Loki -2021-2021 | AUTHENTIC · VERSION |

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 branching timeline displayed a tabloid: “2021: The Year We Needed a Hero.” Loki snorted. Mortals were always needing heroes. They never learned. Loki -2021-2021

He was Loki. God of Stories. And he had lived an entire lifetime in twelve months. For the first few months—January to April—he did nothing

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.” The TVA was gone

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.

August was quiet. He read all of Shakespeare’s tragedies in a single night and laughed at them. “You call this suffering?” he muttered. “I invented suffering. In 2021.”