Chapter 2
As soon as they arrived on Asgard, guards grabbed his arms and wrestled him towards the palace. Not that he actively resisted, he was too weak compared to the guards anyways and the last few months had not exactly done wonders to his health.
What Loki did remember was Thor’s face. It was caught between worry and trying to appear blank. Whatever poisonous words Loki had spit at his brother, he knew that Thor still cared for him. Something that he had in common with Frigga rather than Odin.
Loki still didn’t know why Odin had brought him to Asgard. Probably as a trophy, a hostage to ensure that the frost giants would keep from Asgard. Maybe a successor in case something would happen to Thor but even as he thought about it Loki found it highly unlikely that Odin had ever thought for him to be king of Asgard. Not that it had come to his mind until he had actually sat on the throne. Feeling how reluctant every subject seemed to his shirt reign. Seeing how even the Warrior Three would barely even accept him on the throne, would not greet him in a proper way and would – of course – submit treason to him.
Looking back, Loki thought as the palace come closer and closer, it should have always been clear to him that he was merely a prop, a toy once brought and now discarded. That he would never ascend the thone of Asgard, that he would never be king and even if he were to be one, nobody would respect him like they would respect Thor.
Oh, his brother would be a good king. Just and humble and respectable. Asgard’s golden boy would be just as good a king. But somewhere in the back of his mind, Loki had always expected to also get the chance to rule. As Thor’s advisor, in Thor’s absence. Just once in a while. What he had never expected was to be ignored, to be discarded, to be fooled.
Maybe the wish to rule was in his royal blood. The blood, he had shed richly on some barren planet and on Midgard thanks to that creature. His body still ached, almost like the quickly healed cuts and bruises where still there in some ghost form. Maybe it had been too much even for his body, for his constitution and healing abilities. Too much for a God.
The fall into the abyss had barely left him alive. Although his body had taken the worst, his mind was, what hurt most. Still preoccupied with Odin and what he thought was the loss of Frigga and Thor he had encountered things that had his mind spinning. In the vulnerable state his mind was in, Loki could literally feel strange things creeping in and out of his consciousness. He found thoughts so deeply hidden within him that he didn’t know if those were his own or maybe those of strange creatures, hidden in the shadows, watching him and waiting for him to lose his mind.
When he finally came to, woke from the state of constant nightmares, he soon wished himself to be back in that indescribable abyss. The first encounter with Thanos seemed so promising. A way to finally have a throne. A mighty ally whose name might protect him. A way to practice revenge on Odin and everybody else who had made his life difficult.
It was way too late that Loki realized that to Thanos he was not an ally to implement his schemes. To Thanos, he was nothing but a puppet.