Epilogue: The God of Change

. . .

Death grudgingly took a kernel out of the bag of popcorn and passed the bag back to the God of Stories as the bemused Loki still leaning on Stark regarded the odd crew seated on the log with a lifted eyebrow. "I thought fairly surely that you were some symbolic figment of my trapped imagination." He let go of the metal arm and dropped onto the damp ground, using both his hands to stretch out his wounded leg to examine. The cauterized line was already seeping a little. He poked at it with a finger, wincing when the cut burned anew.

"I told you, we weren't done talking." The other Loki picked a husk out from between his front teeth with a single black fingernail, using his other hand to balance the microwavable bag on his lap. "Also, did you think I was going to miss a chance to watch all of you literally punch out Cthulhu?"

Fitz talked through a mouth of corn. "Shuma-Gorath."

The other Loki gestured at him with the lip of the popcorn bag, ignoring the long, hairy stare he was getting from the Sorcerer Supreme bringing up the rear of the group. "It's a phrase. Anyway. Not much difference from my point of view."

Coulson grimaced down at the Loki he knew, looking at the way the brow furrowed together in barely disguised pain. "You okay?"

"I've been better." He winced again as he tentatively flexed the cauterized wound. "Sad lack of snacks on our end. Not that it would have helped."

"Yeah, well." He jutted his thumb at the guy commandeering the popcorn bag. "This a relative of yours? He helped us out, but he also keeps screwing around and saying he's named Loki. If that's a fairly common name in Asgard, I didn't want to tell him you've kinda ruined it for people."

"I hope you'll accept 'not exactly and yet sort of vaguely' because it's the best I've got on short notice." Loki looked up as Strange hunkered next to him, ignoring the bemused expression on Coulson's face. Next to the Director, the God of Stories was smirking. Light appeared within the black-gloved palms of the doctor, pouring the gleam along his leg. "Verdict?"

"You're going to limp for a while and high odds you keep the scar. I think you in fact burned out all the poison, but I'll suggest monitoring it for some time. Some chance of future effects, but I sense nothing at present. I'll want to do a followup check in about two weeks, sooner if it troubles you." He narrowed his eyes at Loki's sigh. "Forget your physiology, you took a glancing hit from a God. No small beast of one, either. If it's just the scar, you're getting off lightly."

"Scars are seldom 'just' scars." The God of Stories coughed around a kernel of popcorn. "Each carries the weight of memory. They change us, too."

"True enough, but yes. You'll live." Death lifted an eyebrow for emphasis.

The God of Stories elbowed her with gentle irreverence as he grinned at the other Loki. "That's about as official as you can get."

Death looked at the interloper deity to give him a remarkably human glare, her English lilt clipping angrily. "You don't even go here."

He crunched the now-empty bag in one hand, mock-affronted. "I put up a ward to help you! I couldn't do more, lest I get snapped at for interfering overmuch. I do behave occasionally."

She ignored him and stared down at Loki, still sitting with his wounded leg. He shrugged back. "This is not my fault. For absolutely once in my life, this is raw, unfiltered, not my fault."

"Just wherever you seem to go, these things occur in your wake. Like natural disasters."

"And now I get back-talked by Mistress Death personally and publicly. My legend is complete." Loki flung his hands in the air, drawing a thin smile from the incarnation. On the other side of the girl, Fitz was laughing so hard there was just a wheeze coming out. "So now what? The awkward flight back home? Tired silences loaded with all the horrible things we just saw? How much paperwork is there in nearly destroying an old Scottish manor anyway? I wager a lot."

Death lifted a hand. "I'm hungry." She looked at Coulson as he leaned forward to stare at her. "What? I've been on dull hospital food for ages."

He sat back again. "I don't understand."

"Very well. Hospital food and the infinite energy of existence. Functionally one and the same for me. Is that any clearer?"

"No."

Loki locked eyes with Fitz, who'd clearly given up on anything making sense and was just grinning at the sheer absurdity of it all. "Fitz. Save us. Your hour comes. What's in Glasgow in terms of sustenance?"

He beamed. "Everything. Even this late at night."

Loki leaned back against his arms, his voice not at all serious. The more he talked, the more Tony started to snicker. "Stark's here. I'm bitter. I never got shawarma the last time I was in a disaster area with this obnoxious creature. They practically tied me to a bike rack in New York while they all ate garlicky things. Thor smelled for hours. Worst day of my life."

Coulson cut in over the giggles. "Don't exaggerate. They put you in the back of a truck with about twenty of the biggest armed dudes they could get on short notice."

"And everyone else went to lunch. My next meal was prison food." He looked mournful. The expression also didn't look very sincere and he gave up with a sigh. "Oh, fine. Ignore me. We sealed away a God, smashed a cult, everyone's banged up. My leg hurts, if I may understate. I think we can at least agree that rates a meal."

A casual vote came up universally in favor of food.

. . .

Strange was nearly asleep atop a pile of chopped vegetables, his fork buried in a slopping short bowl of hummus. From time to time, Tony Stark looked over at him, smirking. His Iron Man suit was propped up in a corner of the tiny Mediterranean late-night diner like a waxwork mannequin, getting iPhone snapshots taken of it by tourists and residents alike while the operator chugged his way through his third wrapped pita.

The God of Stories gestured at Loki with his own wrap as Coulson finished wrestling with his own food next to him. The Director was busy communicating with the Playground via phone at the same time, barely paying attention to the murmured conversations going on around the table. "Looks like this worked out for you alright."

Loki glanced down at the clean gauze wrap visible under the ragged remains of his trouser leg. "Well, since I'm not dead..."

"Mm. Everything for a price. Your story's not over yet." He caught Death giving him a side-eye. "I'm going soon. Promise."

She dipped a torn piece of bread into a bowl of spicy paste, still regarding him with an untrusting expression. "Please do. There are a few rules that border our existence, though not quite so many as mortals believe. And I mislike it when deities range so far from home."

"Says Death taking a holiday here." He grinned at her arch look. "I know what you're up to."

Fitz looked from oddity to oddity, then over to the familiar oddity whose expression indicated that shawarma was in fact just fine. "W-what's she up to?" The Loki he knew shrugged, flickering his gaze up to examine Death as he did so.

"He knows." Death put the rest of her food down on a small plate, reaching into her pocket. A moment later, a folded piece of parchment was passing across the top of the table to him. He took it from her with his brow furrowing. "We have a little time. Not much. But it can be stopped. I don't think it's too late yet."

Loki unfolded the paper, his brow now rising in open surprise at his own old sketch of six colorful stones, aligned in a pattern he'd guessed at after countless hours of study. Fitz frowned, lost again.

"I took that from the wall of your hidden lair, when I led Coulson to its door on your request. Perhaps I should apologize for the infringement, although I doubt you're surprised." She smiled at him. "As for how it gets here to this hand I now wear? Well... I prepare in advance as best I may."

"You've got a thievery problem, Mistress Death. It's becoming an honest personality trait." He refolded the paper and regarded her, thinking of Thanos. "He'll come for you. Even here. Especially here. It's become a nexus for these things." He tapped the paper against his fingertips.

"Not yet. Not soon." She clasped her hands together on the table. "I made this bargain carefully. But ultimately you know you're at the same risk."

"I am." He sighed, resigned. A glance passed between him and the different version of 'Loki' currently wolfing down the rest of his wrap. "That much is not up to change." He considered, then looked at Death again, noting that the pallor and the bone-like structure of her prior face simply wasn't there. It was Her, all the distance and bitter old knowledge, but still also, something else. Then he thought about rules again, and change. He blinked, comprehension dawning. "You're not dying. Not this time, in this form. You're not going to leave this one as some message to be found. You're staying."

"My leukemia was in remission." For a second, only a young girl smiled. "But I got tired of being afraid all of the time, pretending to be strong. The bargain was perfect for me." The tiniest change in her cadence meant the girl was again girl and immortal Death both. She leaned back. "You never were, you know. Afraid of the dark all around you, but not me."

He passed the folded piece of paper through his fingers, considering her. She rose from her seat and beckoned him to follow to the far corner of the diner to talk. Coulson glanced up as they passed, looking down again when Loki nodded to tell him it was all right.

Her smile broadened for a moment as she looked up at him, her hands folded primly together. "We met for the first time when you were very small. I doubt you could remember, not while awake. You were in the dark, cold and alone, and I watched close over you to see what would happen. Just this little squalling creature, frightened of everything around him. But not of me. You looked at me and smiled. Not rare, but not common either. You saw me, with your tiny red eyes already past the blindness of birth. In the end, it was not my hands that took you from the ice. You must remember that. There is meaning there."

Loki was silent.

"Where are you in the sorcerer's grey? What are you becoming?" She studied his silence, finding something written there. "Change, then, after all? That's what I'm looking for. The ending of Belasco part of the purpose. But the war? That's got to stop before it starts. The balance is already gone awry and when Death is out of balance I've no choice but to fight for Life. We're all bound by that. Order and Chaos are ends of a spectrum, but my domain is forever both at the same time. I live in paradox. I'm always there, and I cannot permit what's been done by Thanos in my name. The rest – well, it begins here. I wasn't running. I was looking for a place to start fighting from. A place to stand."

He inclined his head politely. "Well, then. I suppose I'm to let you know when I have a plan."

She smiled, crinkling the corners of her eyes. "Do that." She turned to regard Strange, the man's head starting to tilt further into his barely touched plate of food. "Poor man. So frightened of me. It's going to get worse." She glanced up at Loki one more time, then tipped a wink so quick it almost didn't exist. "He gets to loan me a place to stay."

That drew a laugh out of him as Death glided towards the table, putting her hand gently on Fitz's shoulder. To his credit, the boy didn't jump or start. He looked up as she bent and whispered something in his ear.

Not intending to eavesdrop, Loki still saw her words on her lips and saw the immediate relief that flooded Fitz's face. No question who Death referred to. For Fitz's peace, some reward for his help in a similar word of hope – She isn't dead.

It was hard to tell who was more surprised when Fitz hugged that incarnation of immortal Death.

. . .

The God of Stories finished gnawing on a pita chip as Fitz slammed the back doors closed on another rented vehicle; this one a full sized truck with a trailer attached to the back for the temporarily defunct Iron Man suit. "You're going to have to talk to Thor."

That got him a pointed look from the taller, older Loki.

He licked some seasoning off his fingertip, arching an eyebrow at the expression. "Keep shut and let me talk at you a minute. Look, deep down you know that Ragnarok isn't actually an ending. It's just another piece of a cycle, and you well know, sometimes breaking a cycle isn't enough to end it. That's the nature of reality. The nature of us – mischief and lies and chaos. Ironically, acting as an agent of change isn't enough to let ourselves transform. We'll have to always fight for it, stinking like ink and blood and fire. I still don't know if any of us are going to win out against that, but I can hope."

"Sometimes hope is the only thing we get to keep." Loki thought of Frigga, the memory he stole back when running from another possible version of himself. Another darkened future, banished by the hope Frigga never lost. The faith she had in both her children.

"I asked you to not interrupt, but that was kind of on point." The God of Stories was looking elsewhere. "You need to know something about the gems. A secret I stole in one of the other incarnations. What she wants, stopping the war. It can be done. Not easily, I expect."

Loki tapped at his pocket, the sound of paper crinkling softly. "The gems are infinity themselves. Each one powerful enough to overtake the unprepared. All of them together, in the hands of someone like Thanos... it will be the end of everything."

"Yes, but they're also tied to one universe alone. They are a reflection, a distillation of that universe. That's their sole weakness, Loki. Which makes it Thanos's weakness."

He studied the wolfish face, considering the paths between. The fragments of reality he'd passed through in his life, the roads this other deity had to casually walk down just to have this conversation. Like going through a door that couldn't ever be closed. Not for them. "...And our strength."

A single black-nailed finger raised to point, the God of Stories grinning. "Now you're getting it. But first... your brother. You do understand, right?"

Loki slumped against the side of a tall lamppost, tired. He picked at a fleck of peeling paint instead of meeting the eyes of the slightly shorter man. "Yes. I do. We're our own paradox. One doesn't really exist without the other."

"If you're going to survive what's coming, you need each other."

He glanced at Coulson, waiting for him on the other side of the truck's window. "I wonder if he'll believe that."

"You've got friends now. People tend to believe when others do. Thor's been hurt by you, no lie. You've poured out a lot of what you had. But he likes to believe, he's the steadfast one. It won't be that hard for him. It'll be harder for you. There's dark times coming."

"And you'd know."

"Yes. But you're right. There's the hope, too." The God of Stories gave him a small, sad smile. "Even that can hurt to cling to. All we can do is try." He shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged, ready to go.

Loki watched the young God's broad back start to disappear up the street. "Do you know how this story ends?"

"I do," came the answer, called back on a drifting breeze.

"Want to give a hint?"

"As they all do, Loki. With one last 'The End' written, with postscript to follow."

"Right." Loki rolled his eyes over to Coulson, who was now rolling down the window to chivvy him with a hurry up gesture. Leaning back from the passenger seat, Stark was making childish faces while Fitz slapped at him to behave. "We truly are all bastards."

Raucous laughter rang up the dark Glasgow street. A second later, there was only one God wandering around in Scotland, and he had a long nonstop flight waiting ahead to take him and his friends back to the States for whatever downtime they could steal.

. . .

Philadelphia, a very short time later.

Doctor Stephen Strange smiled down at the hardy woman manning the clinic counter, her round face all business and unshakeable politeness. For his part, he kept his gloved hands neatly clasped together in front of him. "I'm terribly sorry to press. I do have a lunch appointment with Dr. Drumm. Did he leave a note with you? Some... scribble on his agenda?"

The volunteer nurse glanced down at her clipboard while Strange pulled one of the pamphlets out of the clear plastic container set at the side of her window, comparing his card with what was written there. "You're absolutely correct, there you are. Very sorry about that, sir. His handwriting gets hurried sometimes."

"Quite all right." He put the pamphlet he was fussing with back down on the counter, inclining his head as she looked up and him and then down at his gloved hands with a professionally bland expression. "I'd hate to be a bother, particularly when he was so kind as to accept my request."

"You're the second princely fella I've had in here this month. Classing the place up on me." She gave him a wry grin as she checked the bay of timers set below the window sill for her eyes only. "By my reckoning, Dr. Drumm will be out shortly to get his messages. I'll happily let him know you're here. Would you like a seat, sir?"

"Thank you, but I'm thinking I'll wait outside. The weather is absolutely lovely today." He pressed his fingers together as he cut a slight bow. "Tell him I'll be by the alley on the other side of the clinic, if you would."

The nurse watched the tall doctor go as he let himself out the door, shrugging to herself. With a sigh, she picked up the disregarded donor pamphlet he'd left to put it back where it belonged. Her reflexes snatched the piece of paper as it fell out of the bottom and as she scanned what it said she sat down hard on the stool.

There were an awful lot of zeroes on the end of the check. They almost seemed to multiply through her blurring vision as her fingers began to shake. Startled, she could barely read the note scrawled underneath.

This donation to Project HOME made in the name of one 'Loki,' current address withheld.

PS: I don't care what Drumm believes, the man is an arrogant jackass.

. . .

"Okay, so that guy was Loki, but he wasn't you, but at the same time he was a real God named Loki, and kinda so are you, and at what point is this any of this supposed to make sense to me?" Coulson's legs dangled off the end of the rec room couch as he balanced an empty glass on his chest.

"Drink more. It'll all become clear at the bottom of the bottle."

Coulson gestured at him with the glass. "No, it won't. I'm thinking I'm going to switch to water because my head hurts enough as it is. So, okay, Death is Death, but right now she's also acting as a human, because being 'alive and healthy' means she's not showing up on Thanos's radar. Plus there's probably some sort of really skeevy thing going on with her being too young for him like this so he might step off if he does find her. Please tell me I'm wrong on that last one. The way you described his obsession with her was really creepy."

"No, I expect you've got it. The Mad Titan has the romantic capability of a dead dog." Loki's still bandaged leg was up on a stool while he scratched quickly through a sheaf of paperwork. It ached intermittently under a red welt whose edges still occasionally revealed a wounded blue. To his intense annoyance, Skye was already breaking out jokes about Frodo and his annual sickness from Shelob's poison.

"You said he had kids."

"A few, yes. He steals them, mostly. He's like evil mirror universe you." Bottles clanked atop the narrow counter of the kitchenette as Loki topped off a small drink for himself. "Adopts people and warps them into universe-destroying militants through whatever means best apply. Fill in the blanks there, Coulson."

Coulson shivered, getting a glimpse through the tone of voice at all the things Loki would never say about the time after he fell from Asgard's shattered bridge. "So what's next, you think? She said we had some time left before things get heavy in the galaxy."

Loki didn't answer him, not aloud. The quiet, almost mournful look on his face said plenty in his stead, however, and he nursed at his drink.

Asgard. Sooner or later, everything came back to the beginning. It was just going to be a matter of what started it.

Coulson watched his strange, once unwilling friend burrow inside his thoughts for a little while. He let him do it in silence, knowing that this time, when Loki came out of it, he'd know he wasn't going to have to face what was coming alone.

It was some change, and for the better.

~Fin

"Either make this thing permanent inside of you or forever just climb draggled up into the conning tower every time for one short glimpse of the horizon." ~ Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

. . .

6/23/15 MDS. All relevant rights remain in the hands of Marvel with no infringement intended. All realities are fair game. All half-mad demigods do whatever the hell they want.

. . .

Notes:

Project HOME is a real non-profit organization based in Philadelphia that focuses on the health, recovery, and safety of the homeless, and getting them off the streets in a progressive way. I am not associated with nor do I represent them.

Doctor Strange comics are a pain in the butt to summarize or rec. Outside of 'The Oath,' which is an enjoyable and approachable modern-day story, it's surprisingly difficult to nail him down in his own stuff outside of the Essentials-type collections. Strange tends to get power creep when you let him run off the leash; he's a Superman power class magic user in the Marvel Universe. To balance him out, he usually ends up playing second fiddle as a mystic advisor. This is why he showed up a lot in Amazing Spider-Man for a while, and part of why he ends up on various superhero councils. He has a central role in Marvel's current big event, as the Sheriff of Battleworld. My personal favorite appearance is as the John Dee counterpart in Neil Gaiman's alt-history superhero yarn 1602.

He tends to be an arrogant, sardonic, occasionally bitterly hilarious older man. I hope that came through here, and I honestly hope that carries into the film. :P

Jericho Drumm (Once known as 'Brother Voodoo' with all the bumps and terribly icky connotations that get you onto Cracked lists, he is currently known as 'Doctor Voodoo') is one of those characters that I'd be happy to see more from. His background history here is functionally his canonical story – as a psychologist, he ended up embroiled in the world of Haitian Voudou through his brother's fall and becomes a formidable sorcerer in his own right. He, too, has held the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme.

Shuma-Gorath has gotten the worst treatment over the last few years. Once one of Strange's most powerful and iconic foes, and a player in the large-scale Thanos Imperative/Realm of Kings comic event (whose spreading Cancerverse storyline, Lovecraftian elements, and dead Death were borrowed and then put through a woodchipper here), the elder thing is now arguably best known as... a DLC selectable character in multiple Marvel Vs Capcom fighting games.

Yes. You too can literally punch out Cthulhu on home console entertainment.

Belasco and his Otherplace Limbo, like Shuma, has been borrowed entirely from the comics and then altered slightly to fit the MCU style. Interestingly, instead of facing Strange, he usually overlaps with the X-Men. Notably Colossus and his little sister Illyana. He does have ties to Chthon and the other Elder Gods of Marvel lore, along with various attempts to bring horrible things through into new realities.

Death has been known to travel in human bodies, I promise I'm not just rolling down some slippery slope of overpowered Mary Sues. She's outright used the tactic to hide from opponents in really wonky stories in the past, and has been known to select avatars to represent her.

As for the God of Stories? He comes from the Loki: Agent of Asgard storyline, where his attempt to live a new life free from the consequences wrought by prior Lokis (it makes sense in context) gives him a unique understanding of story, tropes, and meta. Sort of but not quite like Deadpool. It's the continuation and possibly ending of a journey this Loki-identity started in Kieron Gillen's run on Journey into Mystery, and I felt he'd be sympathetic to what's going on over here. So I gave him a big cameo. This particular comic run started while I was working on the first Codex fic, and it's been strange a number of times to watch how the official comic would just blithely wander across themes I was right then chewing on.

The Codex will continue sometime over the summer, with a Coulson-centric short within the next couple of weeks. But for the next full length story, there's another question to be answered:

If this Loki won't be the one to close the cycle of Ragnarok around a struggling Asgard... who will?