Gravity

Dedicated to my friend Krissi the best writer of Tony and Loki I've ever met.

…..

I drank the poison once. You did it too. I watched you drink it deep to the pit of your stomach, into your glutinous gut hungry for everything not yours, everything you shouldn't have and only I saw it. Only I watched you alone, and with your friends that I called comrades. I saw every glisten of the poison dripping behind your eyes, the anger and the hate you could bear and sling alongside your weapon of malice that you so abused and neglected when it was needed. I watched you ruin everything you had been taught, distort in your mind all you knew until you knew nothing of what it takes to be a king. I watched you drink the poison. I saw it. I knew it and knew what it did and what it would do, and I followed along to save you, ready to resuscitate you when you fell, when you finally realized what you had done wrong. But then I found out that I am a monster and that the real poison was my blood and my hidden purpose, and your hate for the creatures left me wondering what you would do to me. I feared you, and your possible rule, but more than ever I knew you'd hate me if you found out. I hated father for keeping it from me. I was every child's nightmare and the poison in your mind. I did this to you. And I could hate myself forever and more than anyone and never be able to look you in the eye and call you brother again. I was your fall, and your salvation. I threw you to destruction and tried to finish the job, but you passed father's test. You ruined everything I fought for to find myself and to find a way to prevent facing you again. I never wanted the throne. I had to take it in your stead because of your arrogance and the poison I fed you growing up by letting you play your war games, by joining you in false battles against the trees. I fed you the illusion that you could never do anything wrong, that you were the greatest, most vigilant, most deadly, most eligible for the throne until I no longer believed you. You proved it all to me when you attacked the monsters, and then I was one. I was never your brother. I fed you lies and poison when I myself was a lie and a poison to Asgard. I had to do something to never face you again. I didn't want to be any lower than you than I already was and surely my cursed blue skin underneath would put a rift between us greater than any and incurable as my true parentage. You would think less of me brother. I only wanted to be your equal. I could never be. Not as a monster, and especially not being your brother. I am wretched and low, despicable and everything I've known to be true is false, everything I know to be love, is pity from father and based on a lie from all others that claim to love me. I was never meant to be your equal, and that's all I ever wanted. I would always be a shadow, a frown line on your face, and scowl in the eyes of strangers, confusion in the minds of those who don't know me, and poison to all who learn the truth. I would make them all sick and be nothing but a tool for peace. I was only accepted because I was useful, not because they cared, not because they loved me, not because I was their friend. They accepted me because I looked after you and supported you, loved you and put you on a pedestal higher than you could survive falling from. I tried to kill you because I couldn't face you and because I needed to prove to father that I was more than a tool and a monster. I wanted to prove to him that I was worth loving and didn't need to be pitied. To show him I was strong enough that he didn't need to lie to me anymore. I knew you would ruin that. I knew if you returned I would be back in the shadows, locked in a corner cupboard like an old relic of no use but to pull out once in a while and stare at for a second or two before returning to its place not understanding its value. I would have no voice, no purpose, no reason but to be a tool for peace that you didn't want. Then you spoke to me, telling me that the people of Earth were innocent. You asked me to take your life rather than theirs. You begged me to spare them. I wouldn't blow you away. I saw in you potential. But then again, what did I really know? It could have been a front, or a lie, or you could have been selfish then for the safety of that woman. I didn't know who you really cared for and I wasn't about to find out. But I would anyway. You returned, somehow and I panicked. I knew for sure that you would want to kill me, the monster, the traitorous wretch. Or worse, I thought maybe, just maybe, you'd spare me and try to tell me I was wrong, try to convince me to change my ways. I had no ways to follow, and nothing to be wrong about. I didn't know anything anymore. I was acting on emotion, impulse and instinct perhaps. Perhaps… Perhaps that is why I am really a monster, no different from the creatures crawling on Joutinhiem. The moment you arrived I saw in your eyes, and telling mother of my greatest sin against you, and seeing the hurt in her eyes. I didn't deserve that from you. You were a fool, and a martyr and an arrogant son of a deceitful king. For a moment, I was glad of what I had done and only sorry I failed. I had to finish what I started. Father had not yet woken and I wasn't going to fail twice and let you ruin all of my hard work. And don't think, brother, don't you dare think for a second I liked what I was doing. I was only trying to show all of you that I was actually worth something beyond being a tool for you, beyond babysitting, and obeying quietly. To show father that I could be a leader. I didn't want the throne, I just wanted to be seen as a candidate for kingship if you should fail; not a back up. I wanted to be trusted and accepted as the king father claimed that I was born to be. You finally began to fight me. You finally took a swing and I was too quick for you. I had to laugh at your feeble attempts to stop me then. You were hopeless, helpless, and as useless as I felt to stop what I had started. I could clean up any mess you made, but you couldn't mend what I broke. More proof of what made you not ready to be king. You broke the Bifrost. You shattered it and let it fall, sacrificing access to your woman back on Earth. You threw me back again, literally this time rather than with only words as you had so often as children. As I fell, saw you falling above me, I thought to myself, 'what have I done?' followed by, 'this is as it should be'. Father caught your leg, and you caught the staff in my hand. I felt the tug of ceased movement and opened my eyes. You hung above me, father above you, barely hanging on. You looked scared, father looked strained. I thought perhaps it was a strain of weight, and I begged his forgiveness the only way I could think of without saying I was wrong. I wanted him to know why I had done so much to repair what I broke, to clean up my own mess. I suppose I was only good at doing that for others. Father said no. He didn't think I could have done it. He didn't believe in me. I was still just a tool, incapable of kingship, wisdom and strength required to lead. I was nothing to him then too. Nothing to myself, a shame to your pretty face, and nothing to father. A disappointment to mother. In a flash of an instant, I saw mother's hurt eyes, I saw you lying dead on Earth, I saw father in the deep sleep, I saw my true father, whom I had killed, the fear, and realization of defeat in him the second before I killed him, and the shattered Bifrost I knew to be still falling below me. I looked into his eyes, and saw scorn, I looked into your eyes and saw pain. Once again, how could I face you knowing I would never be your equal, knowing I wasn't ever going to be your brother, knowing that my parents were only yours, that the kingdom, was never meant for me; not as a king, not as a man, I was a monster. I drank the poison and let go. You cried out for me, but in my decent I faced the void, it's arms open wide, my arms open wide, like a welcome death, like a parent greeting their lost child. It was all I could be, lost. And lost I would become as I fell, dragged down by its gravity. Away from the gravity of the weight of all the disappointment I had become. I had proved myself a monster, but done nothing wrong. How could I be anything more less but a victim of gravity? It wasn't you that fell, brother, but I, and I'm not sorry. I can't be, or else what am I but empty, weighed down, despicable, despised, wrong, wretched, a monster beyond compare and alone. I saved you in the end, the last thing I wanted in my efforts to find and prove myself. Gods above my own state, tell me I am nothing. Prove to me that I can disappear. I don't want to die, I don't want to live. I have no purpose anymore, not in this void. It's a great nothing and I, as nothing, am consumed by it and I am it. I am one with no gravity. I am… I am not wrong. I am not accepted, nor will I ever be. I am not meant to be a part of Asgard, and I refuse whatever may be left of where I would normally belong on that land of blue. If you had never gone to Earth, you wouldn't have changed. I could have succeeded if you had been banished anywhere else. Earth did this to me. You did this to me. You made me nothing from a tool in father's plan. This void, this hollow void, give me gravity again and give me new purpose. I must exact my brother's failures and consequences for what he has done to me. Gravity pull me out, show me knowledge, give me reason to move on. I am not alive, nor am I dead, if I am nothing, and a void, fill me up. Make me something more, that isn't quite something so that I don't have to care, or feel, or fear. Show me, teach me, mold me, make me, break me, take me, shake me, hold me, care, don't care, I don't care. I just need to breathe. I need to know. I need a chance to show, once again, what I can do. I need to be taken seriously, I need my so called brother to feel what I felt. He may claim he knows, he may think himself wise, but he has no idea. He doesn't know anything. Not about me, not about war, not about peace, not about being a king and I can still prove that. You hear me? I can still prove that you were wrong, and not I. I can still show you I can do this. I can do this. What is this? This void. I controlled it. I demanded of it for something new and it respected that, gave me that. It's showing me. I can do this. My old friend takes me back again, a new world to see, a place unknown, and gravity, my old friend, take me there. I feel again, the gravity, but not of what I've done, but what I can become? It's crushing, but it's feeling. It feels great. I'm ready. I could fall forever, but this new rock stops me, and I land on my feet. I realize, this is the hundredth or so time I have harnessed the void and landed somewhere I've never been. I have seen many worlds, and many peoples who don't exist to anyone with an empty skull, but my mind is full, because I know them and they do exist because I've been there. A man, a large, monstrous man sits before me and asks me if I learned anything from the places he sent me. I don't believe him, but I have knowledge he does not. I know of the Tesseract. Sadly I find, so does he. He wants it. If he truly was my teacher, but I still harnessed the void when I had learned all I could, keeping time as a thing of naught, then perhaps he could direct me one last time. A bargain of bargains is made and we strike a deal for power, separate but equal. I am able to do as I see fit. I have a new drive and purpose to my senselessness and the monster inside grumbles with anticipation. I want to laugh but have no cause to, so I remain numb. I strike a blow at the Earth, amount an attack to shatter their spirits and free them from a fate like my own no longer. Thinking they know and thinking they are free but it is all a lie as I once found. They aren't really free, and don't actually belong the way they think they do. I will spare them from living a lie and give them a leader they deserve and see then who they prefer, you or me. You who sits up on a throne or pacing around a castle wondering what to do. I who acts and does to make progress rather than waiting idly by. And why shouldn't I? I control the void and the mission is easy. With this, I will no longer have need to roam and feel lost. Here, I can belong, I can sit with my head up, chin high, and not be ashamed. Here, I am a god. Surely more than just a king, and I am their overlord, and have no equal. This group, though, no doubt brought together by Earth's simple warriors of politics. They are strong, but their bond is weak. And as someone once famous to them once said, 'a house divided against itself cannot stand'. They of course unite against me in the end, but surely they cannot win.

I am a fool. I dropped and abandoned the scepter. I thought I was unstoppable. Why must I constantly be told by circumstance that I am never right and that I really don't know anything. What is one supposed to learn from life if everything they think they know is a lie and a falsehood they can do nothing about? I am surrounded, and I ask for the drink earlier offered to me. They mock me and put me in chains. My brother is to return me to Asgard as a prisoner. Maybe that is where I belong. In a cage. After all, I am a monster.

The void opens and pulls us in. The ascent to Asgard is a rapid one and it makes me sick. I am being pulled up, opposite of where I had gone before, but I am going to worse, not to possibilities of better. In this upward pull, I feel nothing. I feel light and less alive than ever before. It is as though I have died already and gravity, my old friend that lead me to learn so much, as everyone else, has turned its back on me. I am alone, in company. I am lost in the place I was raised. I am climbing steps towards my greatest fall. I am afraid and not. I am blank, empty, and gone, even though I am here, before all the people who turned their backs on me. They turned their backs on me. You turned your back on me, and you face me now. I am angry, and without feeling. I am Joutin, and yet spiteful of them. I am not of Asgard, yet here I stand before those I once called family. I am a lowlife born to be a king. I am a born king, scraping his belly on the ground. I am a god and a monster. I am no longer trusted, but they claim they still love me. I am looked down on, a disappointment, but you welcome me home. I am your prisoner, so why do you look so hurt for what I've done, but happy I am back? What is this? What am I really? If all of this, what is left?

You look into my flickering eyes, seeming to know, but I know you don't. Who am I to you that you should stare so?!

"Loki." You put a hand on my shoulder and I pull away. Your mother comes swiftly to me and wraps her arms around me. She says she's sorry and I push her away as best as I can. She isn't sorry. She had part in everything that has torn me apart. I know now, what I really am, and really it is nothing. I am broken. Abandoned and mistrusted I am Loki, son of a monster killed by my hand, a monster himself in word and deed and body and all I wanted was understanding, not pity, care not criticism, acceptance not denial, equality, not to be a shadow to someone who isn't even my true brother. But you are a brother more than any other I could have had and I hate that. I will be compared to you always and no one will ever see me first. No one will ever see me. I can't even. I am staring down a path to nowhere, walking alone, without guidance or any clue as to where it leads.

I dream. Just once and often, of a silhouette in the distance, a light in its chest I cannot recognize. It asks me if I want a drink.

I wake. Surely from a nightmare. I am confounded though. It happened, and it stuck with me. If I know anything anymore, it's that he did that. As for why, I didn't know. That man who surrendered the iron armor in my presence, so strange, and he smiled at me. His eyes weren't angry or fearful, they were calm, steady, and didn't feel sorry for me. They attempted these emotions, but when he looked me in the eye and smiled those three times, he looked through my front. Especially now remembering, it unnerves me. He asked me if I wanted a drink. If they had not been in a hurry to hand me to you, he may have given me that drink.

My heart flips in my chest, a longing to learn why he treated me so. It wasn't at all what it should have been and he still. He saw me as a scared, desperate man, reflection of a child wishing someone could see what had happened to him. Not seeking pity, forgiveness, or affection, but just wishing once, just once someone would take it at face value and accept it, stand equal to it, and nothing more. Love, care, trust, it didn't matter. Just to feel humane would be enough. Not to be used, compared to others, judged, turned aside, or lied to.

"I didn't think that would work."

"I'm surprised as well. I'm glad I could help. Welcome, friend."

"Where's your psycho brother?"

"Here"

The door opens and the void heard my heart, my broken, screaming, hollow heart.

"Hey there. Thought I'd bring you that drink. I offered so I thought it might be rude, since you accepted, if I declined." He says, not wearing his armor but carrying suitcase of sorts in one hand, a glass bottle in the other.

Who is this? What kind of a man?

"Come on now, I just flew Thor-knows-how-many light-years to get here. Don't tell me it was pointless." He sets down the case.

"You just wanted to test your limits. You're not here for me." I say.

"Testing limits is a daily occurrence for me, nothing special. Offering you a drink is a twice in a lifetime thing I wouldn't take for granted." He says matter-of-factly with that same brief, crooked, half hearted smirk he did when he tried to be funny when I failed to turn him with the scepter.

"Why?" I ask.

"Just because." He smiles at me. That same unreadable smile as when he first heard my retorts to his offer. That smile that seems to touch my core, his eyes seeing into my soul as if to say, had they words, 'Hello, Loki. I want to understand you. My mind is open and ready for anything you have to offer me. I'm curious about you, genuinely, and my favorite thing in the realms right now, would be if you let me in and let me understand you, learn you, and be your equal.' "Besides," He actually says, "You looked like you could really use one after the crushing defeat and the Hulk tossed you around."

I know it's foolish to put that much into a simple gaze, but this is no simple man. I return the look he gave despite his verbal comment and his smile becomes more sincere, his gaze less intense and he turns to you and says "We're good here."

You leave me alone with this man, but I'm not afraid, I don't feel threatened, and I take the drink.

He sort of groans as he sits down on the floor against the wall. "Hello, Loki."

Dear gravity, my old friend. I'm tired of falling for you. I've risen, and you've been replaced. Someone here may just come to understand me better than you do, and he defies you. He can fly.