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He sat on the floor supporting his elbows on his knees, exhaling with difficulty. How long had it been since he decided to truly trust someone? He closed his eyes, his breath heavy remembering Sif's words.

"I hope you know that you deserve to be alone and that you always will be"

Oh, if his brother's lieutenant could see him right now.

Poor, foolish and deluded Loki.

She would burst out laughing at his expense. As she had done for over a millennium alongside his fellow warriors.

Loki the deceiver.

Loki the weird.

Loki the ineligible.

Loki whom no one would ever love.

He opened his eyes allowing the tears to roll down his face, this time for him.

Nor did he remember how long it had been since he had allowed herself to cry. Crying was for the weak, for those who could afford it. Not for him. Not for the Second Prince of Asgard, as Odin reminded him since the first time he saw him do it.

He closed his eyes again, thinking about his last life decisions and wanted to laugh bitterly and then vomit. Not only had he learned how horrendous it felt to be on the other side of the counter, as had happened when Mobius had been pruned, but he had been able to visualize how much it cost to the spirit of the poor idiot who decide to trust him, the price of betrayal that his options, no matter how well founded, generated.

He clasped his hands and lowered his head thinking of Thor.

His brother.

He could finally say it without the words catching in his throat: his blonde, perfect, huge, adorably silly brother.

That had mourned his death so many times. That had forgiven him so many other indiscretions. That had lost everything, without deserving it, in seconds. And that, despite this, was still struggling to fix something that, although partially responsible for its breakage, it was not his fault that it could no longer be repaired.

Because he had to be honest: Loki was Loki because he was broken, because he could never be a whole. Unlike the Citadel at the End of Time, its imperfections and breaks could not be mended with gold.

A Loki put back together never resulted in a better piece. The premise behind the kintsugi didn't work on him. Otherwise, Sylvie would not exist.

Sylvie.

Sylvie.

He had had so high hopes for Silvie. The first of them he had believed in.

Perhaps because of her tragic history. That was as complicated as any of them, but that it started so differently from his and his other variants. He had put his heart at her disposal, despite... doubt for a brief moment on that hill had placed his hands on his shoulders making him hesitate for a minute. When he had hugged Mobius and wondered if, after all, they wouldn't end up biting into something bigger than they could digest. But no, his... “glorious purpose” had led him to put his trust in "the best of them" and let Mobius go alone.

By the norns.

Mobius.

The analyst had gone alone to tear down that place without any other help. With that irreverent confidence that mortals have. With no powers like his. Without a millennia of life. Without even the support from someone as had happened to him with Sylvie, in which, at least while she was his ally, could manifest abilities equal to his. Mobius who, like him, had been manipulated by her to obtain her absurd plan of revenge.

Because it had been absurd.

Once the daze of adventure and challenge had passed, more and more the litany of: "destroy the TVA", seemed more similar to the obstinacy of a child with a toy.

And both had fallen for that stubbornness without a second though.

One being a God. The other being a mortal.

Because pain unify and both were imperfect, so imperfect, that the true Time Keeper, had manipulated them to perfection to obtain the rest that he needed from his multiple variants that should make life impossible for him while the sacred timeline remained in operation.

Because he wasn't an idiot. The one who had once been a man. The one who remains.

He had never been able to completely rid himself of his variants.

In fact, if one thought about it in depth, perhaps, even at the beginning, taking into account the number of sculptures that were in his anteroom, the famous time keepers, were real.

Variants of himself living together in search of an almost unattainable peace, disguised to be more credible and less vulnerable to the humans that inhabited the TVA. Since, had he shown himself for what he was, another of them who, above all, was responsible for a multiversal war, would surely soon be overthrown by others who wanted his power or who wanted to take revenge for the imbalance caused by his thoughtlessness.

Then, four lizards, which later would be three, then two and finally only him, would have to convince the variants that were desperately imprisoned there, that there was a purpose behind their loss, that there was a cause worthwhile risk their life over and over again, leaving their years and their freedom in a never ending process, specifically designed to console the guilt of a villain who had irresponsibly put his hands where he should not put them.

Oh, the guy's nerve.

To compare himself to his brother and his shield brothers.

The Avengers.

Because it did not escape his intellect the fact that the judge had pointed out that they, traveling in time as they had done, were not an anomaly, but something that "should" happen.

Banner or Stark.

No.

Stark.

The green monster's human home was an intelligent fellow, but it fell short in front of the skill and intellect of the Italian-American man. If the Avengers had managed to defeat the hand of time, it was certain that their creator, the mind and the will behind the feat, was the pilot of Iron Man. The same one who had taken the Tesseract when an unexpected turn in their plans had left him so well served that Infinity Stone.

His studies and intelligence therefore, in the XXXI century, had allowed that nefarious character to break the barrier of time and space, provoking the war that he would later try to rectify by intervening directly on the flow of both elements.

But he who saw everything, he who remained where no one remained, did not exactly have the brilliance necessary to see beyond time and space. He only could go as far as his fighting spirit had been able to go.

Pathetic.

And he called himself conqueror.

The conquerors never gave up.

They did not invite their assassins or their successors to the throne.

They did not allow themselves to be invaded.

Pathetic.

He was sure that, if the first human who had dared to face him and had succeeded in preserving life and sanity saw him right now, would have pronounced a series of judgments with derision regarding how the mad scientist of so many years after his existence, definitely , wasn’t worthy.

And surely, like the infuriating human being that Stark was, he would have turned around with a liquor glass between his fingers and said to him: “And for this crap you are going to let yourself beat Rudolph? Really? I thought you had more marrow in your bones, Snowflake. Damn it, Reindeer Games. Wake up!"

He breathed in and opened his eyes, standing up.

He was on the TVA.

There was still a possibility.

He didn't know exactly which one, but as always, he was going to build it.

He was not Sylvie.

He was Loki.

From Asgard.

Frigga's son.

Thor's brother.

God of Mischief and Fire.

And, if necessary, he was going to tame time with his own hands.