The palace stood tall and proud, magnificent in the sunlight cast down upon its golden, glittering walls, glorious and worthy of all the admiration that could be bestowed in all of the world. It remained untouched, wonderfully untarnished by the Elves' attack and set apart from time, and Loki realized that this was a place he had never known, a place he had never seen.
It was perfect, living and basking in a time long before his own, a time long before Odin and his father and his father's father, a time long, long before. There was such a tranquility in the air, and he found himself before the wide doors, walking in as if he was a welcome guest, as if the halls were eager to house him, as if the floor felt anxious to let him walk upon it.
It was, admittedly, a nice change, and in the next moment he was in the throne room, kneeling with his fist to his heart, head held low as he cast his gaze upward. The throne had not changed, and he wondered if Asgard truly was the realm Eternal, if nothing could ever be completely destroyed.
There was a woman lounging on its seat, a woman with long, flowing hair that he likened instantly to the pale color of the moon, eyes void of pupil and iris alike, skin silvery in the candlelight bathing her from all sides. The air was still and silent, and she looked down at him, lifting her chin just as she beckoned him forward with her outstretched hand, and he walked over to take her palm in his own, and the action seemed so natural, so instinctual, that it would have scared Loki-if he didn't feel so at peace.
"You are the one that killed Odin," she observed slowly, her voice even and laced with the oddest accent he'd ever heard, her words echoing throughout what seemed like all of Asgard, and she leaned forward to press her other hand to his cheek, "I commend you."
He stared at her, captivated, and she gazed at him serenely, peacefully, satisfied with something he couldn't realize, for once, and reclined back in her seat.
"Who are you?" Loki asked breathlessly, and the memory of her touch suddenly burned him, felt as if it was sucking the energy from him, felt as if it was slowly killing him from the inside, and he collapsed onto the floor, gasping for air as he looked up to her pleadingly, and he caught the slow flash of her smile just before darkness overcame his vision.
Loki woke with a racing pulse, panting as he sat up, the sheets clinging to his sweat-slicked skin as he pulled them aside to sit on the edge of the bed.
It had been a month longer spent at the Tower, a month more fully defined by Jane's lack of skills at persuasion and Steve and Natasha's prolonged ignorance.
It had been a month filled with uneasy, tense encounters with Tony and irritatingly imploring looks from Thor, and wary, nervous glances given by a skittish Pepper. It seemed that he was the source of discomfort for everyone, and he rather liked it that way.
Another month more had Loki's nerves frazzled from the close proximity, had his body aching in ways it had never done before, had him feeling weaker than ever. His magic had never seemed farther from him and his mind had never seemed worse, and he could feel the slow, intense decline of his sanity as his dreams quickly turned into nightmares.
The woman cloaked in white, the woman that, he'd learned, held some unbelievable grudge against the ruling men of Asgard, appeared in his slumber almost every night, and he was plagued, haunted even, with the image of her. He started, after appearing less hostile than he'd been two years ago (talking with Thor in a civil manner, giving Steve the space Natasha-and when had he started calling her by her first name?- had requested, bantering with Jane when he was especially bored, ignoring Stark to the best of his ability, and laughing when Pepper felt the need to walk into a room and leave in the next moment upon seeing him), to withdraw from the life that had been cast upon him. He began, rather unbeknownst to him, to slowly retreat into his own mind, and finally, finally, someone noticed.
It had always been such a rare thing in Asgard, something unheard of, for someone to notice Loki's change in behavior, his darkening mood and all that came with it, and so it came as a surprise when a mere mortal could see the change sparking within him.
But what came as more of a shock was their identity. On one of the many nights that he preferred sleepless hours over nightmarish images, Loki was seated at the counter, twirling a glass of water in his hand, staring blankly at the swirl of the liquid as he failed to notice the sound of footsteps to his right. There was a loud, tired sigh and he glanced up, startled, to see someone stepping out of the shadows, scratching his head groggily with his eyes squinted and stressed, taking a seat near Loki. The trickster doubted that they were aware of him, and so he remained silent, watching as they took a bottle of alcohol and started drinking from it in a futile effort to drown out the night.
He'd heard all about Steve, as of late, from Natasha, who claimed that the sole reason she had for telling Loki about the Captain's background was that in order to calm the discord between them, he needed to first understand Steve.
Loki recalled the bit of information she'd once given him-that the soldier was incapable of becoming intoxicated. He frowned as he watched Steve guzzle down the amber liquid.
"Rough night?" Loki asked lowly, afraid of waking the others, and Steve nearly dropped the bottle clutched in his hand, jumping in his seat as he looked to Loki, eyes searching in the darkness to find his face, his body tense with preparation for a fight, and Loki held out placating hands, taking a long, slow breath.
"We…all have them," he continued awkwardly, and the urge to leave came over him, washing over his thoughts and cloaking them with logic, and yet he stayed. Steve relaxed the slightest, but his grip on the bottle was steely, his blue gaze wary as he nodded reluctantly.
"…Yeah, I guess."
Loki tapped his fingers on the countertop and set down his glass, feeling completely out of his element, and thought for a moment to let that instinct to leave take him to his room, but the image of Natasha, the memory of her conversation with him only nights before (her eyes bright, lips pulled down in worry as she spoke of Steve's emotional decline after all that he'd been through, red hair lit like fire in the dying sunlight pouring in from the window, voice quiet and conflicted as she realized, as she might have finally realized, that her feelings ran deeper than friendship), made him stay where he was, made him want to glean from Steve a sense of reason, a motivation that could help Loki understand him better.
He sighed, and Steve gave him a distrustful look.
"Why are you up?" Steve asked cautiously, and Loki looked to him in the darkness, grinning, but amusement was not what shone in his eyes, and the soldier took a drink from the bottle, wishing that it could magically make him oblivious again, wishing that it could turn back time-wishing that it could do anything and everything that it couldn't.
"Nightmares-the usual," Loki offered casually, looking down at his reflection in the marble surface of the counter, tracing the light in his gaze that he felt, even knew, was slowly dwindling and dying, and he couldn't figure out why. He glanced up, meeting Steve's eyes.
"You?" The Captain looked away and shook his head, but not before Loki caught the flash of grief on his face, and he frowned.
He just needs a friend, came Natasha's low, saddened voice in his memories, and ever since he lost his whole life, that's been hard for him.
Tracing how the shadows flickered on Steve's face, dancing across his eyes, Loki was reminded of Thor, melancholy, hopeless Thor holding Loki's dying body in his arms, cheeks reddened with sorrow as tears threatened to pour from those painfully familiar eyes. How ironic that Steve should have the exact same kind of eyes, with the exact same look living permanently within them.
And so, he leaned forward, feeling compelled to say to Steve what he could not bear to say to Thor.
"Sometimes that which hurts us sustains us," he suggested quietly, and Steve glanced up at him, brow furrowed in confusion, and Loki thought that he'd never seen the brave, steely Captain look so vulnerable, and he saw a young Thor staring back at him, eyes lit with hope and smile filled with joy, and felt tears prick his eyes.
"Perhaps all of your pain is meant for something beyond you, something you can't realize until it's already come to pass."
Feeling odd, he stood, awash with shame that he had given such a strange mortal, and an enemy, no less, his insight, and he turned to walk to his room. He stopped before the doorway, glancing at his room from where he stood, watching the moonlight tickle the drawn curtains at the window.
"Perhaps you were destined for more than ice, Captain."
He walked away, closing the door behind him, and Steve was left staring at darkness, the alcohol that once burned his blood now nothing more than water in his grip, his eyes tearing up from the pain of the memories flashing in his mind, his thoughts racing to understand a person who, until that moment, he'd thought was all figured out.
He whispered to the shadows, "And maybe you were destined to be more than a murderer."
Loki heard the murmur from his place on the other side of the door, and he sunk down to the carpet, hanging his head in his hands.
She was back, lounging on her throne with Gungnir held tightly in her grip, and it seemed, oddly, like the scepter was meant for her, like it was made to perfectly accommodate the form of her palm, and Loki knelt before her, tears dripping down his face.
"What do you want from me?" Loki asked hopelessly, and blood ran down his arms in thick rivers, pooling around the palms that were flattened against the golden floor. Tears streaked down to mingle with the droplets of crimson and he moaned in pain, his breath hitching in his throat as she stepped from her seat to lean down and take his chin in her hand, pulling his face up so that he could look her in the eyes.
"Your friends are in trouble," she whispered, and he shook his head, laughing mirthlessly.
"I have no friends." Her hand snaked up from his chin to caress his cheek, and her smile, though intimidating, was sad, and he swore that he saw life flash in her fathomless, empty eyes.
"The Asgardians are not your friends?"
A flash of white and she was gone, leaving him to bleed upon the cold, ancient floor.
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