Okay, so, double standard. [He scoffs a little, but for once he doesn't mean it too unkindly. Frowns, rubs a spot between his brows, tries to figure out how to say all this.] If the gem hadn't intervened, you probably would've hated me, too. Or at least, you wouldn't have cared. You didn't know who I was, except apparently someone with heart. No reason for you to care, with or without the damn thing. You get this goes both ways, right?

[The thing that they both hated was the thing that brought them together, that touched their minds together, that brought about some twisted variation of care that maybe has lingered on long after the influence has departed. Why would Loki have cared otherwise? No reason for it. And now the only good reason to care is the debt of guilt crushing him down.

It doesn't have to be complicated, but it is anyway.]

In the universe I spend my time in, the Avengers broke up years ago. You faked your death, took over for Odin for a while, saw a planet die, [look, they don't all talk the way they used to, ever since the breaking up, but he still hears plenty] and then died again, possibly for real. Never joined us, when there was still an us. You had bigger fish to fry than to bother with the rest of us.