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Chapter Text

All Loki knows the moment they find themselves standing back in the Observatory on Asgard is that they are in so much trouble. Everything spiraled entirely out of control, and this is not what Loki intended to cause when he… did what he had.

He knew what Hela’s coronation could cause, and he couldn’t let that happen. She always thinks of fighting and war, and he knows much of that is only a result of those she is close with, but he can’t risk that damage befalling all the Nine. He knows he had to act, though that does little to stop the guilt.

He knows what the coronation meant to Hela. He’d been looking forward to it, too, but… Then he began to realize what it meant. The chaos, the death – he couldn’t let it happen. Not with the risk of Baldr becoming king on top of it.

But he had no idea things were going to go this far. He never intended to make Odin this angry at Hela either. That’s always bad and he has no idea what’s about to happen. They’ve never initiated a war between realms by mistake before. He doesn’t know what’s about to happen, but he wants to be elsewhere.

“Do you realize what you’ve done?” Odin yells, “What you’ve started ?”

“What I started?” Hela asks and Loki has no idea how she manages to sound amused and mocking right now. “The Jotuns started this while you were too afraid to take action.”

Baldr and the Valkyrie quickly leave the room behind them. Loki hardly spares them a glance, except to see that Heimdall backs out just as quickly along with them.

“You have learned nothing of what I taught you to be a ruler,” Odin retaliates, glowering, “A time comes when a warrior must lay down their weapons and use a method other than bloodshed.”

Hela just laughs. “That’s rich,” she says, “You wanting me to give up the fight when that’s all you’ve ever raised me to do? You see, Father, without a fight, I’m no one . And I was protecting my home.”

“You cannot protect your friends,” Odin replies sharply, “How can you hope to protect a kingdom?”

“Perhaps by acting in self-defense and defending Asgard and myself when attacked,” she replies dryly, “Unlike you.”

“I told you the matter was already resolved, and as your king and father, you will obey,” Odin warns.

“And if I refuse?” Hela drawls.

Loki nearly winces. He has a really bad feeling about where this is going to end. Hela won’t stop , which is true frequently enough, but he knows fighting with Odin now, when he’s this angry, is the stupidest, most suicidal thing anyone could do.

“Then you will be forced to!” Odin yells.

She still manages to smirk, spreading her hands. “How? How can you stop the Goddess of Death when you fear our enemies themselves too much to take action?”

“Your recklessness is a greater danger to the Nine Realms than Jotunheim itself!” Odin shouts back.

Hela’s expression flickers. It’s the first time Loki’s noticed visible anger and hurt on her, which always means that she’s about to do something very rash – “Is it my action, or your inaction ?” She swings Mjolnir up suddenly and throws it right at Odin’s face.

Loki stands frozen, helpless, wide-eyed, horror and panic coiling in his gut. His blood is ice in his veins.

Odin lifts a hand, catching the hammer, energy crackling around it.

Hela’s eyes widen as she tries and fails to yank the hammer away from him.

There’s a blinding explosion of light and the hammer shatters, falling in pieces at Odin’s feet. How did he do that?

“My child, no god should have dominion over death who has so little appreciation for life,” Odin says, and he suddenly sounds way too calm.

This is – very, very bad. He’s never like that unless he’s about to do something truly awful and Loki doesn’t want to know what. Not when he’s about to hurt Hela , whatever it is.

This was Loki’s fault from the start . He can’t let Hela take the fall for this. “Father,” Loki starts, jerking forward.

Odin yells wordlessly before Loki can get out another sound.

He flinches back, snapping his mouth shut.

So much for that.

Odin’s obviously not going to listen to a word he has to say right now. Trying to keep talking anyway isn’t going to get them anywhere. His heart is pounding and all he can do is watch. And wait, with the dreading knowledge that his sister is going to be hurt because of his own stupidity.

Hela looks scared now. There’s a flicker of it in her eyes which no one else would notice, but Loki definitely does. This is all his fault –

“Hela Odinsdottir,” Odin starts, “You have betrayed the express command of your king. Through your arrogance and stupidity, you have opened these peaceful Realms and innocent lives to the horror and desolation of war.”

He lifts a hand, and Hela’s helmet flies to him. Her hair spills loosely down her back. “What – ” she starts. She’s panicking as much as Loki is now. He has no idea what’s happening or maybe it’s that he does and he can’t –

“You are unworthy of these Realms. Unworthy of your title,” Odin goes on, “You’re unworthy of the loved ones you have betrayed. I now take you from you your power!”

“Father, you cannot do this to me,” she protests. “You will not .”

Odin ignores her entirely, as he uses Gugnir to activate the Bifrost. A blur of colors appears behind Hela and all Loki can do is watch frozen.

“In the name of my father and his father before –”

“No, no !” Hela yells frantically, eyes widening.

“ – I cast you out!” He finishes and a blast of energy from Gugnir catches her, flinging her backwards through the portal and out of sight.

“Whoever wears this crown, should she know mercy, shall possess the power of Hela.” Odin murmurs in a whisper, magic coiling over the grown, and then he throws it into the bifrost after her. The portal closes, leaving Loki alone and his sister… gone.

Where is she?

He should have gone after her. He would have if he weren’t too afraid to move. And he’s just going to leave her to face this alone ?

What did Odin even –

What…

Odin yanks Gugnir from the Bifrost, striding from the room without another word or so much as glancing as Loki again.

***

The others are seated around the room, resting. Recovering.

Loki sees it all and feels nothing. He just stands there, in the center of the room, numb and unmoving. The explosion as Mjolnir blew up in front of his face and Hela’s frantic pleading as Odin cast her out is all he can hear.

His twin sister.

Is she? Is that what she is?

Is – nothing makes sense.

Hela is gone.

Hela’s gone .

His sister is gone and Loki wishes he could’ve followed her and he doesn’t even know why he didn’t. He should have. Instead, Hela’s lost and alone in a realm somewhere she knows nothing of, and Loki stands here in her place. Loki had to come back and tell her friends that she’s gone when it should have been him who –

He would’ve gladly taken that fall instead of her. He didn’t care what would happen. He would gladly take it.

When Loki called the Jotuns into Asgard, he never intended this to happen. He was trying to – oh, he doesn’t even know what he was trying to do anymore. Hela wasn’t ready to be queen, and he was trying to show her and Odin that, because none of them would listen to him, and he was trying to stop any of Baldr’s intent of ascending to the throne most of all, because if Hela is queen they will still need a king and he knows of their cousin’s intentions, but Loki never intended… this .

His sister is gone .

Loki does not know if or when he will ever see her again.

“We should never have let her go,” Brunnhilde sighs, slumped on the ends of one of the couches.

“Going to Jotunheim was the right thing to do,” Baldr replies, rubbing at where one of the Frost Giants stabbed him. He doesn’t even have the courtesy of looking at them.

Loki also can’t remember the last time he wanted to take a dagger to somebody’s throat so badly. He also feels awful about it because this is his cousin and they’re family and he shouldn’t be so bitter with him but he can’t help it. When they were younger, when Baldr wasn’t around them nearly as much, it was different. He and Hela were far closer before their cousin came in, starting playing a much bigger role in their lives, and taking so much of his sister’s attention while ignoring Loki entirely. He knows he should not feel this bitter resentment. But he still can’t make it stop.

“It was for the good of Asgard. It’s not Hela’s fault that Odin refuses to see that,” Baldr goes on.

“It is unwise to speak against the All-Father,” one of the other Valkyrie warns. Loki agrees, though he has to grudgingly admit that the Baldr’s sole redeeming quality is his dislike for Odin, whether he’s his uncle or not. Though he could seriously do without the uncomfortableness of Baldr’s willingness to voice it in public .

“You know it’s true,” he argues.

Loki’s temper coils viciously. “My sister would still be here had you not aided her decision to go to Jotunheim.”

“At least she was banished, not killed,” Brunnhilde intervenes. “Which is probably where we’d be if that guard hadn’t told Odin.”

“How did he even know?” Hildegarde asks.

“I told him,” Loki answers shortly, looking up.

“ What? ” Baldr’s head snaps up from his wound.

“I told him to go to Odin after we’d left. He should be flogged for taking so long. We should have never reached Jotunheim.” They started a war now, and Hela’s gone . Odin would have been angry at them, perhaps confined Hela to the palace, but he would never have banished her if they had not made it there .

His sister is gone, and Loki has no idea how to operate without her.

Baldr stands. “ You told the guard?”

“I saved our lives,” he argues, “And Hela’s. I had no idea Father would banish her for what she did.”

“You don’t know that.” Baldr takes a few steps closer. “We had Hela. And I had Elderstahl. We could have pulled ourselves out.”

Hela can be maddening, but there is no one on Asgard who makes Loki wish to put someone’s head through a brick wall harder than Baldr. Frigga enchanted him to be virtually immortal. She did the same to Hela.

Not Loki.

Not Loki , because Baldr is more their son than Loki is, even though he’s not .

He has a special, legendary weapon, even though Loki doesn’t .

He hates how much he wishes Frigga hadn’t enchanted him. He hates that he wishes something would just – just – off him and remove him entirely from Loki’s life. He shouldn’t even think something so awful because Baldr is family too, but he just – it doesn’t even feel like he is. It doesn’t feel like he wants Loki to be his family at all, either. All he’s been doing for centuries is intentionally driving a wedge between Loki and Hela, one his sister is entirely oblivious of, and he spends as much time mocking and belittling Loki as he can.

Always out of Hela’s view, of course. She would slaughter anyone else who dared speak to Loki in such a manner. Unless it was Father. Or Heimdall.

Baldr isn’t a prince .

Not the way Loki himself is, at least.

He’s not even set to be the next king, even if Loki’s parents seem to have already assumed so. Even if everyone has assumed so. That’s Hela’s choice, no one else.

And then there’s Loki, always hidden and unseen no matter what he does. This entire disaster is on Baldr even more than Hela, and he slid away freely, just as he always does.

The moment he enters the room, he draws attention from everyone. That may, in part, be to the dull white shimmer he always gives off, being the alleged God of Light and all, but the way everyone, even Frigga instantly looks at him and softens drives something deep in Loki’s heart.

Baldr isn’t her son.

Loki is .

And then he remembers how his hand shifted to blue instead of burning, and he has to wonder. Because it makes sense . Why the son of a random nobleman would be more fit to be king than Loki. Why it's always Hela who Odin looks at and speaks to, why she’s permitted to speak when Loki is not and never has been, even when they were children.

Not that Loki wants a fancy fire sword. He’s never liked fire or heat.

Just like Jotuns can’t see in light and die in heat.

But that can’t be, because he’s Hela’s twin brother . They’re twins . They are . They’re two halves of a whole. Two that are one.

And that , a dark part of his mind whispers, could just be it. They explained your presence by matching it with Hela’s.

No. It can’t be. He can’t – he’s not…

Baldr is standing in front of him. A few feet away. Loki can’t keep zoning out. He’s a prince – it’s humiliating. This is Baldr. He could stab Loki with a smirk on his face and probably no one would notice.

You should be kinder to him , a voice that is definitely Frigga’s chides in the back of Loki’s head. He has no mother . As if that his mother was a Valkyrie who died in battle when he was young gives Baldr a free pass on being mindlessly cruel. Or maybe it’s just that Loki is the God of Chaos and that means he deserves to be hurt. Oh, right – Baldr is far, far too Pure and Good to hurt anyone, so Loki has just lost his mind. He has been told that before. Hence why he long since ceased speaking to anyone about Hela’s friend.

He tries to feel sympathy for him. Loki cannot imagine a life without Frigga, but he cannot muster even the slightest bit of pity. Having no mother should not mean Loki’s mother turns half of her attention onto him. Many on Asgard are half-orphans. A tragedy, yes, but it happens . Baldr’s part of their family, yes, but… That doesn’t make him Frigga’s son. Maybe he is being selfish, though. He doesn’t even know.

Loki had tried telling her that once. His mother had said it meant he was being ungrateful for the time she spent teaching him his seidr. He never breathed a word about it to her again, and he bites his lip enough it bleeds every time he’s faced with a drawn-out conversation with the not-prince ever since.

“You still have a chance to right this, Loki. Go to the All-Father, and convince him to bring Hela home.”

Loki doesn’t mind orders. Most of the time. They’re a part of his life, and he thinks little of them, until Baldr gives him orders unasked and without reason, as though it were his decision to tell his prince who and who not to speak with. How it is that someone can morph his name into a curse, Loki has no idea.

He tries to hold back the thousand things he longs to fling back. He can try, because he cannot refuse, and – Odin will not allow him to speak now, either. “And if I do, then what? Father was right that Hela is not yet ready. She’s still reckless, still –” He sighs. Behind Baldr, he sees Brunnhilde look away. She cannot argue with him, and he is grateful for that. It’s a reassurance that at least someone understands. “That is not what Asgard needs for its Queen.”

He wishes it was.

But whatever he does, he’s never going to be whole again.

***

“The day will come when one of you will have to defend that peace.” Odin stands in front of the Casket, it’s dim blue glow lighting the Vault. This is Loki’s first time in here. It’s so big .

“Do the Frost Giants still live?” Loki asks. They’ve been learning about the Frost Giants, and Odin has been telling them about the history of their fight with Asgard for a while now. Their father took it upon him to explain the victory in detail himself, seeing as he is the most reliable accountant of it. And Loki truthfully doesn’t know what to think about them. They’re monsters, but he can’t help feeling a little bad for them.

It's so easy to call a people monsters without knowing what they really are.

How can an entire species just be gone?

“Some do,” their father answers.

“Will they attack again?”

“I have a truce with Laufey, king of the Jotuns. One that he is not likely to break.”

“What if he does?” Hela asks, looking up at Odin.

“Then it would mean war,” Odin replies, “And he knows what the cost of that could be.”

“I’ll be ready to fight,” Hela chips, smiling. Her smile is contagious. When she throws a glance at him, he returns it.

“A wise ruler never seeks out war, but must always be ready for it.”

Odin turns to leave the Vault, and Hela and Loki run to catch up, each taking his hand.

“I already am,” Hela says eagerly.

“So am I,” Loki adds quietly but he hopes it’s not something he’ll ever have to do. He doesn’t want to have to fight and kill needlessly.

“I want to be a Valkyrie when I’m older,” Hela insists.

“You must learn to fight,” Odin tells her, “But you’re a princess first. Only one of you can ascend to the throne, but both of you were born to be rulers.”

Loki did not wish to reenter the Vault, much less like this. Not as dawn sets over them, shining through the wall of the Vault and the hold where the Destroyer is contained, lighting the room a dim gold. He knows what he saw, and he knows of only one way to find the answers he deserves, even if it is a question he would much prefer never to have answered.

But he has to know.

The Casket lies in front of him, and Loki just requires the will to lift it. The will is immense, he must say.

He does not want to know, and he has never begged for anything to hurt so much when he reaches for the bars on the case, fingers closing around the cold metal.

“Stop!” Odin’s voice is sharp, but this once, Loki does not comply. He has come too far to stop here.

He almost can’t look, but he feels the magic washing over him, sees his palms and fingers slowly fading to the same blue, then watches it spread across his arms and to where Loki is certain goes further up. “Am I cursed?” It comes out a strangled whisper where he can only stare in raw horror at the discolored blue of his arms.

“No.”

“What am I?” Loki slowly lowers the Casket, turning to face Odin. The All-Father stands atop the stairs on the other side of the Vault. He looks exhausted. Far more tired than he ought to. Loki would wonder if Hela’s banishment has taken a toll on him, too, but if it had – he should never have harmed her in the first place. And right now, he doesn’t much care.

All he wants is the truth.

“You’re my son.”

“What more than that?” he demands, slowly walking across the Vault. He knows his entire body is blue, and his eyes are Jotun red. “The Casket wasn’t the only thing you took from Jotunheim that day, was it?”

Odin doesn’t speak until Loki is already at the foot of the stairs. “No. In the aftermath of the battle, I went into the Temple, and I found a baby. Small for a giant’s offspring, abandoned, suffering, left to die. Laufey’s son.”

“Laufey’s son,” Loki whispers. He’s not Hela’s twin brother . He’s not anything. He’s just – he’s Jotun . He’s Jotun. Laufey’s son , the son of Asgard’s worst sworn enemy. Laufey . He feels faint. Dizzy. He is going to be sick.

“Yes.” Odin’s voice is quiet, but too calm, too flippant with the enormity of what happened , of all the lies that Loki’s lived.

“ Why ?” His voice sounds so broken and strangled he barely even recognizes it. “You were knee-deep in Jotun blood. Why would you take me ?”

“You were an innocent child.”

He has had it with all these lies . That is always all there is, always lies , never reality and he doesn’t know who or what to believe anymore. “No,” Loki says sharply, “You took me for a purpose. What was it?” Odin says nothing. He just looks at him, a staircase apart, face blank. He’s not going to answer. “ Tell me !” Loki yells.

“I thought we could unite our kingdoms one day, bring about an alliance, bring about a permanent peace. Through you.”

“What?” he breathes. Loki knew it was bad. He knew it was – could never have been taken out of pity, because Odin would not have sympathy for a child of his enemy and take him in as his own. And Loki is tired of being lied to. But he still thought, he –

Was powerful, maybe.

Not this.

“But those plans no longer matter.”

“So I am no more than another stolen relic , locked up here until you might have use of me?” His entire life was a lie. Loki never mattered to them, because he was never their son. He was never – anything . 

“Why do you twist my words?”

As if? “You could have told me what I was from the beginning. Why didn’t you?”

“You are my son. I wanted only to protect you from the truth.”

“What? Because I – I – I – I’m the monster that parents tell their children about at night?” He feels sick. Dizzy. The room is spinning even though he’s standing right-side-up. He can’t –

“No,” Odin argues, slowly lowering himself to the floor. He’s exhausted, and Loki knows that, but he’s too angry to care. He lied to him and used him as a tool his entire life, and he threw Hela into oblivion, left her somewhere for dead as she begged him to stop, never to come home. “No –”

“You know, it all makes sense now! Why you favored Hela and acted as though Baldr was more your son than I – because no matter how much you claim to love me, you could never have a Frost Giant sitting on the Throne of Asgard! ” His chest is heaving, and he can’t think. He wants to scream until his throat is raw, and he’s so angry, but Odin is on the floor, motionless. He’s been holding off Odinsleep for a long time and Loki knows that could’ve overwhelmed him.

Loki slowly crouches next to him. What did he – he didn’t mean to do this why does he keep making stupid mistakes and hurting his family?

He’s still breathing. Loki has to check him over with his seidr, just to be sure, anyway, but he’s already fallen under. Right here, right now, at the worst time there could’ve been.

He’s alive, but – but Loki isn’t stupid. He knows there is a reason Odin has been holding this off. They need to get him somewhere else.