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Loki is a child when the idea comes to him in a dream. It will be centuries before he learns that dreams are windows to alternate realities, but for now, the vision of him murdering his brother is just something that appears during sleep. Not something he plans on replicating in the real world, but the thought of becoming King of Asgard plants itself like a weed and grows slowly with time.
He forgets the dream after a time, as if that version of him is plucked from existence, and he grows alongside Thor, as the Princes of Asgard. But he doesn’t forget the feeling he’d experienced when his dream self realized he would be king.
It sits in him and festers.
Loki thinks about how it would feel to be King of Asgard. He thinks about leading his people, not into the battles that Thor craves or through the prolonged peace that Odin has fostered, but into a time of prosperity and growth. He’s seen the innovations from the people of Asgard and he knows that he can be the king that can help them reach their potential.
He sits in the throne room sometimes, staring at the seat that he can see himself sat upon, and it’s there that Hogun finds him.
Of all of Thor’s friends, Hogun is by far his favorite. Quiet natured like Loki, Hogun holds himself in a way that Loki appreciates. Volstagg is too loud and Fandral is too vain and Sif is too much of something Loki doesn’t like to think about. But Hogun and Loki are similar enough that he tolerates the man more than the rest of the Warriors Three.
Hogun knows that when Loki is quiet and contemplative, that he is usually planning something. The rest of the group likes to dig and tease, to pull him into all of Thor’s schemes, but Hogun always seems to know when to back off. When he finds the young prince in the throne room, he knows that Loki is thinking of the potential. He knows the plans that Thor has for the kingdom when he becomes king, though that time seems to be further off than Thor would like it to be, and Hogun knows that Loki is willing to do whatever it takes to keep Asgard growing.
“Your brother is waiting,” Hogun says softly, hating to disrupt. Loki doesn’t jump, just turns his head to the side to regard his friend.
“It doesn’t seem big enough,” Loki says in reply. Hogun is silent, knowing that Loki will continue. “Whoever sits here has a lot of responsibility. To the kingdom, the people of Asgard.”
Hogun is silent for a long moment, waiting until Loki fulling turns toward him. “It’s not about the size of the throne,” he says and Loki watches him for a moment.
“Will you continue to serve Thor?” he asks.
Hogun does not break eye contact with the prince as he answers. “I will follow the King of Asgard.”
*****
Loki’s relationship with Sif happens by accident. His friendship with her is a product of her connection with Thor, but their personal connection is a product of a drunken night after a close battle he’d not wanted to be a part of in the first place. Thor, the Warriors Three, Sif, and Loki celebrate their win with a feast fit for a king and that thought tickles the back of Loki’s brain as he downs a glass of wine.
Hogun leaves the celebration early and Fandral does as well, citing a grueling facial regimen that he desperately needed to get to. Thor and Volstagg fall asleep each with a fork in their hand which leaves a tipsy Sif leaned against a slightly less tipsy Loki.
They’re tucked into a corner, quiet and more intimate than they should be as ‘just friends,’ but they’ve been dancing around this for years now. He’s always seen her as more than Thor’s friend, a fellow warrior, a woman who has, more than once, put him on his knees at the end of a blade. He’s only ever dreamed that Sif would see him as more than Thor’s brother or another Prince of Asgard.
Sif’s voice is low, breath wine-scented, but eyes clear as she whispers against his mouth. “Almost lost you today,” she says, tongue darting out to tease against his lips. Loki’s eyes are closed as she shifts closer, thinking of the near disaster that was the battle earlier today. He’d taken a blow that would have leveled a lesser man, but he was still left with a bruise across his torso and the lingering fear of leaving the ones he cares for most.
It’s this thought that spurs him to surge up, closing the short distance to press his lips against hers. She’s wine sweet and dry lipped, but she’s warm and soft and everything he’s wanted and told himself he couldn’t have.
Sif pulls away suddenly and he thinks the worst, but her eyes are clear as she stands and pulls him with her, in the direction of his room. If they find themselves distracted in a shadow-filled alcove or two, then that’s just the way The Fates designed it.
He asks if she’s sure between kisses along her neck, mindful of the amount of wine she’d consumed, and he’s reassured when she grabs at his hair and pulls him to her lips again. It’s faster after that, when he rushes her to his room and peels her clothes from her body before dropping to his knees. He worships her with a focus usually reserved for his magical studies until they’re both sweaty and sated and curled around each other beneath his bedsheets.
Loki’s long fingers trace Sif’s cheekbones as their heart rates begin to settle. He feels a pang of hurt knowing he’ll never be king as he looks at Sif, a woman who would rival Frigga for queen.
“What are you thinking about?” she whispers, thumb rubbing over the furrow on his brow.
“What would you do for Asgard?” he asks, just as quietly, and his heart must be loud in the silence for how loud it is in his ears.
She’s quiet for a long moment, hands slowly moving from his face to the space between their bodies. He wonders if she understands what he means, that when he says Asgard he means himself. That when he says ‘what would you do?’ what he means is ‘will you stay by my side?’
Finally she looks at him again, eyes shining in the firelight he’d conjured to warm his cold room. She quirks one side of her mouth up in a smile and shifts until she’s nose to nose with him, breath mingling as a bookend to how this night started. “What wouldn’t I do for Asgard?” she answers and kisses him deeply, following him into the mattress and he sinks beneath her.
*****
They keep their relationship a secret, not for fear of anyone finding out and judging them, but out of the necessity of wanting something that is only for them. The part of him that had cared for Sif in her role as Thor’s friend grows into something that he thinks might be love of a woman who understands him in ways most don’t.
Hogun finds out, of course, but not because they tell him. He’s observant, notices their looks and the way they lean towards each other at the tables and how the two learn to fight in sync whenever Thor drags them into battle. The rest of their group never realizes, though Volstagg makes a comment here and there.
In this world, they are happy.
And then Loki dreams again. It’s been a long time since he’d dreamed of the crown, of the throne, of ruling Asgard. He’s dreamed of watching his brother’s coronation and following his rule and he wakes every time with an itch beneath his skin. But tonight he dreams of his potential and he sees beside him Sif, strong and resplendent as Queen of Asgard.
The thought of it builds in him, driving him to distraction enough that he’s actively making plans. All the while he tries to convince himself that he’s not actually going to act on any of these plans and it’s better to have a backup in case something happens to Thor during one of his hair brained schemes and really Asgard would be better off if Loki was king.
It’s actually Thor that gives him the idea at the beginning of the end of it. His brother likes to recount stories of battles past, even ones that were long before his time. It’s during a dinner months before his upcoming coronation that he tells the tale of Odin’s defeat of Jotunheim thousands of years ago, boasting of their father’s might and the fall of the mighty king of the Jotuns.
The idea builds in his mind for weeks. It’s not a true play for the throne, not at first. He thinks of it as a joke, a prank, a gift for Thor to settle his bloodlust. It’s easy enough to contact the Jotuns under an alias and he schemes with them by promising them access to the vault and the Casket of Ancient Winters. They are eager to collect and from there it goes off without a hitch.
Sif suspects something, he knows, because she waits up for him on days when he goes offworld, and he can’t lie to her. However, he’s not been accused of having a silver tongue for nothing, and he convinces her of what he’s convinced himself. It’ll be a prank, a minor distraction before the coronation and she agrees to go along with him.
Hogun is harder to persuade and Loki doesn’t know if it’s because of his serious nature or if it’s because the other man has always been able to read his true nature. He doesn’t agree to help, but he agrees to keep Loki’s secrets, as always.
The day of the coronation and the secreting in of the Jotuns goes off almost exactly as Loki had planned. He hadn’t expected the death of the guards and he makes a mental note to provide for the families of the two men. Thor predictably declares war against Jotunheim and Odin predictably refuses and he’s not surprised when he and the rest are pulled into Thor’s plan to go to Jotunheim secretly.
And when everything is over and Thor has been banished, Loki is left with the cold burn of the Jotun’s hand on his arm and the memory of blue skin and a horrifying revelation. That dream he’d had as a child, when he’d first thought of being king, feels like it’s grown into something that feels attainable.
Loki convinces the rest of the group that Odin knows what he’s doing, Hogun immediately suspicious and Sif too loyal to say anything and Volstagg and Fandral easy to manipulate. They agree to leave it be for now and it feels like he’s one step closer to his dream.
It’s the memory of the grip on his wrist, the growing blue skin, and the realization that there’s a reason why he and Thor are so different, that twists that dream. He deserves to be King of Asgard because being King of Jotunheim was taken from him, because he is more level headed than Thor and more ambitious than Odin. He deserves to be king because that is his right and he deserves to have his queen because she knows him best.
Sif is horrified when she finds out, refuses to speak of it when he says he has a plan, but refuses again when Odin falls and Loki takes the throne. Her glare is powerful and if he were a weaker man, he would have cowered, but he has his dream now and time enough to win her back.
The seed that was planted as a boy has grown to fruition and he doesn’t plan on letting it go to waste.