Way AU - Shameless amalgamation of the comics, movies, Norse mythology, and my own imagination. Follows MCU until T:tDW, where it diverges. Also, Odin isn't dead, as several of the people behind T:tDW have stated.
Chapter 1: Forge
His mother was a beautiful lady, with hair like the sun's rays and eyes as blue as the sky. She was happy and lovely, never taking life for granted and living every day to the fullest.
His father was a short, muscular man who looked like a dwarf, even though he was anything but. He was jovial and hard working, just like Hero's mother.
Hero couldn't be happier with his life.
But one day, when he came home from the village, when he opened the door to his house, his life came to an abrupt hault. The little home they had built was ransacked. He padded inside, but stopped as soon as he saw what lay ahead of him.
Two bodies sprawled on the floor in front of him, eyes closed as though they were asleep. He called for them, but it was useless. They were dead. He fell to the ground, screamed and didn't stop until he was found an hour later. He would find later that the already destroyed house had been ripped apart in his fit.
This was the end of his life.
It was something new that came through the Tesseract's portal. Something birthed in agony, raised through torture. It was a sword, forged in fire to be wielded by a master bent on destruction, unable to assume its previous form again. It was sharp, and it was cruel. But it was also treacherous, a double-edged blade ready to cut his keeper at the slightest slip.
His will was strong, strong enough to withstand even the harshest of trials; he did not break in the hands of Thanos. He bared the conditioning, biding his time and seizing an opportunity by feigning submission. And they believed him. For all their strength, all their insight, they still couldn't see through his facade.
Oh, never doubt that he was angry. He was furious and broken and alone and afraid... and betrayed. The people who claimed to love him unconditionally hadn't even sought him out. They had left him to rot at the hands of his captor, and his "father" had shown his true feelings for his "son" - and that was it; there were none. But he would show the man exactly what he had given up when he refused his son. He would conquer the greatest threat to the realms and ultimately reign over the fake father's head just how wrong he was. The anger he felt for the bastard who "raised" him would assist him on his mission.
And so it began. The war on Midgard was only the beginning - a prelude to an epic. It was a trick played so well that none saw the truth. The veracity that eluded them was obvious to him. He didn't understand why it was so hard to grasp.
It did not matter, though. It was time. Time to go back to Asgard, time to face his deeds.
He smirked - or tried to underneath the muzzle. He would be safe in Asgard, even in a prison. Thanos had not yet gained the power to invade such a realm and the trickster was glad for it. The Chitauri couldn't capture him, and they couldn't make him long for something as sweet as pain.
He grasped the handle of the contraption meant to bring them home and prepared himself. It was now that his mettle would be tested. Could he face the Allfather again, after all that had been said and done? Could he stand to be in the same room as the man who condemned him to his fate? Would he be graced with a sneering court and a riot of angry citizens or would he be sentenced without a thought, abandoned to loneliness before he was even seen by the crowds of Aesir? Would he be treated as he deserved - like a king? Or would he be the ant under their boots this time?
Loki knew he would free himself of this cage one day. But in the mean time, he would do what he did best: plot and manipulate. There was so much to think about. How would he keep the Infinity Gauntlet in the right hands? How would he keep himself - and the universe - safe? How would he defeat Thanos? All were things to deliberate while he was stuck here, and he would be for a very long time. Or so Odin supposed.
But Loki had a plan. It was a brittle plan with many assumptions and holes, and he still had to discover how to implement it. The guesswork involved could make or break the plan, depending on whether he was right or wrong. And there was a higher chance that he was wrong in many of the cases. Loki, however, wasn't a genius for naught, and so he had layered plan over plan over plan, filling every possible crack with his nefarious ideas.
After he had carefully calculated all possibilities, though, Loki had nothing to do but wallow in his grievances. No matter how he tried to keep the thoughts out, they pervaded his mind.
Speculation turned to remorse turned to outrage. How could he, Loki, be so sentimental? He had learned not to depend on emotions long ago; it would only end in hurt. He knew from experience that most emotions wouldn't help when you were in pain, when you were ridiculed, when you were miserable. There was nothing they could do to change his situation.
He would always be angry, and there was nothing sentiment could do to change that.
He would always be agonized, and there was no way his disposition could control that.
He would always be alone, and there was nothing softheartedness could do about that.
And happiness, happiness was a curse: it was like money; it was something all strived for and something so few had, but when it was attained, the light and the pleasure were so fleeting, and the loss was that much more devastating. He did not want to experience that downfall again. Not after the void. He had hit his rock bottom, he thought, but then he kept falling. There was no up for him, just an endless abyss waiting to swallow him whole. He could have cried from the abuse of it all.
But crying did not stop his taunters from laughing at him or his captors from torturing him, so what was its use? He used to cry when he was called a cowardly frost giant or a runt of a boy. That just spurred them on, though. Why should he cry, he had thought, when he could just become angry, and with that anger he could do something. He could fight back, he could destroy, he could show them all that he was not a━
Monster...
He was, though, and he knew it. He had denied it all his life, but he wasn't called the God of Lies for no reason.
And who better could the God of Lies lie to than himself? He now knew, though, that there was no denying it.
Everyone was right; he was a liar before he could speak, and he was a monster before he could breathe.
So what was wrong with him, then?
Why did his heart clench at the thought of Asgard's fall, and why did he still long for his surrogate mother?
Was that what a monster was, then? Something that longed for everything it couldn't have until it drove itself mad with want?
Were all Jotnar like this?
Of course they were. Jotnar were depraved creatures, greedy and power mad and angry. They didn't care for one another, only themselves, and they valued only strength. A runt was a thing to be shunned, just as any other weakling would be. If they couldn't destroy, if they couldn't fight, what were they worth to Jotnar? He knew he wasn't anything. Even among monsters, they recognized his depraved soul and threw him out. After all, what was a magician's place in a land full of warriors?
In that regard, they were quite similar to Asgard. But the likeness ended there. Aesir didn't sack villages of races weaker than them, rape the survivors, or eat the children, as a Jotun was wont to do. They weren't like those brutal berserkers. They weren't like him.
So really, why did he even bother trying to be a hero? He was just a bilgesnipe trying to pass as a lion, a king.
What would Frigga say to that, though?
"Loki," she said. Loki whipped around to see the illusion of his m - Frigga.
He blinked away the tears of joy that his treacherous eyes produced. There was no room for joy here.
"My queen," he said.
Frigga frowned. "In all your long life, you have never addressed me so."
"Forgive me," Loki bowed. "How would you like to be addressed, your majesty?"
"I would love for you to call me what you once did so willingly: your mother."
Loki smirked, not at all sharp, but rather like a man on death row, telling his last joke, "But do you recall, your majesty? I am not your son."
Frigga narrowed her eyes, glaring disapprovingly at her boy. "I recall nursing you as a babe, catching you when you stumbled as you learned to walk, sitting beside your bed when you were sick, and smiling with you in awe when you conjured your first embers. If that doesn't make you my son, then I don't know how any mother can claim relation to her son."
Loki looked away guiltily, not wishing to hurt Frigga, but disputing the thought in his head.
"But come, let us not speak of such matters, as we both can be stubborn as bulls when our beliefs are refuted. Now, tell me if the guards are treating you well. Are you eating enough? And do you need anything?"
"The guards treat me well, your majesty," Frigga once again frowned, but Loki ignored it this time. "Like a prince, almost."
"Of course they would treat you that way; your titles have not been revoked, regardless of what Odin may have called you at the trial."
It was Loki's turn to frown. Why would Odin do, or not do, what was expected of him? He was king and could do as he pleased, so why not take all Loki had left to tie him to Asgard?
Frigga smiled warmly, "Though I am glad to hear that they are not taking their anger out on you. They would face my wrath as well as the wrath of your fa - Odin.
"Now, you haven't told me if there's anything that can ease your long stay here."
Loki thought for a moment. "Books," he said. "I could do with books. I would summon them myself, but my magic will only function inside this cage at the moment."
Frigga nodded. "That is something I can provide."
Frigga stayed for a while longer, chatting with Loki about numerous things, from magical theory to children's myths. There was a particularly interesting one Frigga said she would supply in book form. Their conversation strayed to the realms and their goings about, but never once did either mention Midgard or Jotunheim. It was too soon for Loki to speak of that.
Eventually, however, the topic commandeered their conversation. It had started out with a simple comment about a story Loki had read as a child. It was about a heroic áss who defeated a monstrous Jotun who was eating the children in the village. It didn't make much sense because what would a Jotun even be doing there?
Still, when it was mentioned, Loki froze. His hands, which were at his sides, flexed and then clenched.
"Loki," said Frigga, squeezing his arm. "What's wrong?"
"You knew... you knew that the Jotnar are monsters... You knew, and yet you took me in and raised me as one of your sons... why?" Loki squeezed his eyes shut, fearing the answer to his question.
Frigga sighed. "I knew we should have done something about the prejudice that runs through Asgard. This has been ingrained into your subconscious, I'm sure, but I hope to convince you of its falsity.
"My son, if I thought the Jotnar were monsters, I still would have cared for you because no one is born bad; you were not born bad. But as it is, the Jotnar are not monsters. The whisperings you heard as a child by other ignorant children were just that: rumors. Parents would tell their children perfidious lies to scare them into doing their chores and the like, and these lies were born of hatred for a race that we fought against. In war, either side will tell tales about the other to fuel the fight. And remember, history is written by the victors. Imagine what the Aesir would be if Jotunheim had won the war."
Loki ran a hand through his hair, making it even messier than before. "But I am bad. I've proven that time and time again! I'm just like them and they're... we're monsters━"
A sharp, stinging pain flared in his cheek.
Did - ? She just slapped him!
"Do not ever call yourself a monster! You most certainly are not. People can do bad things. That does not make them good. And doing something good does not make you good. You see the world in black and white, my son. But it's not so simple; there is good and bad in the world, but there are no good or bad people."
"But then... what about Thor? What about the heroes of Midgard? Are they not good? They fight the evil, right?" Loki said.
"They fight to save people. It is not who they're fighting, but who they're protecting. They fight to protect the innocent; they do good. That doesn't mean they are good. If something happened to change their points of view - to make them do bad things, they still wouldn't be bad. They would do bad things, but they wouldn't be bad. They're still redeemable and they always will be. And if they are redeemable, there is a chance yet," Frigga said, stroking his hair lovingly as - as a mother would.
"But what if there is someone so bad - forgive me, someone who does such bad things that he or she cannot be forgiven or redeemed?"
Frigga sighed. "If this person refuses to be redeemed, or keeps doing bad things, no matter what anyone says, then it is up to those around the person to do good and stop him or her."
"The - the people who could do good, who always do good aren't able to fight this person. What happens then?" Loki felt he was starting to sound like a child.
"Then it is time for the people who do not believe in themselves, those who think they are bad," she looked intently at Loki, "to learn to conquer their insecurities and fight the person. After all, when all the good in the realms sits idly and twiddles its thumbs, what is left to fight the bad?"