Perpetual

The loft’s hallway echoed with the slam of Loki’s fist against the wall, the sound cracking through the silence like a gunshot. His chest heaved, tears glinting in his bloodshot eyes as he hissed at Thor, “Do you have any idea what she’s done today?”

Thor stood bare-chested in the doorway of Elena’s bedroom, his skin still flushed, fresh nail marks raking his collarbone. He shut the door softly behind him, jaw clenched. “Keep your voice down. She’s been crying all night. Finally asleep.”

Loki’s gaze dropped to the smudged lipstick on Thor’s neck—crimson streaks, Elena’s shade. His voice turned venomous. “Did you fuck her? Even after what happened?”

Thor grabbed Loki’s arm, dragging him into the kitchen. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead, casting harsh shadows on Loki’s trembling hands as he shoved his phone at Thor. “She kissed him back, you idiot! The whole school’s seen it!”

Thor turned his head, refusing to look at the screen. “Stop it, Loki.”

“Stop it?” Loki’s laugh was jagged. “You won’t even look? Pathetic. You’ve been playing house with her while I—”

Thor slammed Loki against the fridge, his hands fisted in his brother’s shirt. “You,” he growled, voice shaking, “were the one who couldn’t handle her loving both of us. You who carved up our lives into days of the week—Mondays for you, Wednesdays for me—like she’s a fucking timeshare!”

Loki’s breath hitched. Thor’s eyes, usually calm as a frozen lake, burned with decades of suppressed rage.

“I gave up everything for you,” Thor snarled. The loft’s kitchen felt like a battleground, the air thick with decades of unspoken rage. Thor loomed over Loki, his voice a raw, trembling growl. “You think this is funny? That I’ve enjoyed any part of this?” His finger jabbed into Loki’s chest, hard enough to bruise. “After every night she spent in your bed, she came to mine and cried. Silently. Like she was afraid to even let the walls hear her.”

Loki’s smirk faltered. “What?”

Thor’s laugh was bitter, cracked at the edges. “You never noticed, did you? Too busy playing the wounded prince.” He stepped closer, eyes blazing. “She’d crawl under my sheets, shaking, and I’d hold her. She never asked me to end it—she didn’t have to. I felt it. Every fucking tear, every hitch in her breath. But I stayed quiet. For you.”

Loki’s face paled. “You’re lying.”

Thor released him, stepping back like the truth itself had scorched him. “You think I wanted this? To share the woman I love? To watch her break?” He dragged a hand over his face, voice crumbling. “I dreamed of marrying her, Loki. Of holding her hand in public, giving her kids, growing old. But you—you needed her more. And now…”

Silence filled the kitchen for fifteen seconds.

Thor’s voice dropped to a venomous whisper. “And when she started to love you? Do you know how much it hurt, you son of a bitch? Watching her force herself to want you, to need you, just so you wouldn’t—”

“Stop,” Loki choked.

“No. You don’t get to hide now.” Thor slammed his palm against the wall, rattling the shelves. “I became deaf to her pain. Let her suffocate in it. All because you couldn’t handle being alone. And now? Now, she’s breaking for him. And it’s your fault.”

Loki’s knees gave out. He slid to the floor, back pressed against the cabinets, Thor’s words carving into him like knives.

Six months.
The memories surged—Elena visiting him in the hospital, her smile brittle as she pretended not to flinch when he screamed. Thor’s hollow eyes as he lied: “She’s okay, Loki. She’s strong.”

But she wasn’t. None of them were.

Thor crouched, his breath hot against Loki’s face. “You want to know why I let this happen? Why I carved up our lives like fucking deli meat?” His voice cracked. “Because I thought… if I gave you pieces of her, you’d stop trying to destroy yourself. But you just destroyed her instead.”

Loki’s hands trembled “I didn’t… I never meant—”

“Meant?” Thor spat. “You don’t mean, Loki. You take. You break. And I—” His voice broke. “I let you. For her. For you.”

He stalked to the bedroom, returning with Elena’s leather-bound journal. It hit Loki’s chest with a thud.

“Read it,” Thor said coldly. “She’s in love with him. And if you push her? You’ll lose. Because I won’t let you take her from me again.”

Loki flipped the journal open, Elena’s handwriting blurring as his eyes landed on a recent entry:
“Zemo kissed me today. It felt like drowning and breathing for the first time. How do I tell them? How do I choose?”

The pages trembled in Loki’s grip. “She… she can’t—”

“She can.” Thor’s voice was steel. “And if she picks him, I’ll let her. But I won’t hide anymore. I’ll be the man she holds hands with in daylight. And Zemo?” He leaned in, inches from Loki’s face. “He’ll be her secret. Or nothing.”

Loki’s knees buckled. He gripped the counter, nausea rising. “You’d really… let me go?”

Thor’s anger faltered. For a heartbeat, the boy who’d carried Loki home from bars, who’d lied to their parents about his breakdowns, flickered in his eyes. “I won’t fight her. Not again.”

* * *

The apartment reeked of burnt coffee and unwashed dishes, the single flickering bulb in the kitchenette casting jagged shadows across Pietro’s face as he crumpled the napkin bearing Zemo’s address. Outside, rain lashed against the fire escape, its metallic rattle syncing with the furious tap of Pietro’s boot against the linoleum. Iolanda hovered by the stove, her knuckles white around a chipped mug of chamomile tea gone cold, its steam long surrendered to the tension thickening the air.

“Pietro, please,” Iolanda tried again, her voice fraying at the edges. She’d been replaying the video all evening—Elena’s startled gasp as Zemo kissed her, the way his hands had lingered at her waist for half a heartbeat too long before he stepped back, resignation etched into the lines of his face. The caption blazed across every gossip forum: Disgraced Professor Quits After Scandalous Student Romance.

Pietro whirled, the address fluttering from his grip like a wounded moth. “Midlife crisis? Look at him!” He stabbed a finger at Iolanda’s phone screen, frozen on Zemo’s storm-gray eyes—sharp, haunted, and eerily calm for a man whose life had just combusted. “Forty years old, Iolanda. Forty. The comments are full of it—‘Just dumped his fiancée last month!’ And now he’s sniffing around my sister? Teaching freshmen?” Pietro’s voice cracked, raw as the graffiti scrawled on the alleyway dumpsters below their apartment. “He’s not some heartbroken hero. He’s a vulture circling Elena’s naivety, picking scraps off his own mess.”

Iolanda set down the mug with a clatter. “The man resigned, Pietro. Threw away his career. Does that scream ‘predator’ to you?” She stepped closer, her floral perfume cutting through the kitchen’s staleness. “Or someone who’s just as tangled in this mess as she is?”

Pietro’s laugh was a brittle thing. “You think guilt makes him noble? That video’s trending in three countries! Elena’s face is—” He choked, scrubbing a hand over his stubble. “Christ, Iolanda, she’s got Mom’s eyes. Every time she cries, I see—”

The admission hung between them, raw and swollen. Iolanda reached for him, her thumb brushing the scar on his knuckles—a relic from a bar fight he’d picked defending Elena’s honor at sixteen. “Then don’t make her cry tonight,” she whispered. “Call her. Talk.”

Pietro yanked his hand back, the apartment’s lone clock ticking louder with every passing second. “Talk? While that bastard’s out there thinking he can sniff around my sister?” He grabbed his leather jacket, the one Elena had patched last winter with mismatched thread. “I’ll talk with my fists.”

Iolanda blocked the door, her spine pressed against its peeling paint. “And if you’re wrong? If this… whatever it is… is real?” Her voice softened. “You’ll break her heart worse than he ever could.”

For a heartbeat, Pietro wavered. Then his jaw hardened, the stubborn set Elena had inherited flashing across his face. “Better broken than exploited.”

As he reached for the knob, Iolanda snatched her phone, Elena’s contact already ringing. The tinny dial tone sliced through the room.

“Put it down,” Pietro growled.

“Or what?” Iolanda lifted her chin, the defiance that had made him propose in a hurricane of sparklers and bad karaoke blazing in her eyes. “You’ll break my heart too?”

The phone clicked.

“Iolanda?” Elena’s voice, sleep-rough and wary, crackled through the speaker.

Pietro froze, his reflection fracturing in the rain-streaked window—a brother poised between fury and fear, his love as sharp as his fists.

Somewhere across the city, Zemo poured a double bourbon, one of the love letters burning in his trash can.

And the clock kept ticking.