"I don't need pity—" Loki's voice fractured, the sentence abandoned mid-breath as a heat prickled behind his eyes. His jaw clenched tight, the delicate lines of restraint carved into his face like marble. His hands, once calmly folded behind him in the illusion of composed nobility, curled into fists—tight, trembling.

No. He didn’t do tears. Not in front of anyone. Not even them.

He turned his head sharply to the side, the movement precise, almost regal, as if denying even the tear itself the satisfaction of falling. The gleam in his eyes betrayed him, and he loathed it. Loathed how it surprised him—how something as small as this, as human as this, still had the power to undo him. How could he not break? He was neither Asgardian nor Jotun. A prince, yes—but never the king. Loved in fragments, trusted in none. His very being stitched together from paradoxes and disappointments. Every identity given to him felt borrowed, conditional.

Loki’s voice returned in a low, venomous hiss, more directed at himself than anyone else. "I am so tired of this." Of pretending. Of grasping at thrones. Of being the afterthought in his own story.

And then—warmth.

The unexpected weight of their hand on his shoulder. Gentle. No fanfare. No confrontation. Just presence. Steady and real. His face crumpled before he could stop it, the mask falling in a quiet, shattering collapse. "Insufferable being," he muttered, voice thick with emotion, the insult soft and cracked at the edges—stripped of its usual venom. As if mockery could still be armor. But even that wasn’t enough now.

Not when kindness hurt more than any blade.