He knew this because a newsstand on a branching timeline displayed a tabloid: “2021: The Year We Needed a Hero.” Loki snorted. Mortals were always needing heroes. They never learned.
In May, he saved a child from a burning building in a timeline where fire obeyed different laws. The child’s name was Anders. He was six. He had green eyes and a stubborn chin. Loki told himself it was a strategic anomaly—a variable worth preserving. He did not admit that Anders reminded him of a younger, crueler version of himself, before the fall, before the void, before his mother’s gentle hands. Loki -2021-2021
For the first few months—January to April—he did nothing. He sat in a small apartment in a reality where Asgard had fallen but New York still stood. He drank cheap coffee and stared at the ceiling. The TVA was gone. He Who Remains was dead. The loom of fate was unspooling into infinite, beautiful chaos. And Loki was… tired. He knew this because a newsstand on a
“To 2021,” he said to the void. “The year I learned to stop running. The year I learned to stay.” In May, he saved a child from a
