-2021-2021 — Loki

September broke him. He found a timeline where Thor was alive—not his Thor, but a Thor who had lost his Loki in 2018. This Thor wept into a beer at a dive bar. Loki sat beside him. He didn’t say, “I’m your brother.” He said, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Loki smiled, small and genuine. “It’s not the worst year. I’ve lived a thousand. This one… this one taught me that you can die and still keep walking.”

He drank. The year ended. And for the first time in a thousand years, Loki did not feel the need to lie about who he was. Loki -2021-2021

“To 2021,” he said to the void. “The year I learned to stop running. The year I learned to stay.”

Sylvie had pushed him through a time door. She had kissed him, betrayed him, saved him, and left him with the most terrifying gift: hope. September broke him

2021–2021. Short. Impossible. Perfect.

In July, he pruned a rogue timeline himself. Not because the TVA ordered it—there was no TVA—but because some branches grew thorns. A reality where a mad scientist weaponized grief into a plague. Loki stood at the epicenter, held the detonation in his hands, and whispered, “Glorious purpose.” Then he let it go. The branch dissolved. No one cheered. He was fine with that. Loki sat beside him

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.

In June, he found Sylvie. She was working at a McDonald’s in Oklahoma, 2021. She was happy. He did not disturb her. He ordered a cheeseburger, paid with a gold coin that shimmered into a dollar bill, and left it uneaten on the counter. She looked up as he walked out. Their eyes met. She did not run after him. He did not turn back.

So he waited.