song: put your head on my shoulder - paul anka
3rd pov
y/n trudged out of the elevator and flopped onto the couch. he grabbed the remote and turned on the tv, which was automatically set to the news channel. the news anchor was reporting what had happened to him, and a very flattering freeze frame of him falling backwards was plastered on the screen.
he groaned and turned the tv off, saving himself from further embarrassment. a door slammed open from down the hall and loki turned the corner quickly, setting his eyes on y/n.
"are you all right? i watched you get shot in the head on live television," loki said.
y/n lifted his hand to his forehead and felt the giant welt on it. "it's not the worst i've been through. it was humiliating beyond belief, though."
loki hummed and sat beside y/n and patted his thighs as he turned to smile at him.
"well, i think you handed it spectacularly," loki praised.
y/n laughed. "i think i scared them."
"precisely," loki replied.
y/n playfully shoved loki and chuckled.
"i'm glad you're bulletproof," loki said, kissing y/n's shoulder before leaning down on it.
"i'd be extremely dead right now if i wasn't," y/n said.
loki gently took y/n's hand in his. "i'm glad you're not dead either. you're all i've got left."
y/n furrowed his eyebrows and turned to loki.
"what about thor?" he asked.
loki laughed bitterly. "thor does not care about me the way you or frigga ever did."
"are you really that blind?" y/n said, shocked. "how can you be so perceptive of everyone but yourself?"
loki looked to the floor. "you sound like frigga when you say that."
"that's because we're both right. thor loves you, loki. you just refuse to see it."
"you weren't there when i found out i was a monster. you weren't there to see how i was always treated," loki argued.
"i'm positive that you're just remembering things differently, loki. thor would ne--"
loki put his hands on y/n's forehead and they were both instantly transported into loki's memories.
~
y/n looked around at the sudden change in scenery. he admired the architecture of the room; large pillars reached high into the ceilings, strange markings running along them. in between each pillar laid a relic from one of the nine realms.
a young loki stormed into the room, ignoring all of the relics but one of them. the tesseract.
he picked up and stared down at it, his hands slowly turning blue. y/n turned as odin stepped into the room.
"stop!" odin shouted.
loki stayed put, the tesseract still in his hands.
"am i cursed?" he asked without turning around.
"no," odin said, staring at loki's back.
loki slammed the tesseract down. "what am i?"
"you're my son," odin said gently.
loki slowly turned around. his once pale skin was now turned blue, his eyes swirling with deep crimson pigments.
"what more than that?" he asked quietly, stepping away from the tesseract and closer to odin. his skin began returning to that of his asgardian form.
"the casket wasn't the only thing you took from jotunheim that day, was it?" loki asked as he approached odin.
odin only stared down at him, thinking of something to say.
loki now stood and looked up at him from the bottom of the steps. he stood waiting for odin to speak.
"no," odin finally said, "in the aftermath of the battle, i went into the temple and i found a baby."
loki's jaw tightened.
"small-- for a giant's offspring. abandoned. suffering. left to die," odin paused, "laufey's son."
loki looked at the ground.
"laufey's son?"
loki swallowed hard. he looked up at odin for confirmation.
"yes," odin said quietly.
loki's breathing got more frantic as he tried to process what he had just been told. his looked around aimlessly and his eyes burned as tears formed in them.
"why?" he asked, "you were knee deep in jotun blood, why would you take me?"
"you were an innocent child." odin tried to reason.
"no," loki said, "you took me for a purpose. what was it?"
odin looked down at him, not responding.
"tell me!" loki screamed, tears falling from his eyes and down his cheeks.
odin sighed, his eye closing.
"i thought we could unit our kingdoms one day. bring about an alliance, bring about permenant peace." odin took a deep breath. "through you."
"what?" loki said weakly.
"but those plans no longer matter," odin said.
loki tried to blink his tears away.
"so i'm no more than another stolen relic?" loki cried. "locked up here until you might have a use for me?"
"why do you twist my words?" odin questioned.
"you could have told me what i was from the beginning. why didn't you?" loki asked, voice cracking.
"you're my son. i wanted only to protect you from the truth," odin stated.
"what?" loki shook his head. "becau-- because i'm-- i'm the monster parents tell their children about at night?"
loki threw his hands up and laughed bitterly.
"you know, it all makes sense now!" loki shouted, getting more and more angry.
odin shook his head, mumbling, "no, no."
"why you favored thor all these years!"
odin bent down and fell weakly onto the steps. loki continued shouting as he walked up the stairs to stand above odin. blinded with rage, he didn't notice odin deteriorating below him.
"because no matter how much you claim to love me, you could never have a frost giant sitting on the throne of asgard!" loki seethed, gasping for breath.
odin's grasp fell from loki's pant leg and his eye closed. all of the anger and pain left loki and was replaced with worry as he bent down and looked at odin in horror. he gently laid his hand on top of odin's and looked up to the large doors.
"guards! please, help!"
~
loki took his hands from y/n's forehead.
tears streamed down y/n's face as he gasped for breath.
"do you see now? do you see why they can never love me?" loki asked.
y/n shook his head and sniffed. "thor loves you, loki."
loki exhaled sharply. he stood up off of the couch and walked to the other side room.
"why do you still not see what they've done to me? why can't you understand that i am nothing to them?" loki asked, turning on his heel and staring at y/n.
"because you aren't just nothing to them, loki! yeah, odin's a dick for taking you to use as a potential political maneuver. he sucks for always treating you like you were lesser than thor," y/n argued back, standing up and walking towards loki.
"i understand that all your life you've lived in thor's shadow. that you've been treated like you were the muck on the bottom of someone's shoe. you're allowed to be angry about that. i can't even begin to understand how that must feel," y/n explained, now standing only inches from loki.
"but both you and thor have both matured and changed. all of that pain is in the past now. thor sees you as his brother. odin sees you as his son. the only person who keeps dividing you from them is yourself," y/n said, jabbing his finger into loki's chest.
y/n reached his hands up and cradled loki's face, gazing into his glassy green eyes.
"you can be mad at odin and thor and everyone else. you can hate them for all eternity if you want. but you can't deny their love for you. and you can't keep basing your worth off of the lack of love you received growing up." y/n wrapped one arm around loki's neck and pulled him closer, using his other hand to brush a few stray hairs out of loki's face.
"you are lovable, and you are capable of giving love. but the only way that will ever happen is if you start trusting people when they say that they care about you," y/n said, his voice barely above a whisper now.
loki's lip began trembling, and he looked down as he tried to blink his tears away. his efforts went in vain as he let out a choked sob, bringing his hands up and burying his face in them.
y/n pulled loki into a hug, and loki wrapped his arms around y/n and buried his face into his shoulder.
y/n held him closely and swayed their bodies as he rubbed circles into loki's back.
somewhere, distantly, a pair of golden eyes gazed upon them. heimdall sat at the edge of the bifrost and stared into the stars as he smiled fondly at the two men.
i feel like theres been so much crying lately 😩 but i feel that these moments that y/n and loki share are crucial to their development both as individuals and as a couple. i promise there will be happier chapters ahead lol