisor they had been groomed for since young and is instantly sickened to the root of his being. You were both born to be kings. What a liar, to rival the god of lies himself—as though to be king of a broken realm of degenerate barbarians was in any way comparable to being king of glorious prosperous Asgard, as though there had been any one moment over the course of their long lives he had ever been considered Thor's equal.
He sees so clearly now, the inevitability of destiny that had lain heavy upon them all. Even with the curse of hindsight he can imagine no other way the chain could have been reforged, from the final link to the first already struck and set when they had yet been children together. The jealous second son, the distant father, the betrayal between brothers; their stories written long ago, the terrible twist played out, to be played out, in this universe and across a multitude of parallels, unchanging and legion as the distant stars staring down at him with cold unblinking eyes.
Time passes; or at least he perceives the passage of time, though not its speed or the nature of its movement. It could be months, years, or mere moments since he had fallen from the Bifrost; all he knows with certainty is that he is exhausted, wrung dry of tears and feeling both, leaving a great gaping hollowness in his chest in which his heart sits still and cold as a stone. In the distance he can see pale pinpricks of light from long-dead stars scattered through the void like crushed diamonds on velvet, and nothing he can recognize to navigate by. He has never been so far from even Yggdrasil's lesser branches before, and he has not the slightest knowledge where in the Nine Realms or beyond he has been flung to.
The fear grips him then, fear that he will drift for an eternity through the void, with only his viper-poisonous thoughts for treacherous company. In Asgard they surely think him dead; no one will come looking, to rescue him or drag him back in disgrace. He should have died, dashed into infinitesimal atoms against the fury of the storm and scattered into distant unchartable realms beyond even the All-Father's reach. But then what else could he have expected, from a body determined to betray him time and time again?
(Did they mourn, he cannot help but wonder, before quenching the thought with angry haste.)
But he lives. Against all odds he lives, nearly healed of the wounds he had sustained both on and off the rainbow bridge. Is this to be part of the story as well? Loki looks again at the alien vista glittering and whirling under his feet, the drop unending, unchanging. It comes to him that he is not so much falling as he is in stasis, suspended in the negative space between the ending of one chapter and the start of the next. The anticipatory hush of the universe rings loud in his ears; the bonds forced on him have fallen away, and he is finally, for the first time since his birth—free; free to write his own story, fill the empty pages with his own words. He knows the truth of who and what he is; he can name the subtle itch in his skin, he can put a reason to why he has always stood just slightly apart from the rest of Asgard. Loki takes bizarre comfort in the realization that there was little he could have done to change himself or his circumstances, no more than he could have exorcised the Jotun from his flesh and his blood, and altered the fundamental alien nature of his being.
He is Loki Laufeyson. He is traitor to two worlds, kinslayer and kingslayer both; terrible as those titles are they are nevertheless truer to himself than he ever was as Loki Odinson, prince of Asgard and loyal lapdog of Thor; and so he will wear them, with acceptance if not pride.
The all-consuming despair recedes with this silent resolution, and for the first time in too long (since the moment he'd seen his hand deform and turn blue, and known) he feels the roiling confusion in his head settle—not banished, but tamed. He had released his hold on Gungnir with one sure intention, but he thinks now that a metaphorical death will suit him far better than a true death. The desire to live rekindles in him, fueled by the slow burn of a satisfying simmering anger towards they who had driven himto such shameful depths of desperation—they who had used him for his entire life and pushed him as far as he would go and then thrown him aside when he would have gone farther, out of misguided loyalty—and for love.
I could have done it, Father! I could have done it, for you, for all of us...
His insides curl and clench, the memory unstripped of its capacity to wound despite its journey across the wastes of the void. Sentiment, he thinks, furious with himself for for that moment of vulnerability and all the sacrifice that had led up to it, repaid with so bitter and stingy coin. Never again, he vows. Never again. There are so many time-honored literary devices and plots he can make use of to enrich the epic saga that will doubt be the tale of Loki Laufeyson; but if there is one he will never write, it is that of the prodigal son, returning in repentance, in humility...
His hands glow green. His magic wakens with his will. Loki waits for an opportunity, patient. He has nothing but time, after all. Time that will heal everything in the end, including, he hopes, himself.
Loki lands.
This is no true world he finds himself in, but a broken blasted former piece of one, sailing like the parody of a ship through the eternal seas of the abyss. The comparison is more apt than he first realizes; for there is purpose to its seemingly aimless meandering, and a captain and crew aboard.
"Who are you," the creature hisses, "to intrude upon the domain of Thanos of Titan?"
Every child in Asgard is familiar with the name, and the story behind it; though the existence of the jewelled golden gauntlet in the palace vault is far less common knowledge. Loki straightens to his full height, drawing on every inch of haughty bearing he possesses even as his mind races, calculating. Here he is outpowered and outnumbered, but he will not be outwitted; he is Loki Silvertongue, of royal lineage and armed with valuable intelligence besides. He will not approach this potential ally as a pauper, but as an equal.
"I am Loki, no friend to Asgard or Odin All-Father," he answers. "I have a proposition; will your master hear it?"
The Other studies him for a long moment. Then from the shadows comes a voice, grating and harsh, deep as the abyss of time whence he had been spawned, countless ages ago:
"He will."
Loki smiles. Loki steps forward, into the next chapter of the rest of his story.
-tbc
Ending Notes: I've never been a big fan of the 'Loki was mind-controlled/tortured' theory; though I have no doubt Thanos did emotionally manipulate Loki at the very least, encouraging his very worst fears and delusions. This wasn't included here because I have no idea what MCU!Thanos is like as a character, and have no desire to read the comics that do feature him.
Loki here also has a dash of Comics!Siege!Loki's characterisation, as part of my headcanon regarding his motivation.