Loki Laufeyson
I’m an idiot. Completely stupid fool. I regretted my decision the second I looked down at her, the second I saw the way her eyes widened in betrayal. Her blood dripped down from my blade onto my hand, and I had to resist the urge to throw up. She’d be fine, I rationalized to myself as I openly betrayed her, selling my soul to the Magus.
She was smart; she would recognize the Medea reference. She’d connect the dots. She could heal herself, and she’d forgive me for betraying her. Still, as the teleporting powers of the Tesseract engulfed me and my new companion, my heart hurt in a way I’d never felt before.
I had told her I loved her, and now I’d never get to hear her answer. Granted, she’d implied her love for me before, at our dinner, but she’d never outright said the words. And now I would never get to hear what she might have said. It was love that had driven that dagger into her gut, it was love that had kissed her for that last time, and it was love that had marched me to inevitable doom.
Well, I figured, if I were to die, at least it would be out of love, rather than some foolish ‘glorious purpose’.
The thing that hurt the most, though; the fact I’d never get to tell her what she meant to me. It was foolish for me, the God of Mischief, to think for once that I could’ve had a happy ending. As absurd as it sounds, I had already begun to picture our future together. Me, who had never had a serious relationship in my life and who abhorred binding contracts, had seriously been thinking about marrying her. And now none of that was relevant, because I was going to be killed anyways.
The Tesseract in my hands was small comfort as we stepped out onto a spaceship. From the sheer size of the hallway I stood in, I could guess that we were on the mothership, floating somewhere in the vast universe.
“You believe you can heal me with this cube?” The Magus pulled me out of my self-pity, forcing me back to the matter at hand. Quickly, I thought up a lie. It was easy. Second nature.
“I know I can. Unfortunately, the girl relied a great deal on it during today’s fight, so it will have to recharge its magical energy. That might take a day or two.”
“But it is powerful enough to restore a god to his full potential?” Jahamxuil didn’t reach for the cube, and I remembered that contact with the soul stone was what had destroyed him in the first place. I wasn’t sure what sort of god he was, but clearly not one strong enough to wield an infinity stone.
“My lord, this is an infinity stone,” I said smoothly. “Of course it can.”
“Hmm.” He hummed, a green assistant with many arms removing his armour. Parts of it were left on, and I realized they might have been quite literally holding him together. It was the worst damage I’d ever seen done by a magical object to a being short of total obliteration.
“What was her name?” He asked suddenly and I paused, not prepared to talk about her yet.
“Y/n?” I bit back the wave of emotion that threatened to spill over at her name. It was ridiculous, to be so attached to someone else, but I couldn’t get over it. I missed her already.
“Y/n,” he mused. “What did you say to her? Before that devastating betrayal.”
“I referenced an old Earthen playwright,” I said truthfully. “Euripides outlined the story of Medea, a woman who betrays everyone she loves for selfish reasons. Y/n is well-read. The reference will only hurt her further. Perhaps she will die of her wounds.”
“And her broken heart,” Jahamxuil added. “Her expression leads me to believe she was quite enamoured with you. My apologies, of course, for my words in those moments before I knew you were on my side. Passion and sentiment took over.”
“Might I ask, my lord–” I bowed my head respectfully, my horns upsetting the balance of my head slightly, “–do you consider her your child?”
“I cannot but help but feel as though I am her creator. I have searched for her a long time, partly because of my condition, and in other part because she is my unfinished business. She is my greatest disappointment and my greatest regret, and I hoped that in my absence perhaps she had become more worthy of the sacrifice I made to obtain her. I was mistaken.”
My jaw flexed as he led me through the metal halls, our boots clanging with every step. Those words certainly sounded familiar. I felt bad for y/n. All those years thinking she was alone must have been better than to know that this man had played a part in her creation.
“You felt something for her,” Jahamxuil observed. “At one point.”
“At one point, yes.” I removed my helmet, letting it dissolve into thin air. “Unfortunately, things do fall apart.”
“Men like us love like no others.” The two of you entered a cafeteria of sorts, and the Magus sat down at a table that seemed to be specially reserved for him, in a chair that had extra padding to accommodate the abnormal curvature of his spine. “We love like an all-consuming fire, and we would sooner watch a world burn than lose the ones that we love. This leads me to believe that you didn’t love her, not really, otherwise you would not have been able to betray her. You would’ve sooner killed me with your bare hands.”
You have no idea how right you are, I thought, waving away another one of the green aliens as it attempted to serve me some sort of stew. Instead, I chose a much more diplomatic approach.
“Is there somewhere I could rest on this ship? As I’m certain you’re aware, it’s been a rather trying day.”
“But of course,” he flicked a finger and a furry, upright bear sort of thing meandered over. “Show our guest to his room.”
I stored the Tesseract in a pocket dimension, following the creature through the halls until we stopped outside a sterile room with a rolling blue door. It was empty save an uncomfortable looking cot and a sink. Y/n had been right. Couches really weren’t that bad.
With a sigh, I shut the door and threw myself down on the cot, closing my eyes. There was a temptation to recover the Tesseract and go back to Earth, grab y/n, and head to some obscure corner of the universe, but I somehow doubted that would fare well for the inhabitants of the universe.
Instead, I decided to visit y/n’s home.
The Tesseract easily took me to Vormir, dropping me on a windy ledge, two giant stones creating a sort of gateway. A floating hooded figure lingered by a large rock, face hidden in shadow.
“Loki, son of Laufey,” it called out, slowly moving towards me. I felt a dagger grow in my hand, but the figure didn’t seem concerned.
“Who are you? I was told this planet was deserted.”
“It is. Or it was. I am the only one left here, and I have remained here for over seventy years.” It pulled back its hood, revealing a skull of sorts, completely red. It was obvious this was the Red Skull, previously known as Johann Schmidt, a Nazi scientist I’d read about when I’d hacked into SHIELD’s database using the computer Tony Stark had given me. It had been believed that the Tesseract had killed him when he’d attempted to wield it, unsuited for its power.
Y/n must have just missed him by about thirty years.
“What function do you serve?” I asked him, carefully avoiding letting him get too close to me. The light from the Tesseract fell upon his face and I could see hunger reflected in his eyes. Even after all its curses, the Skull still longed for the Tesseract’s power.
“I am to guide people to the soul stone. I cannot wield its power for myself, nor can I leave this place. The proper term is a Stonekeeper, but I believe a more accurate designation would be that of a warning.”
“You are correct,” I responded, moving to stare over the edge, looking down at the sheer drop. Bloodstains coated the rocky ground, but no corpses remained. The skeleton of the Magus’s wife was nowhere to be seen, yet I didn’t think it would have degraded in these conditions. Old magic ran through the place, magic I could feel in my bones.
“If you have come for the soul stone, I am afraid you are missing a crucial piece to the puzzle,” the disgusting wraith taunted me. “You are in sore lack of one whom you love. Perhaps no such person exists, Laufeyson, adopted son of Odin.”
“She does exist.” I turned back to the Skull, brushing a lock of hair out of my face, although the wind blew it back only a moment later. “She is the reason I am here. See, this was her birthplace; the soul stone her creator.”
“I have never come across her,” the Skull said haughtily.
“That’s because she was long gone before you even got here, off to do greater things than you have ever done. You’re a wraith, she could control you without a second thought. She possess the power of the soul stone, and she has wielded the Tesseract with insight beyond the both of us.”
He looked affronted, and I decided to leave the cliff, the cube relocating me to a spot on the ground, my boots sinking into the dark sand. The dunes seemed to carry on to the end of the world, and my heart ached slightly for y/n. Never before had I seen a place so devoid of life, so lonely, not even an echo for one to hear. Even a few short minutes spent there were threatening to strip me of my sanity.
It was so easy to feel small and insignificant as I looked out at the shock of stars that topped the purple sky. It didn’t appear there were even so much as distinct night and day on this desolate planet. I barely even registered my strong desire to leave before the Tesseract brought me right back to the ship.
The change of scenery, despite being the complete opposite of Vormir, did little to quell my state of affliction. Eventually the Magus was going to find out I was incapable of healing him, and once he did, there would be little standing in the way of him killing me and going after y/n. My only way to succeed was if I killed him first, and I knew that was far easier in concept than in reality.
I left the sterile white room behind and instead wandered through the ship, following the sound of voices. Turning a corner, I came across a cantina of sorts, packed full of Jahamxuil’s more sentient militants. They were drinking, cheering, and just generally having a far more merry time than I’d expected. If anyone was going to know something about Jahamxuil’s weaknesses and talk about them, it would be here.
Doing my best to appear casual, I headed up to the bar, where a tentacled being was using their vast assortment of limbs to serve drinks. It appeared the Magus’s army was a mixture of whatever misguided souls he could scrape together.
“What will it be for you?” The tentacled being asked in Kree, a language that I’d been taught a great many years ago. I’m pleased to say that I’ve always taken to languages far faster and with much more accuracy than Thor. My Kree was indistinguishable from that of a native’s.
“I’ll have whatever you’d serve to your king,” I replied smoothly. “As cold as you can make it.”
A moment later, I was handed some sort of drink that looked like liquid nitrogen. And it very well might have been, by the way it tasted.
“Drinking Frost Giant piss, I see,” someone said, taking the seat next to me, and I spat the drink back out into the cup.
“What?” I turned to face the person who had spoken, finding myself looking at a handsome Kree man, smooth blue skin covered by a simple tunic, a purple silk scarf wrapped around his bald head.
“That’s the name of the drink,” he said, looking back at it pointedly. “It’s so cold, most of us can’t drink it without severely injuring our throats.”
“It’s not actually…?” I raised an eyebrow.
“No, it’s not actually urine. That would be disgusting. My name is Vul-Cain.”
I eyed the hand he offered me, nodding once but making no move to shake it. “I am Loki of Asgard.”
“How’d you wind up here?” Vul-Cain frowned, ordering his own drink from the bartender. It was bright red, like blood, and he downed it quickly. “None of us really seek out the Magus, he has a way of collecting us, so what’s your story?”
“Let’s just say I didn’t have many choices.”
“Man, if I don’t feel that!” He got another drink. “I messed up big-time on a top-secret mission, and if I’d gone back to Hala, they would have killed me, so I skipped out of there and I joined this band of merry men.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Sounds pathetic.”
“Don’t be like that,” Vul-Cain said, bumping me with his shoulder, ignoring the way I bristled at the contact. I didn’t like where this was going, but I needed information on Jahamxuil. Once upon a time, I would’ve thought absolutely nothing about pimping myself out to gain favour, but I was indisputably loyal to y/n. Nothing was going to sway that, not even hot Kree boys throwing themselves at me. Especially if aforementioned Kree boys had the most disagreeable personalities.
“What do you know about the Magus?” I casually asked, leaning back against the bar.
“I know he’s super powerful. I know he’s on a quest to return to his true form. I know we’re to kill anyone who stands in his way. I know he has psychokinetic powers.”
“Great.” I feigned interest. Obviously this man was not well informed. “Do you know if he has any weaknesses?”
“Weaknesses? Not the Magus. He’s a masterclass sorcerer. Apparently he’s lacking in physical strength now, but he’s had about a thousand years to figure it out.”
“That is entirely unhelpful,” I murmured, leaving the remnants of my drink there at the bar and exiting the cantina, leaning up against the wall outside. Perhaps I was a bit out of my element with this whole assassination plot. Once again, something that would have been much better handled by y/n. If Tony’s snide comments were telling the truth, her little ‘accidental’ almost assassination of the politician had been the most impeccably planned assassination that SHIELD had ever seen.
I turned to head back to my room when a pair of rough hands grabbed me, shoving me up against the wall. I caught a glimpse of Vul-Cain just as he attempted to kiss me.
“What the hell are you doing?” I shouted, shoving him away.
“Come on, you were just begging me to follow you,” he said, voice slurred from all that he’d consumed. “Wearing that little leather fit, talking to me at the bar, you’re feeling it, I’m feeling it, let’s spend some quality time together.”
“You’re most mistaken,” I said, my tone warning him. “I want nothing to do with you.”
“Don’t be a prude.” He headed towards me once again and I lashed out, daggers appearing in my hands just as I stabbed him right in the jugular. Blue blood spurted out as I used the other dagger to slash his throat, shoving his body off of me and onto the floor. Fuck.
In my attempt to lay low on the ship, I’d just killed a man.
I didn’t feel bad. He’d deserved it, trying to force himself onto me, but my heart was racing as I headed back to my room, washing his blood off my hands in the sink. Twice in less than twenty-four hours, I’d stabbed someone. Perhaps I was reverting back into my old ways, just slightly.
“Loki Laufeyson.” I turned at the sound of the Magus’s voice. He was hovering in my room, but I recognized the illusion the second I looked at him. “You have come onto my ship with a promise of healing me, and now you’ve killed a member of my army.”
I dried my hands with a simple flick of my wrists. “I have done you a favour. That Kree would have brought you no victory, nor did he reflect the image of a proper soldier. I simply ridded you of him.”
“I did always tell him that his…appetite would get him in trouble.”
“I am not the sort to take that type of thing laying down. Were this my ship, I would string his corpse up as a reminder for all those who wish to attempt the same.”
“And you, the man who kills without compunction or remorse, to whom battle is a second nature, would never submit to temptation and act in the same manner as Vul-Cain?”
I looked him in those dark eyes, putting as much defiance into my tone as possible. “I would never, and I have never. I am more than just my urges.”
The Magus seemed to find this whole thing amusing, but my patience was running out. Had he been in my room in person, I would have been unable to keep my cover, rather just running him through with my daggers until I found a weak spot. The mere thought placated me slightly.
“You did not, then, bed my daughter?”
The question caught me off guard. “She’s not your daughter. She is not attached to you in any way.”
“She is quite attractive. One must wonder…”
“If this is your twisted way of finding out more about her, then abandon this line of inquiry. Your questions will yield no answers from me.”
“Still so protective! Did you not betray her only a matter of hours ago?”
“Sorry.” I gave him a scathing look. “Old habits die hard.”
“Yes, you must have been the most doting boyfriend. Flowers and candy and the heads of enemies on wooden stakes, I imagine. She had no choice but to fall in love with you. It gives pause, however, as I feel there is a possibility that she was not falling alone.”
I marched over to the cot and laid down, crossing my arms over my chest in an attempt to slow my breathing. “Whatever feelings I may have had for her are irrelevant now. I’m sure she’s dead.”
“But that was not a stab of a god who wants to kill someone. Your brutal butchering of Vul-Cain was an attempt to kill. The stab to the gut was not.”
“None of it matters anymore. None of it. Now leave.” I commanded, ignoring his status, ignoring the fact that I was supposed to be remaining in his good graces. I didn’t look back at the spot where he’d been until I was certain he was gone, and then I allowed myself to drift off to sleep.
I’d never been one for dreams while I slept. Maybe it was my ability to see through the illusions the dreams tried to cast, but either way, I was surprised when I began to dream.
I was sitting in a giant pantheon, seated atop a large piece of rubble that didn’t appear to have come from the pantheon itself. The rotunda was filled with orange light, like a sunrise on fire, and that’s when I caught sight of her.
She was standing with her back to me, looking down a dark archway near the front of the pantheon, and I stood up, walking towards her, my footsteps making no sound on the tile beneath my feet.
“Y/n,” I called and she turned, her face pensive, those gorgeous eyes meeting mine. A moment passed, like she was thinking through something, and then a smile broke across her features.
“Loki!” She grabbed me in a hug, burying her face in my robes. “It worked.”
“Forgive me for asking, but what exactly worked?” I stroked the back of her head, doing my best not to cry at the unexpected reunion. “Where are we?”
“We’re in the soul world,” she said gleefully, voice slightly muffled. “I pulled your soul out of your body and brought you here.”
“How much energy is this taking you?”
“A lot,” she confessed, pulling back to look at me properly. “I don’t think I’ll be able to do it again, and we don’t have a lot of time.”
“I didn’t betray you, y/n, I want you to know that.” I cupped her face, tilting her head up to look at me. “I just thought that this was the best way to do things.”
“Loki, you’re an idiot.” A tear was clinging to her lashes, and when she blinked it rolled down her cheek. I swept it away with my thumb, wanting nothing more than to kiss it away, to make her forget all her troubles, but there were more important things at hand. “You’re an idiot, but I know you didn’t betray me. I remembered the conversation.”
“And?” I asked breathlessly, searching her face for any hints.
“And the other Avengers aren’t too convinced that you didn’t try to kill me.” It wasn’t the answer I’d been searching for, but it wasn’t really the time for swapping love confessions.
“I’m sorry, I needed something convincing and you’re a great healer, so I knew you’d be able to fix yourself and-” I was cut off by her pressing her lips against mine, her arms wrapping around my neck as she rocked up onto her tip-toes, willing me to kiss her back.
With a slight moan I didn’t realize I’d been holding back, I leaned into it, pushing her back against the curved wall, attempting to make her feel those three little words I was loath to say, the ones that seemed to die in my throat every time I tried it.
I lifted her up easily and she wrapped her legs around my waist, her hands twisting into my hair. She was bliss beyond comprehension, and I didn’t even realize I was rutting up against her until her hand drifted from my hair down to my belt.
“Shit, y/n,” I gasped, pulling back despite her sounds of protest. “We can’t be doing this.”
“Logically, I know you’re right,” she said, pressing a kiss to my jaw. “But I really want to. I don’t know when I’ll see you again.”
“Me too.” My jaw flexed under her touch, and my arms slid down to cup her ass, squeezing slightly through her leggings. “But we need to figure out what to do. He has psychokinesis, and so it’ll be very difficult to get the upper hand on him. Fuck!” I let out a curse as she rolled her hips forwards, baring down on my already-hard cock. My whole body was screaming out for her, and yet I attempted to keep my head.
“Sorry, sorry,” she hissed but didn’t stop, laying her head against the crook of my neck. “Bring him to Vormir. Figure out some way to get him there, and I’ll work out a way to kill him. I’ve got a bit of a plan, but it’s probably best if you don’t know it.”
“Probably not, yeah,” I panted, squeezing her ass harder, pushing her towards me. “Is that all?”
“Please, Loki,” she whined, leaving a sloppy kiss on my cheek. “Fuck me here. I need you.” Well, who would I be to argue with that?
“As you wish.” With a wave of my hand, her pants disappeared along with mine, and I wasted absolutely no time before slipping into her, hissing as my cock slid into that tight heat. She let out a throaty moan, throwing her head back against the wall, ignoring the dull thud it made.
“Yes, Loki, god, just like that.” I lifted her up and brought her down on my length with ease, impaling her over and over again while she squirmed and moaned in front of me, her hands gripping at the lapels of my outfit. It was only a matter of minutes before she began fluttering around me, her impending orgasm too close to stave off any longer.
“Are you going to come for me, little death?” I teased, one arm slipping beneath her ass to continue lifting her up and slamming her down while my other hand circled her clit.
“Not…without you…” she managed, breathing heavily. “I want you to come in me.”
“And you’ll get that soon enough, my love,” I whispered, kissing her pulse point. “But I want to feel you first.”
That was all it took to send her over the edge and she mewled, eyes rolling back into her head as she clenched around me. It took all my self-control not to spill my load into her right then and there, instead I continued to slowly thrust into her as I brought her down from her high.
I carefully laid her down on the floor, running my hands up and down her body while I waited for her to calm down, fondling her breasts and smoothing my thumbs over her nipples. A few seconds later she started rolling her hips upwards under my ministrations, and I took that as a sign that she was ready.
Poising myself over her, I looked deep into her eyes as I entered her once more, thrusting hard and fast in a desperate attempt to bring us both over the edge at the same time. She was still sensitive from her earlier orgasm, and in no time her moans were reaching that indicative high pitch, her nails raking down my leather-clad arms.
“You’re perfect like this,” I said, not entirely certain what I was saying but rolling with it anyhow. She seemed to like it when I spoke dirty to her, and I would never deny her the pleasure if my tongue wasn’t otherwise occupied. “Taking my cock so well, like such a good little girl. You want me to come, don’t you? You want to feel me inside you, to feel me claim you, because you’re mine, isn’t that right?”
She nodded frantically. “I’m yours, Loki, I’m yours.”
“Look at me,” I demanded, flicking my wrist and one of my daggers appeared. I held the blade just a hair away from her throat, pinning her beneath me and my knife, and her breathing quickened, but not from fear. The danger aroused her, I could tell. And the trust, the sheer trust she had that I wouldn’t hurt her, well, that was arousing for me.
I was rutting into her like an animal at this point, both of us beyond the ability to speak, and she suddenly forced my head down to hers, my knife clattering out of my hand and falling away as I eagerly met her, sucking on her tongue when she slipped it into my mouth.
It was at that moment that I couldn’t hold out any longer and I exploded into her, feeling her tumble over the edge with me. I pumped myself into her until we were both spent, and then I slipped out of her, watching her chest rise and fall, the warm light caressing her curves as she tried to get her wits back.
Her legs were spread as I rocked back to sit there, my eyes falling on that perfect pussy, and I had to stifle a moan when I saw our mixed come leak out of her as she moved ever so slightly. It was just far too tempting for me to pass up.
She let out a little shriek when I buried my face between her thighs, lapping at her cunt enthusiastically. “Loki! What are you doing?”
“Tasting us,” I replied honestly, drawing back and kissing her so that she could taste too. “Aren’t we delicious?”
“You’re sick,” she giggled breathlessly, but I ignored her, returning to her heat, lapping away. Her clit was swollen and sensitive, so once I’d cleaned up our conjoined mess, I honed in on that, sucking her until her legs were shaking and her toes were curling and she lapsed back into an orgasmic state.
“If this is sick, then I don’t ever want to be well,” I quipped, wiping my mouth as I sat back for good this time.
“I think it’s contagious.” I brought our clothes back as she crawled over to me, hugging me tightly. “I don’t want to go back.”
“You can’t keep me here forever,” I said, rubbing her back, although I knew we both wanted to.
“I don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow.”
“Me neither.” I took a shaky breath. “You know, if something goes wrong, and one of us doesn’t make it, I want you to know-”
“Shhhh.” She pressed a finger to my lips, pausing me before I could finish my confession. “We’ll be fine. You’re Loki, God of Mischief, and I’m Anubis, master of the soul stone. We will win this.”
I managed a lopsided smile, kissing her once more, gentler this time, no longer frantic, as though I’d have her forever. This was a goodnight kiss, not a goodbye one. That’s what I told myself.
“I want to show you something.” She stood, grabbing my hand, and led me out of the pantheon, through the ruined front, and out into the soul world. The water stretched on until it met the sky, and I knew somehow that it was an infinite stretch. You could swim forever and never reach a shore.
“Stand here with me,” she said, squeezing my hand slightly. “Hold my hand while I let you go.”
“Okay.” I looked at her, doing my best to remember her in this moment. Bathed in beautiful light, those sad eyes fixed on the sky, her age all at once visible through those eyes, like someone who had seen a thousand worlds collapse, a million governments fall, a billion hearts break, and yet with that glimmer of hope that could not be extinguished.
“Don’t look at me,” she said with a little laugh. “It’s easier if you watch the horizon.”
I understood what she meant. It was easier to move on if one was looking forwards. Obeying her, I looked out at the line where the water met the sky, clinging to the vibrant colours until I could no longer feel her hand in mine, until I could no longer convince myself that there was still the faintest trace of sun-kissed sky mixed in with the plain white of the ceiling. And yet, I could still feel her beside me, like the fractured memories of warm fire in the darkest and coldest of winters. She had long since been nothing but a memory, but what a memory at that. Such a memory that, even in the greying preservation the mind applies to all recollections, her warmth remained so potent it was tangible even as the language of remembrance forgot how to articulate her love.
And so, as I heard the spaceship wake around me, I sat up with a smile and a promise on my tongue.
“I’ll see you on Vormir, my love.”