And so it begins
We've seen kid!Loki meet Thor but what do you think would happen if kid!Thor meets Loki?
- Anon
So. Oh boy. Loki meeting kid!Thor… I think it would depend somewhat on the circumstances (is this kid!Thor somehow plucked out of time to the future? or a reborn Thor à la kid!Loki in Journey into Mystery? or adult!Loki in the past? or…?) and on the kid!Thor’s age (like toddler or teenager or somewhere in between) and on exactly which iteration of Loki is meeting him (if comics, which one and when? if MCU, what time period?)
But the unifying theme, I guess, is that, like… Thor’s feelings about kid!Loki are tied up in his own feelings of regret and sadness about what happened between them, with guilt for his own part of that, and hope born of seeing kid!Loki as another chance with the brother he loves, a new chance to get it right and do things better. For Loki, meeting a young Thor would be rather different, and heavier in a way. Because for Loki, it’s not regrets so much as ongoing, unresolved issues with Thor. So kid!Thor would be a walking reminder of all of that, but in a form that would truly shake up the equation. Loki has always struggled to see himself as Thor’s equal, struggled to measure up, so when they fought, Loki could fight dirty and see it as just him leveling the playing field. Having to face a Thor who is smaller, weaker, less capable and who is actually in need of his care and protection—well, Loki would be left wrong-footed and uncertain.
Of course, because deep down every Loki loves his brother dearly, he’s not going to let anything really bad happen to him, so kid!Thor will ultimately be safe with him. But Loki will still be heavily conflicted and he may very well not be nice.
So yeah Loki interacting with a young Thor… OK I mean if it’s a teenage Thor, things may be a little different, because that Thor is (1) older and less vulnerable so Loki doesn’t need to take care of him as much, and (2) at the height of his youthful arrogance and thoughtlessness, which boy oh boy Loki’s got enough memories of those times already, and reliving them while he’s grown enough to react to it differently and not feel so constrained? Gonna be messy. I’ve written adult!Loki being very bad to teenage!Thor in that kind of scenario, and I kinda stand by that interpretation.
But actual child Thor? That will be a very different dynamic. It’ll strip away Loki’s defenses (or, rather, his impulse to always go on the offensive in response to things that make him feel vulnerable). With child!Thor, he wouldn’t be able to respond in the same old ways, because this is a Thor who couldn’t withstand that, and Loki knows it. For the first time, he would be forced to see their relationship from a completely different perspective in which he isn’t the weaker party constantly fighting for his own standing. I think Loki really wouldn’t know how to deal with that, and it would stop his habitual reactions in their tracks and make him actually reassess things and see his brother through new eyes. And once he started doing so, I can see him becoming fascinated and, well, a bit freaked out, internally, because Loki’s love for Thor has always been alloyed with his anger and hurt and resentment. Seeing Thor in a new way, a way that makes him begin to let go of some of that pain, I think Loki would be a bit terrified to realize how much he really loves Thor. And he’d be running short on coping mechanisms for dealing with that fear, too.
Now, for young Thor in all this… it would be weird for him, too, to see his “little” brother as bigger and older and more powerful than him. He’s also not used to that sort of dynamic between them, and it would be confusing. For a younger, less self-conscious Thor, he would probably find Loki very impressive, if also a bit unsettling—Thor is quite capable of high emotional intelligence, and he would pick up on Loki’s conflicted feelings, but he wouldn’t have the context to make sense of them.
So if you put those reactions together, you get a Loki who is working through his own shit with regard to his brother but trying to keep it all out of Thor’s sight and trying to take care of Thor but constantly tripping over all his own messy feelings, and you get a young Thor who can tell that something isn’t right but wants to just trust his brother and is perpetually torn between those things. Sounds like a lot of fun and I kinda want to write it now.
And the other caveat is that if we’re talking mythology, well, lol, that’s basically just canon. Though also fun to think about in different ways.
-Anon
Oh Loki would be fucking thrilled.
… I can see part of him being darkly amused at the idea of outdoing Odin’s parenting skills (such as they are) and raising a less bratty Thor. But on the other hand really not wanting that job because wow, babby Thor is a handful and he was not prepared. And on the other other hand, previously unknown levels of chagrin at being at the mercy of babby Thor. Adult!Loki with toddler!Thor is going to involve so many headaches.