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Hoards of panicked Asgardians stood huddled together. Mothers hugged children, friends comforted friends, and people unknown to one another offered support as Asgard shattered like a mirror struck by lightning.
Numb, you turned your focus from your obliterated home to Thor, sitting in the captain’s chair.
A rock-like man and a woman you didn’t recognized flanked him. Scanning the room to avoid looking at the now dark void that once housed your home, the only place you’d ever know or ever intended to know, you memorized the pained expressions, the tears of anguish, and the uncertainty in each individual’s eyes.
Though your desires were no longer of consequence; the betterment and continuation of your people were all that mattered.
You stood a few rows from the front of the ship. With a racking breath, you looked back to the front of the ship. Loki materialized in the few moments you looked away. You mouthed his name as your shoulders suck at the site of him. As if he heard your silent plea, Loki turned as quick as a whip, catching your gaze. The recognition spark as rapidly as it disappeared.
Incapable of looking away, your mouth fell open in awe. Loki mouthed your name in return and flicked his head so slightly, you were unsure it wasn’t a trick of the light.
The crowd began to disperse, crushed by the sight of emptiness before them. Loki moved as the crowd did, slipping through a door flanking the captain’s chair. With a quick bounce on your toes to confirm where he’d gone, you shoved against the wave of Asgardians rushing to discover a place to rest.
“Sorry,” You tumbled over someone’s shoes and they looked to you, too exhausted to retaliate.
As you reached the front of the ship, the woman you didn’t recognize turn on you.
“Hold on there,” She held up an arm. The golden hue of her cloak shimmered as it waved in the reprocessed air of the ship. She looked angelic. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Thor hurriedly stood at the sound of the woman’s voice, spinning to face the disturbance.
“Hello,” The rock-man waved, holding a slug squirming at his side. “Sorry about your home being blown up and all that.”
“Thanks,” You waved in return, eyebrows shrinking down in focus. The stiff posture of the woman before you made you wary of attempting to get past her with force. She looked at you carefully, assessing you like she could break your spine with a single glance.
“Y/N?” Thor rushed to you, scooping you up in a hug that expelled the breath from your lungs. “I’m so pleased to see you.”
He had cut his hair since you saw him last. An odd pattern, similar to that of a lightning strike coursed across the side of this head. The new look aged him and made him regal in a way he wasn’t before.
“Oh,” The woman crossed her arms. “You know her?”
Years had passed without seeing Thor or Loki and their sudden return flooded you with long forgotten memories. It hit your chest like a rock from the sky, knocking your breath away at the sudden recollection of brighter days.
“Thor,” Your voice crackled. “It’s good to see you too.”
He spun you in the air and dropped you on the upper platform beside the chair. Patting your shoulder, he craned his neck searching for something.
“Where did my brother get off to now?” Thor placed a hand on your upper back.
“I was actually-,” You pointed to the door which remained cracked open, a sliver of light slipping through into the room.
“I see,” The side of Thor’s lips peaked upwards. He smacking your back and pushed you forward. “Please, go and speak with my brother. I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you, especially in a time like this.”
You looked once more to the darkening space in front of you. Millions of rock clusters fluttered by, wrapping the ship the a blanket, merely dregs of your previous home. The finality of what lay before you remained unbelievable still. As if you’d soon awake from a particularly intricate nightmare.
With a sigh, you hurried past the group and up to the door cracked ever so slightly. Slipping inside, you found yourself at the edge of a hallway. A dozen doors lined each side. But none immediately alerted you to Loki’s presence within them.
“You couldn’t make it easy, even now?” You called into the hall, hoping to elicit a reaction from Loki, revealing his location. Not a sound or response came.
Soft light illuminated the hall, forming interwoven spheres of light across the floor like a game of hopscotch. It guided your way as you opened one door after the next. A soft carpet dulled your footsteps under you, leaving only the swish of your dress and the stuttering beats of your heart to fill the silence.
Luxurious couches and fluffy beds filled every room, no two the same. Some boasted gold and white, forming a chic, marbleized pattern across the room. Others appeared splattered with finger paint. Clearly, these were the personalized living spaces for the original owners of the ship.
When you reached the final door on the left, you cracked it open, discovered exactly what you’d expected. Loki leaned in an alcove against a sprawling window. The room had no thematic decorations beyond the majesty of space from floor to ceiling. A bed lay on the far side of the room, plain in comparison to overwhelming stars just beyond reach. And a couch pushed against the foot of the bed, though you walked towards Loki instead.
Wordlessly, you ambled forward, careful in every movement against the carpet.
Loki looked over his shoulder and motioned you forward with wily eyes. He looked impeccable for blowing up a planet moments ago. Not a speck of dust sullied his clothes and not a single hair lay out of place.
“Hello, love,” Loki slipped his eyes across your dress from foot to face. In your mind, you appeared the antithesis of perfection. Hair displaced, dress torn, and skin dirty with ash. There was no mirroring the way he looked now.
“I feel underdressed,” You tugged at a singed layer on your dress.
Reaching him beside the window, you wrapped your arms around yourself, watching the movements of space instead in lieu him. But his gaze never slipped from you, something your body noticed before your consciousness. Neck burning and arms tingling, you rolled your head enough to see him from the corner of your eye.
“Oh no,” Loki slipped his finger down the length of your ruined dress, fingers rippling through the thin fabric like water, “I like this much better.”
“You still flirt like it’s your first language,” Your lips twitched with a budding smile. “How do I keep up?”
Loki feigned thought, sliding a finger up and down the curve of your waist. Tangling his hands within the fabric, he pulled playfully and burned cloth disintegrated, tumbling the ground.
“I advise you compliment my impeccable posture or silver tongue,” Loki lingered over the last word like a snake before the kill.
“I make no claims of your tongue without testing it myself,” Your mouth fell open at your own impertinence. Looking up to Loki, emboldened by his smooth speech, you smirked to rival his own.
“I believe you and I are speaking the same language,” Loki circled his arm on your waist, dragging you closer.
“I’m not so sure,” Your blossoming smile spilled into a frown. Eyes fogging from falling deep into the recesses of your own mind, you remembered every minute detail leading to this moment. Each sleepless night overwhelmed with dribbles of inconsistent information about Loki and his conquests. Each more unbelievable than the last.
“Oh?” His smirk faltered as his brows dropped in concentration, disappointed in the sudden shift in the conversation. You assumed this wasn’t remotely how he’d intended this reunion to proceed.
“I thought you were dead,” You remained at his side, his fingers digging divots into your skin. Loki swallowed as your face sank farther into hearty desperation. “After you left for Midgard, and you tried to take it - I heard rumors you’d returned. But I never - I didn’t believe them. I wouldn’t let myself believe them.”
“It seems the rumors do justice for once,” Loki dragged a gentle hand from your shoulder to your wrist where he played with the feeling of your uneven pulse. “Lucky you.”
“Why?” You wrapped your fingers in his, pulling them from your wrist. His fingers were coarse against your own. It was a feeling you’d long suppressed but never buried. “Why did you do everything you did? People died for nothing. Kings died for nothing.”
Loki’s chest sank against you and a blank look overran his deteriorating smirk. Though his facade appeared impeccable from a distance, the smell of smoke permeated his clothes. It stung your nose like the smoke of a crackling wildfire.
“I sense I can’t provide you a sufficient answer, though I’ll try,” Loki said. “It didn’t begin this way. It simply became something even I was unable to stop.”
“Even with that said, what happened to you?” You relaxed into his chest, wrapping your hands under his jacket. The erratic beat of his heart soothed your uncertainties and fueled something else entirely. “I was so in love with you and you disappeared without a single word and became someone I’d never known.”
“Was?” Loki leaned back enough to glimpse your face, lingering on your qualifier besides love.
“Unfortunately, it’s not past-tense,” You ran your hands across his chest, feeling the ebb and flow of his layered armor.
Loki grabbed your chin, running his thumb across your lower lip. The scorching look in his eyes burned your own with tears. Your breath caught as he kissed you, feeling the crisp tears slip past your lips, coursing down your dress. His hands dragged across your neck, latching to the soft hairs at the base of your neck.
Pushing yourself against him with a sudden burst of energy, he hurriedly clutched at your waist to keep you both upright as he stepped back. With the moment of surprise, you took the window to deepen the kiss. Loki complied, hoisting you off the ground and urging you to wrap your legs at his waist.
He stumbled back towards the bed and the altered direction of this sudden meeting broke you from the trance built with his lips on yours.
You throat dried with a wracking sob as you draped yourself around him like a ragdoll. “I can’t,” Your voice came horse, nearly inaudible. “I’m sorry. I can’t. Not after everything that’s happened. I want to so desperately, but I can’t. I have so much more to ask you.”
Chest heaving against Loki’s, you stared down at him in awe and he at you. The moment collapsed before it could really begin. A million words he’d never say lingered on his lips.
With a crash, the door flew open. You shrieked and Loki grasped you tight at the sudden disturbance.
“Y/N, Brother, I apologize for the interruption.” Thor ignored your compromising position, too ingrained in something beyond the room. “We need you out here.”
“What’s happening?” Loki set you carefully on the ground, the tips of your toes touching before your heels. You clutched to his arms, taken aback by the uncharacteristically frantic nature of Thor’s interruption.
“There’s a ship beside us,” Thor looked between yourself and Loki, still clutching to one another. “I think you want to see this.”
“We’ll continue our - conversation - when I return,” Loki placed a soft kiss on your lips. It burned as bright as the fire on Asgard, stinging as if it would be your last. And deep down in your soul, where your grimmest fears and blackest secrets resided, you knew.
It was.