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“Can you talk?”
“Talk?”
“Yeah.”
“Anthony, I -”
“Please. Please, just - about what doesn’t matter, just -”
“Shh. Breathe, don’t speak. Of course, I - Of course.”
Loki glances up, only briefly. He whisked them away from the battlefield, but he can see fire and fume in the distance and knows that they won’t be safe here for long.
"I had more than enough time to talk to Strange," he begins. "Do you know about alternative universes?"
"It's an old theory." Anthony's voice is barely audible. Loki clutches him a little tighter.
"It is not just a theory. It is - it means that there is an infinite number of realities; more versions of both you and me than we could possibly imagine. Some are worse than this. I have won our first battle in more than a few, I think - maybe your suit didn't save you in time, and I didn't even mourn. Or I did lose and left Midgard for good, and we never saw each other again. There have to be worlds in which we never even met and will never know each other, and worlds in which we do know each other but never get to know each other properly, worlds in which you despise me or I despise you, although - that feels unlikely. I could never - Anthony?"
"Mhhm. Still here."
Loki takes a breath.
"You died in Afghanistan in many of these alternate worlds, and I fell into the Void and never came back. Or I died in battle before ever setting a foot on Jotunheim, maybe you were in the car with your parents. We must have died so many deaths. Thousands and millions of them, this is just - this is just one more, you see. It does not change anything, in the great scheme of things. Because if there is an infinite number of realities, there have to be infinitely many good ones, yes? Ones where he never came for us, where he wasn't even born. In this very moment, somewhere, we are fine. Do you understand?"
A breathy sigh that might have been a word. Anthony looks up at him with the eye that isn't burned and blind. He is listening, so Loki continues talking.
"There are universes in which we are safe and happy and alive. Such stories are barely worth telling, but I keep thinking about them. In many of them, you have never been injured because I managed to protect you like I promised, and we will fight side by side for the rest of our lives. In some, I have never picked up a dagger and never will, and you have never even held a gun. We lack both suit and magic, but we are still us, and in these stories, that is enough. I keep thinking - maybe I was born as a human, maybe we all were, and fights for the universe are something that only happens in movies. Then again, you would make a good Aesir, so maybe you are a weaponsmith - it would suit you - and it's the greatest scandal of the century when the youngest prince asks for your hand… We enjoy every moment of it. Don't we? Anthony?"
"Mhhm."
"In this very moment," Loki says again, "somewhere, we are fine. Safe. Everyone we love is alive. You kiss me for the first time or for the thousandth time, and it never once feels like goodbye. Right now, you are eating the golden apple I gave you and we will spend millennia with each other, or maybe just the few decades of a human life. In another world I am making you laugh, and we have a family - James is teasing you and Virginia forces you to do paperwork as always, and Peter is telling you about his college courses. They are all fine, I promise. And Thor -"
Thor. Thor, Thor, Thor, the name rings through Loki's head for a second but he can barely hear it over the rushing in his ears. Thor.
"Thor is there, too," he says. "Thor, and that woman he still loves, I know he does -"
"Jane," Anthony rasps - doesn't even say it, really; Loki reads his lips.
"Yes. Yes, Jane. And Mother… Natasha, too. There is a reality where we haven't lost any of them. And we will not lose each other, either. I wish - I wish we could have lived in one of the others, and not in this. I wish we weren't the only ones left. I wish I could be mad at you, for doing what you did. I wish I was good enough."
Anthony is still staring up at him. His breaths are ragged and shallow. Loki smiles.
"I am, you see. In so many other worlds, I am. Good enough. We keep each other safe and we will live and be happy, and it is the loveliest story I have ever heard."
Silence.
"Anthony?"
Loki searches for a heartbeat. He finds nothing.
He closes his eyes, then, lets his fingers wander over the part of his lover's chest that is black and scorched. He finds the glove and the stones, and looks up again. Nobody will be fast enough to share this burden with him, either, just like nobody shared it with Anthony. But maybe it will work, this time.
Loki kisses Anthony's burned temple and gently lets him down. Then he stands up, fingers playing absentmindedly with the stones, and thinks about all those other worlds.