Loki always has a plan. Or, more precisely, he is never without a plan. It may come a little late—for instance, after his death, which is very late indeed—but sooner or later it will come to him.
After Thanos asphyxiated him (he doesn't think of how easily his neck has snapped), Loki wakes up in a strange land. It is a barren desert, with a deep purple night sky and dunes of orange-red sand rolling to the horizon; yet, it feels humid on the skin, and the air smells of a terrible burnt garlic. A few rocks lie here and there, as if the creator of this land has forgotten to put in anything other than sand, and a tight deadline makes them go, "oh, I suppose here are some round grey things".
Loki has opinions about lazy people, but, well, now is neither the time nor the place to discuss such topics.
He props himself up with his elbows and observes, hoping that he'll see something different—a palm tree, a cactus, or a human skull, but, alas, nothing changes, no matter how hard he stares. Closing his eyes, he tries to reach for a tendril of magic from the land, in hope that he can figure out a direction to head toward. He hears a loud rumbling, but that might just be his imagination.
There's nothing.
He'll have to do this the traditional way then.
So, Loki stands up and starts walking. That's the first step of his not-plan: go find something. He walks for a long time—at least, it feels long, because the purple night sky doesn't change, and if you've ever been to a desert, you'd know that you can't judge your distance by counting past footprints. He doesn't get thirsty, and he doesn't get hungry. It is probably a blessing of being dead, but, all in all, the afterlife is becoming exceptionally boring.
Which is why he's delighted when his feet touch water. He looks down and sees a small pond, then he looks up, and the desert is gone. A thick mist falls, blurring everything around him, and in it he hears groans and cries of demons (well, they are probably other inhabitants of Hel, but the combination of all their cries is quite demonic to the ears). He doesn't want to go near them.
He tries to drink the water, but he can't. It appears that being dead is more annoying than he thought. What if he wishes to taste something? Or chew on something? Granted, the nourishment will do him no good, but he nonetheless prefers to have his options open.
Then he wonders why he's alone. Is this supposed to be a punishment of some kind? Penance for his crimes? If it is, Death is awfully unimaginative. He can picture several ways to repay his offenses, none of which pleasant (he also doesn't think about his time with Thanos after he fell out of the Void), but at least it'll be something, right?
Right.
As if on cue, the mist cleared, and he's standing . . .
He's standing in Asgard, in front of a horde of Asgardians: fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, sentries and servants, warriors and blacksmiths, seamstresses and sorcerers. They're tattered and beaten, but they're smiling and laughing and singing together with each other. He sees vividly on their bodies the wounds that stole their lives, and they make him nauseated, because this—this is his doing, this is his crime. A prince who has doomed his own people.
"Your Majesty!"
And with that, thousands of eyes stare at him, and their expressions go flat. Of course—now that he's alone and Thor's alive and not here (hopefully)—of course they would finally show him their naked, truest thoughts: that he is a murderer and a monster. Nothing more, nothing less.
He shifts and backs away, until a healer comes forward—Eir, who is regal and strict and perhaps older than Odin himself—and Loki straightens his back on instinct, the words "I'm really, really fine, and Thor needs your attention more than I do" teetering on the tip of his tongue, as if this is merely another hunt-gone-wrong amongst the millions of hunt-gone-wrongs by Thor and him. Her steel eyes soften, and she, he realizes, is lowering her gaze to a spot below his chin, which is his neck, but why would she be looking at his—
Oh.
Loki takes another step back.
"My Prince—"
"No," Loki interrupts. "Let's not discuss this. How fare the people?"
It's a stupid question.
It's a very, very stupid question (of course they're not all right), but Loki's mind can produce nothing else at the moment, and if he doesn't occupy it with something soon, it will turn back to that single moment when his feet stopped touching the ground, when his breaths became shallow and the enormous fingers were tightening, tightening, tightening their grip around—
"As fine as they can be," Eir replied, sending him a glance that promises she will revisit this issue. "We are a little confused. As do most people when they die, I suppose."
"And this is Asgard." He scans his surroundings, and yes, this is Asgard, a bit unclear at the edges and colorless in a few corners, but this is indeed the realm where he grew up.
"The sorcerers theorize that the scenery changes to accommodate what we want," Eir says. It makes sense that the afterlife is tailored to the needs of each soul—though, that brings up the question of why his was just an empty desert. "We have not interacted with anyone else besides ourselves."
"How odd," Loki comments.
"I think . . . I think it is because we do not want to be apart," says Eir while glancing, with affection, to the Asgardians, who have all returned to whatever they were doing before Loki arrived, and Loki reminds himself that Eir was, is, and forever will be, Frigga's closest confidante.
It begs a serious question: why isn't she in Valhalla? He is quite sure that she fought to her death—as did, in fact, most of the Asgardians on the Statesman. So why is everyone here? Himself, he can understand. Regicide, genocide, patricide, matricide—his ledger is bloody and bloody long, so it is no surprise he ends up here, in Hel.
Well. He thinks this is Hel. He's never been in Hel before.
He doesn't think this Asgard is his stop, however. His duties, as a prince, are to Asgard and her people, but he's kind of dead, and he likes to think that dead princes are relieved of their duties, if only for a moment. He wants to go explore. He wants his questions answered.
He leaves the Asgardians. Not a lot of people see him go, though Fandral catches his presence and tries to call him over to the Warriors Three and Sif. Loki ignores him, of course. No use in rekindling relationships that were never real in the first place.
He goes to the Bifrost, where he sees Heimdall—silent Heimdall, still and strong and steady, like an immovable mountain that has weathered numerous disasters and come out with barely a scratch. The gatekeeper stares out into empty space, a fabricated vista with false stars and flawed galaxies. The Asgardian ocean is undulating rhythmically below. In the middle of Heimdall's chest is a rather nasty—yet bloodless—stab wound.
Loki realizes then, with panic rising in his throat, that if he wants to keep going, he'll have to fall again.
"My Prince," Heimdall's rumbling voice echoes in the Bifrost chamber.
"Am I?" Loki asks.
Heimdall doesn't respond, as Loki knows he won't, and Loki saunters closer to the Bifrost's entrance. Peering tentatively below at the drop into infinite darkness, Loki hesitates and wonders if it's worth it. If he should just stay. That would be easier.
"You don't have to leave," Heimdall offers.
Loki scoffs and laces his hands behind his back.
"You can't tell me what to do," replies Loki, lifting his chin and looking down at Heimdall.
"But you can me," Heimdall continues, in the same mysterious, faraway tone Loki knew since he was a child, the tone which had told Loki and Thor a ghost story that had kept them up for three nights, the one which had shifted from amused to suspicious when Loki grew up. "And you did."
Loki is rather stupefied by this development, because, if he isn't wrong, Heimdall sounds like he's apologizing, and Heimdall never apologizes. Loki doesn't need it, nor does he deserve it. In fact, Loki doesn't deserve an apology from anyone—he is, quite literally, sitting at the bottom of the list of people-who-deserve-an-apology, because, if no one has drawn the conclusion yet, he's always been the root of all problems.
Thor's banishment, Jotunheim's destruction, Frigga's death, Odin's death, Asgard's annihilation—he should compile a list at some point. He can later present it to Death so she (or he, but he hears from around that Death is a she, for some reason) can appropriately punish him until the end of the world. Although, he would rather cease to exist—as in, die, but without the afterlife part, because what's the point of dying if he's still going to feel things?
He digresses.
Well, back to Heimdall, who is most definitely not apologizing. Loki's stunned silence has lasted a proper five seconds, and any longer than that will make the conversation awkward.
"I suppose I did," Loki says. "But it doesn't matter now, does it?"
"I would advise against jumping off the Bifrost, my Prince."
Loki flinches. Jump off—Heimdall makes it sound like Loki is enthusiastic about this, like he's eager to abandon Asgard for the terrifying vacuum of space. Heimdall is wrong. Loki isn't going to jump off anything. He's going to slip. Slide off. Let go. An action that's passive in nature, because even if he's doing this on purpose, he's not fond of it.
"And when," he sneers, "have I ever listened to you, Heimdall?"
Loki edges backward to the Bifrost, glaring at Heimdall, and he takes another step back, and he is free-falling again; falling, but not quite, since falling requires gravity, and there's no gravity in space, so the more accurate word is floating. He's floating at what seems to be a very high speed, no air around him, no light, no sound—space is squeezing and stretching, and it is painful, it is miserable, but it is an old friend. He may have been screaming. He may have been begging—but he has to stop, because that's eerily similar to the first time he fell, and, just to be on the safe side, he's not trying to recreate that specific scenario.
He feels the universe shaking, as if a cosmic earthquake is happening, and then there's an ear-piercing shriek of an inhuman thing, a monstrous thing—
He lands on top of a building. It doesn't hurt.
Is the pain he felt only his imagination, then? How lovely.
He's high above—oh, this city looks familiar. Tall buildings surround him and encompass the bright sky; glass windows glint pink and yellow. The sun is setting behind him.
New York.
He breathes out.
"Uh, hello?" A young voice speaks from behind, and he jerks away. He hasn't heard the boy approaching.
The boy reaches to about Loki's nose, and he's small, thin, but his build is sturdy and flexible, in a way that acrobats' are. He's a superhero. It takes no genius to deduce that, since the boy is wearing tights, and in Earth fashion code, tights usually equate to being superheroes.
"You're Loki, right?" The boy is holding his mask in his hand, so the caution is crystal clear in his eyes—though, they wander down to Loki's neck and suddenly, the boy's no longer tense and agitated. Loki wishes he has acquired a scarf in Asgard.
"Oh." His shoulders go lax. "Are you dead too?"
"Yes," replies Loki. "Most likely."
"I'm Spiderman. Or Peter Parker. Either one is fine. I guess it doesn't matter anymore."
Loki furrows his brows. "Are your parents the patrons of parks?"
"What—I mean—" Peter attempts to hold back a snicker in his throat but fails. The boy laughs. He laughs for a long time, and Loki has a feeling that the tears aren't entirely because of whatever hilarity the boy finds in Loki's question.
"No, no they weren't," Peter admits after he calms down. "I'm not sure what they did, actually. They passed away when I was small."
Loki doesn't quite know what to do. His forte doesn't include compassion.
"My condolences," he says.
Peter nods. "So this is the afterlife, right?" he asks.
Loki sniffs the air. It still smells faintly of burnt garlic, which is not something he usually associates with Hel.
"I assume so," Loki answers.
"You're not sure?"
"For one, you should not be here." Loki looks at the boy, at the innocence and idealism in his eyes, and also at the powerful sense of responsibility he carries on his shoulders like the weight of the world.
Peter is a good person. He's a protector, like Thor, forever and always.
Loki knows the type.
"You should be in Valhalla," he continues.
Peter scratches his head, flustered. "That's the equivalent to Heaven in Norse myth, right? Thank you, I guess."
"I do mean it."
Loki thinks of Eir, the Warriors Three, and Heimdall; of Peter Parker the Protector, the desert, New York, Asgard, then he thinks very hard about the rumbling and the howling, and he figures out that the world is, somehow, out of order; that whatever Thanos has done has fractured the fabric of existence; that this is Hel but not the afterlife; and that someone, or something, is furious.
"Um," Peter interrupts his train of thought. "What exactly do you do after you, well, die?"
"Wine and dine," he answers. "Fight. Songs. Sometimes women. Meet your loved ones, if they're present. It's what I've read."
Loki suspects that there is more to death, but he can ask no one here.
Peter picks at his fingers and mumbles, "Well, I didn't see any of mine."
"And isn't that"—Loki glances out to the New York skyline and observes the empty streets—"a mystery."
"What do you mean?" Peter perks up.
"I shall be taking my leave," Loki says instead. He climbs on the edge of the building, wondering if he has to let himself fall.
"Wait! You can leave here?" Peter asks. "I've been trying. How do you do that?"
"It's better that you stay, child," Loki advises. He doesn't want another burden, not to mention a talkative burden.
"But—I can't sit here forever. It's just"—Boring—"I've got nothing to do! I've been running around for hours now."
Loki peeks down, sighs, and takes a step forward. The ground sways. His head spins, but he isn't falling, so he opens his eyes and sees that he's standing perpendicular to the building's side, which is not how gravity usually works, but he isn't complaining at the moment.
He trots forward—or rather, downward—and by his side, Peter the Spiderman swings around with his web. The boy's superhero name, apparently, is quite precise in describing his abilities.
"That's so cool! Hey, you know, I can do that too." The boy falls in step with Loki, perpendicular to the building and all, and Loki stops trying to make sense of what's happening.
"So where are we going?" Peter chitters, too bright and happy for Loki's taste.
"Somewhere."
"Is there an address? How are we gonna get there?" The boy switches to walking backward.
"We'll get there," Loki sighs, "when we get there."
A brief interlude befalls them, and Loki is grateful.
"What're you up to nowadays, Mr. Loki?" asks Peter, his voice annoyingly high and boyish—how old is this child, exactly?
Loki sighs. "Many things."
"I heard from around that you're . . . dead," Peter says, and, as if realizing how foolish his words were, he groans and drops his head.
"I am dead," Loki confirms with a smirk.
"I mean dead before. Before this one." The Aether. Svartalfheim. "Mr. Thor said a couple years ago, during the thing in London, that you were dead, so Professor Selvig celebrated it on Twitter. Then Dr. Foster's interns also chimed in, so we just all assumed you were dead. Until someone spots you with Thor on Earth again."
Loki doesn't answer at first, but Peter's curious gaze is vexing him. They've never met before, when they were alive, and likely they will never meet again, so what's the harm?
"I was ruling Asgard," he answers.
"Cool!" the boy exclaims. "Wait, I thought Thor rules Asgard?"
"A common misconception." Loki looks at his fingernails and has an absurd notion that he should paint them black. "How could he rule when he was galloping all over the universe for scraps of information—" Loki stops.
He convinces himself that his breathing is not shaky, because he has never noticed how close Thor could've been to Thanos's grasp. Had Thor ventured a bit further out, he would have been captured.e
"Information about what?" Peter inquires.
Loki swallows. "The Stones."
That, effectively, shuts the boy up. Loki doesn't feel any better about the silence. They are near the bottom of the building now, heading toward the street, an empty street, which should be an impossibility in the city of New York, from what he knows about it in the little time he spent on Midgard. The sun is still setting—or, more accurately, it still hangs in the same position it was when Loki fell, dripping pink and yellow light.
"Do you know where we're going?" the boy asks again.
"Yes," Loki answers. "We are, very likely, visiting someone else's afterlife."
A veil of darkness engulfs them—so sudden that Loki thinks a physical blanket has been thrown over his head—and this time, space-in-between is much louder, fiercer, and livelier. Spots dance around him: twisting constellations, dazzling dwarf stars, and planets in hues he can't even name.
A wicked wail shakes the world. Loki sees—he hopes that he's wrong—a shadow behind anxious celestial bodies, and it's bigger than anything he's ever seen: bigger than a dragon, than the Palace of Asgard, than the entirety of Nidavellir. Its scales are dark, like black holes that devour light, and its eyes glinted a greedy green—hungry, vengeful, and everything like the monster under the bed that he and Thor used to fear so much, except this one is a hundred times more enormous and petrifying.
Loki is paralyzed with fear, and he doesn't care about space tearing his body apart anymore. He's staring straight at the monster, and it's looking back at him. Its mouth splits wide open, revealing rows of sharp, blood-stained teeth. Its jaw widens, and it lets out an earth-shattering bellow.
Loki blinks, and he is standing in a room filled with modern technology, grey and blue and black, beeping and humming. There's a large glass panel that allows him to view the sky, and he remembers, with stomach churned, that this is the Helicarrier.
There is also a gun pressed to the back of his head.
"Move and I'll shoot," Fury's deep voice warns, and the one-eyed man is not kidding, from the short time Loki was in contact with him.
So Loki doesn't move. Not at first. He turns to his left and sees Peter on his knees, dry-vomiting, whimpering. A lithe woman bends down to help him up. Maria Hill.
How quaint, that the director and his assistant end up together in the afterlife.
A short impasse occurs, with Fury absolutely motionless and Maria glowering from the side, until Peter breaks it by asking, in a shaky tone, "What was that?"
"That," Loki answers, and he feels the gun's nozzle digging into his nape, "is the mystery. It is what's wrong."
"The fuck you're talking about?" Fury exclaims furiously (Loki pats himself on the back for that one).
Loki turns around and smiles a charming smile despite the gun in his face—which, predictably, makes Fury scowl harder.
"It means, Director, that a lot of things are not in order."
He hears Peter cough. Maria Hill gets the boy a cup of water.
"No riddles. Tell me."
"We're both dead now, Director. No need for threats."
Fury's mask cracks for a second, and the man ages a hundred years, a thousand years, and all the pain and guilt and rage seep out of the breach. He lowers the gun, but he takes notice that Loki is trying to avoid answering.
"So this is it?" Fury asks, glancing about, disappointment rather obvious in his eyes.
"Perhaps."
"Not a yes?"
Loki shrugs. "I've never been properly dead before."
"Mr. Loki," croaks Peter, now situated on a chair with Maria nearby but not too close by, "why was it so loud?"
Loki frowns. "It usually isn't."
"And what exactly is it? That big thing?"
"I think," Loki starts, knowing that he is, once again, dooming himself, "I will have to find out."
Maria steps forward, finally joining the conversation. "How can you move around? I doubt you died with Parker here."
"Indeed, I did not," Loki admits. "I assume this is your afterlife."
"It's boring," she states, crossing her arms.
"So I've been told," Loki replies.
And then, two pairs of eyes stare at his neck, and he nearly hisses and threatens to gut their innards if they keep looking, but he stops, because it occurs to him that he doesn't see any wounds on the boy, the one-eyed man, or Maria Hill.
"How did you all die?" Loki asks.
"I'm not really sure," Maria replies after a moment of hesitation.
"Can't remember," Fury says.
Peter evades Loki's glance, and he begins twiddling with his thumbs.
They wait.
"I . . . disappeared, I think. Crumbled into dust. Quill did too. And Mantis. And—" Peter pauses there, and he squeezes his eyes shut. They all pretend they don't see the tears falling.
"Did you feel it coming?" Loki asks.
" . . . yes."
Both Fury and Maria are rooted to their spots, unsure what to do, so Loki, not knowing why, steps forward and places one hand on the boy's shoulders. Peter's head hits the side of Loki's stomach. Loki can tell that the boy is biting his lips hard, is trying the herculean effort of not sobbing—as anyone would in this situation, as Loki would if he were younger and more fragile—and is scolding at himself for being so weak and helpless.
Loki's next actions will forever puzzle him: He crouches down, slips his arms around Peter's back, and brings the boy closer, so that the boy's nose and face are touching Loki's neck and hiding behind Loki's hair. Peter, like a desperate drowning man, clings to Loki's back and doesn't let go.
"It's all right," Loki whispers, and he remembers a time when Frigga whispered the same words to him, a long time ago, a time that has been blurred and buried and forgotten, "You don't have to hold it back."
Peter cries. Loki stays right there, hugging the boy, wishing that someone had done this to Loki when he needed it, then disregarding the wish because it is foolishness and an impossibility.
After a while, Peter stops crying. He sniffs a few times, so Fury throws a box of tissue at him. The boy apologizes and retreats from the embrace Loki initiated. Loki stands up.
Well.
Loki walks away from the three. He hopes no one will ask where he's going.
No such luck.
"Where are you going?" asks Peter.
"To a place I may regret going." In fact, he's already regretting it, but Thanos has done something—the Titan has, most likely, succeeded in his plan—and in the process, has woken up a monster. Loki has a couple guesses as to what it may be.
"The Hulk cage?" Fury asks. The three pesky humans are following him.
Loki hasn't thought of that, but it does sound right—a tipping point, an important location, and, most importantly, a place high above. It means he'll have to fall. What is this, a bingo game of how-many-places-can-Loki-fall-from?
"Yes," Loki replies.
They travel in silence.
"Are you going to see that monster?" asks Peter, because who else will?
"Yes."
Without hesitation, the boy declares, "I'm going with you."
"No," Loki refuses.
"I am."
"No."
"You can't tell me what to do." Peter pouts, and it reminds Loki of Thor, a while ago, when Thor discovered that Thor was still shorter than Odin's throne.
"I can, and I am now." Loki refuses the urge to glare, since he's been told that his glare makes babies cry.
Fury gives them an amused look, and Loki sighs. He wants to get this over with. The Hulk cage is already open. He's strutting through the metal-grid bridge when Maria Hill speaks up, "You killed Coulson," she points at a place opposite from the control panel, "right here."
Loki turns around and scoffs. False: He killed the agent about ten feet left of that place, near the security camera.
He enters the Hulk cage, and Peter does the same. Before Loki can push the boy back out, they are both, once again, falling in space—and, once again, the term is inaccurate, though this time the accurate term is being pulled, because Loki feels like he's in the center of a tornado. Peter is nowhere to be seen.
The stars are elsewhere. Galaxies have scattered to the corners of the universe, leaving a vast gap in the middle filled up by the presence of Jormungandr, the World Serpent, Bringer of Chaos and the End of All Things, a beast so monstrously large that Loki feels like an ant in the presence of an elephant. A terrifying elephant with poisoned tusks and green eyes and blacker-than-black skin. It stares at him, hissing, grinning, and Loki can't help the racing of his heart.
It will consume him, he thinks, but that won't be the end, because he'll become a part of it, conscious but unable to control himself. He'll literally be the millions and millions of corrupted souls it has eaten through the years, like some disgusting hive-minded creature.
He'll also go mad. Madder than he already is.
Loki is unaware that he's screaming until the creature has slithered so close that sound finally bounces back to him. It is an ugly scream. It is a familiar scream, because he was screaming when he fell from the Void, he was screaming when Thanos had him, and he was screaming and fighting and crying when he found out that the Queen of Asgard was dead.
Its scales dig into him and squeeze tight. It doesn't look like a snake, Loki thinks. Rotten fangs line its bottomless mouth, and its skull is bulging and burly, nearly square, and its eyeballs, in all their gory glory, are drooping out of their sockets with cuts criss-crossed over their irises and retinae. Loki smelled burnt garlic, rotten eggs, and vomit in its breath.
It is growling and shrieking, and each time it moves, the cosmos seems to rupture a little bit more. Loki can't do anything, because its muscular body is enclosing him in a deadly embrace. He's completely frozen in place. He can't escape.
He closes his eyes and thinks that this is his punishment, that this is appropriate, that he deserves this, deserves all the agony that will follow, and he holds his breath.
Then, he opens his eyes to grey clouds and trees and winds. Beneath him, the ground is grumbling, shaking, but the howling sounds distant now. His eyes dart around, and he sits up. Beside him are countless bodies, millions and billions of bodies, ashen and unconscious—well, dead, more likely. He stands up, and Peter Parker also stands up.
"I woke up before you," the boy states, and he doesn't look as shaken as he was the first time, which means that he escaped the Serpent's grasp.
Good.
Both of them appear to be the only souls who are awake.
"Greetings," says a voice from behind.
Loki spins around and inspects the recently-materialized throne made of human bones in front of him, inspects also the figure clad in black whose face is obscured and forever changing—one moment she is beautiful and clear, other moments it is horrendous and decaying. A headache builds up in the back of his mind, so Loki stops looking at her face and instead glances at her headdress, a veil made of dried roses.
"And may I ask who you are?" Loki says smoothly, stepping forward.
"You know who I am, Trickster God," she replies. "I am Death."
Peter's breath hitches.
"I think," Loki says, "there is something wrong with the afterlife."
A hush descends, and a roar punctuates it.
"Obviously," she snorts.
"I would like some answers, if you don't mind."
"Fair enough. Ask away."
"The different afterlives. Each of us seems to have one, but they are rather lacking, and, as all agreed, boring. Boredom, unfortunately, leads to madness," Loki informs.
"Thanos," Death speaks, drumming her bony fingers on the throne, and a chill runs down Loki's spine, "wanted to court me." She doesn't seem excited at that prospect, which is understandable, if you've seen Thanos hideous chin. "He would kill, and the souls he killed were sent to me, always. Which is why you, the boy, along with what, the green girl, the robot, and half of the universe? You're all here, in my domain, when you're not supposed to. It unbalances the universe. And this means"—as if on cue, the beast howls from afar—"we have that."
"Jormungandr," Loki fills in.
"Not the most pleasant pet to keep."
"That's an understatement," Loki murmurs.
Death waves a hand, and a palace builds around them, white granite walls and Greek columns and black floor tiles. The ceiling stretches beyond Loki's sight.
"Nothing goes out of here, so I may as well tell you," Death says. "This is how the afterlife works, Valhalla or Hel or whatever: your soul slowly disintegrates, and the materials are recycled to build the universe. You don't know when or how, because it happens over a long time. The difference is what you do until you disappear forever. In Valhalla, you get to do whatever you want. In Hel, you get to suffer. It's simple."
"Who decides that?" Peter asks. "I mean, is there like, a God or something?"
"I won't answer." Death shakes her head. "But child, I can send you back."
Loki bristles.
"What?" Peter yelps. "Wait—uh, you can do that? You're not breaking any rules? Not that I don't appreciate you sending me back, I would be very, very thankful, but—"
"What do you want in return?" Loki interrupts.
"That you stay here," Death addresses him.
Loki raises his eyebrows. "I belong here."
If Death can chuckle, she is definitely doing that right now, and the sound is more disturbing than Loki can imagine.
"You don't. Your mother awaits you."
Loki's brain short-circuits. Death must be wrong. She must be. Loki, alongside Frigga? Preposterous. He belongs in Valhalla as well as a devil belongs in a church, a goat on a banquet table, or a Jotunn on the Asgard throne—which is to say, not really.
The easiest way to deal with this fact? He ignores it.
"And what do you require of me?" Loki has a sinking feeling that he already knows what Death needs.
Death stands up, and it is both a disorienting and revolting sight to behold, because intestines and livers start to fall as Death steps away from her throne. She smells, vaguely, of cooked garlic. Peter flinches back when she extends her bony hand forward. The fingers do a waving gesture in front of the boy's face, and Peter is gone.
"Where did you send him?" Loki inquires.
"Back," Death replies, and that's that. "Now you," Death ambled back to her throne, and the palace collapses into dust. Corpses upon corpses surround Loki. They lie ahead neatly in countless rows, stretching out forever until they are simply specks of dust. Everything is grey again. The rumblings and the howlings are back, which doesn't please Loki.
This, Loki thinks, this is the work of Thanos. This is also, by extension, his crime. Had he not given the Tesseract to the Mad Titan (but what would happen to Thor then?); had he placed the Aether somewhere else, somewhere more secure and secluded; had he been braver and ended his life before Thanos decided to use him like a marionette, had he—had he—
"You," Death continues, and thoughts and memories begin to slip away from Loki's mind; he suddenly can't recall why Peter is missing, or what exactly he and Death have been discussing, "will be Jormungandr's sacrifice."
Oh. Well. Loki is terribly thrilled about this development. Very excited.
Death procures an old, rotting sword from nowhere.
"And you will kill it from the inside."
He remembers that this is the price for giving Peter Parker his life back. It's a good price.
So, you see, as he has said before, Loki is never without a plan. Sometimes it comes late, sometimes it comes from someone else (how irritating when that happens), but it comes to him, in the end. He still doesn't know exactly what to do yet, but at least he's not bored anymore—he remembers Heimdall and briefly wonders if he should've listened to the gatekeeper. Alas, what is done is done.
He receives the sword from Death and thinks that this is a quest. A simple adventure, like the ones he and Thor used to go on. Nothing too hard. Might be a bit uncomfortable, though.
The world around him bleeds black. Death disappears.
Loki is back in the Void, the space-between-realms, and he stares dead straight into Jormungandr's glinting emerald eyes, smells the smell of burnt garlic—which he now recognizes is more roasted rotting bodies than garlic, his fault—and feels its toxic breath melting his skin off.
Perhaps Loki has been a tad too optimistic.