Chapter Text
Loki is having a really, really bad day.
He's being choked to death by an effing purple thumb and – honestly? - Loki’s rather pissed off about it. Staring dead in the Mad Titan’s eyes, petty to the end, Loki manages to splutter out – reaching for breath – “You will never be a god,” but then thinks, norns, were those my last words? He can hear Thor struggling to his side, can practically feel his anguish, but then his vision is going fuzzy, and his lungs are screaming.
One second, Loki is fading out of consciousness, and the next he’s staring at the ceiling of Asgard’s great hall with air in his lungs.
There’s chattering above him, glinting jewellery and flowing fabrics, and - and is that his mother? She’s kneeling at his head, stroking his hair. Worry is etched into the furrow of her brow, reminiscent of the days Loki would fall and scrape his knee as a child; parental concern is the only name for it. Frigga is here and holding him close and Loki can think of only one explanation for this.
“Well, that’s a surprise,” he says to himself.
He's made it to Valhalla.
He wasn’t sure he’d make it to the afterlife at all – ice giant and all that – let alone the place made for good people.
A quiet chatter falls over the crowd surrounding him, and Loki feels his mother run another hand through his hair.
“Are you alright, my dear? That was an awfully bad fall.”
Loki, feeling the most content he has in a while, actually, waves his mother off. “Other than that choking to death thing, peachy,” and it's true. He doesn't quite know what she means by his 'awfully bad fall', but perhaps Thanos dumped his corpse out of the airlock. It's something like that, to be sure. In all other respects, Loki feels... alive; like all his aches and pains, accumulated over the past decade of bullshit, have simply vanished.
“Choking?” someone says to his left, and Loki turns his head to see his wonderful older brother, eyebrows knitted together in confusion.
Loki groans. “Thor," he bemoans. "You oaf! You had one job! I can’t believe you allowed Thanos to murder you! You have wasted my very generous sacrifice!" The nerve of it!
To add insult to injury, Thor does not offer Loki platitudes and apologies; instead, he has the gall to look even more befuddled. Loki thinks he’s about to find out whether it's possible to burst a blood-vessel in the afterlife. “Yes, you twit," Loki snaps, "I'm angry that you died! You always were so selfish. Kings cannot charge buffoonishly into battle. Who will lead our people now? Banner?! On top of that –”
“Good lord, he’s finally gone mad,” Loki hears Fandral interrupt. It stops Loki right in his tracks.
What?
There's a quiet murmur through out the crowd - in agreement, Loki realises. Mad? He hasn't gone -
A booming command echoes throughout the multitude, followed by Odin himself, parting the sea of people like the bow of a ship.
“Please, give my son some space,” Odin says. “I fear he may have hit his head upon his collapse. Thor, fetch a healer while your mother takes Loki to his quarters. It is likely that your brother is but disorientated, but it is better to be safe than sorry.”
Thor, always the obedient son, nods and scurries away, leaving Loki to face the ghost of their father. He is hauled to his feet by Frigga, but cannot take his eyes off Odin.
This is wrong, Loki realises all at once. Everything here is wrong.
A quick scan of the crowd shows Loki many familiar faces. His mother, his father, Sif and the Warriors Three, council members, cousins, children, some faces he knows still live, some he has not seen in years.
Odin looks at him softly. With concern.
Loki turns his attention back to the Great Hall and, yes, that’s it! The decorations for Thor’s coronation are still up.
Odin has started to disperse the crowd, and now Frigga is pulling him away. Loki is too disorientated to argue, his mind racing a mile a minute, his heart bounding in his chest, his fingers twitching in agitation.
These are not the reactions of a dead man, Loki realises.
Perhaps he isn't dead at all.
Back in his room, Loki stares at his reflection. Gingerly, he reaches up to tug at his skin - and winces as he pinches too hard.
He looks younger. His hair is much shorter, his face less worn by time and pain. It’s like he’s –
His quarters are as he remembers them - books lying open, clothes scattered over the floor, maps covering his desk - but as Loki remembers them from before he fell.
Could it be so? Loki lets himself wonder.
Frigga returns from where she’s been talking with the healer in the corridor. From their perspective, Loki has learnt, he’d been at dinner, celebrating Thor’s upcoming coronation, when he stood up to raise his glass for a toast and his eyes rolled back into his head. His mother looks less concerned now, but still reaches out to Loki upon coming close. “How are you now, my son?” she asks, tentatively, and Loki instinctively takes the offered hand in his own.
Swallowing his emotions – all the years of grief - he smiles at his mother, as if all is right in the world. “Much better, mother. I am unsure as to what came over me.”
Fandral’s accusation still picks at his thoughts. Has he gone mad? It makes more sense than the alternative; that he has - jumped the timestream, somehow. Are his memories a symptom of his collapse? Were the past few years a dream?
He disregards the notion almost immediately. No, Loki concludes. They were not a dream. He can still feel the ghost of Thanos’ hands around his neck. It is too haunting to be but a figment of his imagination.
Nonetheless, Loki watches as the fear washes off his mother’s face. “I’m glad,” she says, giving Thor, who is just strolling in from outside, the perfect opportunity to interject.
“Honestly, brother, even when you faint you cause a drama,” Thor teases. “You’re the talk of the party now.”
Loki sneaks a smirk. “You only care that they’re no longer talking about you.”
“Loki!” Their mother cries, while Thor is a tad startled. Soon enough, though, he’s guffawing and plods over to give Loki a firm pat on the back.
“As sharp as ever, brother! We do not have to worry about his wit being dulled by the fall!”
Loki rolls his eyes. “Get back to your party. I can look after myself for the evening.”
“Are you sure?” his mother asks.
Loki shakes his head in dismissal. “I’ll be fine.”
He waits for them both to leave before letting himself exhale a shaky breath. Now he’s alone, Loki can freak the fuck out.
Mad. It's as they'd said. He's gone mad. Is he truly allowing himself to consider the idea that he's gone back in time? If he has, what does he do? Does he let the future play out as it did? But - no, this is nonsense. His memories feel so real, so tangible, but they can't be. The future he came from, it has to be a dream. He's Loki, son of Odin, Prince of Asgard, Thor's -
No. That isn't quite right.
He isn't a Prince of Asgard; not really. He's a Prince of Jotunheim. A frost giant. He knows it to be true, in the deepest marrows of his bones. Yet, now, prior to Thor's coronation, he should not be aware of his true heritage.
Loki closes his eyes and holds out his hands. If he’s going mad, then he’ll be wrong.
After a few, regulated breaths, Loki opens his eyes to an ice cold room and immaculate blue skin.
Loki can’t stop himself from shaking.
He spends the next few hours writing down everything he remembers about the future. He’s determined to be prepared this time when Thanos comes knocking.
At first, Loki considers running; dropping everything, then and there. He doesn’t want to die, not like that, not again.
But.
Sitting at his desk, scratching an ink quill over the page in a jagged scrawl, Loki pauses. Slouching back in his chair, he surveys his life written out before him.
Running caused so many of his problems.
Loki starts formulating a plan.