He hesitantly took his hand out of his pocket and traced the names engraved in stone. Over and over and over again. There were far too many.

Owen Bostock

Fabien Wright

Freya Warner

And there were other stones - other plaques - too. Hundreds of names, of lives lost, just sitting there, engraved, as if that would somehow make up for the light they surely must've cast on others.

Charity Cross

Light that he had snuffed out.

It hadn't hit him before - it should've hit him before - how many lives had been lost during his invasion. Add that to the millions of dollars of infrastructure destroyed, and the people that were still marked 'missing' a few months later, but were surely dead (humans and their endless optimism), and the weight in his chest was growing overwhelmingly difficult to bear.

Roberta Henderson

Huw Findlay

Dorian Wainwright

Alfie-James Rodgers

He had gone on a late afternoon stroll to escape the suffocating atmosphere back at the tower, and had run into this memorial instead.

Azra Riddle

He should've stayed back at the tower.

Sioned Abbott

He didn't belong here, didn't deserve to mourn these people like he had known them.

Zishan Mcarthur

Millie-Rose Betts

Well, not quite mourn. Guilt. It was guilt.

Each name was like a knife to the gut.

Yvette Walmsley

Saskia Squires

Alaya Dillard

Mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. Grandparents, siblings.

Even the one lone dog.

People passed by, going to and fro, none stopping because they didn't want to remember the time he had ruined their lives and torn into their hearts and scarred them forever.

Mia Harrison

Riaan Melton

Vicki Grimes

Rupert Cole

Franky Hogan

He tried to choke back the sobs that had poured out of him, and looked up at the sky to try and blink his tears back.

It was dark. He couldn't see the stars here, but it was so dark. How long had he been here?

Kaan Rowland

He shivered for the first time, and not because of the cool breeze blowing through the street.

Footsteps seemed to echo, stopping right beside him. "Hey, Reindeer Games." A hand on his sweatered shoulder. "We've been looking for you."

Danial Ramsay

Tayah Bannister

He smiled bitterly, not looking up from all the names that had started to blur in his vision. "Worried I'd start another alien invasion?"

Eliott Humphreys

Kara Burton

"No, no. We were worried for you. Bruce actually made something edible for dinner, and, well, you missed it."

"Why?"

Rosie Cooper

"Why what?"

Sannah Edmonds

"Why worry about me?" It didn't make sense.

Tony shrugged beside him. "Why shouldn't we?"

Loki gestured to all the names in front of them with a shaking hand.

Tudor Beasley

Asia John

Jake Kemp

Izabelle Riddle

Tony lightly shoved his hand down. "That wasn't you."

Helena Cuevas

Loki raised his eyebrows. "All the videos on the internet would beg to differ."

Darcy Lowe

Nettie Travis

Tony vaguely waved at his own head with one hand. "You were under mind control, or whatever."

Etienne Aldred

"It was still me."

"Hey, look at me." Tony grabbed his shoulders and turned him so he wasn't looking at the memorial anymore. He looked Loki in the eye. "Is it Clint's fault that the helicarrier almost went down?"

"No."

"Then why should it be yours if you - I dunno - happened to attack New York."

Loki stared. "You make it sound like no big deal."

"It is. But it's not your fault. It's the fault of whoever controlled you."

"So everything Clint did was my fault?"

Tony paused. "Stop twisting my words."

"Sorry. It's in my nature." Loki smirked, but it soon faded. "I've still done terrible things, even before-"

"Just shut up." He closed his mouth with an audible clack. "The fact that you're arguing with me about this shows that you've changed."

"But..." Loki glanced at the list of names again.

Sapphire Whitney

Shanna Hendrix

"Hey." He was turned away from the memorial again with a hand on the side of his head. "It's good. It's good that you're feeling this way. It means you're not heartless."

"But it hurts," he croaked out, a tear making its way down his cheek.

Tony nodded. "It does. I know it does. You just have to take it and make yourself better. Okay? Take it from personal experience."

Loki stayed silent.

"You're supposed to say 'okay'."

"Okay," he managed.

He thought he could believe it.

And, if, the next day, hundreds of bouquets of white flowers appeared at each and every memorial (even the private, small ones) with a flourish of green. Well, nobody mentioned it.

A/N: Thank you to the random name generator for carrying me through this chapter.