This one takes place during The Dark World after Loki gets stabbed and fake-dies (except he forreal gets stabbed)
Loki slams open the doors to the throne room, gritting his teeth as he limps into the room. Every step, every breath is an excruciating reminder of the pain in his abdomen, his stomach, his back. He's been stabbed many times before, but this is so, so much worse.
Odin is pacing the throne room, deep in thought, but the sight of his so-called son makes him pause.
"Loki," he whispers, eyes wide with... Shock? Awe? Fear?
"Are you satisfied now?" Loki growls.
"What?"
"Your carelessness killed Frigga. Your arrogance drove Thor to treason. You have nobody left." He shakes his head, an insincere smile growing on his lips. "Nobody but me."
Odin takes a cautious step away from him. "Why are you here, Loki?"
"You brought this on yourself, you know," Loki continues. "While you were sitting here and twiddling your thumbs, Thor came to me for help. He never would have let me out if you had listened to him. You–" He cuts himself off with a groan, clutching at the wound in his abdomen. That hurts. That really, really hurts.
"Loki, let us sit down," Odin says. "We can talk about this."
"No!" Loki grits his teeth, and his anger is all that's stopping him from succumbing to the pain. "No, you cannot talk your way out of this! You had centuries to let me talk and you never did. Why should I give you the satisfaction now?"
Odin takes a deep breath. "What is it that you want, Loki?"
"You know exactly what I want," Loki growls. "If I am going to die today, I am not dying alone." He conjures his dagger, slicing it through the air and holding it down by his side.
Odin glances around nervously. "Guards!"
Loki barks a laugh. "The guards are not going to save you now." He made damn sure of that.
With a burst of magic, all the doors to the throne room slam closed, locked firmly into place. Nobody gets in; nobody gets out. Not until this is over.
"Loki!" Odin shouts. "Enough of this nonsense!"
Loki flicks a hand in his direction, and Odin is thrown back into the throne, his head snapping back at the sheer force of it. He struggles to free himself, but to no avail. Loki has him right where he wants him.
He limps up to the throne, pain radiating through his body with every step, but he hardly feels it through his rage. He's been waiting for this day for years, and it couldn't have come at a better time.
"Look at me," Loki growls. He grabs Odin by the collar and pulls him closer. "I want you to look into my eyes and understand that you made me. You brought this on yourself."
Loki slices his knife across Odin's neck, digging well beyond the skin and deep into the muscle. Odin gasps, hands instinctively reaching for his throat, and Loki lets him, throwing his body back against the throne. Every grunt, every groan, every strangled breath is music to his ears as he watches Odin's life force fade away.
And then there's silence.
The Allfather is dead.
The energy that's been coursing through Loki's veins – the adrenaline; the anger; the desperation – begins to dissipate as it starts to set in that he really did this. He really killed Odin. He's gone, dead, never to come back. He'd thought it would be a relief. In reality, he just feels...
Empty.
He slowly sinks to the ground, eyes falling to the dagger in his hands, still dripping with the Allfather's blood. He sucks in a breath, sending a sharp pain through his body. He's been dreaming of this moment for years. His only will to survive was the promise that one day, he would make Odin pay for what his actions, and he did.
He finally got his wish.
He drops the dagger, and it hits the ground with a deafening clatter. His hands are still slick with blood – his or Odin's, he can't say – and he halfheartedly wipes them on his pants before pressing them against his wound once more. He groans softly, squeezing his eyes shut as though that will block out the pain.
He rests his head on the stair above him and does his best to get comfortable, though comfort feels rather unattainable as he's bleeding out. But that's alright. It shouldn't last much longer. He can feel himself getting lightheaded already. It shouldn't be all that long now. Soon, death will claim him, and he can leave all of this behind him.
"So. He's dead."
Loki forces himself to look up, and through bleary eyes, he can scarcely make out the shape of a woman standing over him. He lifts his head, and even that small movement sends a new wave of pain through his body.
"I take it you killed him." She kicks his shin lightly with her boot.
"Who..." He squints his eyes, willing them to focus on the dark figure above him. "Who are you?"
She scoffs. "You don't know?"
"Should I?"
"I'm Hela," she says, "firstborn daughter of Odin and the rightful queen of Asgard."
Loki replays those words in his mind.
Daughter of Odin.
Rightful queen of Asgard.
That's... strange.
He rests his head back down on the step, though this time, he doesn't close his eyes. None of this truly matters. He'll be dead soon enough. But he's a bit too curious to stop paying attention entirely.
Hela stares at him. "That's it?"
Loki shrugs weakly.
She nudges his arm with her boot, and he's too weak to protest. He lets his arm fall down by his side. It stings for a few moments when the air touches his abdomen, but then the pain begins to fade.
"Hmm." She crouches down in front of him, eyeing his wound with intrigue. "What have we here?"
Loki takes a deep breath.
"The old man got you good, didn't he?"
Loki shakes his head minutely. "It wasn't him."
"No?"
Again, he shakes his head.
Hela furrows her brows. She reaches over and slaps his head a few times. "Are you alive in there?"
"Not for long, I think," Loki says, his voice growing hoarse. "But I killed him first." He smiles softly. "I killed him."
Hela just watches him for a few seconds. "Why?"
Loki just looks at her.
"Why did you kill him if you were just going to die yourself?" she asks, obviously baffled. "What do you gain from that?"
"The satisfaction of knowing I got my revenge," he replies.
Again, she just stares at him, but slowly, her disbelief morphs into what almost seems to be... respect. A small smirk forms on her lips. "I like you."
Loki huffs a halfhearted laugh. She likes him. That would be a first.
Hela stands back up, but she doesn't make a move to leave. Instead, she folds her arms across her chest, peering down at him. "Who was he to you?" she muses. "What made you want to spend your final moments hunting him?"
That question would take far too long to unpack – longer than he has left, he's sure – so he answers simply and briefly, "He claimed to be my father, then threw me in the dungeon to rot."
"Your father," she repeats thoughtfully. "You're my brother, then."
He shakes his head minutely, and the world seems to get a little blurrier. He should probably stop doing that. Answering her question, he says, "Adopted." Or stolen, more accurately, but he's not sure he physically has the energy to explain all of that.
"Hmm," she hums. "Does he have any other children?"
"One," Loki says. "On Midgard. After committing treason mere hours ago, I don't know that he plans to come back."
"Interesting..." She puts her hands on her lips, eyes flickering around the room as she takes it all in. "He's not going to challenge my right to the throne. I assume..." She looks down at him, still lying on the floor. "You're certainly not going to challenge my right to the throne."
Loki weakly waves that off. "Keep Thor off the throne, and I will be more than happy to yield it to you."
The corners of Hela's mouth twitch upward at that. "You're not a fan of any of the royal family, are you?"
I loved Frigga.
But that does him no good now. She's dead, as he soon will be, and he certainly won't find himself in Valhalla with her. It's best to just let that rest.
Instead, he says, "He left me for dead in Svartalfheim. I wish nothing but the worst for him and his friends."
Hela purses her lips, silent as she thinks, and Loki finds his eyes drifting closed before he realizes what he's doing. He's so tired. He'll just listen now; a soft, gentle, possibly murderous backdrop to his final moments on Asgard.
"I like you," she tells him. "I think you're just what I'll need."
"Hmm?" he hums. What's that?
"An executioner."
Before Loki can even begin to wonder what that may mean, Hela hoists him up off the ground and throws him over her shoulder as though he weighs no more than a housecat. She does nothing to protect the wound through his abdomen, and he cries out in agony as she aggravates it further. She doesn't seem to think much of it.
"I'll take you to the healers," she says. "Or you can die now and I'll bring you back. Whatever's easier for you."
It takes Loki a minute to understand what she's saying. He feels like he can hardly hear her over his own pained breathing, and processing her words proves to be a bigger challenge. She says it so casually. She's suggesting necromancy, and she's doing it casually.
The only response Loki's brain can muster is, "What are you...?"
"Every queen needs a second in command," she explains. "You must know Asgard inside and out; you're royalty, but you don't want the throne; and you spent your dying moments assassinating the king. There's nobody better for the job."
Loki doesn't have the energy to protest – and he'd like to protest, really. He'd like to at least ask a few questions before he agrees to anything. But then, he just killed the sole leader of Asgard, no more than a day or two after the death of the queen. Asgard will be in chaos, and Hela will have to rebuild it from the ground up.
He has to admit, that sounds like fun.