a/n: okay last chapter until they botch season two and i have to write a fix it fic about that one too<3 i really hope you've enjoyed this fic, i'm sad to be ending it but that does mean that i can finally crack on with my uni assignments (the first one is due in five days send help). in the meantime, please feel free to send me prompts, or check out my other loki x reader fics on my profile! happy reading<3

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Your POV

You can feel that it worked before you even wake up. The emptiness in your chest, the one that had been filled only slightly by being near TVA Loki and Sylvie, is gone. And you feel... fine. You feel good. Not exhausted, not aching so much that you think you might die like you thought you'd be.

Not dead.

No, very much alive, very much aware of your surroundings. Of Loki, sat by your side.

'She's waking up,' you hear Loki say, and relief rushes through you in such abundance that for a second you forget to breathe.

You're sat up and reaching for him before you've even managed to open your eyes properly. You grab him by the shoulders and blink hard to make sure you're not hallucinating as he stares at you. He feels real, looks real.

You open your mouth to say something and discover that you can't find the words, inhaling shakily instead. Tears fill your eyes as you realise he knows – you don't have to speak. It's as it should be.

Loki pulls you into a hug, and you can feel how desperate he is to understand what's going on, what had happened to you. And you can sense a few people behind you who are also very interested in the happenings of the past few days, or hours for them.

You try to pull back from the hug, but Loki holds you to him firmly.

Don't ever do anything like that again.

What? Save your life?

You could have died.

You did die, Loki.

He doesn't have an answer for that, and lets you go. You reach out and touch his neck gently as you sit back, feeling horribly like you're dreaming. The past few days have all felt like a dream.

You don't have time to greet any of the other men in the room before Thor has you in a bear hug.

'Thor, careful,' Loki chides his brother, but you're smiling.

'It's okay,' you say, squeezing Thor back. It is okay; usually when Thor gives you a hug this big you hear something pop, but today he's the one to look concerned about a cracking noise.

'Did... was that me?' you ask in confusion as he releases you.

'I think so,' he replies, looking as confused as you. Then you catch sight of Tony.

'Tony!' you exclaim, sitting forward to hug him too. 'What are you doing here?''

'Strange told me that you'd done something stupid, so naturally I came to investigate,' he teases. 'It's really good to see you, kid.'

'Y/N, you have to tell us what happened to you,' Bruce says from the end of your bed.

'I... I don't really know myself. What happened after I...?' you ask, trailing off as you look down at your hand. It's good as new.

'I healed it. Strange has the gauntlet and the stones,' Loki tells you.

'Well, not all of the stones,' Thor chimes in, and Loki shoots him a look.

'What?' you ask, looking at him in concern. You hear the answer in your mind as immediately as if you'd had the knowledge yourself. You'd absorbed the Power stone. Your mouth falls open slightly as you remember how it had felt to tap into its power. That was in you now. That's why you felt so good.

You look to Loki again, and his frustration at still not knowing what had happened to you is written across his face as clear as day. So you open your mind to him, and turn to the others to explain what had happened to you in a more manual way.

Loki has the full story within seconds, but it takes him the time it takes you to explain using words to the others to understand and process it.

When you get to the part about leaving the variants in the Void, there's a small tugging sensation in your chest, not dissimilar to what you'd felt when you'd first found out that you and Loki were soulmates and had to be away from each other for long periods of time.

You hope that TVA Loki is okay. And Sylvie, Nico, Mobius, all of them. You're worried for them.

By the time you're done explaining, the room is totally silent. Loki looks as though he's been hit in the face by something very solid.

'So...' Thor says, and then Strange bursts through the door.

'I very much hope that you've just woken up, otherwise I'm extremely unhappy with everyone in this room,' he snaps. No one replies.

The sorcerer seems to gauge the shocked atmosphere in the room, and becomes even more annoyed.

'Right, everyone out, I need to speak with Y/N,' he says, waving his hand and creating a portal. When no one moves, he sighs.

'It's only to downstairs. You'll be reunited soon enough, go on,' he instructs, pushing the portal towards Thor. Bruce and Tony walk through it reluctantly, followed by an even more reluctant Thor.

'I'm not even going to try and make you leave,' Strange mutters, not looking at Loki as he pulls up a chair next to your bed. Loki is vaguely pleased by this.

'First of all, how could you be so stupid? Do you know how dangerous it is to use an Infinity gauntlet even on its own, without any of the stones?' Strange asks you heatedly.

'No,' you say.

Strange takes a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose briefly.

'You should be dead. Both of you should be very dead. If the Power stone hadn't taken a fancy to your magic, you'd be toast. You were toast for a bit,' he tells you sternly. 'It was an extremely dangerous and stupid thing to do.'

You just look at him.

'Tell me what happened after you killed Thanos,' he says, and Loki casts an illusion so that he can grab your hand without Strange seeing.

You close your eyes and project your memories into Strange's mind so that you don't have to recount the whole story over again. When you're done, Strange has turned extremely pale. He doesn't speak for a while after you retreat from his mind.

'Are you okay?' you ask after a while, and he shakes his head abruptly, looking piercingly at you.

'What did they say they were going to do, the variants, if they got beyond the Void?'

'Sylvie only wanted to take down the TVA, and I think Loki would have wanted revenge. They would have done what they could to bring down whoever it was hiding out there,' you tell him, feeling a small nagging sensation in the back of your mind as you speak. It's like you were supposed to remember something, but you can't remember what.

'I think they did it,' Strange mutters, more to himself than you, looking away.

'What? How can you tell?' you ask him eagerly.

'I can't. But I felt something, earlier, before you turned up. The timeline, it's... unstable. Something definitely happened,' he tells you, standing up abruptly. 'Do you still have the device which you used to get back here? What did you call it..?'

'The TemPad, yes,' you reply, placing a hand gingerly over the pocket it's in in your gear.

'I need it,' Strange says, holding out a hand for it. You don't move, trying to gauge what he's going to use it for. His mind had always been more difficult to read than anyone else's.

'Y/N, you can trust me. My sole purpose is to protect this timeline, and if what you're telling me is true, my job just became a whole lot harder. I need that TemPad,' he says, sounding sincere enough.

He's being sincere.

I know. That's not what I'm worried about.

You pull the TemPad out slowly, and hold it out to Strange.

'I want to help,' you say, swinging your legs over the side of the bed as he nods his thanks and begins to create a portal.

'I will need your help, soon,' he says, before disappearing through a portal, which quickly fizzes out of existence, its remains falling to the ground in sparks and glimmers.

You look up at Loki, who's frowning at the bed you're sat on.

'What is it?' you ask, and he takes his hand from yours.

'I'm furious with you, to start. You went up against Thanos when he had two Infinity stones, unarmed?' he asks, annoyance and awe fighting for dominance in his tone.

'I don't remember much about that, in my defence. And you would have done the same,' you say quietly.

'I tried,' Loki retorts sourly, and your mouth falls open.

'You can't possibly be comparing the two scenarios,' you say in disbelief.

'Oh, right, because I only had the weight of half of the universe on my shoulders,' Loki scoffs.

'He killed you Loki,' you half shout, seeing purple as emotion rises in your throat. 'You were dead, on the floor.'

Any bitterness you'd seen in his expression vanishes as he watches you, and he takes your hands in his.

'I'm sorry. I'm sorry,' he says, and you press your forehead against his, closing your eyes.

I'm sorry.

Stop apologising.

I shouldn't have got myself in that situation. I panicked.

It's not your fault. It doesn't matter. You're here now.

Only thanks to you. And Mobius.

You open your eyes and smile sadly. 'Yeah.'

'You miss them,' Loki says, sitting back.

'I just... I wish there was a way to know that they're alright. That weird light that I left Mobius in, that can't have been good,' you say, trying not to think of the worst.

'It sounds as though Strange wants you to go back,' Loki says. 'You can check on them all.'

You reach out to run your fingers over his neck again, trying not to picture how it had looked not even an hour ago.

'All I wanted these past few days while I was with them was to get you back, and now I've got you back and I'm wishing I was with them again. It doesn't make sense,' you smile sadly.

'It does make sense,' Loki says, catching your fingers. 'You care too much.'

'I thought that we'd established that that wasn't a bad thing?' you ask him.

'No, I don't think it is,' he replies, pushing the ring on your finger round with his thumb. You want to kiss him, but there's still something on his mind.

'Talk to me,' you say, and he sighs.

'I just- would you have gone back to him? If this hadn't worked?' Loki asks you. You blink in confusion. He's jealous? Of... himself?

'I might have gone back, but not for the reasons you're thinking,' you tell him.

'You clearly care about him,' Loki says, and his tone isn't exactly accusatory but it's not detached either.

'Yes. And I'm not going to apologise for that,' you tell him, frowning.

'I wasn't asking you to,' he says, shaking his head.

'He wasn't you, Loki. You were similar only in looks...'

'He was me though. Exactly as I was after the New York attack in 2012. I used to be that person,' Loki argues.

'And he was on a different path; he'd had his Nexus Event and so it was impossible that he'd ever get to the point that you got to,' you retort.

'But-'

'Loki. I would have done anything to get you back, including dying trying. Which I almost did. And If I hadn't got you back I don't know what would have happened, but I wouldn't have settled for any other Loki variant. You're my variant,' you tell him sternly.

'I'm sorry, I'm just trying to wrap my head around it all. And I know it's stupid but I don't like the thought of you with him, even though he was... me,' Loki says.

'He wasn't you,' you reply, and that seems to cheer him up a bit.

'None of that matters now, anyway. It worked,' you continue, suddenly feeling very pleased with yourself. You'd done it. And you'd also accidentally saved the universe from mass annihilation, as a bonus.

'You're a miracle,' Loki tells you, shaking his head as he hears your thoughts.

'Everything that happened was an accident, but I'll take the compliment,' you smile, and Loki laughs. Seeing him smiling sets off the relief again; it fills your chest so profusely and quickly that you think you might burst.

Loki feels this along with you and leans forward to kiss you, taking your face in his hands, and for a few seconds everything is right in the world. When he pulls back, you grab his wrist and look at him seriously.

'I've said this before and I'll say it again. Please stop dying.'

He laughs, and you smile painfully.

'Seriously, it's bad for my stress,' you tell him, trying not to smile. He looks down, smirking.

'I'll try.'

'You said that last time,' you stress, and he looks back up at you, attempting a guilty expression. You roll your eyes, and stand up.

'Come on. We should go and find the others; make sure Thor's not breaking anything important,' you say, and Loki stands up too.

'You're right, his depth perception is going to be off for a while now,' he replies, and you wince as you think of his eye.

'Could you heal it?'

'Not really, his eye would have been obliterated,' Loki muses as you walk towards the door, not sounding overly concerned about it.

You think of Asgard, and how there's nothing to go back to now. You miss it already.

'Hey. We'll be fine,' Loki says, nudging you as you walk back towards the main staircase.

'I know,' you smile up at him. You have to be fine. You've gone through too much for things not to be perfectly fine now.

You think of the fairy tale ending you managed to secure in the sacred timeline. If you can find your way to an ending half as good as that one, then you think it will have all been worth it.

There's a sudden, loud crash from downstairs, and then a distraught 'sorry!' from Thor.

'Why is it that every time you come here you end up destroying my things?' you hear Strange demand immediately after. Loki sighs, and you bite your lip.

'I think maybe we need to find somewhere to stay that isn't here,' you suggest, and Loki nods his agreement.

'Come on then,' he says, and disappears. You close your eyes and teleport after him downstairs.

To the unknown.