War With Myself
Author's Note: This is basically the first thing I've ever done in Marvel, so hopefully this is at least somewhat sane? Lol I hate it but like. It was in my head? Hopefully people are at least somewhat in character? I get there's 10000000 things very unrealistic in here, but I had all these feels I needed to get out, so...
~ Rivana Rita
She's been waiting for this for more years than she cares to remember, waiting for the moment Odin finally dies and she can come home. Waiting for the moment she can rip his precious kingdom to shreds for what he's done to her.
The portal opens slowly, too slowly, and from the other side, she hears swirls and glimpses of raised, angry voices. She hears something about treason, something about someone named Thor, but the words are blurred and morphed together enough that they fade out into the mist.
Hela expected to see many things when she finally came through, but her eyes land on a black-haired boy in black and green holding Gungnir, standing over Odin.
"You see what you did?" Odin is yelling, "You will unleash death upon us all!"
The boy throws a glance at her, but he doesn't falter. "You were going to bring Asgard to ruin!" he yells back.
"And when have you ever cared for the safety of Asgard?"
"Ah," he crows, smiling. It's a nasty smile, showing all his teeth. "No, I have only cared to rule, but who will there be to rule if all subservient are dead? Thor was right about one thing – you are an old man and a fool." Whoever the boy is, he radiates power, and his hands glow green when he flicks them upward, ripping a portal midair. The whipping of the air in the chamber blows her hair across her face, and Hela watches with part confusion, part smugness as the boy throws him through.
"Who are you?" he asks, turning back to face her. His grip on the spear is tight, as though leaning on it for support.
"Who am I?" Hela repeats. She should have expected no better. It has been well over a thousand years, but she just came home. She didn't think the first person to see her would ask who she was. How could they not have been waiting for her, too? She's wanted nothing more than to come back – has everyone forgotten all about her?
"I am Hela. Odin's firstborn." She looks upwards, to where the paintings used to lie. They're in the throne room, but it's covered over. He hid everything about her, didn't he? As though she didn't even matter. She never mattered to anyone though, did she? "Who are you?"
"I am Loki." His eyes are green. They're narrowed in wary suspicion, but Hela feels the flickering in his life, his exhaustion. He's injured.
"Kneel," she orders, "Before your queen."
"Perhaps we can come to an arrangement."
He sounds like Odin. Infuriatingly like him, like who he became.
"Oh, can we?" Hela asks instead, lips quirking into a humorless smile.
"You are another hidden relic locked away until you are of use to him," the boy – Loki – is that her brother why else would he think he has claim to the throne – says. "You would hardly be the only child our father cast out into nothing. Say, perhaps we could... rule together?"
Hela laughs. She doesn't know if she's more amused, surprised, or incredulous. She thought she may have a younger sibling, one she'd kill on the spot. Can't say she won't, still, but so long as he won't get in her way.
"What is it that you want?" Loki asks. "What happened to you?"
"Odin and I bathed realms in blood and tears. I was his executioner. The moment my ambition outgrew his, he banished me."
"You seek conquest," Loki supplies, "When Asgard's army lies in ruin, our cities heavily damaged, our place in the Nine Realms in question because of our father and brother's idiocy."
What happened without her? It doesn't matter. "Where did you think he got all this gold?" Hela asks, gesturing to the throne behind him, "If not through conquest? If there is a threat to Asgard, I will destroy it."
Loki's eyes narrow. "I do not seek war."
She's about run out of patience. She's waited over a thousand years for this – she isn't going to wait any more. Fine. If the idiot little brother Odin wanted her to have wants to die, she has no problem killing him. (Her replacement, the one Odin wanted, not her, never her, she was just a tool.) Hela brushes her hair back, her crown settling over her head. She jerks her spears into her hands. "Hand me Gungnir," she orders sharply.
"I don't think so."
Hela throws a spear at him, Loki dodges, firing a blast of magic at her that she ducks into a roll to avoid. Hela grabs the end of his spear, twisting it out of his hands. He smacks into the wall ungracefully before hitting the floor.
Hela throws a spear at him again, and Loki flicks it aside with a touch of magic.
Sorcerers.
They never play fair.
Killing him will change nothing, but she's so angry she doesn't care.
Loki's halfway to his feet when she reaches him, summoning another spear to stab him. He summons a pathetically small dagger and rams it into her gut. Hela yelps, flinging a spear at him for good measure. It drives its way through his gut, pinning him to the floor, and Hela thinks she should feel something at that, but she just feels sick.
That's her brother. She didn't want him. Doesn't know him, but he was brave and smart enough to stand up to Odin, and that says something about him.
The pain of her own injury is sharp and grounding and her vision sharpens the way it always does. She wants to lash out, to hurt him, but (that wouldn't change the emptiness in her heart, that he grew up without even knowing her, that – it wouldn't change anything) there's no point.
Hela rips the blade out of her, throwing it onto the floor next to Loki. He's glaring up at her, eyes wet with tears. Her skin twists and warps and forcibly knits itself back together. The pain fades out, but it's still burning.
"As Odin's son, I thought you would be more resilient," Hela supplies, crouching beside him. She could leave. Just move on and let him die. Doesn't know why she won't, when that would be so much easier, but he has his own quarrel with Odin, and she has – questions. He's a sorcerer. He's powerful. He's useful if he'll actually listen.
Actually, if keeping him alive is enough to spite Odin, that's a reason enough to spare him.
She wraps her fingers over the hilt, yanking it out.
Loki gasps, pressing his hand over the hole. Blood is rapidly staining his hands. She thought he'd heal faster. "Normally would not be after I banished the All-Father," Loki snips back, "Or after fighting Malekith."
That is fair. Still. Weak. Hela rolls her eyes. "I assume you will request a healing potion?"
"If I may."
"I'm sure the healers can attend to you if you don't dawdle."
"I can't go there," Loki says stubbornly. "They believe me to be dead. If they find me, I'll be sent back to prison." He jerks like he's trying to sit up, and Hela just grabs his arm from sheer annoyance, hauling him upright. He's light. Lighter than she thought. (Hela hasn't touched anyone in years.)
"Why were you in prison?" Hela asks, balancing his weight when he crashes into her side.
"Much like you, I imagine. I wanted the throne too much."
Maybe Odin really hasn't changed.
**w**
She was going to take Loki to his room, fetch whatever he needed, and leave. Would've if the walk through the palace didn't feel like walking somewhere entirely different and if the bedroom Loki pointed out to her wasn't her own.
The halls here are the same, even if there have been a few changes.
This is her room.
It is.
She's made this walk hundreds of thousands of times.
But when she steps inside, it looks different.
The black and green everywhere are the same, but instead of the shelves littered with her many molds and paintings and the weaponry she made herself, and lay there so decoratively, it's a bookshelf. Hela never reads. The room smells different. The blankets are – she thinks they're the same, and Hela summons a spear to her hands and hurls it across the room.
Loki hisses faintly at the movement. "Is that necessary?" he hisses out through clenched teeth.
Hela drops him on her bed.
This is her room. It's her room, but it's his now, and Odin must've given it to him to erase all memories of her. Loki's her replacement. He's everything Odin wanted her to be, and she wants to stab him for it. It wasn't his fault, though.
She was everything he made her to be.
"Apologies if my book collection offended you," Loki grunts, "Oh, was it the dust? I haven't been here for some years."
Hela hasn't slept in a bed for years. She doesn't even remember what it feels like. She wants to cry. She wants to scream. She wants to ransack the room and turn it to ash and stone.
This was supposed to be hers, and Odin threw every last memory of her away, hadn't he?
"Where's the healer's wing?" Hela hisses.
It's a good distance off, and she hopes he'll last that long – her spears have a laced magical potion in them, which causes fast death.
Maybe it'd be better if he didn't. Then she could burn the palace to the ground and rebuild it anew in her image, not Odin's. Not her brother's, who everyone remembers instead of her. Like she was nothing.
The place is the same, but she's been away so long, she nearly loses the way a dozen times over before finally making it back to her – to their room.
When Hela finally makes it back, the life flickering through his veins is strained and fluxing.
His face is pale even in the dim lighting. There're a few ever-burning candles on the walls, though Hela suspects it's something that was changed after... whatever he said about going to prison. He's out of his armor, though he must've magicked it away, because she doubts he could've taken it off. He's wearing the same dark green that Hela used to wear when she was little. Thankfully, they at least look too big to have ever been hers, or she probably would just stab him.
Hela crosses the room to her – his – their – bed, ignoring Loki's muttered commentary about how he thought she'd gotten lost. She hasn't had to use these things in forever. Doesn't remember how it works. Hela can heal from a stab wound in minutes, even a near-fatal one through her heart.
She can't die. Doesn't know why Loki can.
He's watching her, warily, and she feels the flickers of his magic as he braces to lash out, the way he's stubbornly clinging to life, even if he's pushing at the edges right now. He's scared. Hela can't say how she knows more than she ever has, but she has always known. He should be. She remembers a time when everyone on Asgard looked at her with respect instead of fear, though.
"Hurry up," Hela snaps, "You're bleeding on my mattress."
"This is my room," Loki argues.
"It was mine, brother dear."
Loki's still hesitating. "I'm not going to stab you," she huffs, sitting on the edge of her bed next to him. It still has enough pillows that it feels fake, and she wants to touch them. It's so soft. Hela hasn't sat on anything other than rock in – in centuries.
Loki's hands are shaking. Hela watches him, numbly, as he tugs up the end of his shirt.
His skin is light. Hela can't tell if he's just pale, or if it's actually light, or if it's the contrast against the blackness of his hair, but it's a white-washed paleness that reminds her of her own. The mark of her spear is a bit messier than she imagined. Definitely bloodier. And... he has a second stab wound that looks equally unpleasant, though hers is the only one turning black around the edges.
The holes run through him, and he somehow still managed to stand even though he wasn't healing.
He's stubborn.
He's an idiot.
The holes are wide enough that she could probably stick her finger inside if she tried and – why is she thinking about this? She's not trying to hurt him.
Hela snaps the top off the magic vial – she should've paid more attention to her studies about these, probably, but it never really seemed important, though she has no idea how it works or what it's supposed to do – and dumps the glowing green stuff over him.
"Thank you," Loki says, like all of this makes perfect sense.
Hela tosses it across the room.
The glass shatters when it hits the floor.
When was the last time someone said thank you to her, and looked at her with an overwhelmingly drowning level of gratitude? (Like she could actually help?)
The green... stuff soaks into his wounds, doing whatever it's work is. Hela can't stop staring at it. She hasn't seen another person in – in a long, long time. She hasn't had someone trust her with them injured in even longer.
She has never had a sibling before. She remembers a time from a lifetime ago that she wanted one, just because it often felt so lonely as an only child. Fenris was all she had.
The lighting's dim, and his skin is blood-covered, and Hela wonders – stupidly, childishly, why is she thinking about this – what it'd look like if it wasn't. He's grown now, and Hela never even got to see him born. She never saw it when he was a baby. Would she have held him if she was still here? Would she have helped him if he was hurt? Would she have helped him bathe? That's one of her first and only memories of her mother – she didn't have to but she did, because she cared about Hela, and then she died. Would Hela have taught him to fight? He wouldn't be so overwhelmingly sloppy if she had. Would she have taken care of him? What would that have been like?
No.
No, this is stupid. Hela's not his mother.
She's his sister, and mostly, she's a queen. She's the Goddess of Death. She doesn't have time for that.
For anyone.
"So, after you've conquered the cosmos," Loki asks, his voice quiet, and Hela's gaze snaps to his face, "What will you do? When there's nowhere left to spread?"
"There will always be rebellions to put down. Battles to fight."
"The people of Asgard won't accept you as their queen."
"Then I will fight them, too." She's come so far. She won't let anyone stop her, not now. Not – these were her people, the ones she fought for. How could they turn on her, too? How did the Valkyrie? Everyone?
"I wonder of Odin's fate," Loki says, "That such monsters are his heirs."
"I'm not a monster." She can't even say why that stings so deeply. "I am the Goddess of Death."
"That's all either of us can be."
"And you are too weak for one."
Loki's gaze snaps to hers again.
She thinks he's hurt. That's a strange concept altogether. "So," Hela replies flippantly, "Tell me of this... war Asgard is facing."
"I know little of it," Loki admits, "I was imprisoned throughout most of it. The Dark Elves attacked, and... we lost our – we lost our mother."
Hela's brows raise. "Frigga?"
Loki nods, staring up at the ceiling.
"Oh, good riddance," Hela grumbles, "She was so annoying; Odin –"
She dodges as Loki throws a dagger at her head. It hits the wall on the far side of the room. "Do not you dare," Loki hisses, trying to push himself upright, "Speak of my mother in that way again."
"You cared about her," Hela realizes, staring. That hurts, too. She doesn't even know why.
Everything had changed when Frigga came into the picture. Hela loathed her for it. Odin had started changing then, and everything had started changing, and then Hela got thrown to the side in favor of her and the child Odin apparently wanted.
He wanted Loki.
He didn't want Hela.
"She was my mother."
Fury claws inside her chest, icy and burning. "Ah, yes, because you were the son he wanted."
"Odin never wanted me," Loki hisses. "He stole me from Jotunheim. I'm not Asgardian."
"You're adopted?" She hadn't guessed. He looks like her. They have the same skin color. Only, Loki's hair is maybe the slightest bit blacker, and curly. Hela's is straight enough that she can't do anything with it. That used to annoy her to no end.
"Would you cease repeating everything that I say?" Loki demands, irked.
She feels empty. The hurt is burning and itching deep inside of her. Hela doesn't know why she even cares. Maybe Loki is her brother, but she doesn't know him. It shouldn't matter what he thinks of her, how much he hates her.
That's why he feels so cold. No Asgardian should feel like that – they're warm by nature. Hela's temperature has always been a little... colder, presumably from her link with death, but she doesn't know. Doesn't really matter. He doesn't look Jotun, though, and he's... Did Odin hide that from him? Is that why he's so angry?
And why do they look so similar? Did Odin spell him after her?
Did he want another version of her to fail and hurt all over again that badly? Like once wasn't enough?
Maybe he's living in her shadow as much as she is in his now.
Hela touches his wrist, lifting his hand. Studies the markings of the veins on his arms and hands and the curve of his nails and the lines on his hands. Things she should've known long ago.
They look so much like her own, except his nails are maddeningly clean and hers are jagged and black.
Hela remembers watching them fade black so long ago, as she got older, and grew into her powers, and killed.
She stands, pushing Loki's arm aside and pulls the dagger out of the wall that nearly took her head off, throwing it across the room again at the target-practicing-area that she hung up there when she was 500 and Loki apparently got to keep his entire life. It's covered with more scratch marks and dents than she remembers, but it was hers and now it's his and Odin had the absolute perfect decency to give her own genetic code and body and rewrote Loki's own with them.
Hela laughs. She wants to laugh until she cries. Kind of thinks she might.
She wants to gut Odin. Slowly.
Maybe Loki is a little bit more of her child than she thought.
She thought about having children before, but it always felt so... inconvenient. She never wanted to get married or whatever people do. Not after Odin and Frigga.
But Odin turned Loki into her... what?
What's that called, anyway?
"You lack vision," Loki says from behind her, pushing himself up. "If the public revolts, there will be no one left to rule. With how close Asgard is to war, they can't afford a leadership change, and you've missed the last thousand years of history."
Hela turns back to him, cocking an eyebrow at him. "What do you propose, brother?"
Loki stumbles to his feet, wincing visibly and tucking his shirt back in. "I will continue to impersonate Odin, while you, dear sister, catch up in the time you missed."
She is going to stab him again.
**w**
The bed is so, so soft. Soft enough she thinks she could sink into it through to the floor and stay buried in a pile of feathers. The room is dark and quiet, though, and after a thousand years of being trapped in a void of nightmares, Hela's mind doesn't stay caught up.
When she sleeps, she dreams. Dreams of the day the Valkyrie she fought with turned on her, the day Odin sent them in to kill her. They were her friends. She didn't want to fight them, but they tried to kill her, and she didn't have a choice.
She remembers the burning as someone ran their sword through her chest. Remembers lashing around and stabbing them, and when something touches her shoulder, Hela flicks a spear in their face instinctively.
They flicker and vanish out.
Hela inhales a few times, propping herself up.
Loki.
Oh, yes, this is his room, too, but that doesn't mean he can just walk in on her sleeping.
The version of him she stabbed was an illusion.
Sorcerers.
"Perhaps next time, I should pour water over your head," Loki supplies, "It seems far less lethal."
"Oh, perhaps I should just stab you."
"Well, I never asked you to leave me alive," her little brother says sweetly.
She's starting to like him. Too much. It really doesn't matter what he is to her, but – but nothing. She has a mission, and that will always come first.
"I have been subjected to far worse forms of torture," Hela replies with a near-eye roll.
"Really?" Loki asks, "Odin let that happen to you?"
"Well, I assure you, they paid for it dearly. Or, they will." Hela killed most of the people who hurt her herself, assuming Fenris hadn't already ripped them to shreds. Odin was the worst though. He – he always has been. She can handle pain.
She can't handle isolation, being trapped in an eternity of nothingness, having no one and being forgotten.
"Where did you send the All-Father?" That Loki was able to portal like that, even injured, was impressive. She hasn't met many sorcerers in her life, and that was the most she's seen anyone do.
"Midgard. The same place he sent Thor when he banished him."
"Thor?"
"He's my older brother. And he's an idiot," Loki replies, and well, considering how idiotic he is, Hela has to reluctantly understand that. Loki's the younger of the two. It's no wonder Odin had him so – whatever in all the Nine Realms he did to him. Besides, she'll admit she's curious. Her brothers lived an entire life without her, and she wants to know what it was like for them.
(She wants to know how Loki was able to defeat Odin, how he could do what she always wanted to and was never able to.)
"It was two years ago, the day of his coronation. The Frost Giants infiltrated the palace, and Thor went to Jotunheim for vengeance, against Odin's wishes. He stripped Thor of his powers and banished him to Earth."
"How lovely," she drawls, "He hasn't changed as much as I thought."
"Thor came back," Loki adds, and he sounds so bitter, "Still the perfect child, even though it was me who restored peace when he was away."
She can see it now – the hurt, the desperation for approval, the need to mean something. He wants to matter, just like she does. Maybe they are more alike than she thought, too. "When I was young, every king had an executioner. Not just to execute people, but also to execute their vision. But mainly to execute people. Still a great honor." She hesitates, looking up and down her little brother. "I was Odin's executioner. And you, if you wish, I offer you that ranking."
Loki does that smile-thing he did earlier, which is blatantly fake and borderline feral. "I'm honored. Thank you," he says, "But I'm not interested."
Hela laughs incredulously. There is a minute where she is almost certain he is joking, but his smile fades into something sharp and tense. Hela knows that face, has seen it a thousand times on people right before she drove a spear through their gut. They've been there already. "How else would you intend to rule beside me?"
He looks away, biting his lip. Momentarily speechless.
"What are you the god of, again?"
Loki's head snaps back up to meet her eyes. "Chaos. And lies, depending on who you ask."
She smiles again, rubbing at her wrist and readjusting her position. "It does not sound like your reputation is to be overly trustworthy."
Loki's grin is totally fake. It looks more like a snarl than a smile.
Hela shakes her head, amused. "Maybe the biggest lie you've ever told yourself is that you want to rule."
He jerks, blinking. "Of course I want to rule. The throne is my birthright."
"Oh, is it?"
His face falls. Loki isn't playing. Not now. "I was born to be the king of Jotunheim. Then I became the king of Asgard."
"Oh," Hela replies, "It sounds like you have one choice ahead of you then. Reveal my presence to Asgard, crown me as your heir, Father, and I will let you live."
"I never said I want to live."
She swears, he keeps asking to get stabbed again. Hela's getting certain if she wants to. "What is it that you want?"
"Odin locked you away to be forgotten until you were of use. A weapon. He did the same with Thor and I."
Hela doesn't like how raw that feels. She can't remember a time where someone had been able to look at her, see her through all the walls she's so painstakingly built around herself just to hide it because weapons don't have feelings. Emotions are such a pesky thing to be drowned over, but she understands.
She was abandoned and forgotten, too.
"What is it that you seek?"
"I will rule the Nine Realms, and when I have conquered those, I will begin with the cosmos."
"But what will that give you?" He's being earnest now, a wild swing of emotions, and yet one too sincere to be feigned. Hela can tell fake emotions from real ones. It's not a thing she has ever been able to explain to anyone else, for all that she tried. Her connection with death gives her a feel with reality and the emotions of others. Some might call it empathy, but she would not. That would be a weakness, and weakness would not have allowed her to stand as Odin's executioner. "What will you gain from it?"
The answer is simple. It always has been, and now yet more. "My name will never again be stamped out of all those kingdoms beneath my rule. And when I'm done, the cosmos will know fear."
"It was Odin who took your life from you, and you wrought out your vengeance on them?"
"Why not?"
He looks away again, lips parted. "You have a chance to be a queen, Hela. To rule. But will you bring them fear and the desire to stamp out your name forever, or be the one who brings them peace?"
Anger flares to life in her chest, icy and wild. "Peace is a lie."
"We can make it so it's not."
We.
She's not alone anymore.
Not trapped in the darkness of Helheim, screaming her lungs raw at the sky and begging someone to come back, someone to remember her. To never be forgotten again.
It occurs to her, then, what he's really doing.
"You've avoided my question. What is it you seek, brother?"
He sighs. "Recognition. I don't want to be a shadow or forgotten again. The same as you, I imagine."
Hela loathes how right he is. "How can the god of chaos fear chaos? How can you fear war?" She shakes her head, standing. She's running out of patience. "I don't need your help."
"Wait." Loki jolts upright, diving forwards to grab her sleeve. His face tenses at the sharp move, and she looks up at her little brother.
(Hers. Odin gave her him. He took everything from her. But he gave her Loki.)
"Don't go."
"Why?"
"You'll destroy all of Asgard. They won't accept you. That's not a kingdom worth ruling." There's a desperation in his eyes, and Hela knows it's way more personal than that.
He doesn't want to be alone.
Neither does she.
Hela sits back down, huffing a sigh. "Fine. But you better think of a good excuse for why you banished me... father."
His expression scrunches in annoyed amusement. "I will work on it. But don't call me anything ridiculous in public."
"Only if you do nothing ridiculous. And I am growing tired of waiting to claim my throne."
He looks away, but this once, he doesn't argue.
**w**
Hela loathes sleeping in the same room as another. Loki isn't trustworthy, but he won't attempt to kill her. He's made that clear repeatedly. He's grown attached to her over the few days they've been together. Weak.
He is...
Very weak.
Way too emotional.
Hela finds that lets her trust him easier. But she's slept alone every night for years, the hard rocks digging into her side and body. Collapsing onto her (not Loki's it isn't his this was hers it was meant to be hers, but it's theirs now, and she hates that she's almost okay with that) bed at night feels like a dream come true.
She gave Loki a pillow from the bed, and a blanket, just from how cold he is. He's not the only one who's always cold. Hela is, too. She thought it was from being on Helheim alone so long. Still sticks on Asgard. Some nights are cold. Nights where all she can hear is the screams of her enemies, the blood on her hands.
Hela doesn't sleep well.
Loki doesn't either.
She didn't realize that until she hears the sound, sharp, loud, and scuffling.
Hela jerks, summoning a spear and rolling over, and is already halfway out of bed when she realizes it's just Loki. He's hidden under a pile of green blanket, and he's not just turning over. The sound is quiet, strangled, and definitely a bit distorted, but it sounds...
Hela would not classify that as good.
She has had nightmares before, but she will never wake from them. Never so violent fashion. Never enough to wake someone nearby – except Fenris. He was always on her, licking her face and hair until Hela shoved him off, and he'd curl around her, letting her rest on his fur.
But Fenris is gone.
All she has is Loki.
And Hela is overwhelmingly more bitter about that than she should be.
How is she supposed to react to someone having a nightmare? Should she wake him? Is that normal? He did do it for her once. He's brought her food or whatever she needs to survive. It's so much better than what Odin did for her for the past many centuries.
Hela tosses the spear across the room next to Loki's head. Not the best awakening, but he did scare her, too. She about gutted him, but she's been waiting to spear him again, anyway.
He jerks back to wakefulness, green eyes snapping open. He's breathing in deeply, more of a strangled gasping than actual breathing, like something's crushing out the air in his chest.
"Relax," Hela grouses, "No one's out to murder you."
Loki shifts, settling back down, but his body is wound with tension, and his eyes are wet. Is he crying? How can someone weep so freely? Shamelessly? In front of people? Hela would never shed a tear in anyone's sight. "Forgive me for disturbing your beauty sleep," Loki snaps. He yanks the blanket back up in a failed attempt to cover his head.
Hela sighs, easing herself to the floor beside him. She sits there, watching him, waiting for – something. She doesn't know what to say to him. Hela has always struggled with people. It feels worse now, somehow – after her banishment. People are so different. She doesn't like people. She never has.
But Loki sat by her when she dreamt, too.
He's still crying.
Hela sits there watching. Uselessly. Always useless.
What does she say? What does she do?
But the fear, Hela understands. He's been hurt, and so has she.
"Who is it?" Hela inquires.
Loki's eyes flicker towards her. He licks his lips. "I have seen things beyond Asgard and the Nine Realms," he whispers. "There is another out there, sister. It will reach Asgard, and we must be prepared for when it finds us."
He speaks solemnly, enough that Hela is immediately certain he experienced a part of this threat firsthand. "Humor me," she requests. She's lying beside him now, somewhat propped on her elbow to watch. It's nice to hear a voice again, even if she frequently loses track of what he's speaking of.
"His name is Thanos," Loki whispers. He blinks at the wetness in his eyes – Hela sees it glistening in the flickering candlelight. "He seeks to destroy half the universe."
Of the enemies she's fought, that's by far the most outlandish. "Under what reason?"
"He claims it's a mercy." He closes his eyes, exhaling. "He wanted me to be one of his. It – they – um –"
They harmed him. Hela is confident in that, and she's impressed by the bubbling anger in her chest. Loki has made efforts to help her. No, this isn't sentiment – Hela would not have something ad childish as sentiment towards anyone. Their deal is strategic only.
"He searches for the Infinity Stones," Loki continues, "I was to bring them to him, and I failed."
"You fear him," Hela notes off-handedly. For Loki, it does not overly surprise her, but she still did not expect it.
He exhales sharply, breath shuddering. "He is formidable."
"Was it battle when he harmed you?"
"Not entirely."
He was tortured, then. A blunter confession than Hela anticipated – she would never admit to something of that nature. She wouldn't tell anyone of such a weakness, but Loki seems key on his reliance on others. "I will kill him," Hela promises flippantly, head dropping onto her pillow. "And vanquish his army. It seems a sufficient consequence for harming a prince of Asgard."
Loki's body twitches at her side. "And if you failed –"
"I do not fail, brother." She will never settle on anything short of victory. That's what made her so successful as Odin's executioner. She wouldn't have survived if she didn't always win. She was shaped into a weapon and weapons might outdo their use and work, but Hela is nowhere near that time. The day she fails is the day she dies.
But that was a life of which Loki knew nothing, because Odin shaped him to replace her, to take the place that Hela tried to claim as her own and failed. Loki is different from her though. He's –
It doesn't matter what Odin made him to be. Loki is something of his own choice, and he belongs to their Father no longer. Loki chose Asgard, like Hela did, and he belongs to her now.
She's never had that. She doesn't have friends. Hela hasn't had anyone for years, and she longed for the day she finally came home.
But this is not her home. Odin made sure of that. He took every piece of her and remade it into Loki, hiding all else that remained.
Hela will remake it once more, rebuild until it's the Asgard she remembers. The one she bled and waged wars for. The one she thought her and Fenris would be to hell and back, but when she went, she went alone, because Odin killed him.
(She won't let anyone do the same to Loki.)
(Not Odin. Not Thanos. Not Thor when they find him.)
She's getting soft. But she did expect to wake into a world where she was loved and the people would follow her against Odin if they had to, where they longed for her return. Not to one where she was forgotten.
Her arm is around her brother, though Hela doesn't remember moving. He's cool through their thin tunics. Jotun – his body temperature is colder.
Loki rolls up against her like this is natural to him, pressing his back against her chest. Hela's mother used to hold her like this. When she was young and scared and needed reassurance. Years ago, before she died.
What? No, she is not going to cry.
She is not Loki's mother – she's his sister and what binds them together is not a thing either of them are proud of. And yet, to them both, it's all that matters.
He was meant to be a means for an end and a new beginning. A return.
Now, he's so much more.
Loki's breathing evens out, and Hela lets her own calm. Her brother's hand is pressed over hers, not exactly clinging, but when has it been since she held someone's hand? Odin, sometimes, but not for years.
How can Loki sleep like this? She could stab him.
Someone's glad she's here. Not someone who remembers her, but still, someone.
It hurts. It makes her angry, too. If Odin made him to be her, she'll do good and well at making sure he is. He cast them both out, but he couldn't keep them from finding each other. She'll have to thank him for that if she sees him again.
Her chin is on her brother's head, and she feels the softness of his hair on her skin. Fenris's was rough. Hela sighs. She misses Fenris. He was easy. She could still swear Loki has much the same glint in his eyes, though. The mischief. The chaos.
At least Odin made Loki Asgardian instead of wolf, or she'd have to find and gut him for giving Thor a wolf pet like he did her. Not as though the allfather treated Loki any better than he did Fenris.
Tonight, she doesn't plot vengeance or conquering. Tonight, she mourns. All the years taken from her. Fenris. Her mother. Her army. Her friends. The Valkyrie, who tried to kill her after she fought and bled for them, on naught bot Odin's orders. For the life she could have spent went Loki and how much that could have meant to them both. For how much she wanted it.
(For how much... he does.)
Her eyes mist over with wetness and Hela curses herself furiously. She's not going to cry. She hasn't cried in decades. There's been nothing but an empty, open wound in her heart, and tears won't bring back the life taken from her.
At least she's safely out of Loki's sight. That's the only relief.
But still, when her breath shudders, Loki's hand tightens over hers. She thought he was sleeping. It's almost relieving that he's not. She's being weak. Loki is rubbing off on her.
She wants this to stay. To last. She wants that more than she wants to fight.
(She want's Loki – she doesn't want to keep being the weapon Odin forged her into. But he never gave her a chance.)
The candle lighting flickers across the room, the wall across from them. It's lulling, drawing in sleep by watching the dancing shadows. She used to sleep with this.
A lifetime ago.
But always alone.
Not anymore.
I think about doing a sequel to this where Thor shows up, but... I've got a few other Loki-Hela ideas, and many others. But if someone wants more, feel free to ask. :D If we're lucky, I might get motivated.
I just have a huge soft spot for softie-Hela idek xD
Me, rereading:
Sees 'At least Odin made Loki Asgardian instead of wolf'
Me: ohhhh new fanfic idea sprouting :)
I had such a hard time naming this. Like, I went through a bunch of jokes, mostly but:
'My middle name is can't stand oh wait I don't have a last name so that must be it'
"Oh so let me see what would happen if my brother and I stabbed each other in the same places simultaneously"
"oh hey what do you think would happen if I stuck my finger in the hole but I'm supposed to be helping be quiet, mind"
"look the best thing you can do is not giving ALL MY THINGS to my replacement sibling deal"
"sometimes the only bad thing about your sibling bleeding to death is when they do it on YOUR bed personal space is a thing"
"Oh let me stick this green stuff in me to see what it would feel like!"
"sometimes being a nicer sibling wouldn't kill'
"so how do I make these two idiots hug"
"Maybe I should apologize for stabbing my baby brother o.O"
"So is this my brother or my clone"
I finally settled on "War With Myself" which I think I can safely say is the best one :3 xD
Final Notes: Reviews are always appreciated! ^-^
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