Hey everyone! I finished writing this chapter not even 3 days after I posted the last one. It might seem a bit rushed but this is the chapter I enjoyed writing the most!

Hopefully chapters will come a bit sooner since now we're finally in the part of the fic that I've been looking forward to the most! Chapters going forward will be sad/angsty (as if the rest of the fic wasn't angsty already-) but it is Endgame after all. Sorry.

Also, did anyone see Eternals yet? I saw it today and it was amazing! Go watch it if you haven't already :)

It had been five years since the snap and the destruction of Asgard. All in all, Valkyrie thought that the surviving Asgardians were prospering in their small coastal village. It was hard to build up again after the loss of their home realm, the massacre of the Statesman and the deaths of Odin, Heimdall and Thor. They might have lost almost everything, but the words of Thor stayed in her mind: Asgard is a place, not a people. Valkyrie wasn't one for a motto, but it kept her going.

The day started off like normal; sending a couple boats out to catch fish and then later on in the day load boxes of said fish to sell to some of the other villages nearby. She hadn't ever thought that she'd have to make money by selling food to Midgardians, but here she was. Like normal as she was packing she'd ask around the village if anyone had seen Loki, but the answer was always no.

He had made a habit of hiding himself away from everyone in the village. The bare few who had seen him were always from far away, as he'd either be wandering the hill where Odin died or shutting himself in his house doing Norns know what. It was clear that Loki blamed himself for all that Asgard had gone through in recent years, with Odin dying, Hela and then Thanos. Valkyrie had been told that he hadn't been the same since his fall from the Bifrost and when he was found invading Midgard. She often took the time to wonder what Loki used to be like, but couldn't picture anything but sarcastic and snobby.

He wasn't like that anymore. Loki barely spoke to her. He barely spoke to anyone, to be honest. It had come to the point where Valkyrie had almost forgotten what his voice sounded like.

As she loaded another box onto the truck, she asked an Asgardian helping her, "Have you seen Loki recently?" The woman shook her head no, and sighed in dismay.

"Nobody has seen our king for weeks," she said. "I can't remember the last time I saw him with my own eyes."

Valkyrie exhaled a breath she didn't know she had been holding. "Well I guess I'll have to look for him myself then."

Quite frankly, she was worried about Loki. She doubted she'd even find him - Loki had a habit of making sure nobody could find him when he didn't want to be found, which, unfortunately, was more times than not. Having an idea of where New Asgard's King could be, she headed off to the hillside.

Surprisingly, it didn't take long for Valkyrie to walk up the hill. She could've used one of the trucks the village had but ever since Sakaar, there was no proper way to gain a substantial amount of exercise. If Loki was up here, she would be impressed. He didn't seem like the type of person to put the effort in walking dozens of miles everyday. Maybe before he would, but not now.

When she reached the hill's peak (which was also where Odin had died), Valkyrie saw Loki sitting on the stone bench that was there. She took a moment to take in his figure - loose black clothing that was even darker than his raven hair which was swaying gently in the wind. He looked eerily calm. Valkyrie felt the slightest bit of guilt that she'd be disturbing his peace.

As she walked closer and sat on the bench next to him, she noticed how fragile Loki looked. It seemed he hadn't eaten in months and that thought scared her. He was thin, far too thin. If the wind got stronger Valkyrie was convinced he would be blown off the cliff. He was staring out into the distance, and from the glaze in his eyes, Valkyrie doubted he had noticed her.

"Hey," she started calmly. "The people in the village are worried about you."

She paused, daring to hope Loki would answer.

"Hardly anyone's seen you in weeks."

But, of course, he didn't even turn to look at her. Valkyrie sighed, and the two of them sat in silence for what felt like forever.

"We just want to know that you're okay," she whispered. It was obviously clear that Loki was not okay, far from it.

"If you ever want to talk to someone, I'm here. We all are."

Valkyrie had given up on getting an answer when they sat there in silence for half an hour. She wasn't one to quit, but trying to get Loki to talk was draining.

Every day after that, she'd look around the village for him and ask him questions to see if he would answer.

But everyday Loki would say nothing.

"Have you heard from Loki recently?"

If anyone told Natasha eleven years ago that she'd come to care about the god who attacked New York, she would have shot them in the face without hesitation.

Steve shook his head. "I haven't seen or heard of him since he killed Thanos that day."

Nat sighed. "Neither have I. I only got an email from one of the Asgardians - her name was Valkyrie, I think - thanking us for helping them find a place to stay in Norway. No words from Loki, though."

"It's been five years. Maybe he's moved on, decided to forget about us. He's probably just focusing on the future of Asgard."

Nat chuckled and took a bite out of her sandwich. "Ever the optimist," she smiled sadly.

A video of the current camera footage popped up in front of the two of them.

"This an old message?" questioned Steve.

"It's the front gate," muttered Natasha.

Scott Lang, who they presumed was one of the snapped, was alive.

Their car rolled up to Tony Stark's lakeside house just as he was walking inside with a child. None of them knew Tony had had a kid since the blip. In all honesty, none of them had spoken to him since then.

"Tony, after what you've seen, is anything really impossible?" Steve asked.

"Quantum fluctuation kinda messes with the Planck Scale, which then triggers the Deutsch Proposition, can we all agree on that? In layman's terms, it means you can cancel your Netflix subscription because you're not coming home."

Trust Tony fucking Stark to say some out of this world sciency stuff.

"I did," Scott simply said.

"Which was a billion-to-one cosmic fluke. Now you want to pull a… What are you calling it?"

"A time heist."

"Oh. Of course, a time heist. Who are you again?"

"Tony, the Stones exist in the past. We could get them and bring them here," Steve tried to explain despite knowing Tony fully understood.

"We can snap our own fingers. We can bring everybody back," Natasha added.

"Or screw it up worse than Thanos already has," Tony snapped. He deflated a bit before continuing. "I understand where you're coming from. I'd love to bring everyone back, I really would. But I don't want to lose what I've gained in these five years. If we could get everyone back and keep what we've found, I wouldn't hesitate. If I knew it was possible to get Thor back, I would. But here we are stuck with Loki, and I really wish he were dead instead of Thor."

With that, Tony turned round and walked back inside, leaving Natasha, Steve and Scott to head back to their car, almost having run out of options.

Later that night, with the help of a few glasses of scotch and the motivation to at least give it a try, Tony Stark successfully invented time travel.

"Shit!"