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Bracing his palms against the windowsill, Loki's head slumped, the glass smooth and Jotunheim-cold against his forehead. Outside, people screamed and fought over possessions spilling out of vehicles, buildings, and storefronts. He couldn't even begin to make sense of it, who was fighting to keep their own items or those who were looting, and after a moment he closed his eyes and turned away, moodily kicking a fallen pillow that had slumped off the couch as he passed.
He would never have admitted it, but Loki was sulking.
He was often mad at other people. Everyone seemed to wrong him, and he swore revenge and enjoyed every second when he made such come true. Loki simply couldn't understand the vital ingredient missing now, why he couldn't simply be mad at Sylvie. She kept popping into his head, too, which was especially annoying. Little scenes, some of them just small snippets of conversation, that played out in his head like the damned screen at the TVA, showing him his life.
He hated that he couldn't get her out of his head.
After he left the TVA in this dimension, turning his back on the Mobius and Hunter B-15 who didn't know him, he'd moved into a lavish hotel and created a booking for the penthouse with his magic, thinking it would amuse him to convince the hotel staff he was a millionaire and receive five-star treatment. Somehow it wasn't as much fun as he thought it would be, and when riots started on the hotel's street and the protestors waving banners with Kang's face began to erupt into fistfights, Loki moved on. On the outskirts of town he had found his current place to stay, a little cottage owned by a couple who were overseas and now stuck because the impending doom spreading everywhere in this dimension meant they couldn't fly home. Out of boredom more than anything, he took over caring for the rose gardens the couple had planted out the back and he was amazed when they began to literally flourish. He'd never been inclined to plant a thing in his life, except of course suggestions.
He was digging out a fresh garden bed when the dog leaped over the low stone fence, scaring Loki for a split second because it looked like an enormous white wolf, and he'd had a healthy fear of wolves back on Asgard. But as the shaggy beast began to sniff about his garden, he realized it was just a dog. He gestured with his shovel.
"Get out of my garden." He ordered with a faint hint of his old imperious attitude. The dog looked up at him with great sad eyes, sniffed through the roses - careful not to actually bump into any - then sat down in the shade of the house, looking forlorn. Loki, not easily swayed, flicked a shovelful of dirt at the animal. He tensed slightly, half expecting it to spring at him - it wasn't a wolf, but it still came up to his waist. But the dog looked at him again, sighed, and dropped his head on his paws. How on Asgard did a dog look sad? It was just a stupid animal, and didn't experience emotions like a person, Loki told himself.
A few more attempts to move the dog on failed, and Loki decided he wasn't hurting anybody and let it lie there. He began digging again, and jumped when he heard the dog ambling over to him.
"Now what do you want?" He demanded. The dog looked up at him for a moment then began digging beside Loki, with such a deliberate motion it was clear he thought he was helping.
Well. Loki might not be a dog guy - or really any pet type of guy - but it had been a long time since anyone offered to help him, so he warmed slightly to the great monster. When he sat down in the shade for a break, it seemed only natural to fill a nearby bucket and let the dog drink as well.
He wasn't going to let it inside though, shutting the door firmly when the dog tried to come in. If it was going to stay, it could sleep outside. After all, it was only an animal. As Loki settled down on the couch he almost leaped out of his skin when the dog took a flying leap through the open sitting room window. It gave him a calm, sorrowful look, circled down three times and lay down on a rug. It was around this time Loki figured out it must have lived here, and was probably waiting for its owners to come home. He even located a dog bowl and some food in a cupboard and fed the creature. At least it was something that listened to him.
He awoke that night to barking. He was about to shout for the dog to shut up when he heard the smashing and the sound of flames. Rushing downstairs, he discovered the riots had reached the quiet street of his cottage. The dog, hackles raised and looking angrier than Thor after a prank was played on him, was barking furiously at the door. Loki opened it with magic and stepped out beside the large white shape of the dog, unexpectedly furious to find the cottage gardens in flames. Everything he'd revived, and planted himself, was turning to ashes. He didn't know if the trio nearest to him holding flaming bottles were responsible, or one of the countless others running up and down the streets, but they were closest. Conjuring up a knife, Loki went straight at the trio, blade slashing. The dog leaped avidly into battle at his side, and the release of dispatching the intruders made Loki feel more alive than he had for days. He caught a couple more and then chased off several others, the dog barking and growling after them, but by the time they headed back to the cottage it too, had gone up in flames.
The dog whined and pushed his furry head against Loki's hip, and he actually found himself patting it absently as he stared at the fire. The smell of smoke, burning wood and shingle and fresh greenery, was overpowering. He told himself he didn't feel any sorrow - he hadn't actually owned it, or anything there. He had no possessions being burned, no valuables he had to rush inside to save.
He had nothing.
Turning away, suddenly angry, he shouted at the dog when it followed him. The dog simply gazed at him a moment, then when Loki started walking, followed him again.
The fight and the anger felt almost good, and Loki welcomed the change. He was the God of Mischief, and he thrived on change. He started to hunt more deliberately. There was ways out of Asgard, so there were ways out of... wherever he was now. He didn't even know. He didn't need a TemPad. He had always found a way.
The portal invention was many days travel away, and once he honed in on it with his magic he spent several days figuring out how to use the device. The tunnel off of Asgard was different, and relatively simple, a natural channel that could be utilized by anybody with the correct force upon entry. This was purposefully constructed, the portal controlled by some sort of invention Loki had to charm out of the hands of a few frightened scientists who didn't know what they had. He retreated deep into he woods, away from settlements, to figure it out. The riots were spreading, and he needed peace and quiet.
"You know you aren't coming with me." He told the dog as it stretched out beside him after they'd eaten. Loki had the device sitting on his knees, magic glowing green around his fingertips. The dog lifted his head, gave Loki one of those Looks from his dark eyes, then settled back down. Loki laughed softly. It was the first sound of mirth he'd made since Sylvie shoved him through that portal.
He wasn't quite sure he understood it fully when he decided he knew enough to try, but there wasn't a lot of opportunity to test run dimensional altering equipment. He took a deep breath, rested one hand on the dog's head, and flicked a switch with the other. There was a roaring sound in his ears, the sensation of wind sweeping at high velocity from every direction at once, and then it was over.
Loki and the white dog stood on a high cliff. Though darkness closed in around them and night birds called, they were overlooking a building lit up brilliantly with spotlights - large and ugly, very earthlike, not at all like the elegant constructions on Asgard. Loki hadn't really been trying to get back there. He didn't know if it was only in his dimension Asgard had been destroyed, or in all of them, and he was not in a hurry to find out.
The dog stiffened in the way that Loki was starting to realize meant danger. Then he took off, paws flying over the short cropped grass "Hey! Get back here!" Loki snapped, but wasn't exactly surprised when the dog didn't listen to him. He was surprised when he found himself following.
There were armed men in uniforms everywhere. Loki distracted a few with illusions and gritted his teeth until he almost bit his own lip when he caught an errant though flitting through his mind. I wish Sylvie were here. She'd be useful enchanting these idiots.
Still, his own magic, fed by his own creativity, didn't let him down. Each time green sparks flared, he felt something... something of an answer, no, not an answer - an echo, to his magic. Whatever dimension he'd landed into, there was somebody very powerful here. He couldn't make out anything specific, so he didn't know if somebody was calling to him, or warning him off. Either way, he decided the way to answers lay forward. He made it to the entrance he'd seen the dog disappear and created a copy of himself to step through the door first. The guard inside lifted his gun, but when he fired at the illusion Loki had already slipped behind him and then slipped a knife between his ribs.
The dog wasn't subtle and Loki followed the sound of deep, rumbling barks into the building. He hadn't the heart to keep on killing and killing when he didn't even really know why he was here, aside from to figure out if this dimension was any closer to getting him home. When he came across a few injured, badly bitten men, he used his magic to send them to sleep instead.
He found the dog in front of a hefty metal door, quiet now but standing with paws firmly against the ground, his ruff spiked up. Loki calmed him with a hand to his head, then cautiously lifted his free hand to use magic against the door. Emerald flickers danced for a moment and he was careful when the lock gave to swing the door open at the right speed - enough not to alert anyone inside too quickly, but so that he could see whatever menace had been being kept within the room and prepare to face any threats.
A tearstained boy of about eleven years old raised his hands defensively, a sob hiccupping in his chest. "Stay back!" He cried, though it came out so wracked with emotion it sounded more like a question. A faint blue spark lit his fingertips. "I know magic!"
"Really?" Loki drawled. Not at all cowed, he stepped into the room, conjuring up three of himself to do the same that bowed a bit mockingly to the child, then vanished into the main Loki. "So do I."
The boy deflated in front of him, but Loki's magic never lied. This child did know magic - and Loki could tell he was powerful. More than he himself, more than his mother, perhaps moreso than anyone he'd met, including Thanos' magician. The dog trotted inside and nosed at the boy, who showed no fear of the hulking canine, and even brightened up a little. "You have a dog? I love dogs. He's cool." He patted the fluffy white head and dog a wagging tail in response.
"He's not mine." Loki denied, but it felt a little like a lie on his tongue. The boy, putting an arm around the dog's neck, looked at him carefully. Though he was teary-eyed and clearly scared, Loki could see a lively intelligence in his face. It was the boy who spoke first.
"Can you... can you help me? Something has my brother, and I need to get him back."
His brother. Of course his brother. The plea was so heartfelt that Loki could not stop thinking of Thor. If that big fool missed him at all. If he was even still alive in the dimension Loki had left. He felt a soul-wrenching rush of guilt, sorrow and worry all mingled together, and for a moment he found it difficult to swallow.
"Please?" Asked the boy quietly, mistaking Loki's struggle with grief for reluctance. He composed himself quickly and with a sigh, held up a hand to help the child off the floor.
"Come on, Pipsqueak, we can't make a plan here." the boy's expression brightened slightly as he scrambled up. With the dog trotting beside him, scanning warily, they made their way back outside.
"What's your dog's name?" Asked the child. Loki shrugged. "I don't know." The boy, seeming a little less miserable, didn't accept that for a second. "You can't have a dog without a name. I think he should be called Rex." He decided, showing some caution and peering around the corner of a corridor. He frowned. "That man will wake up soon." He pointed at one of the guards Loki had enchanted to sleep. Loki seized the small hand and jogged quickly towards the main door. "Then we should hurry."
He tried not to think about the fact the last hand he'd held was Sylvie's.
He was quick to drop his hold once they were outside, and indicated the direction they should go, where he'd stashed the dimensional device, to the boy. "What about your name? Mine's Loki, Loki Odinson." He wondered why the surname he'd struggled with for so long came so easily now.
The boy curiously inspected the device they'd now reached, then turned to place one hand on Rex's shoulder for support as he looked up at Loki. "I'm Billy Maximoff."