The Confession
Zozo took a shaky breath.
“I suppose my default answers aren’t enough for you this time.” She muttered, eyes fixed on the road, though Loki knew it was probably to avoid his gaze. “There it goes, uh… I guess I gotta start from the very beginning. Well, call me Zozo, I’m nineteen years old, and uh… you know, as unlikely as it sounds, we’ve actually met before. In New York, when you… invaded, I guess.”
“Lies.” Loki hissed. He would have remembered meeting her had he actually done so, unless she was from another timeline. But the multiverse had just opened when they met, it didn’t seem very probable that in so little time she would be able to get to the TVA from a timeline that had just started to branch.
The girl raised her hand in a defensive gesture, the other pressed firmly against the steering wheel.
“No, I swear I’m not lying, I was ten years old at the time. We, as in my parents, my sister and I, went on vacation to New York, and well, let’s say, our stays aligned.” She glanced at Loki’s raised brow, and continued, “See, we didn’t really know aliens, or uh, whatever you’d like to call otherworldly creatures, existed. We were just tourists visiting America for the first time, and we assumed this was all a performance. And so, when we saw you standing on top of this like really tall building, being the nice kid I was, I yelled out to you that I like your hat.”
I like your hat. Now it made sense. Now, given more context, Loki clearly remembered a young child’s voice calling out to him and disrupting the mess in his head as he stood atop Stark Tower. Now, he remembered his response, a half-hearted nod at the little girl in a pink dress, who looked at him with pure wonder and adoration in her big blue eyes, suddenly so similar to the eyes of the young woman before him.
He didn’t think it mattered. It was a mere couple of seconds. It was nothing. An interaction with a stupid Midgardian child, who didn’t even have enough self-preservation instinct to hide from the oppressor who attacked her world, and instead decided to compliment his crown. Pathetic. And yet, somehow it mattered. To her, it mattered. It mattered enough to mourn him when he passed.
“Of course, at the time I didn’t know who you were.” Zozo explained, “If we knew you were an alien prince coming to take over the Earth, my parents would have never let me say a word to you, much less call your badass crown a hat. But as I said, we thought it was a performance, and until the battle actually started and stuff around us was getting demolished, we just stood around and enjoyed the show. Anyways, after that happened and you were taken back to Asgard, my family and I kind of thought about that moment, and we were like “hey maybe this guy isn’t as bad as the media says he is.” There were people out there literally comparing you to Hitler, but like, I dunno, you don’t really give me Hitler vibes. If you were truly evil, you’d probably like, mind control people into nuclear war or something, because let’s face it, New York is just one town, it’s kind of a shithole compared to the whole world.”
There was something off about her words, something Loki found confusing, and not just because she straight up refused to give in to worldwide propaganda as a child, but also because she left out why. Him not killing her on sight wasn’t exactly a high standard to uphold.
“I don’t understand.” Loki confessed after a few moments, “I ruined your trip to New York and endangered your and your family’s lives, why would that make you so infatuated with me that you decided to mourn me when I died?”
Zozo’s face flushed at his words, and she visibly cringed at the word “infatuation”, which filled Loki with a strange sense of glee.
“It wasn’t an infatuation, it was more of a special interest. And before we even left for New York, my dad got us the superhero insurance, so we got the whole trip refunded, plus an additional 10000$.” She cleared her throat, “Anyways, let’s revise some conquering 101. When you wanna take over something, you do it quietly and over the course of time. Usually, you do it by stealing some minor, unimportant towns or villages first, and leaving the big, loud cities for later. If you wanna take over America, and you came to, let’s say, Ohio, no one would give a shit. You’d take over Ohio, then Utah, then like, Alabama or something, and still no one would bat an eye. Maybe a few people would get upset if you conquered Texas, but no one would care if you made a stop in either of the Carolinas.” Loki didn’t understand why the girl was listing American states, but her logic intrigued him. Zozo must have sensed his impatience, because quickly, she cut off the monologue, “Point is, you never go for the big cities first, like New York evidently is, unless you either want to make a statement, or you’re sending a pawn to test out your opponent. And you had the little mind control stick thingy, right?”
“Scepter.” Loki corrected.
“Yea, scepter. Anyways, given that the scepter had the mind stone in it, it became very probable that you were actually just a pawn, controlled by someone much more powerful, and destined to lose. I kind of felt sorry for you. I mean, everyone hated you, you were probably being mind controlled into doing horrible things, and now you have to explain yourself to your dad and your brother, like, I’d die or embarrassment.”
Indeed, the thought of facing Odin filled Loki with embarrassment. Zozo’s logic was surprisingly correct, and now that she put it in that perspective, he not only felt embarrassed, but also pathetic and stupid. He was a prince. No wonder Odin would be mad. Being someone’s pawn was beyond humiliating, and completely unworthy of a prince.
“So the “special interest”, as you called it, was based on pity?”
Zozo shook her head.
“Oh no, it absolutely wasn’t. To be honest I kind of empathized. See, after the whole thing with the dark elves happened, and Thor got to be on Earth more with his girlfriend, he started opening up about you. Very publicly, like, on the news. He constantly babbled about how you were an outcast on Asgard, and how your loneliness made you prone to anger, like, the man really did his best to give you justice.” She took a deep breath, as if she was about to share something deeply personal. “And as a young outcast myself, I’d relate.”
The moment those words left her mouth, Loki couldn’t help but soften his gaze. Once again, a part of him felt pathetic for empathizing with a human teen, but another, bigger part of him, felt… warm. It was the best way he could describe the feeling that came over him at the thought of his story helping out someone else. Apart from the cringe, of course.
“I was also picked on, quite a lot to be honest.” Zozo continued, seemingly prompted to do so by Loki’s stare, “I also escaped into books when the real world was too much. I was also the weird kid. The problem kid. I know what it feels like to be treated like the villain and act accordingly, because why should I be good if they’ll all hate me anyways?” She took a shaky breath, “When Thor spoke about you on TV, I felt like I wasn’t alone. Suddenly, there was this prince from another realm who went through the same thing, and maybe I projected onto you a bit too much, but it felt like… it felt like I had this friend I could come back to when I felt alone. Which was often.”
A friend. Unknowingly, Loki had been a friend to someone, despite all the horrible things he did and all the people he hurt. Logically, he knew that the Loki Zozo projected onto wasn’t the same as him, but the thought of any Loki being considered that by a human child felt almost like a privilege. Even if the child was slightly crazy.
“You played a huge role in finding my confidence in my early teenage years.” Zozo informed him, her eyes glued to the road in a poor attempt to hide the tears in her eyes from her companion. “Then when you died for real… when Thanos killed you in 2018… Thor told us about your sacrifice. I mourned you not just because you died, but because you died a hero. I mourned you because you finally had the chance to show everyone that they were wrong, that there was good in you all along and that you’re more than the villain they thought you to be. But that chance was taken from you. And except for those of us who actually listened to Thor’s podcast, no one knew about it. And you didn’t deserve that.”
The warm feeling in his chest grew, and Loki realized that this was what it felt like to be loved. Not worshipped. Loved. When he took the tesseract, right before his adventure with the multiverse and the TVA began, he didn’t think his brother loved him. He didn’t think anybody from his family loved him, and being treated as an equal by Mobius and Sylvie felt refreshing and sweet. And yet, it wasn’t quite the same as feeling loved. Now, he could feel it, he could feel his brother’s love through that human’s words. He had no doubt that her good opinion of him was all Thor’s doing, and although he would never admit it to his face, he was grateful for it. Now his legacy wasn’t perhaps so bad after all. Or rather, the legacy of that other Loki who died. He still had a chance to make a different legacy, whether for the worse or the better.
Next to him, Zozo sniffled. This conversation must have taken quite the toll on her, guessing from the pained look in her eyes and the way her hands shook ever so slightly on the steering wheel. Even Charlie seemed to notice the tension, as he made his way up front and gave the girl a lick on the cheek.
“I guess I overshared again.” She mumbled, “Sorry about that. But you gotta admit, your question was vague and I answered it at least partially correctly.”
Though technically there was no correct answer to the questions Loki asked, did answer them in a way that made him feel better. Now, when he looked at her, he was no longer staring at a mysterious puzzle that he desperately needed to solve. He was looking at someone who considered him a friend, in some slightly psychotic way. Now the rest of the puzzle should come naturally.
“Yes, I suppose it was vague.” He answered, after a few seconds of deep thinking, “And you don’t have to apologize. I am quite good at managing the aftermath of awkward conversations.”
“Maybe let’s leave those kinds of talks for when we are both holding a glass of wine in our hands, or whatever other alcohol you like.” Zozo suggested, “ It’ll make them much more bearable.”
“Agreed.” Loki said, “Now, if you don’t mind, I will be taking a short nap.”
He did not wait for an answer before magicking himself a pillow and blanket, both forest green, and changing his clothes back into just a shirt and pants. Armour wasn't the best sleepwear. When he finally closed his eyes, Loki found himself contemplating Zozo’s words, and for the first time in a long, long time, he fell asleep feeling just a little bit loved.