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Chapter Text

Prologue

The child was born small. Far too small. It was a time of war, of death, of hunger. Food went first to the mothers-to-be or nursing babes, the children, and the aging, but the shortage wore on them all even so. For the last fifty years of the war, children born rarely survived past a decade, if not succumbing to hunger or illness sooner. Laufey was not expecting to father a child. When Faurbauti gave him the unexpected news, he pretended to see it as the blessing she did. Jotunheim rejoiced. "This is a sign," they said. "The tides will turn," they said. "The next King," they said. But Laufey was very afraid. He gave everything to Faurbauti—all the food he could spare. He kept her out of battle, despite her prowess as a mage. It was not enough.

The child was born small.

Laufey had never seen an infant so small. It would not nurse—it did not have the strength. Faurbauti tried everything she knew and cried when she told him that their son would not survive the week. The grief was already destroying her. Laufey wouldn't let it.

The truth he could never tell Farbauti was that he didn't care for the child. He had no name for it. He had no plans for it. He wouldn't even acknowledge it as anything more than 'the child' in his mind. It was a child, and it was going to die, he knew before it was even born. He did not let himself get attached.

And yet... Farbauti loved it. Loved it more than anything else, more than her own life. She would die for her child without hesitation. She would die with it.

Laufey, King of Jotunheim, was strong enough to accept the death of his child without any grief of his own. But he could not live with the grief of his wife.

In the dead of night, the King of Jotunheim searched the library with rabid fervor. The Aesir armies were growing close—his generals begged for his aid. But he would not go to them, even as the light of the Bifrost became visible, a brilliant flash of color rending the night sky and booming like thunder. He knew the pattern well—every hour, two new legions sent and one recalled. Every half hour, the injured returned to their realm, along with the bodies of the dead. He ignored the bursts of light outside the gaping library windows, refused to let guilt find a hold in him. Laufey was known as a fair king, a just king, perhaps even a wise king. He was not known as selfless. His people died without him, and he found it hard to care. In the city streets, they rioted. Asgard drew ever nearer.

In an ancient spellbook, pages brittle from a millennium of chill and ink long faded from black to slate gray, he found the answer. A long-forgotten spell used to bring warriors back from the brink of death, or cure those with an incurable illness. It revitalized the life force of dying Jotnar with the Casket of Ancient Winters, the life force of all Jotunheim.

Outside the great city of Utgard, the legions of Asgard were within sight. He told Faurbauti to flee to the mountains. He promised he'd join her soon—with a healthy, strong son. Drafting a nearby legion of guards and a handful of seidfolk, they made haste for the temple where the Casket was housed. The Aesir were coming for it. That was their goal, it was clear to all of Jotunhiem. They wanted to take the Casket, the very heart of Jotunheim. Her lifesbreath. Laufey couldn't care less if they claimed it—as long as they waited til after he had saved the life of his son.

Their klakepnan raced over the ice-plains, faster and more efficient than any Aesir horse. Even the crown princess's wolf couldn't match the speed of Jotunheim's native beasts on the ice-plains. The seidfolk rode as close together as they could manage, pouring over the tattered old tome and planning their spell in urgent voices, raised loud to travel over the cutting fingers of the wind. Even riding at top speed it took three hours to reach the temple, rather than one. Jotunheim had conjured a blizzard to protect herself—and the closer to the Casket they were, the harsher it became. They pressed on. And finally, the temple was in sight through the glimmering sheets of snow that were her shield. Laufey had the sinking realization, as he unwrapped his son from the furs that had sheltered him on the journey only to see him pale and still, that if the spell did not succeed, the boy would not live to see the setting of the sun. His son could not handle the chill of the journey.

The seidfolk lit the torches throughout the temple and flooded it with dancing azure light, casting harsh shadows against the walls and floors. Laufey held his son and watched as they prepared for the spell, making markings on the ground with paints and burning herbs he did not recognize. Outside, the legion he’d drafted waited to defend the temple at all costs if the Aesir tried to storm it while the spell was being performed. Laufey tried to rekindle his apathy, but found he couldn't maintain it when his son blinked up at him, a little color coming back into his face as his father cradled him by a roaring cauldron of balefire. He had gotten attached, and part of him resented his son for it. The rest of him focused on nothing but seeing the spell through, for there was no other alternative.

Laufey gave up his son when the seidfolk requested it of him, though it took him a few moments to let go. The seidkona who took his son smiled at him. "He will live, my king. Do not fear." He feared anyway.

They laid his son down next to the casket, surrounded by a circle of runes, wrapped in only a single fur. As one, the seidfolk began to chant, in the ancient language of Jotunheim that few now knew outside of the mages of the realm. And the royalty, of course. The runes began to light as the chant grew in fervor and volume. Though it was less of a chant, and more of a song. A song of the ice and snow, a song that sparked a glow inside of him, a pride in himself and his people and his realm. It felt like home. He listened in silence and watched as a ribbon in seidr of many colors connected his son and the Casket. The runes grew brighter.

The light from the runes flared, and Laufey had to close his eyes and shield his face. When he looked back, the runes had dimmed to a faint glow, and the magical tie between his son and the Casket was no longer comprised of the seidr of the mages present. Instead, all the power of a thousand winters rushed from the Casket into his son through a small channel. The chanting tapered off.

"We wait," a seidmadr said quietly. "When he is hale, we will cut off the tie and bind the gathered energy to his own life-force. The spell will be complete." They waited in silence. Laufey stared hungrily at his son, at the raw, unbridled life pouring into him. Tentatively, he started to allow himself to dream of names.

The peaceful silence backed by the howl of the protective blizzard around them was unceremoniously sliced through by the unmistakable roar of the Bifrost as it crashed into the ground. The temple walls shook.

Laufey roared, enraged. "Outside," he bellowed. "Protect your prince!" The seidfolk rushed to obey him, all on his heels as he raced for the temple doors. Out in the storm, his people battled fiercely with a small group of Aesir. Only ten, but the King was among them. Still Laufey was confident in his victory. Jotunheim fought with them, after all.

The battle was fierce and bloody. Laufey fought with the ferocity of ten men—as did Odin. They met on the battlefield, gravitated together, as was fitting for two kings of two worlds at war. "You will die," Odin snarled. Laufey snarled back. The Aesir-king was a warrior beyond any Laufey had battled before, but desperation allowed him to fight as he never had. He took Odin's eye with a howl of triumph, but not one of his people echoed it. With the Aesir-king beaten on the ground, Laufey turned to face his people. A little less than half of his warriors and three seidfolk were still fighting. Laufey joined them with a battle cry. He thought no more of the Aesir king behind him, until  the last Aesir was slain, and the Bifrost lit again.

"Their king has fled us," Laufey declared to the remaining warriors with a vicious smile that showed all his teeth. A predator's smile. He turned to the two remaining seidkonar. "Can you finish the spell?" The blizzard began to die with the retreat of the Aesir, and hope began again when they nodded, battle-weary but determined. They raced for the temple.

That hope was left dashed and bleeding on the ground, crushed under the weight of grief and leaving the king of all Jotunhiem feeling like a bloody smear on the ground. The Casket was gone. As was his son. His son.

Laufey howled.

"How could they," Frigga growled, holding her new son tight to her chest, fierce but gentle in the way she cradled his little body. "How could they do such a thing to an innocent child!?"

Odin shook his head, weary and heartsick. "I know not." His mind flashed back to the gruesome scene he had left behind. When Heimdall had reported Laufey was fleeing with his child and wife, Odin had expected it. Was pleased, even, though why would he not be? A war was being won. And then Heimdall had sent another messenger to report what he had seen in Jotunheim's Temple of A Thousand Snows, home of the Casket of Ancient Winters. Odin thought of Thor, and his choice was made. He went to the most loyal warriors he knew. Of them, only nine agreed to accompany him to Jotunheim.

"A rescue mission?" Aldan sneered. "In Jotunheim? For Laufey's get?"

Of those warriors, Heimdall had reported all dead. Odin grieved them—they were good men. Because of them, he had a second son. A new child. Why did they fight, a part of him wondered. If war led to such things as the sacrifice of a child... again he thought of Thor and shuddered. He thought of Hela and his blood chilled further.

"Loki," Frigga crooned to the child in her arms. "Your name is Loki."

"Fire?" Odin asked incredulously. He turned his head slightly, the better to see his child—the eyepatch was hard to get used to. "A Jotun named after fire?"

Frigga nodded. A deadly expression turned her sweet face to murderous. "They will have none of him. No ties. Nothing. If they were willing to sacrifice a helpless child, why should they get any part of him? We are his parents now."

"Loki," Odin agreed. Fire was warmth, and strength, lively and hopeful. Life-giving. Fierce. He nodded. "Loki Odinson." 

Beneath the palace, the Casket slumbered. The young prince cooed.

Chapter 1: And as Always, it Begins

One thousand and fifty two years later: after the fall of Asgard

“Loki?” Thor rapped lightly on the wall with his knuckles. When Loki didn't stir he frowned, crossing the room to sit on the bed at his brother’s side. “Loki.” He shook his brother by the shoulder, carefully. Loki scrunched up his nose and whined. “Could you not sleep last night?” Thor asked. He tangled a hand in his baby brother’s hair, cradling the back of Loki’s skull. “Are you feeling alright, brother?”

That question at last prompted Loki to force open his eyes and drag himself into a sitting position. Thor sat back as Loki yawned and combed a hand through scraggly raven curls. His hand got caught on a knot, and Loki huffed in annoyance before starting to try and pick it out with his fingers. “‘M fine.”

”Conjure a brush,” Thor suggested, a hint of fond amusement in his voice. Loki blinked at him for a few seconds before the words reached his brain. A sheepish expression flashed over the crown prince’s face as a brush appeared in his hand.

"Thanks," Loki said as he started to run it through his hair.

"Let me," Thor said, scooting closer and grabbing the brush when the silvertongue held it out to him. Clambering around on the bed until he got behind his brother, Thor folded his legs beneath him. The mattress sagged under his weight as he started to work out the tangles in Loki's hair with rhythmic brush strokes. "You look tired. Are you alright?"

"I already said I was fine, didn't I?" Loki groused good-naturedly, turning around to make a face at his older brother.

Thor made a face back and poked Loki's cheek until he turned around again. "You did."

"Fair point," Loki acknowledged after a moment.

"Do you ever stop squirming?" Thor grunted at him as he tried to pick out another knot.

"I'm sitting perfectly still!" Loki yelped, incensed.

"You keep moving!"

Loki shook his head wildly. The brush stayed stuck in his hair, and Thor lunged after it with a growl. Loki yelped as Thor wrestled it out of the chaotic curls that held it captive. "Stop pulling my hair! And anyway," he continued before Thor could inform him that he was absolutely not pulling his hair, "I'm not moving. You're moving, and that moves the whole bed because you are the size of a bilgesnipe, I swear." He paused. "And you're bad at combing my hair. Give me the brush."

"Hey!" Thor jolted back, holding the brush to his chest when Loki tried to steal it. "You still have your hair! I don't get to comb mine anymore—let me comb yours!"

"You're the one who's keeping your hair cut short," Loki grumbled, but he ceased trying to take the brush back. "My hair is different from yours," he complained, sitting still and letting the thunderer resume hacking at the tangles in his hair. "You know how to comb your hair, not mine. Mine is harder to tame."

"Because you butcher it with all those gels," Thor hummed.

Loki pouted. "Mean."

"I'm just quoting Mother," Thor pointed out. Before the atmosphere could grow melancholy, he kept talking. "I guess you don't use as much anymore. Why not?" Not that it was a bad change—Thor preferred it curly.

"Mother always said she liked it better this way," Loki admitted eventually.

Thor's stomach dropped. Clearly, his topic change had failed. They sat together in silence as Thor finished brushing out Loki's hair. "There. Done." He handed back the brush, which vanished as soon as Loki took it. "You do look tired, though."

Loki's head jerked up, and his eyes narrowed in a glare that softened moments later. "Maybe a little," he allowed. The tiny surge of pride, that his younger brother was willing to open up to him, almost made Thor miss Loki's next words. "I'm sure I'll be fine, brother."

"Go to bed early tonight," Thor told him. Shifting backwards to use the headboard for support, he wrapped his arms around Loki and pulled the mischief-maker to lean against his chest. "You need to sleep."

"Stop mothering meeee," Loki whined as he leaned into Thor's hold. They lapsed back into silence moments later.

"You remember what today is, don't you?" Thor asked. 

Loki tipped his head back to look the king in the eye. "Oh, no, I'd totally forgotten," he drawled in a complete deadpan. "Of course I remember! I'm about to get a faceful of arrows, after all. And a shield, and bullets, and—"

Thor put a hand over his mouth to cut him off. "I'll prote—HEY!"

Loki laughed, half twisting to leer at him. The prince stuck out his tongue before turning back around. "Hey. Thor. You're squishing me." Thor smirked next to Loki's ear, and squeezed tighter. "Can't... breathe..." Loki gasped dramatically. "Suffocated... by my own... brother... ack!" Thor laughed at him as he let his brother go, having successfully licked Loki's face while he was distracted. "You're disgusting!" Loki screeched, flinging himself around and backpedaling rapidly, until he nearly fell off the edge of the bed.

"You did it first," Thor retorted, smug.

Growling, Loki looked directly into Thor's eye, lifted his hand up, and slowly, theatrically licked from palm to fingertips. They stared at each other, and then the trickster lunged, hand outstretched.

Five minutes later, the brothers collapsed in a giggling pile on the center of a thoroughly messed-up bed. "Truce, truce," Thor wheezed through his laughter. Loki just panted. They laid there for an indeterminable amount of time before Loki groaned.

"You messed my hair up again."

Thor sighed. "Give me the brush then." They settled back down in short order, as if the brief scuffle had never occurred. "It's okay to be scared, you know. Bruce and I will vouch for you, though. And if they won't let you stay... we'll go somewhere else. Vanaheim, maybe." Thor set down the brush to grab Loki by the shoulder and spin them face to face. "Got it?"

Loki ducked his head. "We can't afford to keep traveling that long. We have to stop on Earth, and stay there."

Thor put a finger under the mischief-maker's chin, tipping his face upwards. He waited until green eyes met blue to speak. "Loki. I'm not going to sacrifice you for Asgard. Understand?" Knawing on his lip, Loki didn't speak. Finally, he gave a tiny nod. With a smile, Thor spun the silvertongue back around to continue fixing his hair. "It'll be fine, brother. Really." Loki leaned back against him with a small sigh. Quickly, Thor settled back into the rhythm of brushing, though it took less effort since he'd already worked out all the tangles. On a whim, he put down the brush, but pressed down on Loki's shoulder when he tried to get up. "Stay."

Starting at one temple, Thor made a small braid that circled all the way to the back of Loki's head. When he held out a hand, Loki provided him with a pin without prompting. After securing the braid in place, Thor started on the opposite side. When the two braids met in the middle, he pulled out the pin and turned two braids into one. He then added a mix of miniature braids all throughout Loki's hair. "Now you can move."

Loki waved a hand through the air in front of his face. Thor leaning over his little brother's shoulder in order to see, both Odinsons studied the dark-haired prince's reflection. Another gesture, and the artificial mirror showed the back of Loki's head. "Not bad," he remarked, but his tone conveyed both pleasure and thanks.

"No problem," Thor kissed the top of Loki's head. "It'll be okay, Loki. Really."

Loki hummed. "I know. I trust you."

"Now, can you help us in the control room? We're trying to figure out how to let Earth know we're coming so there's no, you know, widespread panic."

Smirking, Loki tilted his head to the side. Emerald eyes sparkled. "Lead the way."

Six hours later, Loki peered out the bay window of the ship's bridge-turned-temporary-throne-room, trying to ignore the star-speckled blackness pressing in from all sides. Focusing instead on the blue-and-green marble steadily growing larger as the distance between them closed. To his left stood Thor, to his right Brunnhilde, and Bruce on the other side of Thor. Heimdall stood across the room, having declined a spot at the window. "I can see Earth without a window," he'd said, quirking an eyebrow, when Thor had beckoned him over.

Trepidation was steadily growing inside of Loki, building up exponentially closer they got. Midgard. Earth. Terra. Call it what you would, but it was a planet that Loki was most definitely not looking forward to setting foot on again. Not after New York. For a multitude of reasons. Thor's hand came down on his shoulder, squeezing lightly. Loki realized he'd been hiking up his shoulders, and dropped them back down again, but the tension inside him didn't ease.

He wasn't afraid of the Midgardians, not really. They couldn't really hurt him—he hoped. The paranoia in him was quick to remind him that danger was everywhere, even in the most innocuous-seeming of places. No, he wasn't afraid of the Midgardians. What Loki feared had everything to do with the people currently standing by his side. Whether they would continue to stand with him... or leave him to his fate. A deserved fate. He felt a touch of dizziness, nausea pooling in the pit of his stomach at the thought of Thor turning him aside, turning him over to the humans and their whims. The darkest corners of his mind, fed by a thousand years on Asgard, nourished to blossoming when under the Titan's care—the part of him he hated above all else—was satisfied by those thoughts. Good, it told him. You're better on your own. You don't need them. Trust is a weakness. The rest of him, the squishy, vulnerable parts that he also hated, whimpered at the thought of Thor's rejection. Of any one of them turning him away. Bruce was a Midgardian, surely he'd take the side of his people—stop, Loki commanded himself. He knawed on the inside of his cheek in place of wringing his hands, a nervous gesture that Thor would most certainly recognize even if none of the others did.

"Loki," Thor said softly. "I won't let them cage you. I'll protect you. We all will." Brunnhilde's hand came to rest on his other shoulder, though unlike Thor's it quickly drifted away.

Loki scoffed. "I'm not worried." He hoped none of them noticed how his voice wavered, and knew that they all did.

Earth drew closer.

"You have the right coordinates?" Loki asked impulsively. "The coordinates for your... compound. Yes?"

"Yes, Loki," Thor said, sounding altogether too indulgent for Loki's tastes. His fingers itched for a knife. "We'll go to the right place."

"Loki," Bruce said. The trickster bent around his brother in order to peer at the mortal. "I'm nervous too. I haven't seen them in years, and the last time I did..." he trailed off. "You're in good company."

Thor's hand shifted from his shoulder to rub up and down his back. A stubborn warm glow grew in his chest, and refused to be crushed under the weight of apprehension. He couldn't lose this, Loki realized with startling clarity. He couldn't lose this family—he couldn't take it. He was pathetic, utterly pathetic, but he couldn't take it. Even if the mortals tossed him in jail and Thor said not a word, if they came for him he would go crawling back. Loki felt sick at himself. All that pride—and what was the result? Useless useless useless. No, breathe.

Loki periodically forgot to keep breathing during their descent. Thor's hand on his back helped marginally, but he still struggled to remember to continue inhaling and exhaling normally. It became both better and worse once the planet blocked out every star, every bit of black. It wouldn't be long before he met his fate—before he found out whether Thor truly meant the promises he so blithely made. Then mountain ranges capped in white became visible, as did silver lakes and sprawling forests that looked, from afar, like patches of moss. Before he knew it, they were hovering above a large building, and the bay window looked out not on the stars, but a series of sleek buildings, white-and-glass and accented with the Avengers' symbol, all arranged around a large lawn and guarded by a larger forest on three sides and the ocean on the other. The silvertongue shivered when the ship touched down, ceding to gravity at last. It felt like destiny. This would be their home, now. Not the exact spot, but... the planet. They were home. The word didn't fit quite right in his mouth, like it didn't belong anymore. Wasn't for him.

They walked side by side down the hallways of the Statesman, Bruce-Thor-Loki-Valkyrie, from left to right. The brothers side by side, Brunn and Bruce a half-step behind. A united, cohesive front—Thor's idea. Hanging out the doors of their rooms to watch, citizens waved, cheered, and applauded like they were heading off to a war. It certainly felt like heading off to war. Loki gave into the urge to scratch at his palm, until Thor grabbed his hand to still it. Loki flushed and looked away when Thor met his eyes and gave him a reassuring smile. The thunderer didn't release his hand.

Loki stopped just before the door where the gangplank would be lowered, preparing for them to embark. His hand in Thor's yanked them both to a stop, and their friends (their friends, how strange that still was to think) halted with them.

"Loki?" Thor asked, turned to look at his little brother.

"Fine," Loki said, heart fluttering wildly in his chest. He just barely kept himself from swaying on his feet. Oh, he felt sick. He was going to throw up right then and there, or worse—at Stark's feet. What an impression to make, as if his first impression hadn't been bad enough. The smile he gave Thor was utterly fake. "Carry on."

Thor's eye was terribly worried, but he nodded. On his signal, the doors dropped. Loki let go of Thor's hand as the doors eased forward, revealing a slice of blue sky that steadily grew larger. Whether because he didn't want to implicate his brother or so Thor couldn't let go first, he wasn't sure. The figures he'd caught sight of through the windows waited on the large landing space—two bulky and metallic in red and silver, respectively, one with berry-red skin in a green suit and a yellow cape trailing behind. Stark, he deduced easily from his distinctive armor. Though he didn't know the other two, he recognized the strange, garishly-colored figure. The power radiating from it in heavy waves was unmistakable, and if that wasn't enough, the glint of yellow in its' forehead certainly was. Loki bit his tongue until blood burst in his mouth—he knew that power well. Only force of will (and Thor at his side) keep him from fleeing, fainting, or losing the contents of his stomach on the spot. Moving forward on the gangplank, and closer to the stone, felt like swimming through molasses in difficulty.

"Point Break!" Stark called from his spot some twenty feet away. The mask of his suit flipped up, revealing the man behind the armor—in more ways than one. "Long time no see, Point Break. Though you're not really Point Break anymore, are you? More of a Jack Sparrow thing going on, now? Like the eyepatch. How'd you get it?" His not-so-subtle glance at Loki clearly betrayed his guess. "And I see you brought baby brother, good old Real Power. How's it going, buddy? Tried to take over another planet lately? Maybe just a country? A rural village?"

"Where are the rest of you?" Loki asked bluntly. The man's blabbering was wearing on his nerves. "The captain, the widow... your archer?" The hesitation before 'archer' was slight, but Loki was under no delusions that everyone there hadn't caught it. His knees nearly buckled when the creature caught his eye. Metal, Loki realized faintly. It was a construct of metal. They'd given the stone a body. The prince was hard put not to start hysterically laying in on Stark, and possibly Banner and Thor depending on their involvement, for their foolishness. As always, he swallowed his words, along with a swell of nausea. He could taste sick at the back of his throat, and almost made a face before he remembered he was being watched and the queasiness came back with a vengeance.

"Not here." The mechanic said shortly. "Green bean!" The eye he turned to Bruce was significantly friendlier than any he'd levied towards Loki (or Thor, surprisingly) thus far. "How'd you end up in space, man? Having parties with the vikings, without me? I am wounded." He was hurt by it, Loki deduced with surprise. That was interesting. The paranoid part of him filed the observation away, to do what with he didn't know. "Aaand," Stark turned and pointed at Brunnhilde. "I don't have a nickname for you. I don't know you. I'll have to think of a nickname for you. Xena? You strike me as a Xena-ish type. Or She-Ra. Scary sword. Ooh, scary face."

"Is he always like this?" Brunn hissed desperately towards Thor.

"Not always," Thor said back, mildly. "Only when he's nervous. Or trying to be irritating. Or—well. Most of the time really. But not all the time."

"I'm gonna die," Brunnhilde said bleakly. "Actually, no. He is."

"Don't kill him," Bruce said.

"You know better than to ask that of me."

"You haven't killed me yet," Loki pointed out, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. "I'm sure you can do it."

She patted his arm with a slight smirk. "You're different, Lackey."

"Actually he's a lot like you," Thor remarked suddenly. "What with the drinking and the nicknames."

"Compare me to that moron one more time and your new nickname will be blind," Brunnhilde threatened. Thor raised his hands in surrender.

"So are we gonna go inside or are we gonna stand out here while you guys put on the free soap opera?" Stark asked. "Not that I'm opposed. I love a good TV drama."

"Inside," Thor said decisively. Stark turned to lead the way, clearly nervous putting his back to them. The other armor-clad man and the actually metal man fell in behind them. Loki could feel the thing's eyes on his back. He repressed a shudder. Having his back to a potential (certain) enemy itched in all of the worst ways. Thor fell in step next to Loki, bumping their shoulders together as if he knew what Loki was thinking, and the trickster shot him a surprised—and moderately grateful—look. "Breathe, Loki," Thor reminded softly. "Keep breathing."

Out of nowhere and with intensity, Loki was hit with a wave of loathing. He was acting like a small child of two hundred, unable to keep himself together for longer than a moment before falling apart in tears and requiring his big brother to cosset him better. Weak. Pathetic. He was absolutely weak and pathetic and he wanted to run, run, run, and hide where no one could find him and be sick and hatefully, he still wanted his brother. He wanted Thor to hold him, to make it better, and he hated himself vehemently for it. Disgusting. Breathe. Keep breathing.

Stark led them down through the building and across the lawn, up through another building and across a skywalk, back outside, and down a flight of outdoor stairs. They entered through a set of glass doors into a small sitting room, and passed through a conference room and a lab before reaching a much larger living space, connected to a kitchen, and gestured at the multiple cushioned seats in navies, browns, and blacks surrounding a low coffee table. Loki took a seat with his back to the windows—consequently facing most of the entrances, though he did have his back to an outdoor sitting space—and Thor dragged another over to sit directly next to him. Loki huffed when Brunnhilde adjusted the sheath of her sword, yanked another seat over with a grating screech, and plopped down, slinging her legs over the mischief-maker's lap. "Your armor pinches," Loki complained, glaring at her for the sake of appearances. Pretending like he wasn't moments away from crawling out of his skin and heading for the hills.

She smirked back, crossing one ankle over the other. "Tough luck, highness." The weight of her legs on him was grounding—a piece of him hated that she probably knew that, and had done so for the purpose of reassuring him. The rest was grateful. Loki wanted to tear his hair out.

Bruce laughed at her comment, sitting down on Thor's other side. Stark stayed standing, watching his feet as the man-who-had-yet-to-be-named and the mind stone filed in, each choosing seats on the opposite side of the dark, circular coffee table. After a moment where Stark clearly considered staying on his feet, he sat down between them. His armor melted back into the reactor on his chest—Loki had to admit, even in his dazed, panicking state, that it was impressive. Unlike Stark, the man in the silver armor didn't remove his—his mask flipped up, but that was all. "So, are you going to introduce us?" the creature asked after a minute. Loki nearly fell off his chair when he realized it could speak.

Thor cleared his throat. "Well, you know Loki and Bruce. That's Val. Valkyrie. Brunnhilde."

"Call me Valkyrie or I'll cut out your tongue," she said pleasantly. "We clear? Good."

"I am Vision," the creature introduced itself. Loki spun to glare and Bruce and Thor, just enough to keep the thing in his sights.

"That's Vision?!" he yelped, pointing. "You said he was unusual, not... not that he has the mind stone in his forehead!" They exchanged guilty looks.

"Sorry," Thor mumbled. "Slipped my mind?"

Irritation almost overriding his fear, Loki gritted his teeth. "Do not lie to me."

"I'm sorry, Loki," Bruce apologized. "We should have told you." The sincere apology and Thor's regretful expression went a long way towards curbing Loki's ire, though now all his dark fears and impulses had been provided with ample fuel. They lied to you once, his mind whispered, what else are they lying about? And, you can't trust them. If they're willing to lie, why won't they just give you up? They betrayed you. And, worst of all—so betray them back.

Brunn poked his side with a finger, drawing him from his thoughts. "I didn't know either, Lackey," she said. The reminder helped take the edge off of his fears, even as the familiar urge to cut and run rose up. Like it did every time he realized someone knew him, understood him. Something he'd been craving with such intensity for so long and yet now every time it happened he was hard-pressed not to withdraw and throw up all his walls and never emerge from behind his shell again. If they know you, they know how to hurt you, murmured a thought that stank of Sanctuary. He could almost taste the blood on his tongue, and it made him dizzy again. When Thor's hand settled on the small of his back, Loki pressed into the touch just a bit. Not enough for anyone to tell.

"Colonel James Rhodes. Rhodey," the other man added after a bit of silence. Next to him, Stark looked stricken. Eyes wide, staring at Bruce as though he had never seen him before. Expression flavored with something Loki knew far too well—betrayal.

The room went quiet. Loki shifted his gaze to stare aimlessly out the window, over Stark's shoulder. Trying to ignore... Vision. Trying to pretend the thing wasn't there, as difficult as that was when the whole room was shrouded in great drifts of energy that fogged his brain and clogged his senses.

"This feels really awkward," Bruce observed.

"My brother is not evil," Thor announced, cutting to the chase. Loki rolled his eyes. Ever so direct, brother, he thought. But will he keep it up, when push comes to shove—Loki shook his head slightly to banish the thoughts, the movement barely perceptible unless someone was watching closely. Thor's hand moved up and down his back, just once before settling again.

"At least, not evil seventy-five percent of the time," Brunnhilde added. Loki leaned over and poked her in the stomach, frowning dramatically.

"Not helpful, Brunn," he pouted, tossing his hair for effect.

"You two are no longer allowed to speak," Thor sighed, grabbing Loki by the upper arm and hauling him back into a sitting position.

"What about Bruce?" Loki asked, faux-petulantly. "Why does he get to talk?"

"Because he doesn't make things worse for the fun of it," the king of Asgard grumbled. "Now shut up."

Loki pinched his lips together and went quiet, very carefully refusing to think the words that were trying to press in on him. Know your place. He hated that he was so vulnerable. Dependant. If there was anything he'd learned in his thousand-odd years of life, it was that the only person he could count on was himself—and yet he was relying on Thor. For some reason. That he didn't want to look at too closely.

Thor and Stark had started arguing, with occasional comments inserted by Bruce or Rhodes. Loki, Brunn, and the mind stone stayed quiet. The thing kept trying to catch his eye. He hated it. The power was so heavy in the air, he didn't understand how no one else felt it. Magical sensitivity or no the thing reeked power. Sticky, insidious, ready to scoop out his insides and replace him with hateful blue, rearranging his head, tossing out some memories and twisting others, pulling together a patchwork monster that was him and not and—"Breathe, Loki," Brunnhilde reminded. Loki just barely held back a shameful whimper.

He shook his head, hair bouncing in his face, a tiny braid glancing off of his nose—a reminder of Thor's handiwork. The power of the mind stone was enveloping the room, surrounding them, squishing them together like a trash compactor and stealing all the oxygen. Not that Loki needed it to survive, he'd found that out the hard way. But not having air still wasn't pleasant. He liked having air. Loki sucked in a shallow breath, and shook his head again. He was fine. He blinked, and the only thing behind his eyes was blue. A fist flew up to press against his mouth, holding in the bile threatening to spill over. Get a grip, Loki snarled at himself.

Dizziness clung to the edges of his mind, slowly creeping inwards to infect his thoughts. He felt like he was in a dream, or a hallucination, or a vision (ha) caused by the Stone. Not the Stone, the stone. Just a rock. Just an incredibly powerful rock. Biting down on a knuckle, Loki rocked back and forth once before he caught himself and forced himself still. Rigid, even.

"Loki?" The Asgardian prince swallowed hard, lifting up his face to catch his brother's worried eye. "Loki, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," Loki tried to smile, but it fell miserably flat. "Nothing." He scowled, that came easier. "Stop pestering me."

"You're pale," Thor said in a low voice. Banner was speaking to Stark—arguing—distracting—and Loki was grateful for it. Hopefully at least one person wasn't watching him break down, thought the stone undoubtedly was. Nothing it hasn't seen. "You're sweating, and your pupils are blown."

"Is he okay?" Brunn asked, suddenly also leaning into his personal space. She waved a hand in front of his face, and frowned at whatever she saw. "He isn't tracking right. Loki, can you hear me?"

"I'm fine," Loki croaked irritably. "Stop..." he paused to fight through a wave of nausea, "fussing."

"You don't look well," Thor put a hand on his forehead, and his frown sharpened. "He's running a fever. I think he's sick. Is that why you've been so tired lately, brother? How are you feeling?"

Blinking at his older brother, Loki reevaluated how he was feeling. Dizzy, nauseous, foggy-headed and jittery... things he'd thought were caused by nerves that could very well be caused by illness instead. "Not great," he admitted. He reached up and removed Thor's hand from his face. "Carry on with your talk. I'll be fine."

"Bruce!" his older brother called, interrupting the argument going on. "Get over here."

"What is it?" Banner frowned and leaned closer when he saw Loki's face. "He doesn't look good."

"I am right here," Loki griped. "And I am fine."

"You have a fever," Thor rebutted.

Bruce pressed the back of his hand to Loki's forehead. "You are warm... and clammy too. And your color is off..."

"Hey!" Stark yelled, sharp. "Mind letting the rest of us in on the team huddle?"

With a huff, Banner spun around to face him. "Where's the bedrooms? Loki's not looking good."

"I am fine," Loki grumbled. "You didn't have to interrupt your discussion. I could have waited."

"Maybe," Thor said, infuriatingly patient, "but your health is important."

Loki kept his eyes down on the ground. Stark was hovering in the doorway, not quite in the room but clearly watching him, though at least Rhodes and the mind stone weren't there and staring as well. He'd much rather have sat through the discussion perhaps not feeling his best than to be laid bare under Stark's eyes, however. It made him itch. And he still felt like he was going to hurl.

"JARVIS, what's his temp?" Bruce asked, eyeing Loki critically.

"JARVIS is no more, Doctor Banner. I am FRIDAY, Mister Stark's new AI," a young female voice answered.

"Ah," Bruce blinked rapidly. "Sorry, FRIDAY. I forgot. It's... been a while. What's his temperature?"

"One oh two point three degrees Fahrenheit," FRIDAY answered.

"Stark has an AI?" Brunn asked, sounding grudgingly impressed. Bruce answered her, but Loki was no longer listening.

"Brother," Thor said softly. The bed Loki was perched on dipped down as the thunderer sat beside him. Thor's arm wrapped around his shoulders and pulled him close. "What's wrong? Are you feeling worse?"

Loki sighed, lowering his head, his hair tumbling down to form a curtain between him and the rest of the world. Thor was getting good at noticing when he was upset. He wasn't sure how to feel about that, yet. "It's fine."

Thor hummed. "Is it bothering you that Stark is here?" Surprised, Loki lifted his head to look at his brother. Thor smiled at him. "That's a yes, isn't it. Hey Banner!" he lifted his voice slightly. "Can you ask Stark to go? We can finish talking later."

Bruce turned away from his conversation with Brunnhilde. "Oh, sure, hang on a minute." He stood up, and a heated argument with Stark commenced before the man threw up his hands and left. He came back and stood in front of Loki, giving him a smile. "You're definitely sick with a fever like that. Can you tell me how you're feeling?"

"Sick," Loki said dryly. He shook his head and then provided an actual answer. "Dizzy. Nauseous. Feverish."

"Okay. How long have you been feeling bad?"

"Since last night," Loki admitted. "I thought I was simply overly worried about coming to Earth."

The scientist dragged a hand through his hair before giving Loki a smile. "I'm sure you'll be okay in a few days."

"Lie down," Thor said firmly. He yanked shut the heavy, wine-red curtains and dimmed the room. Obediently, Loki switched his armor for a looser tunic and trousers and then crawled under the covers. Thor and Bruce both sat down on opposite sides of the bed, while Brunnhilde stood at the foot, watching Loki closely.

"You're all staring at me," Loki said wryly, if a bit strained.

Thor gave him a sheepish smile. "We're just concerned. And you've started shivering."

"Oh," the trickster said faintly. He tried to stop, but wasn't successful. His stomach churned and he gulped down a wave of bile with a shudder.

"Get some rest," Bruce ordered. "We'll come back later." He stood up and left the room, and Brunnhilde with him. Thor stayed.

"Loki," Thor said softly. He cupped Loki's cheek with one large hand, and stroked back his hair with the other. "I'm not going to let them lock you up. I swear. We'll protect you." Loki cast his eyes toward the wall. He still wasn't used to Thor's new and uncanny ability to figure out what he was thinking. "Just sleep, Loki. It'll be okay." He stood, and left the room. The door clicked shut, and the room plunged into darkness.

Alone in what was apparently Thor's bedroom—the red color scheme and the heavy furs in dark colors did remind him of his brother—Loki curled in on himself and buried his head in a pillow. It didn't ease the steady pounding in his skull in the slightest. He breathed deeply through the persistent tide of nausea. Eventually, even with the fever and queasiness and body aches, fatigue won out and he was washed away by the heat in his veins. Unfortunately, it wasn't a relief.

He stood alone on a large field of ice, shivering in the freezing winds and wearing nothing but a thin loincloth. His knees trembled trying to hold him up under the onslaught of icy wind. A blizzard raged, a wall of swirling white that bit his skin everywhere it touched, barbs of cold digging in and worming their way for his heart. Nothing could be seen through the blank white expanse. Loki staggered under a particularly fierce gale and crashed to his knees, the crunch of snow inaudible over the winds. Icy tears streaked down his face, freezing his eyelashes near to shut. He wailed like a helpless babe, but his cry was swallowed up by the blizzard as soon as it left his lips. The snow stung his bare skin wherever it touched, soaking through his meager covering.

The unbearable cold quickly morphed into equally intense heat. He inhaled deeply, only to cough and hack as the air he drew in was filled with smoke. Loki tried to move his arms, but they were crossed over his chest and bound tight with rope. His ankles were tied together with the same. The rough cord cut into his skin and chafed it raw as he tried fruitlessly to fight his way free. He froze when a deep, rumbling voice started to laugh.

"A runt. Fully grown and perfect for dinner,"  the voice growled once the laughter had ceased.

Something poked his ankle. "Soft and tender meat," another, equally gravelly voice crowed. "Shall we eat it roasted or raw?"

"I want it raw!" "Let's roast it this time!" a chorus of harsh voices shouted over each other. A tear dripped down Loki's face and evaporated as it slid off of his cheek and careened down to the fire roaring beneath him. Shadows danced across the ceiling of the cave that held him, twisting into leering faces before shifting back to fluid, natural shapes, swirling again into hungry mouths full of fangs. The clicking of the Chitarui echoed in the fringes each time his captors laughed, arguing about how best to eat him.

"I want it with butter!" "I want the ribs!"

Loki's pride at last collapsed into nothing. "Thor. Please. HELP!" he cried. "Brother, please!"

The sound of laughter drowned out everything else, loud and harsh and filling the entire cave, covering up the crackling of the fire and echoing over and over itself until it sounded like he was screaming. Maybe he was, but he couldn't hear it.

"You think he'll save you? A jotun runt? Don't you remember boy? He gave you to us!" Finally, his captor revealed himself. Burning blood eyes gleamed madly in the firelight, set in a craggy cobalt face. Purple lips pulled back to reveal a row of curving fangs. As Loki watched, they lengthened and sharpened in the Jotun's mouth, crowding together and overlapping grotesquely. Sticky black ichor dripped down the fangs, eating into Loki's skin like acid where it hit. When he craned his neck to see, giant gaping holes had formed in his flesh. From those wounds, weeping the same black ichor, a tide of azure swept over his unblemished skin, squiggly scars rising in its' wake as peach was traded for blue. The horrible, viscous liquid that bubbled from his sores continued to eat away at his flesh wherever it touched. Cerulean skin peeled back to show coal-black bones. Oozing sores bubbled and burst on his chest as his stomach collapsed into a gaping cavern.

Loki heaved, but nothing came up—his stomach was gone, burned away to nothing. The flames soared up, or else he was lowered down into them, but waving tendrils of scarlet swallowed the fringes of his vision as sensations elevated to a new level of pain. The skin on his face flaked away, the ropes burning to ash in the fire. He tried to lunge for safety, out of the flames, but a spear of ice shoved him back onto the coals, and above that hateful face still loomed. Laughing.

Seconds before he was burned to ash, Loki finally realized that it was Laufey.

When he opened his eyes, he was cradled in a nest of downy white fluff. Furs, soft and silky against his cheek, pleasantly cool on skin that still burned with the reminder of fire. When he moved, he expected to shatter apart like a piece of pottery, but he snuggled further into the warm coverings without even a twinge of pain. The fur that he thought was pure white gleamed silver, then shifted to red, then orange. It danced through the whole spectrum, forming colors he didn't even know and had not a name for. Strobing patterns formed and broke like waves against the shore—dots and stripes and squiggles, triangles and sweeping panoramas of half-remembered stories he forgot again as soon as the after-images faded from his eyes.

Singing. Someone was singing, soft and low. A huge hand hovered in front of his face. One large finger, almost half the length of his body, stroked from the crown of his head down to the tip of his nose. Gentle. Sweet. Strange, from something so massive. Words were crooned in a language he didn't know, but it felt like home. The heat around him, though suffocating, was curbed slightly by the strangely chill furs and the icy finger that brushed against his face. A gargantuan hand moved to cradle his head, though his entire body could have rested easily in the palm of it. The touch was safer, kinder, than even the blanket swaddling him. It felt like a kiss against his searing skin. He blinked, and the fire was surrounding him. Blinked again, and it was back to the strange room, with ceilings that soared high above his sight and walls of soft, clear blues.

He drifted. It would be a long time before he realized the finger had also been blue.

Chapter Text

The commencing argument was explosive, and lasted for almost two hours. Everyone—except Vision, who kept trying to keep the peace—was shouting at some point. Thor was red-faced, all but nose-to-nose with Stark when the Vision finally cut between them. "Enough," he said firmly, setting a hand on each of their chests and pushing them apart. "You are acting like children." 

Thor's chest heaved as he tried to hang on to his temper. Bruce put a hand on one of his shoulders, and Brunnhilde's hand settled on the other with a firm squeeze. A spark popping by his knuckles pulled him back to himself even further, enough for the red haze clouding his mind to disperse. A few feet away, Stark and Rhodes were conversing in quiet but highly agitated voices. Thor closed his eye against them, breathed deeply to clear his mind. Starting a fight will do no good to Loki, he reminded himself. When he opened his eye again, Stark seemed to have set aside his anger as well—for the most part. "Please don't tell earth that we're here," Thor said when he felt like he could keep his voice level. "There are things we haven't told you yet. More important than the destruction of Asgard. About the fate of the universe—and why Loki’s been pardoned. There were bigger hands pulling the strings.

"It wasn't him," Thor finished, unable to keep himself from inserting that small plea for his brother. Stark's eyes darkened further the longer he talked. His expression blackened for just a moment when Thor finished speaking, and then the clouds in his face cleared, but still he stayed solemn. Like a thunderhead passing over to leave an overcast sky. Still threatening rain, but no longer a storm.

"Tell me, then."

The king of Asgard craned his neck sideways to see around the mound of blankets in his arms. On either side of him, Bruce and Brunnhilde were equally weighed down by piles of fresh sheets, linens, and clothes. Citizens rushed back and forth through the halls of the statesman, calling for children or ferrying armfuls of supplies themselves. The compound was equipped for a large number of on-site staffers—fortunately, there were none but Stark himself and the Vision in residence when the Asgardians arrived. For a moment, Thor let himself wish that Loki was there with them. He was much more skilled at the organizing side of things than any of the rest of them, though Bruce admittedly wasn’t bad at it. Thor brushed off the thought with the stern reminder that Loki was sick and needed to sleep—and then pushed away that thought before he could start thinking about going to check up on him or he'd never get anything done.

They'd already decided to keep a portion of the citizens living on the Statesman, since the compound couldn't room all of them, and splitting up the people allowed more space for everyone—a much needed change from their current jam-packed state of living. But for now, before they started divvying up space again, they were simply providing fresh supplies for the citizens' use. New bedsheets, hygiene items, cleaned clothing—small things that would make everyone feel much more at home, even if they were different than what had been on Asgard. By now, the remaining people were quite used to adapting to whatever they could get.

Stark had agreed to provide dinner once they gave him an estimate of the amount needed, but warned that he wouldn't be able to hide the large purchases required to feed the Asgardian people more than a handful of times. They would have to find some other way to provide food, or the government would start to wonder why Stark was buying so much for a supposedly empty compound. Thor had no clue how to deal with the issue—another problem that Loki would certainly know how to work around. His little brother was skilled in matters of state, even if he pretended he wasn't. Thor had seen his talents put to use firsthand, time and time again, over their long months of space travel.

The group dumped their supplies in an ever-growing pile on the bridge and hurried back out to collect more of whatever they could. Outside, Thor paused and glanced over his shoulder, toward the living quarters, instead of turning directly for the supply closets. "You can go check on him," Bruce offered. "There are plenty enough people to move everything we need."

Thor desperately wanted to go, but he shook his head. "I'm the king. I can't just stand back and force my people to do everything by themselves."

Brunn snorted. "Like Odin did?"

Thor reddened but couldn't dispute her words, nor did he really want to. "Well, that's not what I'm going to do. Asgard needs a different kind of king."

"Your brother needs you too," the Valkyrie pointed out gently. The thunderer glared at her. He knew that, he was already feeling torn—he didn't need her to make it worse.

"Do we know where he could have caught whatever he has?" Bruce changed the subject. Passing Thor a box full of... something... he continued, "so I can at least try to treat him."

With a sigh, Thor shook his head. He hefted the box further in his arms as they entered the elevator to bring them back to the hangar roof. "No, I don't. But he has been seeming more tired the past few weeks—you've noticed that right?" he interrupted himself. Brunnhilde and Bruce both nodded. "So maybe it's less he picked it up any specific place and more he couldn't fight off what germs were already on the ship."

"That could be true," Bruce acknowledged with a hum. "I was thinking, though—Hela drew her powers from Asgard, right? And destroying it killed her. Loki is a mage, so maybe when Asgard was destroyed—"

Thor was shaking his head before the scientist even finished. "Loki is Jotun, remember? The destruction of Asgard wouldn't affect him at all."

"Oh, right," Bruce smiled sheepishly. "That's dumb. Obviously."

The next few hours were spent first fetching and carrying supplies, and then trying to begin the process of dividing them up, working out new lodging arrangements—who would stay on the ship, who would room in the compound—and fielding questions from citizens that none of them had answers to. The arrival of a multitude of vans carrying food was a great relief. As good as a bell signaling the release of schoolchildren, it meant they were done for the day, and Thor could pass stewardship over to Heimdall. He was fully capable of dealing with any problems that might arise during the night, and hopefully in the morning Loki would be well enough to help them finish figuring out all the logistics of distributing their people between compound and ship.

"Dominos," Brunn read off the side of one of the vans as they passed it on their trek over the lawn. "Isn't that a Midgardian game?"

Thor smirked. "It seems Stark’s decided to introduce Asgard to pizza."

"Pizza?" she asked with a furrowed brow.

"I'm sure you'll see," Bruce promised. "We're probably having pizza too. It's good."

They split up once inside the building. "You go ahead," Thor told his friends, "I'll go get Loki, see if he's up for eating with us."

Unlike the larger common floor—which aside from the small garden terraces could be considered completely underground—the bedrooms were on the top floor of a separate building, along with a small kitchen and sitting area for hanging out in. The layout of the compound was confusing, but Thor thought he’d gotten it down well enough to navigate during Stark’s tour. He slowly eased open the door to the room that had belonged to him, letting a beam of light into the darkened, dusty room.

The construction of the room was all Stark—slanted ceiling, thick concrete pillar supporting the roof, high windows—but the decor was reminiscent of Thor himself. A large fur rug was splayed across the floor, and all the furniture was of heavy, dark, and ornately carved wood. There were old tapestries hanging on the walls, the head of an elk mounted above the door, and a large and overstuffed wine-red chair in the corner, with a matching footstool and another fur draped over the back. Thor stood there for a long moment, drinking in the familiarity in the mostly dark room. His heart seized when he realized that some of the decor had been brought from Asgard. All the furs—he'd killed the animals for them himself. And the stag head, and the tapestries... he drew in a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. Now was not the time to get lost in pointless grief.

"Loki," he called softly as he made his way further into the room. His younger brother was a dark shape curled up in the bed, snuggled up against a mountain of pillows and folded in a tangle of blankets and furs of all kinds. "Wake up, brother." In the dim light, it was hard to see where exactly the mischief-maker's face was, so he opened the heavy scarlet drapes to let a little light into the room. When he turned back around, Loki looked almost ghostly in the cool, natural light. Unreal. Dark hair fanned on ivory pillows only served to make his skin look paler, and highlighted the barely-perceptible tint of rose splashed across his cheekbones. Sweat shimmered on his brow, raspberry lips hung just slightly parted. He was dwarfed by all the blankets, tiny and heartbreakingly still. Thor's lungs caught slightly when he realized that he couldn't see Loki breathing. He only relaxed when he got close enough to see the subtle rise and fall of the blankets, hidden by the sheer volume that shrouded Loki.

"Wake up," Thor said again, sitting down on the edge of the bed. He rubbed the jut of Loki's shoulder in a circle, trying to coax him to consciousness. "Brother." Loki's nose scrunched up, and he made a noise that was half-whine and half-groan. Thor bit his lip to keep from smiling at the tableau in front of him. "Come on, brother. I know you're awake now."

Loki whined again, plaintive. "Nnn'nnot," he mumble-groaned. He flipped over to burrow his face into the pillows. "Go 'way."

"You need to eat, brother. You can have something light," Thor promised. "How about some toast and a cup of tea? Just as long as you get something. Then you can go back to bed."

"No!" There was a bit of fire, the fog of sleep beginning to clear from his younger brother's voice. "Leave me alone."

Thor frowned. Covertly, he shifted his hand from Loki’s shoulder to feel the back of his neck, disguising it as his usual show of fraternal love. The silvertongue’s skin felt warmer than it had been, he thought. "Temperature, FRIDAY?" he asked, lowering his voice to a whisper.

"One hundred and three point zero," she replied, equally soft. "Should I call Doctor Banner?"

"Nah. Are there any fever-reducers I can give him?"

"In the bathroom to your left. Look for the extra-extra strength Tylenol. Start with one pill, administer one more if needed."

"Thank you," Thor said, standing up. He pressed a kiss to Loki's tangled hair, promising, "I'll be back soon." Sure enough, a quick search of the bathroom cabinet yielded a bottle labeled extra-extra strength Tylenol—with an additional sticky note on top declaring it "for enhanced or aliens only. No touching if you're a normal human being unless you want to die" in Stark's handwriting. Plucking off the sticky note, Thor wrestled off the bottlecap, tipped one of the chalky white pills into his hand, and capped it again, replacing the sticky-note on top. He paused on his way out the door, a cup of water in one hand and pill in the other. "Is there anything for nausea?"

FRIDAY directed him to another pill bottle, this one bearing the label "still don't touch unless you like being dead" on a fluorescent pink sticky-note. Thor couldn't help a quiet chuckle when he procured one of the pills. He returned to the bedroom to find Loki had turned over again, lying on his back to watch Thor enter with sleepy, baleful eyes. Thor set the pills and water on the side table to help Loki sit, leaning him back against the headboard for support. "Here," he said, passing the silvertongue the glass of water, "open." Loki allowed Thor to place the pills on his tongue, and swallowed them without prompting. He made a face when he pulled the glass away from his mouth, passing it to Thor like it had burned him.

"Thank you," Thor said, taking a seat on the edge of the bed again. As if he'd been given permission when Thor spoke, Loki listed forward until he was practically sprawled over Thor, burying his nose in the thunderer's collarbone and curling his hands in the fabric of Thor's shirt. Thor couldn't help a tiny smile as he petted back the hair on Loki's head. "Let's give those a few minutes to work, shall we?" He wrapped his arms around his little brother and held him close, rubbing his back in soft circles. "You do need to eat," he commented softly. "I can get you something light, like I said, but you have to have food." He paused, waiting for an answer. In his arms, Loki shifted. "Brother?"

"Bucket," Loki said in a hoarse whisper that Thor barely caught.

"What—oh." Thor jumped up, hooked the trash can hidden in the corner of his room with a finger, and dashed back with it. Loki wrapped his arms around the bin with a small, involuntary whimper. "Ssh," Thor soothed, setting a hand on his little brother's spine as he was wracked by a full-body shudder. "It's okay. If you need to throw up, then do. I'm not gonna get mad at you."

"I don't want to," Loki hissed through gritted teeth. He gave a minute shake of his head and curled in on himself even further. "Stupid," he grumbled, sounding tearful—and also like he hadn't meant to say so outside of his mind.

"Not stupid," Thor corrected gently, "sick. You're sick."

Loki shivered again, without answering. "I'm. Fine," he managed after a minute of trembling in silence.

"Hmm. Obviously not."

The next time he tried to speak, Loki interrupted himself with a gag. He clamped his mouth shut, visibly struggling—and then, with a horrible choking noise, lost the battle to his illness and hunched over to spill his guts. Thor rubbed his back as it shook under the force of his heaves. After a moment, the trickster leaned back, panting harshly. Sweat dripped down his forehead as he brought a fist to his mouth, eyes slightly wild, hair hanging scraggly in his eyes. Loki grimaced—and then leaned back over the bin, hand flying away from his face.

While his little brother persisted in the battle with his body, Thor pulled his now sweat-soaked curls back into a braid, so they wouldn't fall in his face. Loki threw up thrice more before the queasiness seemed to pass, and he sagged back against the pillows, eyes fluttering shut. "Are you done?" Thor asked cautiously. Keeping his eyes closed, Loki gave a curt nod. "Alright." Thor kissed his still-heated, sweat-sticky brow and stood up. "I'll be back soon."

Loki was tired. When Thor left the room, he barely managed to keep from falling asleep right then. Even though the room smelled foul—less so, since Thor had gone to clean up—and his stomach was cramping terribly, the grasp of sleep was a hard noose to shake. He groaned aloud, pressing a hand to his forehead and making a face at the coating of sweat he found there. Disgusting. He was distracted from his thoughts quickly, though—it felt as though his eyelashes had been weighted, dragging down on his eyes and increasing the already tantalizing lure of sleep. Why was he staying awake, again?

The door creaked, and through the soft charcoal frame of his lashes Loki watched his older brother step into the room. "Sorry," Loki mumbled almost automatically. "You shouldn'tve..." he paused, unable to come up with the words he wanted. "Sorry," he finished lamely. He was disgusting, and pitiful, and he'll leave you now, a small, scared part of him whispered. Weak, burdensome, he'll throw you to the mortals to do with what they will, and why shouldn't he? Loki squashed the voice, smashing it deep down inside him as far as he could make it go, until he couldn’t hear it anymore.

Thor sighed, reaching a hand back behind him to push the door shut before crossing to the mischief-maker's bedside. "You're my brother. It's not a problem," he said, clearly having deduced what Loki had meant. "Is there anything you need? Anything I can get you?" The mattress jumped when he sat down on the side of the bed, and his hand came to nestle in Loki's hair. Instinctively, Loki nuzzled into the touch, and then stiffened, mixed shame and fear welling up in addition to the fever-haze and queasiness. But Thor didn't react beyond a small quirk of the lips.

"I'm fine," Loki told him, finally ceding the battle to keep his eyes open. A slight tremor rocked his body every few seconds, stopping him from fully relaxing, otherwise he might have fallen asleep the moment his eyes shut.

"I don't think that's true," Thor said lightly. The hand in his hair slipped down to feel his forehead. "You're still pretty warm. How about a cool cloth? And the water is still here, if you want a drink."

Loki's stomach rocked rather violently at the suggestion—but. His mouth tasted like something had crawled in and died, and his throat was burning to boot. "Give," he ordered, cracking an eye open and pushing himself up on one elbow that trembled under his weight. Instead of reaching for the glass, Thor reached for him, lifting him up and manhandling him to rest against the headboard. Humiliating, but really Loki was too tired to care, and it was much more comfortable than trying to keep himself upright on his own. He held out a hand for the glass—and felt his face redden when Thor lifted the cup directly to his mouth, bypassing his waiting hand. "I can hold it," he muttered crossly, the rim of the glass cool on his lip in a way that probably shouldn't have been as soothing as it was.

"Drink," Thor insisted, ignoring Loki's protest. When the thunderer angled the glass and the water hit Loki's lips, he forgot all of his misgivings in favor of relief. Thor gave him the water in a series of short swallows until it was all gone, having cleared both the rotten taste on his tongue and burning in his esophagus. Setting the glass aside, Thor moved to stand up. "I'll be right back," he said, giving Loki a little smile.

Alone in the bedroom, Loki shifted slightly and pressed one hand to his abdomen underneath the blankets, willing his stomach to stay calm and not reject the water he'd been given. He really didn't fancy ejecting the contents of his gut again, ever, much less so soon. Though his insides rumbled threateningly, they also seemed mostly content to stay inside, thankfully.

The next thing he knew—though he wasn't sure whether he'd fallen asleep or Thor had just been fast—something both soft and cool was being pressed to his face. A shameful little noise escaped his throat at the relief, his lips falling half-open before he shut his mouth. Thor chuckled quietly, his hand coming back to rest in his younger brother's tangled curls. "Sorry," Loki said as soon as he managed to organize his fever-addled thoughts enough to form the word.

"It's okay, brother," Thor said softly. "You're sick. You've nothing to be ashamed of." Loki, in his off-balance state, couldn't stop the incredulous huff that escaped. Mercifully, Thor chose to ignore it.

"You should go," Loki said, forcing every bit of energy he had into keeping his voice level and casual. "Weren't you going to have..." he hitched slightly on the word, stomach jumping unpleasantly, "dinner?"

"Okay," Thor said back, truly calm and casual. A moment passed as both relief and disappointment welled in Loki’s chest, heavy in a way that made him wonder, in his fever-dazed state, if he’d swallowed a rock—“What’s bothering you? And don't say it's because you're sick—that's a lie."

Clamping his teeth together against the words that welled up, the exact response that Thor had predicted, Loki opened his eyes. And blinked, several times. "I... what?"

Thor smiled without any humor. "Loki. Tell me."

Resistance passed his mind for but a moment—he was tired, too tired to dissemble. "Have you spoken to the humans yet about... me?"

Thor's face fell. Reaching out, he cupped Loki's cheek and turned his head until they met eyes. "Brother," he said firmly. "I'm not going to let them imprison you." Loki cut his gaze away. "Loki. I mean it."

"Yes, well, you'd be within your rights, and so would they," he pointed out, quietly.

"For imprisoning someone who's already been fully pardoned by the justice system he was handed off to? I don't think so," Thor said wryly. His face grew more serious. "Really, Loki. I wouldn’t let them hurt you, or take you—and I don't think they're going to try."

Loki couldn't stop the disbelieving snort that escaped him. "Sure," he muttered.

Thor's expression stayed solemn. "Loki," he began, a tentative waver to his otherwise sure tone, "do you remember what happened at the end of the battle in New York? Did you see it?"

"No, the Hulk was... you remember." Loki allowed his eyes to fall shut for a moment, before opening them again. "Why is this important?" he asked, his exhaustion bleeding through into his voice. The only thing he wanted was to be left alone, so he could sleep. That or for Thor to hold him, but that was a desire best left unvoiced. He'd say yes.

But what if he didn't?

"Just listen," Thor gave a slight smile. "Towards the end of the battle, a group called the World Security Council decided to try and shoot a nuke at the city, to kill the Chitauri... and the citizens, too, in order to sow chaos, but that's not important right now. Stark took the nuke and shot it through the portal, and it destroyed Thanos' waiting fleet." Loki couldn't help his slight flinch at the name, but all Thor did was take his hand, rubbing a circle into his palm with his thumb. "When he shot the nuke through, he saw the fleet. All of it, before it was destroyed. And he remembered it. That's why Vision exists, Loki—he was trying to build something to protect the earth. He's known that something was coming before all the rest of us did, except you. I told him—" Loki tensed up, and Thor shushed him. "Not much, Loki. Just that you were sent, that someone else was behind New York. He might be a little suspicious, but he trusts me, he trusts Bruce, and Rhodes and Vision will follow his lead. So don't worry."

"Alright," Loki said softly, closing his eyes. He wasn't sure he believed Thor, yet, wasn't sure about anything, really. His brain was full of fog and he ached and—"can I sleep now?" he asked, sounding far too pitiful even to his own ears, but he was tired.

"Of course." Loki closed his eyes immediately, but Thor didn't move. "Do... you want me to stay?" the thunderer asked, slightly hopeful.

"Go," Loki ordered.

"Okay, I will. Sleep well, brother. I'll bring you something back," Thor promised. The door squeaked lightly as it opened and shut, and then Loki was alone. He curled in on himself, feeling cold again. But the fatigue won out, and dragged him under, into sleep.

Brunnhilde and Bruce were both seated around a circular table, a large stack of pizza boxes piled haphazardly in the center. Rhodes and Stark were talking quietly in the kitchen, with Vision hovering a few feet away. Thor walked by them like they weren't there, pretending he didn't notice when they immediately fell silent. He pushed Bruce over to make a space from himself and went around the table to fetch a chair. Having made a spot for himself, Thor crawled over the table to snag a piece of pizza from the half-empty box that was on top. Two pizza boxes were already discarded in a nearby trash can, and Brunn had a pizza slice in each hand.

"You were right," she said appreciatively. "Pizza is good."

The slice he was holding slipped from Thor's hand and he just barely managed to snag it before it hit the floor when Stark and Rhodes actually came over and sat down. Vision did too, though unlike them he didn't take a slice of pizza. He just watched. Being watched while eating was rather unnerving. 

"Are we gonna talk or are we gonna just sit here and eat pizza? Not that I'm opposed to pizza, but usually people don't eat pizza at funerals and that's kinda the vibe I'm getting from the room right now," Rhodes said bluntly. The man was finally out of his suit, at least mostly—Thor had caught a glimpse of some sort of construct around the man's legs. He'd only met him briefly but he was sure that the mortal hadn't had anything of the sort when he last saw him. There was bound to be a story there, though Thor didn't know if it would get told.

Thor huffed a laugh in spite of himself. "No, we can talk," he said. "Is... there anything you want to talk about?"

"Duh. That titan guy you say is coming. What's his deal?"

"Loki knows the most. We should wait until he's better to talk," Thor said. It was true, though Thor hated it. He wished he could keep his little brother out of the conversation altogether, but that wouldn't be possible.

"Well then," Rhodes said after a short pause and a glance at Stark, "what were you doing up in space for what, two years, Thor? Sure you got lots of stories there."

"Yeah. None of them are interesting, though," Thor warned. The time he'd spent in space on his own was all wandering around chasing rumors—nothing of substance, certainly nothing that would make a good tale, or at least a tale that wasn't highly embarrassing. He thought he'd found the map to the soul stone once, but it was a dead end—there was no map.

Stark snorted. "It's space. There's no way it's not interesting, at least to us."

"Ehh..." Thor said. "After a few days of space travel and two or three seedy planets, you get a bit disillusioned."

Bruce raised a hand. "I am done with space travel. I have seen enough. I am never leaving earth again."

"Easy for you to say, Mister Astronaut," Rhodes said dryly.

"Neal Armstrong would pee his pants," Stark agreed. "First human on another planet, Bruce. Representing earth!"

"I... don't think I was a very good representative," Bruce ducked his head slightly. "Plus, I'm about ninety-eight percent sure I was not the first human on an alien planet."

"Alien abduction stories," Rhodes nodded sagely, taking a bite of his pizza.

"Peter Quill," Thor and Brunn disagreed in unison. "There's rumors of this human out in space," Thor continued. "Goes by Peter Quill. Part of the Ravager gang, until he somehow got a pardon from the Nova Empire, supposedly along with a handful of other outlaws. According to the rumors, they formed a team of some kind. I don't know if it's all true, but there's certainly more than a little bit of talk about it."

"Drax the destroyer," Brunn volunteered. "He was one of em. Killed like twenty people in a rage fit. I don't know the others, but there's definitely a team, led by that guy Peter Quill, and Drax is on it. Think maybe there was some kind of former assassin in the group, too. It's too widespread a rumor to be all fake, and a lot of people will vouch for having met them. I heard they stopped some kind of Kree uprising."

"I heard about that," Thor nodded. "Most people say Nova pardoned them, whoever they were, cause they gave the empire a heads-up about an impending Kree attack. The Kree and the Nova Empires have been at war for a few centuries," Thor explained to the Earthlings in the group.

"Space politics," Stark declared, spinning around and spreading his arms wide to address an invisible audience. "So much more interesting than Earth politics."

"According to this," drawing everyone's attention, Vision lifted up a Starkphone, "an eight-year-old boy named Peter Quill went missing from a small town in Missouri in the year of nineteen eighty-eight. Witnesses reported  bright lights in the sky on the night he vanished. He still hasn't been found."

Rhodes' fists slammed down on the table. "Alien abductions, man." His clear excitement was, to Thor, slightly disturbing.

The conversation got easier from there—Thor might even have relaxed had he not been so worried about Loki.  "I'm gonna go back to the rooms," Thor announced as soon as he reasonably could. They'd gone through quite a bit of pizza, he noted absently as he stood—there were only four slices left. He paused on his way out the door, however—food. Loki needed to eat something, even if he wasn't feeling like it. He spun on his heel and headed for the kitchen.

Searching through the cabinets until he found the plates, Thor pulled one out and rummaged through the refrigerator for the bread. Though it had been several years since he was last on Midgard, he still remembered how to use the toaster. The device was rather simple. While the bread was toasting, he hunted through the kitchen for mugs and teabags. He got two mugs once he found them—one with a cartoon character on it he'd come to know was called Mickey Mouse, and the other a solid navy blue—and filled up both using hot water from the coffee maker that Stark always had at the ready. The teabags finally turned up after a bit more hunting, just before the toast popped up.

Thor removed the slices of toast, put them on the plate, and went back to the tea. He lifted up several different bags to smell them, deciding eventually on a tea with a strong citrus scent, which he dumped into the Mickey Mouse mug. For Loki the choice was much easier—he might not remember as much of their mother's gardening lessons as Loki did with his steel trap of a memory, but he did recall that peppermint was good for upset stomachs. Leaving the tea to steep, he grabbed a fork and a knife before starting to butter the bread, because Loki would gladly starve before he ate with his hands. It was probably a good thing he wasn't having pizza, anyway.

"There is still pizza," Stark pointed out awkwardly from across the room.

"I know," Thor said idly. He looked up from the bread he was buttering and slowly lifted an eyebrow. "This is for Loki."

"Two mugs of tea?" Rhodes questioned.

"Okay, one is for me," Thor allowed. "But the toast is for Loki. And the other tea." He pulled out the teabags, trashed them, and then gave the tea a baleful look. He was going to have to either make two trips, or be very creative. And careful. He picked up a mug in each hand, shoved the cutlery in a pocket, and clamped the edge of the plate between his teeth. Cautiously. He didn't want to shatter the plate and swallow shards of porcelain. He'd done it once. Very painful.

His wish to get back to Loki as quickly as possible clashed with the need to not drop any of his cargo. Simply climbing a set of steps and crossing the courtyard seemed to take hours. Thor took the elevator instead of the stairs on the way up to the bedrooms—and found himself very grateful that the doors pushed open from the outside, instead of pulled.

Unfortunately, he didn't pull his strength enough. The door hit the wall with a loud bang, and Loki jolted up in bed with a gasp. "S'rry," Thor mumbled around the edge of the plate in his mouth, still trying not to crush it. "Din'nt mean ta sc're you," he added, setting down the mugs on the bedside table while Loki was still getting ahold of himself, coming down from being startled awake. With a hand free, he was then able to set the plate down. He then pulled the fork and knife out from where he'd stashed them in his pocket and plunked them down beside the plate. "Food," Thor explained as cheerfully as he could manage when Loki caught his eye.

It might have been the lighting, but the trickster's skin seemed to have a tint of green—and the look he was giving the plate of toast made Thor think that it wasn't just a trick of the light. "You slobbered on that," Loki said, and yep, he was definitely green.

Thor snatched a tissue up from a nearby Kleenex box and wiped off the edge he'd been holding onto. Which had not been close to the bread, anyways. "All clean," he declared. Loki still looked doubtful—and green.  "Drink the tea," he suggested softly. "It's peppermint. Then try to eat something." While Loki was still giving the tea a suspicious look, Thor picked up his own mug and brought it to his lips. He nudged the navy mug closer to Loki with a finger, and slowly, his little brother reached out to take it. He brought it close to his chest, held tight in two hands, and stared into the depths as if it held the answers to all the universe's questions—or a nausea cure, for that matter. His first sip was barely anything more than a touch of his lips to the liquid, and then he took an actual sip, minuscule though it was. Thor relaxed a hair to see him ingesting something, anyway, and then turned his attention to his own drink.

Loki drew his focus back with a slight shudder. "Stop slurping so loud," he complained in a long moan. Sweat was starting to build up on his forehead.

"I'm not," Thor didn't say. He nodded and made an effort to be quieter, instead, though Loki didn't look terribly appreciative of his efforts.

Before he knew it, his little brother had drank all but the last dregs of his tea, and turned his attention to the toast. Thor made sure to drink his tea slowly. He had to make it last as long as Loki was eating, or risk making his brother flat out refuse to eat. When Loki laid down his fork, he had only made it through about half of a piece of toast. His face was desperate as he met Thor's eye, and the quiet admonishment to eat a little more died in Thor's throat. Loki's expression clearly said that he couldn't do it. 

"Do you want to sleep now?" Thor asked. When he pressed a hand to Loki's forehead, his baby brother didn't react beyond blinking up at him with wide yet tired eyes. "Your fever's gone down, I think," he commented softly.

"No," Loki said after a moment of consideration. He sounded much better than he had earlier, less strained and weak, and a bit of color had come back into his skin. "I'm not tired yet."

That was clearly a lie, but Thor didn't call him on it. "Okay," he said instead. "Do you want to go sit in the living room for a little while?" Biting his lip, Loki's eyes turned thoughtful. He nodded, and Thor smiled at him. "Okay. Here, let me help." Pulling back the blankets and furs that layered the bed, Thor assisted Loki in swinging his legs down over the side of the bed. With an arm around his shoulders, Thor practically lifted Loki upright all by himself. Once on his feet, thankfully, Loki was able to hold his own, if a bit unsteadily. Thor followed a half-step behind as they shuffled into the living room, ready to help should Loki falter, but they made it to one of the long scarlet couches without incident. After returning to his bedroom to grab a blanket to drape over him, Thor crouched down on the floor and smoothed Loki's hair back with one hand. "How are you feeling?"

"Bad," Loki whispered. The short walk had drained him, clearly, and he looked much more tired than he had when he'd agreed to sit in the common area—exactly as Thor had hoped. Resorting to manipulation to get Loki to sleep was a bit low, but Thor wasn't above trying to tire him out if it meant he got some much-needed rest.

"Do you want me to get a bucket?" Thor asked. He lowered his voice to a whisper when he noticed Loki's wince. The younger prince gave a curt nod. Fetching a trash can from the corner of the room took less than a minute, and then Thor settled down again at Loki's side. "You're sure you don't want to get in bed?" A soft shake of the head. "Okay. Try to rest, then, brother."

The silvertongue's eyes quickly fell closed, but he was far from relaxed. He fidgeted and squirmed, and kept swallowing in a way that made Thor think he was still battling nausea. "I'm fine," Loki hissed after a time. "You can... go. You left early, didn't you? Go back... to your friends."

"I'd rather be here," Thor retorted quietly, ruffling Loki's hair and grinning at the slight scowl it earned him. They sat in silence, but for each other's breaths and the small rustling sounds made by Loki's constant shifting.

"Can you... turn off the lights?" Loki asked. Thor thought for a minute, and then raised up a hand as a fist, opened it, and very deliberately closed it. All the lights in the room shut off, and the curtains drew close. The only reason Thor refrained from crowing in triumph was because he didn't want to bother Loki. "Thanks."

"Sure thing."

Bruce and Brunnhilde entered less than a minute later, making a beeline for the brothers the second they spotted them. "Tony gave us directions," Bruce explained in a whisper as he joined Thor in crouching at Loki's side. Brunnhilde circled to the opposite side of the couch, propping an elbow on the back of it and resting her chin on her hand.

"Stop staring at me," Loki grumbled, opening his eyes to slits. "I can feel you... looming."

"Sorry," Thor said automatically. "Are you sure you don't want to go to bed?"

"No," Loki said, a note of strength entering his voice. "I've slept the day away already."

"Well, you're sick," Bruce pointed out reasonably. "You need the rest."

Thor caught his eye and shook his head the tiniest bit. Even feeling sick and utterly exhausted, he knew that look in Loki's eyes and pushing would only get the trickster to dig in his heels all the harder. He'd been Loki's brother for a thousand years, however—he knew how to handle him in this mood. "Alright. Why don't we watch a movie, then?"

"A movie?" Brunnhilde said slowly. "What?"

"We definitely need to watch a movie," Bruce agreed.

They worked out a position on the couch like they'd done it all their lives. Bruce sat on one end, right up against the arm of the couch. Next to him was Brunnhilde. Thor sat on the other end, with Loki leaning up against him, his legs up in Brunnhilde's lap, and the blanket spread over him. "Comfortable?" Thor asked, poking at Loki's cheek to get his attention. Loki fought a yawn as he nodded. Turning his face away to hide a smirk of satisfaction, Thor cheered internally. His plan was in motion.

"What should we watch?" Bruce said. "Thor and I have a few years of movies to catch up on... but Brunn and Loki have never even seen the classics."

"Not true," Loki interrupted. "I've been on earth before. Probably seen more movies than..." he paused to yawn, and finished in a sleepy tone, "all of you. Combined."

"Let's watch a classic," Thor suggested. Something quieter, he mouthed, nodding at Loki. Bruce nodded slowly as he caught on to the plan. They bickered good-naturedly over choices for a few minutes, Brunnhilde watching with bemusement as Loki occasionally added his opinion. Finally, they settled on The Frog Princess. Not exactly a classic, but a good deal of the older movies could be... upsetting. Particularly to Loki, and that was exactly what they wanted to avoid.

FRIDAY projected a screen into the air and the movie started. The colors danced and flickered across the screen, bringing to life a young girl and her spoiled playmate. "This one is good," Loki said quietly. "Except for the doctor. He reminds me of Hela." Thor shot a panicked glance at Brunn, who didn't seem to notice. Oops.

As the movie played, Loki slumped further and further against Thor, slowly sliding down until his head had migrated from Thor's shoulder to his lap. Casually, with his eyes still on the screen, Thor started to undo the braids in Loki's hair. When he finished, he continued to toy with the raven locks, lightly scratching at Loki's scalp with his fingernails. Within a few minutes, Loki's eyes finally shut. In a few more, his breathing slowed and evened out.

"He's asleep," Thor declared in a whisper. "I'm going to put him to bed."

"Do you want to stop the movie?" Bruce asked.

Thor shrugged. "If you want."

"Let's finish it when that one can watch it, too," Brunn added with a nod to Loki. Thor smiled at her as he shifted Loki over and stood up with mischief-maker in his arms.

His friends helped to put the blanket back over him, and then Thor carried his baby brother to his room. "Pick whatever room, Brunn," he hissed over his shoulder. "There's one for you, Bruce. Just check, it should be clear which one is yours." He kicked the door shut behind him. It latched with a soft click.

It was difficult to peel back the sheets, never mind all the furs, with Loki in his arms, but Thor managed it. He tucked Loki in and then smoothed a hand over his hair, leaning down to kiss his cheek. Still slightly warm, the Asgardian king noted. He left the room briefly to grab a glass of water from the kitchen, and a few other things from the bathroom, including a washcloth and a basin in case Loki had to be sick in the night. After arranging everything he'd fetched on the night table, he crawled into bed with Loki, curling up with Loki's back pressed against his chest. He wrapped his arms around Loki, and pressed another kiss to the shell of his baby brother's ear. "Good night, brother. Sleep well."

Chapter Text

The next day dawned bright and clear. For the first time in nearly a year—though it seemed so much longer than like, like an eon gone by—when Thor opened the curtains the windows looked out onto a blue sky, a bright sun, and a green lawn. "Trees," Thor remarked softly, a touch of giddiness in his voice. It really hit him then. Their traveling was done. They were home. 

But not safe. Not yet.

With a deep sigh, Thor turned back around to look at the bed he'd just climbed out of, where Loki still slept. Or, had been sleeping.

"Too bright," Loki whined with feeling, mashing a pillow over his face.

"Sorry." Thor closed the curtains again. "How are you?"

"Mmnph. Better." Loki replied after a short silence. "'S too early."

"How do you know that?" Thor asked, amused. "You haven't looked at the clock yet."

"Don't care. Too early."

Where normally Thor might try to drag Loki out of bed, instead he sighed again and pushed a hand up through his hair. "Alright. But you need to have breakfast in a few hours, okay?"

"No, no," Loki groaned, sounding slightly more awake. "'M gettin' up."

"Are you sure?" Thor asked. He watched as Loki struggled his way out of the blankets to prop himself up on his elbow. "No one will blame you if you go back to bed." Loki shook his head without a word as he threw back the covers and clambered out of the bed. Thor hurried over to support him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders as he got his balance. "Be careful, brother. Don't push yourself."

"I'm not pushing myself," Loki muttered. "Let go."

"You're sick," Thor said sternly. He placed a hand to Loki's forehead, feeling it for fever. "You're still a bit warm."

"But I feel fine," Loki argued. He jabbed Thor in the side, and the thunderer let go instinctively. Loki had stabbed him in that exact spot more times than he could count, so many that his reaction was practically automated.

"Unfair," Thor growled. "And I doubt you feel fine, I just said you still have a fever."

"Fine enough," Loki continued. "Just let me..." He furrowed his brow and waved his hand, and the bed tidied itself. Loki's sleep-clothes shimmered out as his armor faded in. "There. Let's go."

Thor trailed helplessly after his brother, who made a beeline for the kitchen, only to pause when he opened the refrigerator. His face twisted up in an expression of revulsion that he quickly hid, but not quick enough to keep Thor from seeing it. "You're still nauseous," he accused. Loki pretended not to hear him, and Thor sighed. "Fine. Sit down, brother, I'll get you something light."

"Alright," Loki sighed. "But you're overreacting."

"Wha' timezit," Brunnhilde slurred, stumbling out of a bedroom that Thor thought might have been Natasha's—hopefully she never found out.

"Morning," Thor said cheerfully. "Where's Bruce?"

"Shower, I think," she told him, entering the kitchen. "Heard the water turn on earlier. Woke me up."

With an amused smile, Thor steered her towards a seat next to Loki. Loki might be a night owl, but he did get going swiftly once he was up—though if you left him to his own devices he might just sleep until midday. Brunnhilde, in contrast, never truly woke up until she'd been up and about for at least an hour, if not two. "You should try caffeine," Thor suggested over his shoulder as he pulled several ceramic bowls out of a cabinet.

"Whu?"

"Never mind." Thor opened up cabinets until he found one full of foodstuffs, and—thankfully—exactly what he was looking for. He filled a pot with water, dumped in a few packets of instant oatmeal, and turned on the stove to heat up while he stirred it together. Now that he was listening for it, he could hear the shower running in the background.

The water cut off while the oatmeal was heating, and a few minutes later Bruce emerged, dressed for the day and with a bundle of pajamas under his arm. "Hang on a sec," he called, heading to his room to (presumably) put away the clothes, and then coming back into the common room. "What are you making, Thor?"

"Oatmeal," Thor said. "It'll be done in a minute. You guys can put whatever you want on it."

"Okay," Bruce said. "I'm gonna make tea. Anyone want some?"

"Some for me and Loki," Thor told him. "Brunn?"

"Nngh," she grumbled, staring at the counter without seeing it. "Vodka?"

"No," she was scolded by three different voices in various degrees of exasperation.

"I'll make a pot of coffee, too," Bruce offered.

"Z'it have alcohol?"

"No, but you'll like it," the human promised.

"Meh."

Thor dished out a bowl of oatmeal, stuck a spoon in it, and set it in front of Loki, using the opportunity to feel his forehead again.

"What, do you think my temperature has changed in five minutes?" Loki swatted his hand away. "Stop fussing."

Thor poked him in the shoulder. "Eat some, and then it's back to bed with you."

"No!" the mischief-maker yelled indignantly, the spoon clattering out of his hand to hit the table. "I said, I'm fine!"

"And I said you're not," Thor refuted, unruffled. "Better, yes, but not fine." Loki growled, and he sighed. "Fine. If you can eat all of it, and you don't throw up, then you don't have to go back to bed. But, I expect you to take a nap after lunch, and you go right back to bed if your temperature rises or you start feeling worse."

Loki looked him in the eye, lifted up the spoon, and very deliberately took a bite. Thor rolled his eye and turned away to dish out another bowl. He gave it to Brunnhilde, who made a face.

"What is that?" she asked, revulsion in her voice as she prodded at it with the spoon.

"Oatmeal," Thor said cheerfully. "Did they not have it on Asgard when you were young?"

"I hate oatmeal," she grumbled.

Thor shrugged. "Put fruit on it, or make something yourself. I'm not making anything else." He turned back to get a bowl for himself. The smell of coffee began to permeate the air.

Like he'd been summoned, one of the bedroom doors opened and Stark stumbled out. "Coffee?" he asked, heading for the kitchen as if he was a fish caught on the line and being reeled in. His eyes looked closed, yet he didn't trip over anything.

Bruce slapped his hand away when he picked up the coffee pot and tried to drink directly from it. "Get a cup, you heathen. Other people are going to drink it."

"I pay for the compound, I pay for the coffee, therefore it is mine," Stark argued back, surprisingly eloquent for a man with such a dramatic case of bedhead who had yet to open his eyes. "Give."

Bruce poured out a cup and then handed the pot to him. "But get a cup for it, Tony." Stark ignored him. Bruce sighed as he delivered the coffee to Brunnhilde. She didn't seem to register it, even as her hands curled around the cup and she lifted it to her lips. She drank from it deeply, and then looked up in surprise.

"Hot," she said faintly.

"It's coffee. Coffee is usually hot," Bruce explained patiently.

Brunn shrugged and took another gulp.

Thor took the mug of tea Bruce gave him, and sat down next to Loki, who was halfway through his breakfast. "We need to feed the people, but Stark can't be seen making large purchases of food," Thor said as he picked up his spoon. "Do you have any ideas?"

Loki scoffed, keeping his eyes on the man in question. "Have him establish a foundation for feeding hungry homeless people, and buy in bulk, more than we need. Donate the excess to homeless shelters—no one should look too closely as long as it isn't made a big deal. It's not like he'd be lying."

"Did you catch that, Stark?" Thor yelled.

"Heard it. I'll get on it," the man said, setting down the coffee to peer into the pot that was still on the stove, kept warm. "Oatmeal? Ew."

"That's what I said," Brunn mumbled.

Thor rolled his eye. "Put cinnamon on it, like I did. There are much worse foods out there than oatmeal."

"If there are, I haven't found one yet." Stark paused. "Actually, wait, no, you're right, I'll take the oatmeal."

Thor snorted, highly amused. He swirled his spoon lightly over the surface of the beige goop—Thor might not detest oatmeal, but he did have to admit it wasn't the most pleasant looking—before actually dipping it in to take a bite, trying to mix around the dusting of cinnamon he'd sprinkled on top. "Do you want anything else?" he asked Loki in a soft aside. "Some fruit, or...?"

The dark look that Loki gave him was slightly undercut by the fact that he wasn't actually looking at his older brother. Oh, he'd turned to face Thor, but his eyes were fixed firmly on Stark. "No," he said pointedly, swiveling back around.

"Someone isn't a morning person," Stark said. Almost in concert with Loki, Thor tensed. He knew that tone of voice from watching Stark tangle with politicians and reporters—he was testing. Poking, prodding, spoiling for a fight. Laying out the bait. And from the way every line of Loki's form was now thrumming with barely hidden tension, he'd picked up on the challenge accordingly.

Thor almost sighed out loud—he thought that they'd passed the hostility stage. Apparently not. He bit lightly on the inside of his cheek to keep himself from snapping something in Loki's defense. There was already enough hostility in the room without him inserting himself into the mix. Though still bent over her coffee cup, Brunn looked worlds more awake than she had been just minutes before. Bruce, hovering over by the tea kettle, had frozen in place, and was giving Stark a side-eye to rival Loki's, obviously also recognizing exactly what that tone meant when coming from the billionaire.

"What's it to you," Loki said dully, and Thor almost sighed again, or flinched. That was... also not good. Loki was both resigned—expecting a loss—and defensive—ready to go down fighting tooth and nail and doing as much damage as he could on the way.

"Just trying to make conversation," Stark replied, voice and body language idle but expression sharp.

"What if I don't want to make conversation," Loki snapped, shoulders beginning to hike up.

Vision chose that moment to glide in through the wall.

Loki's spoon clattered down into his bowl as he threw himself backward, smacking down on the floor with a hard crack as his skull impacted with the ground, barstool tipping over in the process. "Loki!" Thor shouted, leaping to his feet (nearly knocking over his own stool in the process) and rushing to his brother's side. A knife clenched in each haking fists, Loki was struggling to sit up. Though his face was set in a feral snarl, what really sent a chill down Thor's spine was the utter blankness in his eyes. "Loki," Thor said softly, grabbing his hand to try and ease one of the knives out of his white-knuckled grip. Years of practice alone saved him from a stab wound—and one in a vital area, at that. "Brother. Look at me."

Episodes of the sort Loki was having weren't entirely unheard of—it was a particularly severe episode that finally convinced Loki to confess what had happened to him in the Void. That, and that Thor wouldn't take no for an answer after he watched Loki have a breakdown the magnitude of which he'd never seen before. "Brother," Thor said again, shifting his position to block Vision from Loki's sightline. "You're safe. I'm right here. You're okay." Very slowly, he stretched out a hand and wrapped it around Loki's, but didn't try to take away the dagger again. His thumb stroked Loki's knuckles, trying to get him to come back to himself. Trying to anchor him. "Ssh," he soothed. "Ssh."

Gradually Loki's eyes began to clear. His grip on his daggers loosened, and they clattered to the floor. "Thor?" he croaked. "What happened?"

"You got a bit startled by Vision," Thor explained tactfully.

"Oh." Loki scooted backward and his foot hit on one of the blades that were now resting on the ground. Clearing his throat, the prince banished them. "I'm going to go for a walk," he announced. "I'll be outside." Within moments, he was gone.

Thor internalized a frustrated growl as he stood, righting Loki's barstool and plunking back down on his own.

"What have I told you about doors, Vis?" Stark said, moments before Thor was about to try and break the silence with some inane comment about the weather.

"To use them," Vision replied promptly. "My apologies. I did not mean to startle Loki. I will find him and—"

"That won't be necessary," slightly panicked, Thor cut in. "I'm sure he understands."

"Still, I would wish to express my—"

"Later, Vis," Stark said. Thor felt a small surge of gratitude for the man, though his ire was also still sharp. "After breakfast, I was thinking we could talk more about, y'know. Everything. With maybe a bias on the big bad that's gunning for earth. Hey FRIDAY," he changed his address, "Where's Rhodey?"

"He went for a run, boss," the AI replied. "He should be back soon."

Breakfast was a quiet affair, what with Stark and Brunnhilde still nearly asleep, and Bruce and Thor not currently much inclined to chit-chat. Colonel Rhodes joined them before long, turning down breakfast with the claim that he had already eaten, but accepting a cup of coffee.

"Alright!" Stark said once everyone had mostly finished, clapping his hands together. "Common room, one hour? Don't worry about your people, Thor, I got breakfast delivered to them, and I'll set up some sort of foundation for the rest. I've got you covered."

"I can't pay you back, Stark," Thor said helplessly. "We don't have anything to trade, and—"

The inventor waved a hand to shut him up. "You have space knowledge, don't you? That's way better than money, I already have a crap-ton of that. And also," his voice grew more serious, "you're bringing us a warning about whatever's out there. I'd say that's worth more than I could ever pay you."

Not sure how to answer, Thor turned away. "Thanks, Stark." He lingered for a moment, then returned to his room to dress.

Thor found him lingering outside the hangar, looking up at the Statesman. "If you're trying to sneak up on me, you can stop it," Loki said without turning his head. "You're not very quiet."

Huffing, Thor moved to stand beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "I wasn't trying to sneak up on you. How are—"

Loki held up a hand to silence the question before his brother got started. "Ask me one more time and I will stab you, and it will hurt."

"Am I not allowed to be concerned for your health?" Thor said in a mock-hurt tone, though Loki could detect the hint of true hurt behind it. And worry, still.

"I'm alright, Thor." Which was fairly true. He was much more tired than normal, but other than a touch of lightheadedness and a slight lingering queasiness, he felt well enough. "Really."

"If you're sure," Thor said, but he sounded doubtful. A sigh. "We're going to talk about... him. And what to do. You don't have to—"

Again, Loki cut him off, this time with a sharp shake of the head. "No. I know the most about him. I should be there."

Thor exhaled, long and heavy. "Loki, brother, just... be careful. If you need to leave, then don't force yourself to stay, alright? And I want you to promise you'll take a nap afterward."

Loki gritted his teeth and wrapped his arms around himself. He wanted to lash out, to yell, to scream that he wasn't weak, that he didn't need to be coddled... but Thor knew him too well. Had already seen him break, more times than he could count. Pretending he was anything other than himself was a fruitless endeavor. Pitiful, even. "Fine," he hissed. "Fine."

"Thank you." Thor squeezed his shoulder. "Walk back with me?"

All the fight drained out of him at the grounding touch and simple question. "Sure."

They crossed the lawn in companionable silence. Thor slid his hand down to rest on Loki's back as they walked, but he didn't break contact. Loki wanted to shove him away, but he craved the closeness at the same time. He didn't pull back. At the foot of the steps, just before they went inside, Thor grabbed him by the wrist, tugged him to a stop.

"Loki," he said quietly, reaching up to tuck a stray lock of hair behind Loki's ear. Leaving his hand there, cradling Loki's face. "It's okay. It's going to be okay."

Loki smiled at him, filled with nausea that had absolutely nothing to do with any physical illness. "I know," he lied. Thor thought they could beat him. Loki knew they couldn't. He pulled in a breath, deep and steadying but silent, when Thor spun away to open the door. Passed him quickly so the thunderer wouldn't see his expression. Smoothed it away to nothing by the time they reached the living area. They'd arranged themselves around the rectangular dining table. One side—Stark Rhodes Vision. The other—Bruce and Brunnhilde. As Loki took a seat, he wondered if the divide was intentional. It felt like going to war. Or a war council. He supposed it was both. Part of him was surprised when he wasn't immediately blasted in the face.

"So," Rhodes started as soon as the brothers sat down, eyes hard. "You say there's something coming."

Loki almost choked on his next breath. "There is," he insisted, all but tangibly feeling his hackles raise.

Rhodes raised an eyebrow. "We only have your word."

"And mine, and Bruce's," Thor said. The hand he put on Loki's shoulder and the fierce glare he gave the man did little to calm the sudden churning in the trickster's gut—and not one that sprung from any physical illness. "Do you think we're lying?"

"I don't know. I don't know you guys. I didn't work with you. Tony did, not me. I have no reason to trust you two."

"Cool it," Stark said, nudging his friend with an elbow. "I trust Thor and Bruce."

"I don't," the man said flatly. "We don't really know anything about any of them, do we? Except that Loki attacked earth, we know that."

"And we defended it," Thor almost snarled, his fist coming down hard on the tabletop. "Besides, it wasn't Loki's fault."

Rhodes was still unruffled. "Some evidence, then?"

"His eyes were blue, then. They're green now!"

Loki almost missed Thor's response, lost in his own head. The pressure of the mind stone's gaze certainly wasn't helping him think. Thor might have been defending him for the moment, but also against a man he didn't know. Stark was his friend.

"It could be a trick," Rhodes said. He hadn't yet lost his cool, composed demeanor. "We only have your word that he isn't using magic now, to make them green, if you're telling the truth at all."

"Rhodey-bear," Stark said, drawing the colonel's attention, "I think they're telling the truth. Thor and Bruce are, at least."

At that, Loki had to fight to keep the grim smile from sliding across his face. This was what he'd been expecting. The moment he'd been waiting for. Never mind that they'd gone and given the stone—the thing that had done the warping of minds in the first place—a body, and therefore Loki couldn't be using it, oh no. Loki was using his tricks to deceive them. As he always was.

Rhodes attention finally turned from Thor to Loki—and the silvertongue almost flinched at the intensity in the man's eyes. While his gaze was nowhere near as weighty as the mind stone's, it certainly wasn't comfortable to be held under such harsh scrutiny. There was hatred there. Loki lifted his chin and set his jaw—he'd meet their verdict with dignity to his name, if nothing else. "Alright," the man said, chewing on the word and spitting it out as the challenge it was, "how do we know you're telling the truth? What proof do you have to offer us?"

Loki stared back at him. There was nothing he could say, no argument in his defense, that would sway minds already made up. The best he could do was weather the storm. "Nothing," he said calmly, ignoring the way Thor jolted next to him. "I have no proof for you but my word." And when has that ever been enough?

"Well then," Rhodes said, after a short silence. Clearly he hadn't been expecting that answer.

"Stark," Thor broke in, anger drained from his voice and replaced with desperation, "you saw it. The ship, on the other side of the portal. That there, the ship, the Chitauri, the invasion—that's your proof."

"I saw it," the man admitted. When he met Thor's eyes, Loki almost thought he saw a bit of regret.

"That's not proof," Rhodes scoffed. "The invasion happened, yeah—but you could be making up any old story about it to cover him."

"Why don't you trust us?" Bruce burst out, clearly angry. A hint of the Hulk's growl shadowed his tone when he spoke. "Tony, why are you acting like this? You know me, you know Thor, you know what you saw!"

"People lie," Stark said. "Don't look at me like that, Bruce," his tone swapped to one that was almost pleading in nature, "you know it's true. I knew you guys for what, two years? That's not enough time, not really."

"I think it's a hoax," Rhodes said, not bothering to lower his voice. "That one," he stabbed his finger right across the table, at Loki's chest, and he flinched respectively, "is making up a story to get himself in the gate."

The noise Thor made then was more animal than sentient creature, a cross between a scream and a roar, and it caught Loki entirely by surprise. He lunged to his feet, chair scaping backward with a discordant screech as he reached over the table to snag Rhodes by the collar. "Don't you presume," he growled. "You don't know anything. You say you don't know us, you say two years isn't enough—well I have over a thousand with Loki. I know him." Dropping the man, the thunder spun to address his friend. "You said you trust me, well then trust me now. Or we'll go somewhere else."

Loki blinked heavily, the full weight of the situation crashing down onto him. They were outmanned, outgunned, on the run from a madman who'd love to pick his teeth with Loki's bones and savor his screams like music. They already had no hope. But without the avengers they had nothing at all. Without them, they were guaranteed a loss.

Loki considered himself to be cynical. Pragmatic. He thought he'd fully accepted the inevitability of their defeat. And yet, faced with the loss of all hope, he realized he did have a little bit left. "Please."

With one soft word, Loki drew the attention of all in the room toward him, and him alone. "Please," he said again, sickened by the tears beginning to well up in his eyes. "Tell me what I have to do to make you believe us. Tell me what you want from me. Please."

"Loki," Thor said softly, and Loki whipped his head around, giving him a sharp glare.

"Stay out of this," he hissed, and then turned back to face Stark. "What do I have to do? Tell me. Tell me what I need to do." He was begging, a distant part of him noticed, but with no small amount of disgust. For the most part, he was too terrified to care. "I can swear an oath, I can do some sort of task, defeat one of your enemies—whatever you wish. Just please, please, listen. To Thor, if not me."

"Loki, that's enough," Thor cut in. "We can go somewhere else—"

"No we can't!" Finally, Loki's temper snapped. "We can't, Thor. It's them or nothing. Either they help us or we all die, so tell me what I have to do," he turned back to the Midgardians. A tear escaped to streak down his face, and he wiped it away as fast as he could, only to curse under his breath when another fell. "He's coming," he told them. "He's coming, no matter whether you think he's real or not. And when he comes, you'll all die. Even though you hate me, do you really want to risk it? If I'm wrong, if you prepare for him and nothing happens, what's the harm?"

Sucking in a deep breath, Loki shook his head to fortify himself and stuck out his arms, wrists pressed together. "Cuff me, if you must." A pair of magic-restricting shackles shimmered into being on the table. "Thor will vouch for the veracity of those. You can put me in a cell, and I swear I won't leave. I won't try to escape, I won't cause any chaos, I'll stay right where you can see me, as long as you listen to Thor. There can't be any harm to preparing for a fight if there's no way I'm using it as a trick."

"No!" Thor shouted. He shoved Loki aside, stepping in front of him and snatching up the cuffs. "You won't touch him," the thunderer growled, a stray spark popping by his hands. Bruce and the Valkyrie both moved to block him from sight, as if that would help. The mind stone could just go through them, even if Stark and Rhodes couldn't fight their way past. Loki shivered, wiping away another errant tear with a soft, disgusted hiss. "We'll wait and talk to Rogers if we have to, we'll find some way, brother—but you will not be caged to do it."

"Rogers will think the same," Loki pointed out. "And it's not like it would hurt me. We need them, Thor. A short imprisonment for the sake of the universe isn't such a bad trade, is it?"

"Yes, it is," Thor snarled, turning to face Loki. There was a feral light in his eye when he met his younger brother's gaze, but it quickly softened. "We're not going to cage you."

Loki smiled at him as best he could. "But it's not your choice, Thor." In the same breath, he teleported around the table, and pulled the cuffs from Thor to himself. He snapped them around his wrists and turned to face the mortals. "So?"

Rhodes' face was unreadable. Stark looked slightly unnerved. And as for the mind stone—Loki's breath hitched. He'd just deprived himself of any protection, no matter how pointless, against the stone. The mortals were bound to be angry about what happened to their world—they could now take whatever revenge they wished. They could simply let the mind stone have its' way, without ever dirtying their hands. Breathe, he reminded himself sharply. Loki forced himself to meet Stark's eyes, trying his best to keep his face blank. Was there a blue tint to the air, or was it all in his head? Was something creeping across the surface of his mind, tendrils of power slowly crawling their way in—

A hand on his shoulder yanked him back. "You have one hour," Thor growled, pushing Loki behind him and into Bruce's waiting hands. "In one hour, you tell us whether you believe us, or we leave. No conditions, no caging, no restrictions, no nothing. Either you trust us or you don't." The doctor quickly figured out how to unlock the shackles, freeing Loki with a soft, whirring click as they collapsed back in on themselves. Thor pocketed the device and marched Loki out, Brunnhilde on his heels with one hand on her sword. Bruce lingered for a moment before following.

Thor said something to the other two that the prince didn't catch once they were outside, before prodding Loki up the steps, one hand on his back. "Go outside to get places right next door," Loki grumbled under his breath, the fog in his head loosening his tongue. "Ridiculous layout. Who came up with such a thing?"

"As I understand it," Thor replied lightly, "a good deal of highly sought-after Midgardian architects and designers."

"Well they're stupid."

Thor laughed softly. "Maybe so." He dragged Loki into the building, up the stairs, and before he knew it he was seated on the couch with his brother crouching in front of him. "It's gonna be okay, Loki," he soothed, trying to give Loki a hug.

Loki pulled away with a quiet hiss, glaring at Thor as he pulled in on himself. "Why did you stop me?" he demanded, finally starting to rearrange his thoughts without the mind stone around to muddle them up.

"I promised I wouldn't let them cage you, didn't I?" Thor asked, an edge of anger in his own voice.

Shaking his head with a laugh, Loki allowed his lip to curl. "So it's your honor, then, that's it? Well, I absolve you of your promise. There. Now let's go back—"

Thor pushed down on his shoulders as he tried to rise, easily keeping him seated on the couch. "It's not about my honor," he said, affront thick in his tone. "I made a promise—"

"And like I said, I absolve you of it! Thor, let go."

"No!" the king snapped. "You're not allowed to bolt or, or go martyr yourself, we're going to talk about this—"

"What's there to talk about?" Loki snorted derisively, trying to squirm out from under Thor's grip. "The titan is coming, what more do you want me to say. Be logical, Thor."

"I am being logical," Thor refuted, setting his jaw.

"No you're not! There is an obvious solution to this—"

"That involves you putting yourself at risk!"

"What risk?" Loki scoffed, or tried to. "You trust them, don't you?"

"That's not the point!"

"Well then what in the nine is?!" Loki shook his head rapidly, bearing his teeth, chest heaving as he fought for control of his breathing. "He's coming, Thor, you know this. There's no other options, there's nowhere else to go—this is it. So stop clinging to your stupid pride and do what's right!"

Thor's eye was starting to glow, face twisting into a snarl that showed all of his teeth. Loki tried not to flinch when a spark hit him. "For the last time, this isn't about my pride!"

"Isn't is always?" Loki demanded, blinking heavily to clear the spots in front of his eyes. "You don't get it. We have no choice. If they don't help us now, then when he comes, we're on our own. He'll kill half of what's left of Asgard, and anyone who tries to fight him, and he'll take the stone, and then he'll be unstoppable. He'll come, and he'll take it, and, and—Ican'tbreathe."

Like a switch had been flipped, Thor's expression dropped from rage to dismay. "Ssh, it's okay," he soothed, letting go of Loki's shoulders to grab for his hands. "It's okay, you can breathe."

Mustering up the best glare he could manage, Loki clutched at his chest, trying to resist Thor's attempts to tug his hands away. "Let... go," he managed to gasp, shuddering.

"It's okay, it's gonna be okay," Thor continued to repeat. "It's going to be okay."

It's not, Loki wanted to yell, but he didn't have enough air for more than a strained wheeze. His mouth opened and closed as he tried pointlessly to pull in air. The black spots that had been flecking his sight grew in number, blotting out Thor's face as his voice started to fade out—

"Breathe, Loki," Thor demanded, his voice warped as if he was speaking underwater. Dizzy as he was, Loki didn't fight when his brother pushed down on his back and situated his head between his knees. "It's okay, brother."

Would you stop saying that, Loki thought as cuttingly as he was able. The spots in his vision started to clear up, if slowly. He could feel Thor's hand rubbing up and down his spine as his brother blathered on about pointless things, distracting him from the screaming banshees running amuck in his head, the beasts knawing on his mind. Even once he'd finally caught his breath, after several long minutes of shaking and gasping like a fish as involuntary tears trailed down his face, Loki didn't lift his head, and Thor didn't stop talking.

When Loki finally gathered himself enough to lift up his head and try to wipe away the tearstains on his cheeks, Thor jumped into action. Within minutes, Loki was bundled up in three separate blankets and had a mug of tea in his hands. "Drink," Thor prompted softly when he did nothing but stare at it.

Too drained to be embarrassed at this point, Loki lifted the mug to his lips and drank as instructed. The warmth was soothing, eased a bit of the tension in his chest.  He took another sip. He finished the cup without truly tasting it, though his lips tasted a bit like honey when he swiped his tongue over them. Thor took the mug before he had to try and figure out what to do with it, and then sat down beside him. "Better?" Thor asked, pressing a kiss to the crown of Loki's head.

Loki hummed, and Thor sighed. "Brother," he began, "I'm sorry. I thought they believed us, yesterday they weren't so—" he cut himself off with a huff. "I told you I'm not going to let you be caged."

"Where are the others?" Loki asked, ignoring Thor's attempt to get him to open up.

Thor eyed him for a moment, and then shook his head, letting it go. "Back on the ship. We can go there now, I just didn't want to make you walk that far while you were—" he cut off, clearly searching for some tactful way to put his next words.

"Bawling like a small child," Loki finished for him.

"No!" Thor objected reflexively. "Loki, you weren't—"

The mischief-maker raised an eyebrow. "Bawling like a small child? Were you not just here, Thor?"

"Loki," his older brother groaned. "Would you stop being so—" again, he cut off.

"Childish," Loki said with finality. Thor's slight wince told him his guess was correct. "Don't coddle me, Thor. I'm fine."

"You are clearly not fine," Thor grumbled. "For one, you just had a panic attack, and—" Loki tried to dodge the hand that swiped for his forehead, but Thor was quicker—"your fever's gone back up again. You're still sick." Unable to find a comeback, Loki glowered. "Let's go back to the ship," Thor said, gentling his voice like he would for a skittish colt, "you can get some rest, and we can handle the avengers."

"We should just stay here," Loki disagreed. "It's not like we can leave. We need them." He sighed at the stubborn glint that appeared in Thor's eye. "You know we need them, brother. We don't have any other options. Just let them cuff me. It'll be fine."

"I won't." Unlike before, Thor's voice wasn't angry, nor was his body language. Instead, he was determined. Unflappable.

"Come on, Thor, I told you this isn't the time for your pride to—" Loki began.

"No," Thor said over him, still just as calm. "Brother. This isn't about pride."

"Then what?" Loki asked, exasperation leaking into his voice.

"It's because I made you a promise," Thor said staunchly. He held up a hand to silence him when Loki started to speak. "I made you a promise."

Loki blinked. "Thor?"

Thor smiled at him, reaching out to ruffle his hair, sappy smile not changing when Loki ducked his hand. "Loki, I don't want to keep my promise because of pride. I want to keep my promise because it was to you."

"Oh." Loki forced a laugh, turning his face away. "That's terribly impractical brother, really. Sentiment isn't worth more than the whole of the universe."

Grabbing Loki by the chin and turning his face, Thor waited to speak until blue eye meet green. "Maybe it's not practical. I don't care."

"Thor," Loki tried yet again.

Thor put a finger over his lips. "Shush." Loki did, face heating as he flicked his eyes away. This time, when Thor tried to pet his hair, he didn't pull away. The silvertongue stiffened slightly when Thor wrapped his arms around him, but quickly relaxed. "Go to sleep," Thor whispered against his ear. "It'll be okay, brother. Ssh."

For some reason, Loki listened. He let his eyes slip shut, his head dip down. With his eyes closed, the dark tried to creep in. Screams rang in his ears and the back of his throat tasted like blood and bile, mingled intimately in the way that only extended time on Sanctuary could produce. Sinister smiles and glowing eyes. His hands flexed at his side. Flexed with the urge to reach up and tear those thoughts, those memories, out of his head. To tear out his brain if he had to. Palms flexed, fingers curled like claws. Loki's nails bit into his skin, a tentative anchor to what was real.

"Loki. Brother," Thor's breath tickled against his ear, "peace. I'm here."

It shouldn't have been enough, but it was. Loki slept. 

Chapter Text

Thor watched his little brother sleeping in silence. Though he'd fallen asleep, Loki still hadn't fully relaxed. Thor brushed a hand over the silvertongue's face, rubbing his brow in soft circles to try and soothe out the worried furrows. He pushed a lock of hair off of Loki's forehead, tucking it behind his ear. "I'm sorry," Thor apologized gruffly. "I didn't think—" he cut himself off with a half-aborted growl. There was no use in speaking to Loki while he wasn't awake to hear it. Thor staunchly ignored the urge to wake him up so they could talk. Loki needed to rest.

 His blood boiled when he thought about the recent meeting. He'd trusted Stark if no one else, but clearly that was misplaced. If he was willing to pretend he believed them, only to act like that... Drawing in a deep breath before he started to spark, Thor pressed a kiss to Loki's hair. He's here, he's safe, he reassured himself. I'll keep him safe. If that meant giving up on help from the Avengers, then so be it.

As carefully as he could, Thor shifted out from underneath his little brother, easing him back against the couch as he stood up. From there, he leveraged the mischief-maker into his arms, and stood. He hesitated for a moment, and then brought Loki to his room—the walk to the Statesman would more than likely wake him up, and that was the last thing that Thor wanted. Once Loki was safely tucked into bed, he left. Thor dashed downstairs taking two steps at a time, racing the storm beginning to build outside. A rumble of thunder sounded as he shoved open the doors, and then the sky opened up. Thor yelled as loudly as he could, covering the sound with a boom of thunder that made his ears ring. In the heat of emotion, he didn't bother to part the rain around him, letting it soak through his clothes and pour down with impunity. "Son of a bilgesnipe!" Thor roared, squinting as water blew into his eye and staggering sideways a few steps under the force of the gale he'd created. Stomping around the courtyard in a circle, Thor kept up a steady stream of curses as the sky loudly echoed his frustrations.

Thor managed to catch himself before he kicked in a wall, pulling back with an animalistic growl and wiping rain out of his eye again. He wanted to bash something to bits, but there was just enough restraint left in him to realize that breaking walls wasn't such a good idea. Even if Loki could magically fix it, later—and that thought made the prospect seem much more tempting again. Still, he decided to vent differently. In a way that couldn't end up with him being given a bill for property damage.

Flying was difficult when a downpour was raging, the rain all but coming down sideways and drenching everything in a five mile radius, but Thor managed to get up on top of the nearest building, anyway—giving him a great view of the ocean. A feral snarl transformed his face as he stretched a hand above his head, sparks forming between his fingers. In the belly of the clouds purple lightning flashed, gathering at his command. With one downward swipe, a crackling mass of blue-white electricity darted down from the sky to smash into the ocean, some miles away. Probably boiled some fish, but it was terribly cathartic. Thor did it again. And again.

After unleashing enough electricity to power half of New York City, Thor finally felt calm enough to bring the rain to a stop. His face quickly twisted in a grimace, and he peeled his soaking shirt away from his skin with two fingers. "Yuck," he muttered to himself. When he shook his head, water droplets went flying in every direction. Thor closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Bit by bit, the rainwater trickled out of his clothes and pulled away from his skin, forming a slightly lopsided ball in the air in front of him. The water burst apart the second he opened his eyes, falling to the ground with a splash, but he was dry. Thor pumped his fist in the air. "Yes," he crowed quietly.

On the Statesman, Loki had begun teaching him better control of his power. Before, he'd never bothered to use his abilities with any degree of finesse—but now he was no longer so foolish. It wasn't too difficult to take the jump from directing rain to moving water—as long as it was freshwater recently fallen from the sky. He couldn't move rivers or direct the ocean, but moving rainwater from place to place was feasible, though Thor wasn't terribly good at it. The thought of his brother almost got him sparking again, so Thor headed inside to check on him. The alternative was starting another lightning storm, after all.

Back in his room, Loki was still asleep in bed, though not in the same position Thor had left him. Thor felt his forehead with the back of his hand—still warm. He sighed, and made for the bathroom. Already knowing where the towels were, it didn't take Thor long to wet a small rag and bring it back to Loki. Though asleep, the silvertongue visibly relaxed when Thor pressed the wet rag to his face, and his lips parted in a breathy sigh. Thor stayed by his bedside for the next hour, tending to his brother and trying to keep himself calm. A knock on the door had his temper come raging back with a vengeance, but Thor pushed it back down. He would give them a chance. A chance.

As he expected, Stark was there when he opened the door, with Rhodes hanging slightly behind him. Thor quickly exited and shut the door. "Well," he said, crossing his arms and planting his feet, his face guarded. "Your verdict?"

"We believe you," Stark said, not meeting his eye. Rhodes made a little noise. "I believe you, at least. Jury's still out on him."

Thor nodded, sharply. "So we'll be leaving, then."

"What?" Stark burst out, a flash of fear on his face, though it was quickly covered by confusion and irritation. "I said I believe you."

"And you said Rhodes didn't. I won't subject my brother to your interrogations if you aren't even going to take what he says seriously." Thor gave them a tight-lipped smile. "We'll be finding somewhere else." He spun, yanked open the door, and slammed it shut to mask the sound of Stark's protest.

When he turned around again, Loki was pushing himself up in bed, blinking rapidly. He yawned widely as Thor rushed over to assist him. "I c'n sit up by mself," Loki groused as the thunderer settled him back against the headboard.

"I'm sorry," Thor said, ruffling Loki's hair and ignoring his soft protest. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn' wake me," Loki mumbled. Thor narrowed his eye, and Loki's lips twitched. "S' fine. Y'know I'ma light sleeper."

"Still," Thor said again, "sorry. How are you feeling? Did taking a nap help?"

"S'not a nap!" Loki seemed to fully wake up at last, a comically affronted look on his face. "It's not!" he said again, the fog of sleep starting to clear from his voice.

"Okay," Thor agreed.

Loki shot him a narrow-eyed glare. "It's not." When Thor leaned forward to feel his forehead, Loki batted his hand away with a stubborn scowl. Thor just grabbed both of his wrists in one hand and felt the trickster's brow before he could try to dodge. 

"You're still a little warm," Thor commented while Loki snatched his hands back against his chest and glared. "But your fever is definitely down." He knew enough to anticipate Loki trying to get out of bed, and pushed him back down. "I didn't say your fever was gone," Thor chastised him. "Stay in bed."

"Didn't you say I had to take a nap after the meeting? Well, I did, so let me up," Loki argued. Thor winced—he'd forgotten, but of course Loki hadn't.

"So you admit it was a nap," Thor joked. The look Loki gave him was entirely unimpressed. He sighed. "Alright. Come on, let's go to the ship."

Loki's eyebrows furrowed. "Back to the ship?" he echoed.

Thor nodded. "I told you. We're leaving."

"Stark said he believed you—"

"You eavesdropped on us," Thor accused.

"—and that was your condition. Why are we leaving?" Loki finished, a mulish expression crossing his face.

"Rhodes said he didn't," Thor said, setting his jaw.

"Are you still on about that?" Loki tipped his head back with a groan. "I thought we talked about this. I thought maybe there was some brain matter in there, but apparently it's just solid bone, and everything I said has bounced off."

Thor folded his arms. "I'm not changing my mind."

"You will change your mind if I have to recreate your dearly departed hammer in order to pound my point through that brick wall you call a brain," Loki threatened. They spent a minute of silence staring each other down. "You are an idiot!" Loki burst out in an almost-screech, throwing his hands up in the air. Thor almost smirked, but that was apparently only the beginning of Loki's rant and not a surrender. "Did I not tell you that we can't afford to throw away the aid of your Avengers?"

Thor's smirk quickly dropped—Loki's breath was starting to quicken, and he was clearly barreling hard and fast for another panic attack. "Loki," Thor cut him off, "breathe, brother. Ssh, we'll talk, but stop a minute. I swear I'll listen. Breathe." He sat down on the edge of the bed to pull Loki into his arms, holding his brother and helping him ride out a brief surge of tremors. When Loki was calm again, his breathing under control, Thor gave him another squeeze and leaned back. "Okay, brother. Talk." Thor tried to look encouraging and ready to listen.

Loki pressed his lips together and furrowed his eyebrows. "Thor," he pointed out, clearly seconds away from shouting, "we need them. Stark says he believes you, and Rhodes will follow his lead. Stark will be instrumental when your other friends arrive back from whatever mission they don't want me to know about. I told you the universe is much more important that one person—and anyway, you're not breaking your promise. I'll be fine. We need them, Thor. Can't you just take their compromise?"

Thor sighed. No small part of him wanted to dig his heels in and argue, but... Loki was right, as much as it rankled him. "Fine," he growled. "But if they keep being so bilgesnipe-headed, we're leaving."

All the tension seemed to drain out of Loki at once, or at least most of it. "That's all I ask of you."

"Go back to sleep," Thor told him. "I'm going to go speak to them."

"Did we not just talk about this?" Loki asked, exasperated.

"It's probably better that it's just me speaking with them right now," Thor pointed out. Loki looked irritated at his logic.

"Fine," he complained, "but I'm not going back to bed. I'll go to the Statesman and see what needs to be done." The moment he finished speaking, he vanished. Thor shook his head as he stood.

When Thor left the room, he wasn't quite surprised to see Stark and Rhodes were still there, arguing in quiet voices in the kitchen. "We're staying," Thor announced, grabbing their attention, "but on my conditions."

Stark nodded, and Rhodes frowned. "What are your conditions?" he asked, nudging the mechanic with his elbow.

"No harassing my brother," Thor declared, narrowing his eye challengingly. "You believe what he says—or if you don't you keep quiet about it. You provide for the needs of our people in terms of food and clothing, and you don't tell anyone on earth we're here without permission from me."

"It's a deal," Stark said quickly, before Rhodes could speak.

"Good," Thor said. "We'll talk over dinner." He left the room without saying goodbye—he wasn't sure he could be civil much longer. Stark is your friend, he tried to remind himself. But Loki was his brother.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Thor asked.

Loki glared, and then rolled his eyes. "I'm up and out here, am I not? I feel fine. It's only your paranoia, brother. Besides, I think you need me." He smirked. "How was the distribution of supplies going before I stepped in, again?" Thor huffed.

They stood outside on the lawn, staring up at the ship that had been home for so long. There was a brisk chill in the air that day, and Loki lingered close to Thor because of it, with his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. Stark had a large amount of clothing delivered that morning, and they were in the process of diving allotments up for the citizens. The brothers, Brunnhilde, and Bruce had gotten first pick. For some reason, Thor didn't think that the rich, blue-black skinny jeans, emerald turtleneck, black leather jacket and gauzy green scarf that Loki sported had been ordered by Stark. He didn't call Loki on it, though—there was no harm in the silvertongue conjuring clothing for himself.

Asgardians were scattered across the lawn, picking through different boxes of clothing—in one spot was women's shirts, another children's shoes, and so on. The people moved in a winding, slowly moving line that started and ended at the doors to the hangar, with a stop at each station. Loki had told the people that they could pick two pairs of shoes, five pairs of socks, three pairs of pants (or skirts), five shirts, one jacket, and one dress in the case of women and girls. The rest would be divided up based on how much clothing families had as a whole—some had managed to buy clothes on distant planets or managed to bring extra when fleeing their homes, while some had only the three outfits their funds had managed to provide at the start of the trip.

Thor was startled when a little girl picked up a dress, and then departed the line to march in their direction. "Prince Loki," she demanded as soon as she got up to them, "make this dress blue. Please." Loki raised an eyebrow, but the dressed changed from pale yellow to sky blue in color. She beamed and hugged it to her chest. "Thank you!"

"I'm not helping you when you're mobbed by people wanting their clothes adjusted," Thor said mildly.

"Are you not concerned for my health? That I might overdo it?" Loki asked sweetly, cocking his head. Thor punched him in the side. Doubling over with a yelp, Loki gasped for breath. "Rude."

Thor rolled his eye fondly. "Oh come on, that was hardly anything. Especially compared to a stab wound."

"Attacked by my own brother," Loki straightened up to address the sky, infusing a hint of melodrama in his tone. "Oh, how the betrayal stings! I have been gravely wounded by my heartless brother, who cares not for my suffering. Oh, where shall I go now that family has forsaken me? Shall I live alone forever, in the—"

"Okay, that's enough," Thor grumbled. "Speak a little louder, brother, they can't hear you in Niflheim." Before Loki could take it as a challenge, he changed the subject. "Why are we standing out here, again?"

"So no one steals," Loki reminded him. 

"Oh. Right." Thor tugged on the hem of the jean-jacket he wore to straighten it. "About this evening—"

Loki scoffed. "I'm no fainting flower, brother, I can handle a conversation about... Thanos."

No you can't, Thor didn't say. You can hardly say his name, he didn't say. Instead, he nodded, smiled, and said, "well, if you change your mind, that's perfectly alright.

"Now, what are we doing once the clothes are all sorted out?"

Loki sighed, and told him.

It was truly amazing how fast time could go by when you were trying desperately to cram a whole people into a brand new place and make it work. The day they landed had been relatively quiet, with everyone too busy to make any trouble with each other. Now that the rush of landing on Midgard was over, and living arrangements had been for the most part sorted out, that peace no longer held. The brothers were called to mediate at least ten different disputes about clothing alone, and after that the floodgates seemed to open. Numerous people complained about their living arrangements—why did they have to leave the Statesman? They were set up there!; why did they need to stay on the Statesman, they wanted a new space!; Well they didn't want a change now, they'd already settled in!—and it was utterly exhausting. Whatever Loki claimed about being well, he was clearly starting to flag by the time lunch rolled around. Thor would have forced him to take a nap if he thought he could get away with it. Truly it was a miracle that Loki had conceded to a nap once, and it spoke a lot to how terrible he must have been feeling. Trying to get him to take a second nap in one day would be more difficult than cooling Muspelheim, and so Thor didn't even try. He knew a losing battle when he saw one. The thunderer contented himself with making sure Loki had plenty to eat—"shoving food down my throat," Loki called it—and took a short break before they returned to the Asgardian people and their endless problems. And then it was time to speak with Stark.

Dinner was decidedly awkward, Loki thought. They were seated around the round table instead of rectangular, a slightly transparent attempt to blur the harsh divide between the two groups. Loki sat with Thor on his right and Brunn his left. Bruce sat next to the Valkyrie, next to Stark, who had Rhodes on his other side, and the mind stone completed the uncomfortable circle, between Thor and Rhodes. The four from the Statesmen, however, had bunched together, as had the others on the opposite side of the table, so the divide didn't much change. 

Stark had ordered food again—spaghetti. Thor alternated between being vastly appreciative of the meal—a peace offering from Stark?—suspicious of the humans (minus Bruce), and fussing over Loki. There was a bit of small talk between Bruce and Stark, but the silvertongue wasn't listening. His stomach had tied itself up in knots, and the constant pressure the mind stone exerted on his magic combined with his nerves and slight lingering nausea made eating an impossible task. He would have forgone it entirely had he thought he could under the watchful eyes of Thor, Bruce, and Brunnhilde. At least one of them was always watching. Thor kept trying to entice him to eat by enthusing over the food (though most of the praise was genuine, Loki thought), while Brunnhilde just glared pointedly and Bruce gave him disappointed looks. Loki's hand shook when he picked up his fork. Everyone in the room was staring at him, and the urge to bolt was getting stronger by the second.

Loki managed a small bite of his food, contorting his face in order to force himself to swallow without retching, and then took a long drink of his water. His fingers reflexively clenched around the cup when the so-called Vision shifted. Loki saw Thor glancing at Bruce and Brunnhilde out of the corner of his eye and resisted the urge to scoff. He was fine. He was fine. He could handle being in the same room as the St—the stone. There was no need to fuss over him so. "Where are the rest of you?" Loki asked, trying to distract his brother and friends from their persistent staring. "Should they not hear this?"

"They're not here," Stark said after a minute of silence and a panicked glance at Rhodes. "And they can catch up later."

"We know that," Loki muttered into his water as he took another sip to keep himself from making a face. He could feel a drop of sweat running down his neck, and tensed his shoulders so he wouldn't shiver. His head was beginning to throb, echoing with memories of the stone forcing its way in. Or was it—no, that was the way which led madness (and you're not mad already?). No, breathe. "If you don't want to tell us, then fine. What do you want to know?" He set down the glass and spread his hands, giving them his best smile, even as it trembled at the edges. "I'm all answers." He lifted the cup again, gripping it tightly to disguise the slight trembling in his hands. He was fine, he was fine, breathe. It's fine.

"Wait," Stark said quickly. "I just... we're sorry, Loki. This morning was uncalled for. We just... wanted to make sure you meant what you said." Thor snorted, loudly.

A test, then. But have I passed? Loki tried valiantly to keep his surprise off of his face. "On the contrary," he said, "I think it was quite called for. But apology accepted all the same. Now, again, what do you want to know?"

"Anything you can tell us about that tita—" Rhodes started.

The glass shattered apart under Loki's hand. He cried out, biting back a swear as the water splashed all over him, spilling over the table and dripping into his lap. Brunnhilde, Bruce, and Thor all dove for the napkins in the center of the table at the same time, and clocked heads in the middle. Somehow, they all managed to pull back with a fistful of napkins anyways. Bruce dabbed at Loki's shirt while Thor and the Valkyrie both tried to clean up his hands and the table.

"S-sorry," Loki stammered. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He blinked furiously, trying to hold back the tears that welled up. "Sorry. That... I'll just..." he started to reach for a napkin, but Bruce stopped him.

"Hang on," the scientist said kindly. "Let me check your hands. You might have splinters in them, and we want to get those out fast before you heal around them." He kneeled in front of the silvertongue, grabbing both of Loki's hands in his own and inspecting them. "Yeah, a few did get in there. Hang on." He jumped up, rushed into the lab, and started rummaging through the drawers, only to return with a pair of tweezers in hand. "Stay as still as you can," he told Loki as he sat down in front of him. "This might hurt, but if you move I won't be able to get them out." Loki stayed statue-still but for his breathing as Bruce removed all the splinters in his hands, making a neat pile of semi-bloody glass shards on the table. "Now wash your hands. There might still be some bits in there that are too small for me to see. Water should get the rest out. And use soap, you don't want to get an infection."

Loki stared at his hands in silence, hardly hearing the scientist's words. Rage and self-disgust battled for dominance inside of him. Get over yourself, it's just water, he snarled at himself, but the maelstrom didn't ease in the slightest. Then Thor's arm was around his shoulders, and Loki followed near blindly as he was shepherded into the kitchen and in front of the sink, too off-balance to do anything but comply. When his older brother guided his hands under the running water, the sensation brought him back to himself, at least enough to not need his big brother to clean his hands for him. He washed his hands, trying his best to still the full-body trembling that had started at the mention of him. He took the towel Thor offered to dry them (with a small, spiteful bit of pleasure at possibly getting blood on Stark's towel) and hurried back to his seat.

"Sorry about that," Loki said when they were sitting down at the table again, with his best charming smile that seemed to get less effective by the moment. He could feel his face flushing, entirely without his will, and part of him hoped they would blame it on the low-grade fever he still had. A whispered word and a flick of the wrist, and the glass was back together, with water inside, and clothes unsullied. "Carry on. What were you saying?" Loki kept his voice light, as cheerful as he could. No one said anything. "No, really. Don't mind me."

"Are you sure?" Thor asked, voice tight with worry. A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed, just shy of bruising force. "This can wait until tomorrow, I'm sure—" Thor started. Loki silenced him with a strangled, enraged noise deep in his throat.

"I. Am. Fine." He hissed. Who are you trying to fool? "As I said, ask away." Stark and Rhodes exchanged a glance that seemed to contain an entire conversation. Loki's lip curled. "I am not weak."

"No one said you were, buddy," Stark said unexpectedly. He sighed, briefly pinching the bridge of his nose before allowing his hand to drop. "Fine, then. First of all, what's his name, no one's told us that yet, just the not-all-at ominous 'mad-titan.' What are we up against?"

Loki's breath halted in his chest, and the lazy smile on his face froze solid. His tongue was thick in his mouth when he tried to speak, and unwittingly, his eyes flicked to the mind stone. Shuddering, he looked away again. His mouth opened and closed. Again, frustrated tears built in his eyes, and the mischief-maker cursed himself. It's just a name, you moron.

"Thanos," Thor said, grabbing Loki's hand under the table and squeezing. "That's his name. He's of a race called Titans, the last of his kind."

"He believes the universe is overpopulated," Loki said, his tongue finally loosening up again. "His goal is to correct that. By wiping out half of all life."

"Why?" Rhodes asked, sounding morbidly fascinated in spite of himself.

"His homeworld was in a golden age, the peak of civilization. Highly populated, and he was born the son of a nobleman. There was poverty, and crime, like on all worlds. He suggested genocide as a solution." Loki swallowed hard, eyes on an entirely different place. With the mind stone in the room, it wasn't hard to picture Sanctuary—as if it ever was. He remembered the way he had been told the tale, by those loyal to the Titan—and the whispers of truth spread by the less-so. "His people banished him as a madman. Years passed, and a war occurred, planet-wide. Many died, almost a quarter of the population. He heard about the tragedy, after spending the years of his banishment gathering allies, and in the wake of the war descended with a mass genocide. After slaughtering half of his remaining people, he left. His actions caused even more war, more famine, more disease and poverty—but when the society collapsed and he became the last living member of his people, he only saw that he was right." Loki paused to draw in a breath. "They could have recovered from the war. But they could not recover from what he did."

"You said his goal is to wipe out half of all life." Stark said after a minute of contemplation.

"It is," Thor answered.

"How do you know? Why should we believe you?" Stark's eyes were dark. Almost black, but lit from within. He looked like a cornered animal bearing its teeth. The look in his eyes reminded Loki of Sanctuary. It was a look that everyone there carried, to different degrees. Loki imagined his own expression mirrored it. Thor growled.

"New York," Bruce offered. "The civilizations he's already massacred."

"There are whispers all over the galaxy," Brunnhilde added. "Not openly talked about, but almost everyone knows something about him. They ignore him, though."

"There's a saying on Sanctuary," Loki spoke through numb lips. "His battleship, his base. He calls it Sanctuary. They say... they say he is inevitable. The rest of the universe... they have seen what he leaves behind. They believe it. They do not fight back unless their own planet is attacked, because the price of failure is something no one is willing to pay. They simply hope he passes them by. He... he sticks to underdeveloped worlds. Farming planets. Crime centers. Places without organized military. His might is great, I imagine he could take down a highly developed world with ease. But he doesn't. If he strikes in the open, they may be forced to strike back, and he is no fool. He would rather avoid the hassle."

"Tony," Bruce said. "You saw in that portal. Don't pretend you don't know it's coming. He's coming. He's a plague. He invades planets, he takes what he wants, he wipes out half the population."

"He calls it salvation," Loki whispered distantly. Salvation. Sanctuary. Pain. Death. He shivered.

"Breathe," Thor reminded him. His thumb rubbed circles into the palm of Loki's hand. "He's not here."

"What else can you tell us?" Stark asked. His voice had gentled somewhat. He met Loki's eyes, and there was something understanding in there. Harsh, but empathetic. Pull yourself together, those eyes said. There's no time to break down.

I know, Loki thought back. He inhaled deeply and set his jaw. "He's been culling planets by army for years—but his ultimate goal is to complete his mission in an instant. The infinity stones can rewrite the universe to their user's command—and he intends to collect them. With their use, he can half the population of the universe in an instant." He looked up, meeting Stark's eyes, and snapped. "Just like that, half of all life, gone." Stark swallowed, looking highly disturbed. Rhodes seemed skeptical still, but no less appalled. Loki refused to look at the mind stone.

"What are the infinity stones? They're like the thing in Vision's head, right?" Stark asked. He didn't seem to realize that he was leaning forward until Rhodes tugged him back.

"'The thing in Vision's head,'" Loki parroted, the phrasing making him sick in its nonchalance, "is an infinity stone." He paused to draw in a breath, and drained the last of his water to try and steady his head. "There are many tales about where the infinity stones came from. Some say they originated with the universe, some say they were there before, and some claim they were created by either the Celestials or some singular cosmic being, but that is neither here nor there. What is known for certain is that the Celestials—an incredibly powerful and incredibly diverse race of beings—were the first masters of the stones, or at least the first recorded. It was by their records that we know the functions of the stones, at least in Asgard. There are six, and each represent a different, fundamental element of our universe.

"Reality, Soul, Mind, Time, Space, and Power," Loki recited, lifting a hand, illusory stones appearing to rotate above his palm as they were named. "Used together, they can do anything." He let most of the illusions melt away, leaving only the reality stone. The gleaming crimson gem spilled apart on his command, turning into an angry red nebula that twisted and twined and reached with grasping tentacles—Loki coughed. "The reality stone is perhaps the most unique, at least in appearance. Unless forced into the shape of a stone, it acts as a liquid does. A very, very deadly, very powerful liquid. The reality stone's function is the shifting and distorting of the natural reality, so I suppose it's fitting that it's so different from the other stones, and fluid in nature. Unlike the others, the reality stone can pick and infect a host while in liquid form, drawing off of the strength of their body until it's victim dies and it moves on to the next. The host, however, can control the powers of the stone while it's inside of them, at least as long as they can survive it. Though," Loki paused, flinching when the mind stone tried to catch his eye, "I suppose the function of taking hosts might not be its original nature. It was in the keeping of the dark elves for a long time, and used as a weapon. It could easily be that they found a way to twist it to their easier use. Its liquid form might not be so natural after all." He cleared his throat again, a slight blush starting when he noticed Thor's disgustingly fond smile. "I seem to have gotten off topic."

"Anything you can tell us is good," Stark said seriously. Loki dipped his head.

"Each stone can be used as a power source, or a crude energy weapon. That is what most who have found them use them as. But that is not all that they can do, by any stretch. The reality stone, as its name suggests, changes the nature of reality. With the reality stone, changing lead into gold is but a thought. Gravity can pull up instead of down. It can change elements, states of matter, transfigure and grow or shrink items, project illusions with such detail that you can feel, hear, and even perhaps smell or taste them, and twist the natural laws of the universe onto itself. If a wielder is inventive enough, they can do such things as make air toxic to their enemies or transfigure them all into toys in order to win a fight."

"Wow, okay," Stark said once Loki had made it clear he was done talking.

"The reality stone is in the keeping of a man known as the Collector," Thor volunteered begrudgingly.

"He's an elder of the universe," Brunn explained further. "Very powerful, and very attached to his things. Taking an infinity stone from him would be pretty much impossible, without another infinity stone, at least."

"And there are six of these?" Rhodes said, clearly disturbed by Loki's explanation.

Loki pressed his lips together. "I just said so, did I not? Or have you already forgotten?" Normally, Thor would have chided him for being so rude, but he didn't say a word, which somewhat surprised the prince.

"Remember to eat," Thor said instead.

"Mother-dragon," Loki hissed at him out of the corner of his mouth. He took a large forkful of spaghetti and ate it. "Eating, see?"

Irritatingly, the concern on Thor's face didn't fade. "You were sick just yesterday. Do you want something easier to eat? I'm sure there's some fruit here, or—"

"Thor," Loki snapped. "Enough. I'm fine, I assure you. Shut up." He huffed, and had another bite just to prove his point, ignoring how the food sunk into his stomach like a rock. Giving a soft shake of the head, Loki lifted his hand again, this time displaying an orange gem above it. "The soul stone is the stone of which the least is known, by far. It's theorized that the soul stone can be used to create life where there was none, true life. New species, capable of reproduction and learning and growth, or else alter existing genetics. It is simply rumor, but... there are many that say the Celestials used the soul stone to create other races of intelligent beings across the universe—or, by another theory, manipulate life that was already there. That second theory certainly has the most weight. There are Celestials known for mucking about with the genetics or progression of other worlds, Midgard being one of their favorites to play with. While there is some speculation about the ability of the stone, and no true fact, even less is known about the location. Nothing, in fact."

"I thought I found the map to it, once," Thor said unexpectedly, and Loki looked to him in surprise. "But there was nothing. It's very well hidden, wherever it is."

"There is a proverb on the stone, rather debated by scholars of the universe. 'Seekers of Soul will regret their toils,'" the trickster quoted, 'for the stone demands a heavy price.' It could be a fiction, but I believe it is fact. It is likely protected by some sort of trap, perhaps laid by the Celestials."

"So all you know is hearsay and legends," Rhodes summarised. "Nothing for sure."

Loki tipped his head in a sort-of nod. While nothing the man said was false, it felt nearly accusatory in tone. Thor apparently thought the same, by the glare he fixed on Rhodes. "Next is the mind stone. The stone that your... Vision holds." His hands were shaking again. Wonderful. "The mind stone, as you have seen, can be used to control and direct others." The glares of both men sharpened slightly at the reminded, and Loki twitched, fighting back the urge to run. "But that is its use at it's most blunt and heavy-handed. It can be much more... subtle." Loki pulled in a shaky inhale. The stone was watching him quite intently, now. "It can... nudge minds. Make them more receptive to certain ideas, change how someone might respond to a crisis or process emotions. At its... a skilled wielder can... can rewrite those it touches. Change them, twist them, mold them until even they cannot recognize themselves—" oh, funny, he couldn't breathe. His sight started to grey.

"Loki! Loki!" Hands were on his shoulders, shaking him lightly. Loki hissed, trying to curl away from whoever was shaking him. Instinctively, he brought his arms up to protect his head. He waited for the pain to start, for sticky fingers to reach into his mind, scoop him out, and put someone else in his place. He tasted salt on his lips, he realized distantly. The aura of the mind stone drilled into his head, slamming against his now flimsy and crumbling shields. Soon, it would break through, and—"Loki, open your eyes!"

Loki opened his eyes with a little gasp, knowing full well what disobedience would win him. He cast his eyes about, looking for Maw or perhaps Proxima—but what he found was his brother's face, hovering above his own, with Bruce and Brunnhilde bracketing him on both sides. His tears dried up in his throat, replaced by confusion. "It's okay, it's okay brother," Thor soothed, and even in his dazed state Loki could read the panic clear on his face, and slightly more hidden but still there on his friends'. "You're not there, Loki. You're not."

"Can you hear me?" Bruce asked, cutting off Thor's hysterical rambling. Loki nodded shakily, and the doctor smiled. "Good. That's good. Do you think you can sit up?" Loki blinked. Sit up—oh, he was on the floor. With his head on someone's lap—Thor's, he deduced. How awkward.

"I can," he rasped, unfolding his arms and twisting onto his back. He planted a hand on the floor on each side of him, pushing himself up. He didn't quite have the strength, his arms trembling as they tried to bear his weight, but the Valkyrie's hand on his back helped enough for him to get upright. Whereupon he sighted Stark, Rhodes, and the mind stone, standing a few feet away and watching him utterly humiliate himself. He stiffened.

Arguing voices commenced as Loki kept eye contact with the mind stone's vessel, trying not to shake. Then Thor swept him up into his arms and carried him away like a tired child needing a nap. "Put me down," the mischief-maker demanded roughly, face burning with humiliaton, breath coming in short, shallow gasps. Thor carried him back through the lab, conference room, and another small sitting area, and kept hold of him once they were outside and ascending the stairs, though part of Loki had expected to put down once they exited. Clearly, it was not to be. Thor didn't let him go until they reached the thunderer's bedroom, laying him down on the bed. "Get in your nightclothes," Thor ordered him over his shoulder as he left the room. "I'll be right back."

Loki was dressed in his sleepclothes—a loose black tunic and trousers—and sitting cross-legged on the bed by the time Thor returned, playing with the ends of his hair in a feeble attempt at distracting himself from all that had occurred. Thor took one look at him and swept forward to fold him into a crushing hug. Loki tensed at the contact, temped to bristle and snap, but quickly gave in and clung back, curling his fingers in the back of Thor's shirt. It wasn't like there was any more he could do to humiliate himself at that point. "You're safe," Thor told him, almost cooed, to Loki's further shame. "I have you. I won't let anything hurt you. It's going to be alright. You're alright."

With no small amount of trepidation, Loki let go of the last vestiges of his pride, clenched tightly in one metaphorical hand, and allowed himself to sob. From there, he dissolved. His whole body shook with the force of his weeping, as he gasped for breath that would not come and clung to his older brother, who continued to murmur comforts in his ear as he trembled and broke. Tears flooded hot and heavy down his face, getting mixed with snot, and he nearly heaved at one point, simply because of the ferocity of his sobs. When at last he stopped crying, having no energy left to cry with, Thor was still holding him, and... singing. Soft, an old lullaby of their mother's in their native tongue. Not the All-Speech, but the language of Asgard.

Quickly, Loki cleared his throat and pulled back. Thor let him, turning aside to grab a fistful of tissues he used to clean up his little brother's face. "Feeling better?" he asked, cupping Loki's neck.

"Yes," Loki croaked. "You should go back. You're missing dinner."

Thor sighed and squeezed with the hand he had on his little brother's neck. "I'm staying here."

"You should go," Loki pushed.

"Hmm. No. I'm gonna stay right here."

"You should eat. And don't you have things to do?"

Thor gave him a half-glare that showed exactly how impressed he was with that bit of hypocrisy. "I also have a little brother, who isn't feeling very well. I would be a very bad brother if I left him alone right now."

He wasn't going to win this fight. He didn't want to. Loki sagged against his brother and exhaled, short and shuddering. Warm lips brushed against his hair, his temple, the shell of his ear. Loki relaxed even further, practically melting into a puddle in his older brother's waiting arms.

"You really aren't feeling well," Thor observed in a low voice. He sighed. "It's okay, Loki."

Loki couldn't quite swallow down the little scoff that rose in his throat. "Sure."

"It's okay," Thor said again. Steady, unyielding. Certain.

"Breaking down like a little child is okay," Loki drawled skeptically.

"Absolutely." And Thor wasn't kidding either, which was... startling. "You went through something I can't even imagine, Loki. It's more than okay for you to be affected by it."

"You don't know what it's like." Loki clamped his mouth shut, face burning. He hadn't meant to say that.

Patient. "What is it like?" Irrationally, tears welled in Loki's eyes. His breathing started to shorten again. "Ssh, you don't have to, I'm sorry—" Thor babbled.

"No," Loki interrupted stiffly. "I... I want to. Just..." a shudder ran the length of his body. Thor kissed his hair again, continued to hold him close. It helped him force his breathing under control. "It's a shadow," he blurted. "Lurking. Always. As long... I can pretend it's not there. Sometimes I can even forget. As long as I'm busy, as long as I don't think—then it's fine. I can handle it. But if I... it feels... I can't. I can't think about it, because if I think about it, then I can't stop. I... It... I know he's not here right now. I do. But I... it feels like my heart is going to claw out of my chest and run away, Thor. Like imploding, like turning into mush because mush can't think or be afraid or be hurt. It's like hanging above an endless drop, holding onto a cliff. And if you let go... It's. I... I..."

"I'm sorry, brother," Thor said softly. "I'm sorry I wasn't there to protect you. To keep you safe. But I'm here now. I'm not leaving you."

Loki shook his head. "And anyway, I'm fine. I have it handled."

"That," Thor said pointedly, "was not handling it."

Loki flushed. "Yes, well," he snapped, "I'm not used to having the stone around, and I was ill yesterday. I'm just off-balance." 

Thor shifted, and brought a hand up to feel Loki's forehead. "You're warm again," he said, no small amount of worry in his voice. Loki cursed himself. "Here, lie down," the thunderer fussed, maneuvering Loki underneath the mountain of blankets and furs, pulling a dark brown, shaggy pelt that Loki thought might have been from a bear up to his chin. "You hardly ate a thing," Thor said, turning to the side table again, "but you need food."

Loki first blushed and then blanched in rage and mortification when Thor spun back to face him, bowl in one hand and spoon in the other, and reaching forward with the later as if—"you are not going to feed me!" Loki cried, yanking the fur over his face in protection.

"Loki," Thor tried to reason, and the silvertongue pulled the fur down again, but only enough to peek over the edge and no further.

"I will eat," Loki hissed, "but so help me if you try to feed me I'll go on a hunger strike." Shaking his head, Thor handed over the bowl and spoon. Loki ate mechanically, his hand trembling much more than he wished, and about half of the weak broth Thor had brought him ended up splashed on the (water-resistant) fur instead of ingested, but he ate. "You can leave," he felt compelled to say as Thor took the bowl back. "I want to sleep."

Thor raised an eyebrow. "Do you want to be alone, though?"

Yes, Loki wanted to say. He hissed through his teeth instead, furious that he couldn't make himself say the word. He opened his mouth, and then shut it. Growled, low in his throat. Thor smiled at him, soft and sweet. The love in his eye pierced straight through Loki, better than any dagger. How can you love me? he wanted to ask, but fortunately had enough self-control to refrain.

"I thought so." Thor hoped onto the bed and wormed his way under the covers, pulling Loki into his arms. It was an awkward shuffle, but somehow the great brute managed to make it work, and spread the blankets over both of them. "Go to sleep, little brother. I'm not leaving you. I swear."

Loki closed his eyes. He really, truly, was tired. Exhausted, bone-and-soul deep. All the emotion had sucked him dry, and yet he knew that the slightest misstep right then would send him quaking with terror. Thor was right. He didn't want to be alone. Thor's presence... it fought off the fears the way nothing ever hand. The way only his older brother could, with his bright smiles and strong arms that even now made Loki feel small and safe when wrapped up in them. Only because he was so tired, he allowed himself a weakness. He rested his head against Thor's collarbone and nuzzled him with a soft sigh, barely more than an exhale, a pass of breath over lips. Thor's arms squeezed him in response, a slight increase of pressure that was there and gone. Almost the minute he closed his eyes, Loki was asleep.

Chapter Text

Loki stirred a fork languidly through the scrambled eggs on his plate. He didn't feel like eating. A little tired, a little foggy, a touch of nausea—and it was raining outside. He wanted to go back to bed, curl up underneath the piles of furs and sleep for a fortnight. He scooped up a bite of eggs and put it in his mouth. It tasted foul. There was far too much salt, in his opinion. "I thought you said you could make eggs," he complained.

Brunnhilde glared at him, stabbing her own plate of eggs with a fork. The metal on porcelain made a terrible screeching sound, and Loki's head throbbed in response. "I didn't say I was good at it. I said I could."

"I think it's good," Thor said, following his words with an overloaded forkful. A chunk of egg dropped off the side of the fork and hit the ground. Loki grimaced in response.

"Stop dropping food on the floor," Loki snapped at him. Thor shrugged and bent to pick it up with a napkin.

"Is there any particular reason you're being so churlish this morning, or did you wake up this way?" Brunn asked.

Loki nearly hissed in anger, but held it back. "I am not being churlish." She raised an eyebrow and turned back to her breakfast. "I'm not!"

"Suuuuure, Lackey."

Loki did hiss that time.

"Are you sure you feel okay?" Thor said. Before Loki could fend him off, he leaned over to press a hand to the silvertongue's brow. "You're not warm, but you do look a little pale. Do—"

"If you're about to ask whether I want to go back to bed," Loki growled, "I will stab you."

Thor raised his hands in surrender. "Never mind, then."

Satisfied that he'd be left alone, Loki slumped down in his seat to stare balefully at his plate. He didn't feel sick, exactly. Just a general sort of malaise. He supposed it was making him more crabby than he usually was in the morning—then again, the memory of last night's utter humiliation was still burning fresh. He stiffened when Thor's hand settled on his back, and pulled away. When he cast a quick glance sideways, Thor looked hurt. Loki looked away again, a vague guilt squirming inside of him. "Sorry," he mumbled.

Loki ate just enough of his eggs to excuse his leaving, dumped the excess on Thor's plate, and made his escape. He left the building to lean against the wall, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. Raindrops pricked lightly on his hair, and one splattered on the bridge of his nose. The dull throbbing in his head pulsed with a rumble of thunder. When he opened his eyes, it was just in time to see a lavender bolt of lightning tear a crack in the sky. Loki blinked away the afterimage and reached up to rub his head. The rain continued to gently pelt his skin, the scent of petrichor heavy and calming in the air.

He shivered when a slight breeze brushed by, and wrapped his arms around his middle. Idly, he wished that he had a name for what he was feeling, this burry blend of illness-fatigue-aching. With a thought, Loki summoned a coat—light brown, but not quite tan, with faux-fur in a dirty creme trimming the cuffs and concealing the zipper. He left it without a hood, liking the feeling of rain on his face. It made him feel a little more solid, a little more real. Curling his fingers in the downy cuffs, Loki squeezed once, lightly, and then let go. His fingers were cold, but he didn't conjure gloves. Instead, he raised a hand to the sky and let the rain tickle his palm.

Before Thor could come outside and fuss over him for standing there in the rain, Loki started walking. He crossed the courtyard, feet slapping lightly on the wet concrete. The plants glimmered in the soft light of an overcast day, covered in dew shining like stars. Raindrops caught on his eyelashes and dripped down his face like tears. Loki let them.

He teleported across the street rather than take the skywalk over, and walked onto the grass instead of following the sidewalk. The urge to take off his shoes and socks and walk—or run—barefoot through the grass prodded at his mind, but Loki ignored it. He didn't want to get his feet muddy. Or to be seen acting like a small child. He was in a strange mood, Loki reflected. A small smile twisted his lips when he looked up at the hazy, dove-gray sky and a comparison crossed his mind—he felt like the sky before a storm. Dark with rain, charged with lightning, but there was no downpour. Ominous and still and quiet. It summed up how he felt quite well.

When Loki reached the hangar, he didn't enter. Didn't even go under the overhang, to get out of the rain. He tipped his face back to look straight up, and stared at the sky with wide eyes. A bird wheeled overhead, and Loki wanted to join it. His face wrinkled up when a drop of rain ran into the corner of his mouth. The rain was starting to pick up, and the wind with it. Trees whipped in the wind, and the bird disappeared from the sky, presumably to seek shelter.

Is this how Thor feels? Loki wondered as the rain pelted his face. His feet felt light, his chest felt heavy. He felt like a piece of the storm—a gust of wind, or a raindrop perhaps. Caught up in the spell of the weather. On a whim, he banished his coat and let the rain soak him through. Loki squinted when the rain ran into his eyes, but he didn't close them. The light sting was worth the otherwordly cast the rain gathering in his eyelashes painted over his regular vision. If he stood there long enough, could he see the atoms that made up the universe? The dark-haired prince almost thought he could. A minute smile curved his lips. He could see why Thor liked the storms—not that he never did, himself. But still.

Wind and rain stuck his shirt and pants to his skin, clinging tight and wrinkling up. On one side, his hair was plastered to his head, while on the other it blew sideways in wild, sopping curls. It was cold, very cold, but he pretended it wasn't. The cold, Loki told himself, wasn't the master of him. Even as the familiar fear-dread-loneliness-pain built up inside him, even as he finally knew why the cold always sent a chill so much deeper than his skin. He'd gotten good at ignoring it. Before he found out what he was, actually. It was both harder and easier once he knew the reason for it.

"Loki!"

Loki's stomach dropped and he turned to see Thor storming across the lawn. The rain parted around him in a perfect circle that grew to encompass Loki himself. "Have you lost your mind!?" Thor roared, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him back and forth. Sparks popped around his hands. One caught Loki, and he winced. At that, Thor's expression softened, the anger leaking from his eye. He reached up a hand to cup Loki's cheek, pushing back a clump of wet hair that was stuck to his face. "Brother, what are you doing out here, standing in the rain? Are you trying to get sick again? You just got over one sickness, Loki! Come on, you need to dry off." He grabbed Loki by the hand, and started pulling him toward the hangar. Loki followed.

Thor quickly hustled him into the Statesman, and brought him back to the rooms they had shared while traveling. "Out of those wet clothes," the thunderer ordered, sounding terrifyingly like their mother.

On any other occasion, Loki would have protested or at least asked Thor to turn before he stripped, but the anger still simmering in the king’s eye had him holding his tongue. He peeled off his wet clothes and Thor immediately wrapped him in a large, fluffy blanket and sat him down on the bed. He dragged his bare toes across the floor as he waited for the lecture.

Thor sighed. “We are going to talk about your carelessness with your health, don’t think I’ll forget. But you’re shivering like a frightened rabbit kit. Go take a shower, warm up, and we’ll talk once you’re done.”

Loki nodded.

Thor leaned against the bathroom door, listening carefully. The water turned on, and a few moments later the shower door clicked open and shut. He sighed and backed away to sit on the bed, putting his head in his hands.

He could not fathom why Loki would do something so stupid. Why he’d risk his health that way, standing out in the pouring rain without so much as a scarf for protection. While his reaction to even speaking of Thanos or the mind stone was terrifying to his older brother, every time, Loki's recklessness with his own well-being frightened him even further. Without Thor there, or someone else looking after him, Loki wouldn't take proper care of himself. It had horrified him to see Loki standing there, thoroughly soaked and trembling from the cold. It didn't make any sense to him. Loki was smart, he knew not to do something so foolish, and furthermore, he'd always hated the cold, as long as Thor could remember. When he was just a toddler, Loki would cry if someone tried to make him go outside while it was cold. And yet he'd simply stood there in the cold rain, letting himself be half-drowned without even summoning a jacket for protection. Thor clenched his fists in his jeans and took a deep breath. There was no point in working himself up, not until he could talk to Loki about it. He waited.

Eventually, the water shut off. A few minutes later, Loki emerged, dressed in a loose tunic and trousers. His hair made a damp ring on the collar of the shirt, and he was barefoot. Thor sighed and beckoned him over, patting the bed next to him. Loki sat, and Thor turned him sideways slightly to get at his hair better. He separated the damp raven locks into three sections, and started to braid. When he finished, it just barely brushed the edge of his tunic. "There," Thor said, satisfied, "now it won't drip all over you."

"Thank you."

That done, Thor grabbed Loki by the shoulders and gently turned his little brother to face him. "Loki," he began, "why were you standing out there in the rain? Why didn't you go inside?"

Loki didn't look at him, keeping his eyes turned down and focused on the bedspread. "I don't know," he said softly. "It was... peaceful."

Thor held off from reaching up to rub his forehead—or reaching over and shaking Loki by the shoulders until he returned to his senses, which was what he really wanted to do. "Loki, brother, look at me." He waited until Loki obeyed, cautiously lifting up his head. Unsure how to breech what he wanted to ask, Thor simply started talking. "Are you alright? You've been acting off, and I know it's been hard for you being back on earth, don't lie. Is there anything you need? Anything I can help you with?" Internally, Thor cursed. That wasn't what he wanted to ask. Were you trying to hurt yourself?

Loki sighed. "I have a headache, though it's minor. I think I'm just tired. I'll be perfectly fine again in a few days, I'm sure. It's just," he gestured indistinctly. "All this. I'm fine."

Thor cursed mentally, again. He'd lost the opportunity, now. "Okay," he said instead. "You stay here and rest for a while, okay? Maybe read a book? I'll come and get you for lunch." He patted Loki's shoulder and stood up. When the door to the room hissed shut, Thor curled his hands into fists to keep from turning back around and racing back in. He wanted to check Loki for a fever, to drag him to Bruce, or even just stay there to make sure he wasn't alone. Seeing Loki stand there in the rain... his mind filled with the jagged, glimmering shards of the Bifrost, and fear lingered heavy on the back on his tongue.

He'll be fine, Thor reassured himself. He just needs a bit of time. It's only our second day here. Heimdall can keep an eye on him, I'll know if he needs me.

Still, it didn't ease the muted fear that had sprung into being when he saw Loki out there in the cold, drenched and trembling.

Loki had meant to stay awake. He really, truly had. He had summoned a book, got comfortable on the bed, opened to the first page... and then a hand was shaking his shoulder and Thor's voice was calling him. "Loki, brother. Wake up."

"Nuh," Loki moaned, reaching up to push away the hand petting his hair. He flipped over and burrowed his face into the mattress. He was tired, and his head hurt, and Thor was bothering him.

Thor sounded amused. "I know you're tired. You need to eat lunch, and then you can go back to sleep, okay?"

"Lemme lone," Loki grumbled. A curl of nausea twined in his gut at the thought of eating.

"Or I can carry you."

"I'm up, I'm up," Loki yelped, jerking upright and springing off of the bed. "I'm up." Thor was smirking. "What?"

"You have a mark on your face, from sleeping on that book," Thor told him bluntly. Loki yelped and clapped a hand to his cheek. "Other side."

Growling, Loki spun on his heel and stalked to the wall, waving a hand to turn the surface into a mirror. He scowled darkly at his reflection. A large red line slanted across one side of his face, dark bags lingered under his eyes, and his hair was frizzy and half-escaped from the braid Thor had put it in. "Were you going to let me leave the room like this?"

"I might have," Thor said lightly. "You look pretty adorable."

Loki growled and lunged for his older brother, intent on tackling him to the ground. He smashed into Thor, but the thunderer didn't budge. "Ugh." Loki stepped away and starting pulling out the braid in his hair. "You could have at least wobbled a little bit."

Thor laughed at him, which was rude. "Here," he said, helping Loki undo the braid. "Why don't I just redo it?"

Shrugging, Loki turned back to study his face in the mirror. "Sure," he replied dismissively. Thor quickly and deftly redid his braid, while Loki weaved a subtle glamor over himself to improve his appearance.

"Aww," Thor said with a dramatic pout, "I thought you looked good with a big red line on your face."

"Shut up," Loki muttered, halfheartedly slugging him in the stomach.

"Alright, I'm done. Let's go get lunch," Thor said, clapping Loki on the shoulder and leading him out of the room. The halls of the ship were relatively empty, what with most families currently eating lunch, but they still passed a few citizens on the way out. Loki nodded to each of them. Thor, being himself, always greeted them loudly, and most of the time by name. Show off. "Wait," Thor said, snagging Loki by the back of his shirt right when he was about to exit the ship. "Jacket, Loki. It's still raining." Loki groaned and rolled his eyes, but conjured the same jacket he'd worn earlier. "Zip it." Loki twitched his fingers and the coat zipped itself. Normally he wouldn't use seidr for something so minor, but he was more interested in getting lunch over with and didn't feel like dawdling. "Thank you," Thor said, and finally let him go.

Thor kept up the circle of dry weather as he hustled Loki across the lawn, all but dragging him in a flat out run. "Why are you running," Loki complained. "Is there a late penalty or something?"

"No," Thor said staunchly. "I just want to get out of this cold."

Scoffing, Loki nearly slipped on the wet grass. "Oh, just stop." Thor didn't, but he did slow his pace. Somewhat.

Once they were inside, Loki vanished the jacket again, and took a moment to make sure his hair was presentable before they joined the main group. He could smell something in the air, spices and cooking meat. Instead of enticing him, the smell both turned his stomach and aggravated his headache. Oblivious, Thor pulled him into the main room. The Valkyrie and Bruce were seated across from each other at the dining table, playing some sort of card game. Loudly. Rhodes was watching and giving pointers, while Stark leaned on the kitchen counter with a drink in hand. "Hey, Thunderpants, Rock of Ages! We were beginning to think you guys weren't coming!"

Rhodes snorted. "No one was thinking that, Tony. Stop being a drama queen."

"Me?" the inventor gasped, "dramatic? Never. I am appalled at the suggestion, Colonel Rhodes."

"Brat," the Colonel responded fondly. Stark spoke over him.

"We're having chili—super great rainy day food, really. Don't worry, Rhodey made it, he's a good cook. It just needs to finish heating up and then we'll eat."

Loki was hardly listening. He kept skimming his eyes over the room, instead. He didn't sense the mind stone, but it could be cloaking itself. If it had learned to cloak... Stop being a child, Loki snarled at himself.

"Where's Vision?" Thor asked casually. Loki was torn between hugging him or stabbing him. Both at the same time seemed like a rather attractive option.

"He's doing other things," Stark said dismissively. "Since he doesn't really eat. He won't be joining us today."

Loki's shoulders lowered slightly as some of the tension in him eased, but only some. The creature could still show up at any time, and terror gripped at his lungs at the thought. He would have stood frozen there stupidly for who knows how long had Thor not guided him down into a chair. A bowl of chili was set in front of him, along with a spoon. Before his older brother could start mothering him, Loki picked up the spoon and took a bite. Somehow, he managed to swallow. It tasted like wet paper and felt like a rock in his stomach, but the spices were still very present and burned his tongue. Dismay formed a fist around his heart as he stared at the bowl. How was he supposed to eat even another bite? If Thor wasn't paying such close attention to him, Loki would have slowly emptied the bowl with his seidr, but he knew that his elder brother was keeping a sharp eye on his eating habits. He shoveled another begrudging bite into his mouth—a much smaller one.

"I hate to spoil a nice lunch, really do," Stark chattered, and Loki dropped his eyes, knowing exactly what was coming, "but... mind picking up on the stones again, Lokes?" The silvertongue's face twitched at the nickname. "You just finished talking about Vision's stone..."

With a huff, Loki shook his head and forced himself to think back through the haze of panic and exhaustion that clouded the night before, to try and pick up the thread of his narrative. "The time stone," he said abruptly. "As you can deduce, manipulates time. It allows a wielder to look forward or back, slow or speed the pace of time, dragging a second into an hour or a day into a minute, rewind or accelerate the passage of time in relation to a specific person, object, or area, and, predictably, send someone forward or back in time. It's currently in the keeping of a Midgardian wizard." Stark spit out his drink.

"Excuse me," he spluttered when he could talk again, wiping his mouth with a napkin, "wizard?"

"Oh, yes, that man. The wizard," Thor nodded sagely.

"Why does everyone seemingly know about this wizard?" Stark grumbled.

"I don't know about a wizard," Bruce consoled the man.

"Me neither," Brunn said, taking a long drink from her glass.

Stark frowned—"is that my good scotch? Hey, where did—"

"What wizard?" she cut him off, turning toward the brothers.

"We met him when we were searching for our father," Thor explained. "I know we told you."

"Odius man," Loki mumbled to himself, crossly. "But he held an infinity stone, so you likely need to contact him."

"Wait, what!?" the whole table said, or some variation of that, almost in perfect unison. Stark's exclamation was a little more vulgar, as was Brunn's.

Loki glanced at Thor, who looked just as gobsmacked as the rest of them, and rolled his eyes. "I just said so. Did you really not sense it, brother? When I said you have the magical sensitivity of a dead fish I thought it was in jest. It couldn't have been more obvious—and if I sensed it, the-the titan surely knows about it as well."

Thor had the grace to look embarrassed. "I sensed he was very powerful..."

"But not anything else," Loki finished. He sighed, aggravated. "It wasn't even his power, Thor—he has none of his own. He was wearing the stone."

"So," Stark said slowly. "The wizard needs to be notified."

"I can probably find him again," Thor offered. Then he glanced at Loki, and wrinkled his nose. "Eat, brother," he reminded softly, and the mischief-maker rolled his eyes, then kept himself from wincing when his head throbbed in protest.

"The tesseract is the space stone. Once in Asgard's vaults, now with us," Loki continued once he'd finally eaten enough to get Thor to let up on the glaring. "It's most basic function is to open portals or transport people and items from one part of the universe to another, but it can be used in other ways. With it, you can see into other parts of space without traveling there, and it can also be used for telekinesis—highly overpowered telekinesis, but telekinesis all the same. The final stone, the power stone..." Loki trailed off, pressing his lips together, "if any stone is meant to be a weapon, it's that one. It is power, pure and simple, and incredibly hard to direct or control. While the other stones, as I have said, can be used as power sources or weapons, the power stone is the only stone of which that is its true purpose. There are accounts of more destructively minded Celestials that wiped out entire planets with it, simply by directing it's power into the earth, whereupon it would fry every living thing on the planet's surface. It's currently in the keeping of the Nova Empire, on their capital planet of Xandar. Any questions?"

"We can talk more tomorrow," Thor interrupted. "We've got time."

No we don't, Loki's mind shrilled, and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself quiet. He nodded. The continued conversation whisked him by unheard as he put his full focus on the herculean task of chewing and swallowing, nothing but a soft, buzzing backdrop to his efforts. Somehow, he finished the bowl. The food was heavy in his gut, and he felt grotesquely overstuffed. He sat there quietly until Thor made their excuses and pulled him up to leave. Instead of returning to the Statesman, he brought Loki back to the bedroom, turning back the covers for him and taking a seat on the bed. Loki hummed, tipping his head back to rest on Thor's shoulder, turning his nose into the side of the king's neck. He shivered. "I'm cold," the trickster complained.

"Are you?" Thor felt his forehead. "You don't have a fever."

"I said I'm cold, not hot," Loki snapped, waspish.

"I think you're overtired," Thor said. "Go back to sleep." Though said softly, it was clearly an order. "You don't look well, Loki. You don't feel warm, but still, I want Bruce to take a look at you later. And we're not going to have another meeting tonight. Just rest. It'll keep till tomorrow."

The thought of sleep was so tantalizing, Loki couldn't find it in himself to complain. "Fine," he mumbled. A spell exchanged his clothes for those more suited towards sleep, and then he crawled into bed. Thor practically buried him under a mountain of blankets and furs.

"Call Heimdall if you need me," he whispered, kissing Loki's forehead. Then he was gone, and Loki was left to sleep. For all that he was tired, it didn't come easily. The longer he laid still, the stronger the weary ache in his bones grew, and even the fatigue dragging at his heels couldn't overcome the discomfort. It was a throbbing, persistent ache, dull and steady but with an edge of sharpness, and unfortunately impossible to ignore. As though his bones were expanding, pressing outwards and putting pressure on every inch of his body. Alone as he was, Loki let himself groan aloud. He flipped over, but the aches followed him no matter which way he contorted himself—and bending his joints only made it exponentially worse.

Loki growled in frustration and reached for his seidr with a clumsy touch. The dangers of wielding seidr without full concentration had been hammered into him since the day he started practicing. 'Do not cast when hurt, sick, or in distress' was a rule that his mother had enforced with an iron fist. Less than wise though it was, Loki wanted to sleep, and irritation mixed with desperation made him just reckless enough to try. He broke out in a cold sweat trying to force his seidr to follow his wishes—but eventually he succeeded and eased the aches plaguing him. Worn from his ill-advised efforts, the mischief-maker was asleep in seconds.

"Loki." Thor rapped lightly on the doorframe before he entered. Loki stirred as he walked in, sitting up and rubbing his eyes like an overtired toddler.

"What do you want," his younger brother sighed, sounding quite put out indeed.

"Dinner, and then I want Bruce to take a look at you."

"Oh, joy," Loki mumbled, half-falling out of the bed. Shooting out a hand to touch the wall when he swayed, the dark-haired prince shut his eyes and breathed deeply for a moment. "Just let me get presentable," he muttered.

"No, it's just us two," Thor said. "We're doing our own thing for dinner tonight." Mostly because he wanted to give Loki a bit of time to recoup. They'd landed on earth, only for Loki to immediately get sick, and that followed by an extremely tense day while Loki was still ill. The thunderer worried that if he didn't get a chance to rest, Loki would simply shatter apart under the pressure. Stark had agreed to give him the night off readily enough. Of course, he would have ended up agreeing no matter what.

"Oh." Loki opened his eyes. "Well then. Never mind."

In the kitchen, two place settings were already waiting. Thor pulled out a chair for Loki, who took it without comment. "It's soup," the thunderer supplied unnecessarily.

"I can see that," Loki said dryly. He picked up his spoon and twirled it through the bowl mindlessly. "Just waiting for it to cool a bit," he said when he noticed Thor watching him.

Thor bit back a sigh. Loki probably believed that Thor hadn't noticed he hadn't been eating properly, nor how much difficulty he had with lunch. It was slightly insulting, but Thor couldn't say it was unwarranted. With the help of FRIDAY, he'd picked out a much lighter recipe for dinner. A vegetable broth, with pasta, celery, carrots, and a little bit of chicken. No spices or seasoning or heavy flavors. Thor had a spoonful of soup, experimentally. It was pitifully weak and hardly tasted of anything. Maybe Loki will actually eat it, then.

Somehow, Loki managed to dodge Thor's subtle prodding to get him to eat for five minutes more. "Eat," Thor said finally, no longer willing to play Loki's game.

"I am, I am," Loki said waspishly, picking up his spoon like it was a rotting dead thing. "I'm eating, by the nine Thor."

"I have yet to see you put food in your mouth," Thor pointed out calmly.

Loki very dramatically slurped a spoonful of soup. "Eating, see?"

"I see. I hear too." Thor pretended he couldn't hear Loki's quiet mumble that sounded suspiciously similar to 'bossy.'

Thor carefully paced himself so that he finished at almost the same time as Loki. The soup was horribly unsatisfying to him—he'd probably have to eat two large pots of the stuff before it actually curbed his hunger—but Loki seemed as though he felt he'd overeaten. Thor couldn't help but wonder if Loki was actually over that little stomach bug of his. "Alright, come on," he said, standing up. His chair pushed back with a soft screech. "Let's go to the medbay—Bruce is gonna check you out."

"What?" Loki sounded dismayed.

Thor raised an eyebrow. "Did you think I'd forget?"

Face twisting in haughty displeasure, Loki shook his head. "I can hope," he muttered darkly. "Fine."

The medbay was in a separate building from both the bedrooms and the common floor—in the main, semi-circular building that was normally filled with staffers, serving as a sort of mission command center for the Avengers. It was much more the public face of the compound. The skywalk that connected the public to the private, extending over the road that passed between and led down to the parking lot, took them directly to the top floor and the medbay, to which Thor was grateful. Walking through the main building when they had arrived was eerie, seeing all the abandoned computers and desks without receptionists, science equipment without scientists and monitors not being monitored. Their footsteps had echoed ominously in the large, empty halls. "The medbay is on the top floor," Thor felt compelled to fill the silence as they ascending the sloping skywalk. "There's an emergency landing pad there, and—"

"I really don't want to know," Loki sighed. Slightly disappointed, Thor stopped speaking.

Upon reaching the top floor, Thor led them to the left, into the medbay. When they entered, Loki trailing slightly behind as if perhaps Bruce wouldn't see him if he just stayed behind his older brother, the scientist was poking at the medical equipment and murmuring to himself. Thor cleared his throat.

"Oh!" Bruce jumped, knocking a clipboard off of a table with his elbow. "Oh, oops, sorry, just let me—" he plopped it down on the counter only for it to slide off as he was walking away. "Hang on, I got it, don't worry—" it fell off the second he let go. "Really, just a second." He was blushing when he finally made his way over to them. Thor didn't know if it was on purpose, but a small smile was tugging at the edges of Loki's lips, so he was thankful for the bit of levity anyway. "Well," Bruce cleared his throat. "Have a seat on that table there and I'll take a look."

Somehow—though Thor wasn't very surprised—Loki managed to make hopping up onto an exam table look graceful. He left his long legs dangling off the side, planting his hands behind himself and leaning back. "Will I have to say 'ahh,' doctor?" he asked, wearing boredom like a cloak.

"No, I don't need you to do that," Bruce said absently, Loki's feeble attempt at sparking an argument flying directly over his head. "The medical equipment here is much more advanced then it is on the rest of Earth—really, it's amazing the—ah, but that's not why we're here. Alright," he turned back around with something in his hand, "sit up straight and hold still." He lined up the top of the tool as if he was using a camera, and then pressed a button on the handle. A stream of blue light shot out, scanned Loki from head to toe, and then vanished. "There."

Loki blinked rapidly and shook his head. "What was that?" he asked, voice slightly airy.

"Just a quick scan," Bruce paused in his tapping on a monitor to give Loki a smile, "nothing that can hurt you, I promise. Here, I'll show you—" he hit a button and a projection beamed out of the floor. "All that did was scan you, so I can look at your medical data. See, that's your heart rate, that's your blood pressure, that's your blood oxygen level—nothing to worry about."

"Oh," Loki looked down, and a bloody knife of a smirk curved his lips. Thor could almost feel the internalized scorn radiating from his expression. "Well then. Carry on."

"I'll just take a look at these scans and see if there's anything I need to follow up on, or anything abnormal," Bruce said absently. While he poured over the information, Thor moved to Loki's side and set a hand on his back. He could feel the cut of Loki's spine through the fabric.

"Brother," Thor said gently, "what's wrong? Don't tell me it's nothing, I can tell that it's not."

"Nothing," Loki replied, sounding robotic, and then he winced. "Ah, just... memories, nothing serious. Don't worry so much, Thor."

Thor hummed. "You have a good reason to be upset by your memories." He left the statement hanging for a moment, and then continued before Loki felt obligated to respond. "I'm here, Loki. Try not to forget that." Leaning down, he gave Loki's forehead a soft peck.

"Alright, nothing seems to be off," Bruce announced, turning around to face them. Thor straightened up, but left his hand on Loki's back. "Your vitals all seem normal, as far as I can tell. Your blood pressure might be a little low, but it's not really low enough to be concerned about, and it could just be because you're not a human. Your temperature is also a tiny bit elevated—but again, nothing for concern. It's 99.2, and the human baseline 98.6." He dismissed the scan and walked over to set a hand on Loki's knee. "I think you just need some sleep," he said kindly. "You've been under a lot of stress lately, and your body is responding to that with excess fatigue—and you were just sick. A couple days of extra rest should fix you right up."

"Thank you, Bruce," Thor said warmly. He threw an arm around Loki's shoulders to help him stand up. "Come on, brother. You heard the doctor—"

"Not a medical doctor," Bruce interjected, but they were used to that by now and ignored him.

"Let's get you in bed."

"Alright," Loki said, yawning as if to prove Bruce's point about needing rest. "I am tired."

Thor chuckled. "That's why you're going to bed. Come on, now, you have to walk if you're going to get there."

"Oh?" Between one blink and the next, they were back in Thor's bedroom. "What was that about walking?"

Though his lips were twitching with the urge to smile, Thor set his expression in a scolding frown. "Loki, even I know it's a bad idea to use seidr when you're tired, especially in a spell like teleportation."

"Spoilsport. I didn't want to walk all the way back. And anyway, we're fine, see?" Loki spread his arms, gesturing to their surroundings. "No teleporting mishaps here."

"Still," Thor chided, "be careful." You're too reckless, he didn't say, thoughts of that night on the Bifrost setting alight an ember of fear in his chest. Please, please, be careful. You have to be careful.

"I'm plenty careful," Loki said lightly. His jaw popped as he yawned widely.

"Okay, bed, now," Thor said, "no more stalling."

Huffing, Loki did as asked and crawled into the bed. He slapped Thor's hands away when he moved to pull up the covers, and did it himself. "I'm not an infant, Thor. Just because I've been acting like one the past few days doesn't mean you can treat me as such."

Thor sighed, fear exchanged for a touch of heartache. "You weren't acting like an infant, Loki. You've been unwell."

Loki hummed, sounding unconvinced. "Shoo," he said sleepily, closing his eyes. "I can't sleep with you staring at me, you great lumbering ox."

Don't try to distract me, Loki. "I mean it. You're not weak, you haven't been acting childish. It's okay to accept help, Loki." Thor hesitated. "It's okay to let other people care about you."

Loki's laugh was a sad, choked sound. "Stop fussing already and leave me be."

"Okay." With one last long look at his little brother curling up in bed, Thor hit the lights and left the room. Outside, he leaned back against the wall and sank down to crouch on the floor. He put his head in his hands and exhaled in a rush. "I don't know how to do this," he muttered to himself.

"Thor?"

Thor would have jumped had he been standing. "Brunn? What are you doing here?"

"At the moment, I live here. Same as you. How did Loki's check-up go? Not well, I take it?"

"No, he's fine," Thor shook his head. "Physically," he amended quickly. "He's... I don't know how to convince him that he's not weak for needing—or even wanting—help."

"Thor," the Valkyrie said seriously, the gravity in her tone causing Thor to look up and search out her face. "If someone told you that needing help doesn't mean you're weak ten years ago, what would you have said?"

Abruptly, Thor flushed. "I would have laughed," he admitted hoarsely. "Then said that whoever said so must be weak themselves. Along with other insults." He buried his face in his hands again with a despairing moan. "I'm such a terrible brother."

"Okay, not the point I was trying to make." Thor didn't respond. "Hey, majesty. Enough pity party. Get up and get over here."

Holding in a sigh, Thor brushed off his knees and stood, making his way to join her in the kitchen. She handed him a bottle of something, presumably alcohol. Thor took a swig and made a face. Definitely some kind of alcohol, and very strong. He preferred mead. "Drinking in a dark kitchen kind of seems like a pity party to me," Thor joked weakly, disappointed in himself for even cracking the joke.

"That was weak," she said bluntly, her smirk flashing in the dark, there-and-gone. "But, seriously, not what I was trying to say. I mean, yet, it does sound like you were a pretty terrible brother—"

"Oh, thanks," Thor drawled, "that makes me feel so much better."

"Not done," she sing-songed, "but, why did you have that mindset in the first place? Did you come up with it yourself?"

"Oh."

Brunnhilde nodded sagely, taking a swig of whatever her drink was. "Asgard was a pretty crappy place when I lived there—obsessed with physical strength above all else. Now, the murdering and conquering of planets might have gotten toned down, but it doesn't seem like the attitude changed much. Still crappy. In Asgard you suck it up or you die. Well, it was that way. I'm betting you'll change that. Anyway, it's where you were raised for some thousand-odd years. A whole life's worth of learning doesn't change overnight. Loki was raised there as well. Was it easy for you change your mind about everything Odin had taught you?"

"Not really," Thor said softly.

"Well, how'd you do it then?"

"I was taught." Thor's mouth curved softly upward without him knowing, remembering the camaraderie of the Avengers. He held on to the bright feeling for a long second, and then let it pass away.

"Bull's-eye. Thor, you gotta teach him. You have to show him. I might not have known him as long, but I know just as well as you that your brother is one stubborn idiot once he has something in his head. However hard it was for you to learn that lesson, it'll be thrice as hard for Loki because unlike you, he hates himself. Someday you'll get it through his skull." Brunn smiled again, self-satisfied, and finished the rest of her bottle.

"When did you learn it?" Thor wrinkled his nose. "On Sakaar?"

"Didn't start out on Sakaar, idiot. 'Sides, either the Valkyrie ranks bashed any of that thinking out of you, you got kicked out, or you died. We didn't take any bull." Thor wondered if he was imagining the melancholy hiding behind the gruffness in her voice, but then she slapped him on the back right as he was taking a drink and he nearly choked.

"That makes sense," he croaked. Brunnhilde laughed at him.

Chapter Text

Thor was staring at him.

Oh, he was trying to pretend that he wasn't, but Loki caught him. More than once. "You can stop it," Loki said nonchalantly, when he finally couldn't stand it any more. "Really. I'm fine. Enough staring."

"I'm not staring," Thor protested weakly, looking away.

Loki snorted. "You could at least try to sound like you believe that."

"I'm not staring!" Thor spun back around to face him, and Loki sighed. "I'm... I'm watching. You. Some."

"You're beginning to sound like a stalker," Loki cautioned him wryly. "Brother, really. Just stop. I. Am. Fine."

"Loki, I just—" Thor cut himself off with a huff. "Just be careful with yourself."

"I will," Loki smiled at him. "Now shoo. I have my own things to do."

"Fine," the thunderer said slowly. He turned and started to walk away. "But I'm having Heimdall keep an eye on you!"

"Stalker!" Loki yelled back.

"Are you sure?" Loki read over the paper one more time, eyebrows drawing together—and not because of the slight headache that plagued him rather relentlessly. "This doesn't seem correct to me."

"I... I am sure, your highness. These are the figures we counted when tallying up the remaining treasury," the aesir man told him, hands clasped tightly before him with knuckles bleached white. "We could check again if you—"

Loki raised a casual hand, and the man snapped his mouth shut, the set of his shoulders easing. "Don't check again. It's alright. I understand." Sighing deeply, Loki shook his head and bit back a gasp at the minor but sudden rush of vertigo the action gave him. "Just... sort all the coinage we have, please. The values assigned are what they were on Asgard—on Midgard our currency is bound to function differently. Have someone research the monetary systems of this world, and the value of raw metals. If nothing else, we can melt them down and exchange the raw materials for money, but that is for later. Thank you for bringing this to me—you may go."

The man bowed and rushed away. Alone again, Loki let himself lean back against the wall. The hand that wasn't still holding the papers he dragged up through his hair, grimacing when his fingers caught on a tangle. That was the problem with growing his hair out—it never stopped knotting itself up and was a nightmare to brush. Not to mention undignified. Loki pursed his lips. He was getting distracted. He turned his attention back to the papers in his hand.

They'd have to find a source of income, and soon. When traveling, they'd managed to gain some funds by doing manual labor on underdeveloped planets, but those were universal credits and entirely not viable on Midgard. What raw cash they had was used for purchases for the ship as a whole—food, fuel, repairs and the like—while physical cash made individually by those who took jobs on various planets was kept by the citizens to use for purchases of their own families' necessities, mostly clothing. They'd set up a fund for the orphans and those without a family to provide who also couldn't do their own labor, and some small trade had begun between passengers. A pair of sisters, both in their fourth millennium, had done small jobs as seamstresses, mending clothing and bedsheets for small sums, and then began to buy their own fabric to make and sell clothing to the other citizens. The Statesman had begun to feel and function like an autonomous city—albeit a very terribly crowded one—and now they were uprooted again, with everyone struggling to find their footing once more. Loki groaned aloud and contemplated dropping the papers he held on the floor and stomping on them. He was very, very tired of being a prince. What he wanted to be was asleep. And his head was still aching.

Banishing the papers to his dimensional pocket with a thought, Loki set off to find the next person he needed to speak with. He found her about where he had expected—in the kitchen alloted to the orphanage, preparing food for the children. The majority of citizens on the Statesman had been relatively lucky. Whole families had made it to safety, those that lived far enough from the palace to escape Hela's rampage. Very of the nobility, high class, and warriors had survived, but those that lived on the fringes of the city were luckier, and had time and warning enough to escape. But there were exceptions. Many families were bereft of fathers—warriors or Einherjar who had been at the palace while their families were at home, almost as many who had laborers for husbands or fathers and therefore did not lose them.

And then there were those who had not been lucky. The families who had been separated. The elderly at home, the children at school, parted from their relatives. The injured with the healers, the women gone to market with one child while the father stayed at home with the others. Some had been lucky. Some had not. Some had lost none. Some had lost everyone. And it was those unlucky children that Ida Uddvarsdottir watched over. Out of the whole population of Asgard, once four hundred thousand strong, five thousand seven hundred and thirty nine had survived Ragnarok. Of those five thousand seven hundred and thirty nine, two hundred and seventeen were orphaned children. Many adults who now had no family of their own had stepped up to help care for the orphans, but Ida was the heart of it. She was an orphan herself, having lost her parents when she was small, though now long grown. Her fiancee had died in Hela's attack, one of the fallen Einherjar, and Ida had chosen to return to her roots and care for the newly orphaned children of Asgard. Loki had spoken with her several times about the arrangements of the children.

"Loki," she greeted cordially, kneading a lump of dough with flour-covered hands. A bright red curl dangled by her face, dusted in flour after having escaped from the bun that just barely contained the rest of her unruly carrot curls. "Come help." Obediently, Loki walked over and took the lump of dough she handed him, brushing his own hands with flour before begining to work at the dough. He'd quickly learned that if he wanted to speak with her, he was expected to pitch in, and that he did. "What did you want to speak about?" Ida asked as she set aside her ball of dough to reach for another.

"How have the children been adjusting? Do you have enough help?" he asked, first and foremost.

Without looking up from her work, she nodded. "No one quit simply because we have reached Midgard. We have an established routine now, in any case."

"And food?"

"We've been getting enough from the deliveries, same as everyone else. I thought a little fresh bread wouldn't go amiss, however. We've been working on it since yesterday afternoon. By the time lunch comes around, all of the bread should be done and cooled enough to be a surprise for them, and something much more familiar than Midgardian food."

"Good," Loki let out a breath. "I was worried you were cooking because there wasn't enough for them all." 

"Not at all. That's done now, you don't want to overdo it." Ida stole his dough and replaced it with another lump, "knead that."

"Is there anything else I can do, then?" Loki finished up.

Finally, she looked up and gave him a smile. "The system we've had in place since the start is still perfectly fine. Midgard is new and exciting, but we've still meals and school and bedtimes and clothes. You know I'd come yell at you or your brother if we required something that wasn't being provided."

"I know. Just checking."

She laughed at him. "You can stop with the dough, now, I know you have things to do. You don't have to stand here all day just to keep from appearing rude. I should have some help arriving soon, anyway, once they finish corralling all the children for morning lessons. Shoo."

Grateful for her dismissal, Loki rinsed his hands of the flour that coated them and left. Next were the greenhouse keepers. He beat back the exhaustion that crept up on him at the thought with a mental stick. He was a prince of Asgard. This was his duty. He was not going to go crying to his big brother because he felt a bit tired and unsteady on his feet. With a determined inhale, Loki continued on his mission.

"Thor sent me to tell you that either you come to lunch now, or he'll drag you."

"Heimdall!" Loki yelped, nearly falling on his face. He had to plant one hand on the wall in order to keep his balance, and stay there, half-slumped, for a beat while the sudden lightheadedness dispersed. That man was inordinately good at sneaking up on people, though he supposed it made sense for a man who saw everything to be good at finding blind spots. "A little warning?"

"If you knew I was coming, you would have teleported away," the watchman said. There was a slight amused quirk to his lips when Loki turned around to face him.

"True," Loki admitted. But he had a feeling that Heimdall just also liked sneaking up on people. Strange sense of humor, that man. He kept stoic most of the time, but Loki would swear he saw him smirking whenever he managed to scare someone by appearing suddenly behind them. "Fine. Tell Thor I'm coming."

"Told him."

"Thank you," Loki nodded politely. He reappeared directly in front of Thor's face.

"Ah!" Thor yelped, jumping backwards. "Loki! Don't do that!" He frowned. "Loki?"

Loki panted, leaning most of his weight onto Thor when his older brother grabbed hold of his arms. Maybe trying to scare Thor in revenge for the spying wasn't the best idea he'd ever had. "It's just from the... teleportation," he gasped. "Give me a minute." Once he found his balance, he wrenched his arms out of Thor's grip and reached up to rub at his aching forehead.

"Teleportation usually doesn't make you dizzy," Thor said, setting his hands on Loki's shoulders. "Here, come sit down a minute."

Loki allowed himself to be guided into a chair. He couldn't quite stop the soft sigh as he sunk down into it. He hadn't realized how much he ached from being on his feet all that morning until he was off of them. "Thank you."

When he looked back at him, Thor was still frowning. "Loki, I think you should go back to bed after lunch. Just for an hour or two. Please?"

"I don't need to," Loki responded without a thought. He paused, then. He hurt everywhere, the same dull aching that had plagued his sleep the night before. His head was throbbing and he felt shaky and off-kilter, not to mention the exhaustion that would not leave him alone, like a weight chained around his ankle, constantly dragging him back. "If I'm still tired after I eat, then I'll rest. If not, I'll go back to work," he amended.

Thor pursed his lips. "Good enough," he decided with a weary sigh. "Stay here."

Loki lingered in the chair as asked while Thor went to join his friends in the kitchen. They were making sandwiches for lunch, apparently. Nothing difficult. Brunnhilde, Bruce, Stark, and Rhodes were all crafting sandwiches for themselves and speaking slightly awkwardly. Thor joined them, and the conversation rapidly gained life. Loki was content, however, to sit back and watch the conversation unfold. He kept glancing over his shoulder. As much as he tried to convince himself that he would sense it if the mind stone was approaching, he still couldn't keep himself from checking. His breathing grew tight, which did not at all help the slight light-headedness he was feeling.

"Here," Thor reached around him to set down a plate, smiling when Loki turned to look at him. "Eat them both, alright? Or you're definitely going back to bed."

Rolling his eyes, Loki reached for one of the sandwiches. He lifted it up to eye-level and scrutinized it as the table started to fill up. Thor sat at his right, and Bruce took the seat on his left. Stark sat next to Bruce, Rhodes next to him, and Brunn on the other side of Thor. Loki took a deep breath and turned his attention back to the sandwich in his hands. White bread and jam. Simple, light. It should not be turning his stomach as much as it was. Loki lifted it up to his lips and took a bite. The bread was too squishy, oddly so, and the jam only made it worse. The silvertongue couldn't help pulling a face as he swallowed. The thought of another bite nearly made him gag. He had another bite anyway, in a bid to control the reflex.

As he ate, the feeling dissipated, and the jitteriness that had infested him started to ease somewhat. He didn't feel less tired, but he did feel more alive. Less likely to fall apart at the seams. The sandwiches still didn't taste very good, but he finished them without too much trouble. After the hurried meal, Stark pulled out a board game and starting coaxing them to play it.

"Come on," the man wheedled, "just one game!"

"Monopoly takes forever, Tony," Bruce said.

"We can come back to it later!"

"I'm in," Rhodes said. He looked at Brunnhilde. "You?"

Loki watched it all with a sense of detachment. He wasn't terribly interested in playing a Midgardian game he'd experienced before.

"Loki and I will sit this one out," Thor said, drawing Loki back into the moment when he mentioned the mischief-maker's name. "You guys go ahead and play."

After a bit of argument, they moved the game to the floor so everyone playing could reach, leaving the brothers sitting alone at the table.

"How are you feeling, now?" Thor asked, spinning his chair around to face Loki. He put a hand on Loki's neck, softly rubbing the little hairs at the nape with his thumb. "Did having lunch help?"

"It did," Loki said, leaned slightly into the touch as his eyes fluttered shut. "I'm still tired," he admitted in a soft voice.

"That's okay," Thor replied, equally soft in tone. "Remember what Bruce said? You just need a few days of extra rest to get back up on your feet. It'll be okay. You can take a nap if you want."

"I think I will," Loki said, surprising himself with the decision. "Just for an hour."

"Okay. That sounds good to me." Thor paused, inhaled, and looked Loki in the eyes. "Do you want me to walk back with you?"

Of course, his first, instinctive response was refusal. He wasn't weak. He didn't need his big brother to tuck him into bed. That wasn't what Thor intended, Loki reminded himself. He meant it kindly. And, the prince found, he wanted it. "Sure," Loki said. Although it was an agreement, it tasted like defeat. Thor's smile made it worth it.

The thunderer extended a hand. "Come on, then. Let's go."

They walked back to the rooms in silence, shoulders bumping together again and again as they walked in each other's space, meeting and separating like a pair of planets with equal size, orbiting each other. It was something that Loki had wanted for so long, and the taste was both bitter and sweet. It felt like home, but it burned of weakness. Loki pushed the thoughts away, and allowed himself to simply enjoy the moment, the closeness, without thinking about it. The haze of weariness helped fog out his racing mind enough to make it easy.

The trickster stumbled over his own feet a few times as they walked up the stairs. He hung onto Thor's arm for balance, until his older brother was practically carrying him into his bedroom. "You look dead on your feet," Thor commented as Loki crawled underneath the covers.

"Flattering," he groaned. "Thank you so much for the commentary."

"No, I didn't mean—" Thor sighed. "You just don't look good, Loki. I'm glad you're getting some rest." Loki's eyes fluttered shut as a large hand ghosted over his hair, moving to tuck a lock behind his ear. "Sleep well, brother."

"Hmm. Oaf," Loki responded sleepily. He curled up in the blankets, and sleep quickly dragged him under.

When Loki woke up, three hours had passed, according to the clock on Thor's bedside table. He scowled at the thing, tempted to turn it into splinters. The craftmanship was too fine to put to waste that way, however, so he refrained. A soft grunt of effort escaped as he threw back the covers and wobbled to his feet. Jaw cracking with a yawn, Loki scrubbed at his eyes and turned to face the mirror. He grimaced at what he saw. His hair truly was impossible to tame.

Hair brushed and clothes refreshed, Loki rejoined Thor on the Statesman to continue coordinating the people. This time, they stayed together, listening to the complaints of subjects and offering solutions. Time passed quickly that way, until dinner. Loki found he'd enjoyed the time, even with how it had been spent. He enjoyed seeing his brother be a king. Thor was truly becoming a good one.

This time, Thor bullied the mortals into waiting until after they'd eaten to speak, and the mind stone's vessel joined them. "So," Stark began, once they'd migrated from the more casual living area to the conference room, "we've covered his goals, we know what he wants." He clapped his hands together, leaning over the table, eyes gleaming with a slightly manic light. "What are his tactics? How's he gonna go about getting what he wants?"

"The others should hear this," Thor said, interrupting Loki's response. "Where are they, Stark? When are they getting back? Surely you can contact them, if whatever mission they're on isn't due to be over soon."

The man sighed, dropping his head forward. Rhodes set a hand on his shoulder. "That's the thing, Thor. They're not coming back. The Avengers? That's over. Done. Through. We broke up."

"Broke up?" Bruce yelped. "Broke up, like a band, like the Beatles?"

"Beetles?" Brunn murmured questioningly.

Loki didn't feel much himself, one way or another, aside from the initial spike of panic he swiftly suppressed (divided, they fall so much easier) but both his brother and Bruce were clearly shaken. "I... Stark," Thor shook his head, a slight waver to his voice that Loki had heard only a few times before. "Stark, this is bigger than... whatever fight broke the Avengers apart. We need them."

"I know," he said. His gaze narrowed in on the table. "Thor. They're criminals now. If they're found, they'll be thrown in the Raft—a prison for enhanced individuals. If I find them, if I bring them here, if I even contact them... I'll be declared a criminal, too. Me, Rhodey, Vis? We're what's left. We're the Avengers. Everyone else is gone. And... I know we need them. I really do. But even if we got them cleared, even if we didn't have to sneak around more than we already are... I don't know if I could trust them. Work with them. You guys... you weren't here. You don't know what happened."

"What happened, then?" Bruce asked into the silence. "Tony, what did they do?"

Stark lifted his head. His eyes were old, ancient. Loki thought he saw centuries behind them, eons. The rise and fall of worlds and the endless, dispassionate dance of the stars. The dance that would continue long after they were nothing but dust, the memories of memories of their lives faded to legend and myth and then nothing at all. Loki gripped his wrist in one hand, twisting nervously at the skin, and looked away. "They broke the law. Harbored a criminal, escaped justice. Broke the laws approved by 117 countries. That's the official reason."

"What's the real reason," Loki asked, unable to help himself, to stop the macabre curiosity that bubbled up. 

"He lied," the mind stone said, and a shiver crawled up the silvertongue's spine.

"Vis, it's okay," Stark sighed. He reached up a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, still looking ancient, well beyond his short mortal years. "My parents' deaths. It wasn't an accident, it was a murder. Rogers knew, and he lied. To protect himself, to protect the killer. He didn't trust me enough to tell me the truth—all while he was lecturing me about keeping Ultron a secret—" he stopped. Shook his head. Rhodes briefly squeezed his shoulder. "He broke my trust, and he took the Avengers with him. He drove the shield through the arc reactor and left me stranded with no way to call for help. If we hadn't been followed, I would have died. So I trust him to save the world. I know we need him, need all of them. But I don't—can't—trust him."

"I'm sorry," Loki said, surprising himself with the words. "It hurts, being lied to. Finding out everything you knew, or thought you did, was a fiction. Being betrayed by someone you feel is your family." Without even turning, he added, "and stop moping, Thor. I'm not mad at you anymore. If you apologize again so help me I will stab you. What's done is done." He could feel his brother's hangdog gaze boring into him as he spoke, and wanted to nip any unnecessary guilt that his words inspired in the bud.

Thor laughed, but it was a trembling, weak thing. "Alright, alright. No apologies." Thor would try to apologize to him later, then. That was frustrating. 

"So." Brunnhilde broke in, finally. "What are we gonna do? You need to start calling people, warning them. People on earth need to be ready, because he's coming for the stones. Is there a plan, or..?"

Stark hesitated. "I may know a guy. A few, actually." He huffed. "Barton surrendered, didn't go on the run with the rest. He's done his time, been cleared by the government. I can contact him, but..."

"Do it," Loki said. "I can handle it." If Barton felt the need to put an arrow through his eye before relying on any information from him, well—the universe needed as many defenders as possible. He supposed he'd have to adjust to an eye-patch. Thor already had.

"We'll need the others, too," Thor insisted. "All of them. As many people as you can get."

"I know!" The mechanic snapped. "I'll... I'll see what I can do."

"You asked about his tactics, yes?" Loki said, breaking the steadily thickening silence that followed. "I believe he'll go for the power stone first, on Xandar. His forces will overwhelm them easily enough, and from there he'll have a weapon suitable for taking the reality stone from the Collector. But..." he hesitated, wringing his hands together, "he might come for Earth first. With the Tesseract, traveling to get the rest of the stones would be much easier. Or, conversely, he would go for the power stone and then come to Earth with it. I assume what you're most interested in, however, is how he would structure an attack on Midgard."

"Duh," Rhodes drawled, intent expression belying his insouciant tone.

Loki nodded, sharply, and forced himself to take a deep breath—he was beginning to get lightheaded again. And the overwhelming aura of the mind stone certainly wasn't helping his clarity of thought. Every time he blinked, Sanctuary flashed behind his eyes. Not exactly conclusive to staying calm and rational, or even staying, period. Grab the Tesseract, part of him insisted, grab it and run. "He will likely send an advance party, first, with the objective of stealth and speed. A simultaneous strike on each stone housed on Midgard, whether separated or together." Speaking loudly to try and drown out his thoughts and memories was rather childish, but Loki did, anyway. Under the table, he worried his hands furiously. "If he doesn't manage to claim one or more of the stones in a single strike, he will send a larger force to get them—a true army. He will keep the soldiers coming until the stones are his. If he manages to take all three of the other stones at large in the universe before securing all three that are here, he'll come personally."

Stark nodded. "Anything else someone wants to say?" 

Mortifyingly, Loki almost fell out of his chair when the mind stone spoke. He couldn't get used to that voice—so incongruous-seeming, yet laced with so much power as to be near indecipherable, at least to anyone with the barest mote of magical sensitivity. That voice could command minds, if it so wished, simply by speaking it's orders. Every word was a threat. Blue pushed at his shields with every word, hamming with heavy, bricklike fists, incessant as waves on the shore. So unnerved was he, he didn't register what it had actually said until everyone else around him was beginning to react. "Ever since you have arrived... I've been giving a good deal of thought to this entity in my head. This... stone. About it's... nature, but also it's composition. I think if it were exposed to a sufficiently powerful energy source, something very similar to its own signature, perhaps, it's molecular integrity could fail."

"You mean destroy the stone?" the Valkyrie looked thoughtful. "Not a bad idea."

"Are you out of your mind?!" Stark exploded.

"Vision, man, we're not gonna kill you just to get rid of the stone," Rhodes agreed.

"Thanos threatens half the universe," the stone continued calmly. "One life cannot stand in the way of defeating him."

"And you want him defeated?" Loki sneered, to cover up the numbness that was creeping up on him, threatening to fall like a blast door and trap him in apathy. "You... you pretend to care?"

"I do care," it replied.

A chill ran up his spine, and Loki shivered in its wake. "Don't lie," he barked, scratching at his palm with a thumbnail. "Don't... don't lie to me." His second assertion sounded much more like pleading than he wished. "Shut up." Very mature.

"I don't want to hurt you," it said.

Gasping for breath, Loki fought to control himself. "Stop lying to me!" he insisted, and now his voice was shrill and shaky and didn't sound quite like it belonged to him.

"Loki, breathe," Thor said softly, putting a hand on the younger prince's shoulder. Loki shrugged him off.

"No. What do you really want?" I hate you, Loki tried to project through his eyes, only to flinch when he made eye contact and utterly ruin the effect. "What are you after, what are you trying to—" one hand flew up to push at his chest before he forced it back down, worrying his hands again. "I won't fall for it," he declared, as firmly as he was able. "Whatever you're trying to do, whatever you want from me—I'm not going to fall for it. I won't... I won't." The air in the room seemed thinner, lesser. His head was spinning.

"I'm not trying to trick you," it said.

Loki laughed, and laughed, and laughed until he couldn't breathe anymore, the world turning blurry.

When Loki started laughing was when Thor finally couldn't stand it anymore. When Thor drew him near, he didn't try to pull away. "I'm taking him out of here," Thor declared softly, his glare daring anyone to object. "Catch me up later."

"N-no," Loki stammered.

Thor ignored him. He pulled Loki up out of his chair, somehow managing to get the trickster's arm around his shoulders, with one hand on his back to keep him upright. Loki was still trembling, and his laughs had morphed into sobs as he stumbled clumsily toward the door, feet slipping and listing terribly to the side. Seconds before Thor picked him up, never mind how Loki would yell at him later, Brunn slid up on Loki's other side, holding him up.

"Come on, highness," she said quietly, pulling Loki's other arm around her own shoulders, "let's go." Between the two of them, they managed to not-quite carry Loki outside.

At the foot of the stairs, Thor picked him up.

"Let me go," Loki cried weakly, half squirming to get away and half cuddling nearer. "Put me down."

"SSh," Thor soothed. "Ssh." Loki quieted. Still crying, but softer. Loki would likely be more upset with him when he was calmer, for not at least waiting until they were fully out of sight, but there was no way he could make it up the stairs in the state he was in. Though he didn't look back, Thor could hear Brunn's steps on the stairs behind them. Loki seemed to have relaxed slightly once they got outside, his hysteria fading, but tears were still falling quite steadily. Thor's heart twisted to look at him.

The setting sun reflected on the ocean, scattering beams of buttery gold and soft pink light all over the compound, but Thor went inside too quickly to appreciate the view. By the time he got to the living space, Loki had stopped shaking, though the occasional tear still fell. "It's okay," Thor told him, setting him down on the couch. Brunnhilde passed him a large fur she'd clearly procured from his room, and the thunderer draped it over his little brother. "I have you."

"Go away," Loki groused, curling up under the silky black fur and hunching his shoulders defensively. "I'm fine."

"Loki," Thor said sternly, motioning to the Valkyrie to leave them, "we need to talk."

"About what? There's nothing we need to talk about. Leave me alone," Loki insisted. He was trying his best to glare, but his voice was still brittle and frail, and his widened eyes shone with unshed tears.

"Loki," Thor pressed on, ignoring how his younger brother's glare sharpened, "we need to talk about this. Brother, this is hurting you, and I don't want to keep putting you through something that's going to upset you, so we have to figure this out."

He hoped a little honesty of his own would inspire Loki to open up, but. "I'm fine!" Loki insisted in a hiss. "I'm not—upset. You're making this into a big deal, trying to be the hero but I'm not some damsel in distress for you to rescue, Thor. I can handle this—I'm going back, I haven't even talked about-about his troops yet, army capabilities—"

"You're staying here," Thor snapped, blocking him when he tried to rise. "Brother, you've not been able to handle any of these meetings," Thor added, as kindly as he could. "You're not weak, but you are hurt. I don't want you to keep putting yourself back in a situation that's going to hurt you like this. Loki, you're still trembling." Glaring, Loki tried to duck him, but he knew his brother well and was able to block every move he tried. And then Loki stabbed him. "Hey!" he roared as Loki threw the fur off of himself, darting around him while he was still doubled over and groping at his middle where the knife had been inserted. "Get back here!" he demanded, knowing full well that Loki would ignore him. Yanking the blade out and disregarding the slight spurt of blood that followed, Thor chased after his brother. Even through his budding rage, Thor was worried when he was still easily able to catch up to his brother, yanking him back by the sleeve so that Loki stumbled back and they crashed into each other. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of red on Loki's wrist, and his blood ran cold. Loki took a lot longer to get his feet back under him, and by then Thor had an iron grip on his shoulders and was able to quick-march him back to the couch. "Sit," he ordered.

"No," Loki sniffed, folding his arms.

"Sit or I will sit on you, by the nine!" Thor yelled, clenching his fists so he didn't sock his brother in the face. "Now roll up your sleeves."

"What?" Loki scoffed, "have you gone mad? Why would I—"

"Do it!" Thor barked, heart hammering in his ears.

Rolling his eyes, Loki pushed up first his right sleeve, and then the left. "Oh."

"Oh," Thor echoed sharply. Angry red scratches started in Loki's left palm and ran down his wrist, a few of them even having drawn blood. He wasn't sure whether the startlement on Loki's face was reassuring or more terrifying.

Loki was still staring at his arm with wide eyes. "I didn't—" he started, furrowing his eyebrows.

All out once the anger drained out of Thor. "Brother," he entreated softly, "please. I'm worried about you."

Whatever fight he'd had also left him, and Loki sagged. "Alright," he muttered begrudgingly.

"Wait a minute, though," Thor said, springing up, "we should look at that first." He hurried to the bathroom, grateful when he found antiseptic wipes and bandages beneath the sink—he didn't want to have to go all the way to the medbay to find them. The prospect of leaving Loki for so long after what had just happened made his heart skip. "Hold out your arm," he instructed Loki, dropping his procured supplies on the ground and crouching down. Silently, Loki held out his arm. He winced when Thor swiped the wipe over the scratches, but otherwise his face stayed blank. Worryingly blank, in Thor's opinion. Thor wrapped it quickly and cleanly, years of practice doing field medicine in his precise wrap. Though really Loki had been the one to do all of the patching them up during their questing day, Thor'd had quite a bit of practice on the Statesman, where as long as you had steady hands and a working mind, the healers were apt to draft you. Particularly in the beginning chaos, when half the refugees had cuts and scrapes and bruises.

"There," he announced, rocking back on his heels. "That should do it. But be careful."

Loki nodded, face still rather expressionless, and slipped his sleeve back down, having to tug on it to get it over the edge of the bandage. "Thank you," he said. Perfectly polite. "We should get back, now—"

"No," Thor said, firm.

"I can handle it," Loki said again, but he sounded defeated.

Thor leaned over and kissed his forehead. "You don't have to."

"I have to be able to handle it. You need me."

Hesitating, Thor bit the inside of his cheek. That was true.

When Thor returned from putting back the rest of the bandages, Loki was still sitting there, statue-like. If he wasn't breathing and blinking, Thor might have thought he'd just—stopped. Frozen in time, or been petrified by some sudden spell. "Are you ready to talk now?" he asked, breaking the uneasy quiet that had overtaken the room. Loki blinked a few times, and gave a half-nod. "Talk to me, then," Thor said. He thought about sitting on the couch, but took a seat on the coffee table instead, so he could look Loki in the face.

"What do you want me to say?" Loki snapped, a bit of life coming back to his features. "Nice weather we're having, isn't it?" he added, sarcastic. Thor let loose his tight grip on his anger and fear just long enough to allow a low rumble of thunder, to be contrary. Rolling his eyes, Loki scoffed derisively.

"Loki," Thor groaned, covering his face with his hands. "Please. Don't."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Loki said, but all the confrontation had left his tone again. He sighed. A terribly lost look flashed over his face, there and gone. Thor wouldn't have seen it had he not chosen that moment to drop his hands. Unable to help himself, he leaned over to grab the fur discarded on the couch, and threw it over the younger prince's shoulders. When he leaned back again, he grabbed the edge of the table with his hands, just to have something to steady himself. "I shouldn't be afraid of the stones," Loki mumbled. "Pitiful." He shuddered. "I need to get over this. It... it can't hurt me."

Oh, brother. You're trying so hard, but you don't believe that. Thor sighed. "Brother. What happened with Vision..." he paused, gritting his teeth and riding out a slight surge of guilt, "that can't keep happening. We need to deal with it."

Loki ducked his head. His right hand fidgeted with the hem of his left sleeve. "I know," he said, soft. "I just..." he exhaled a heavy breath, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling, and his adam's apple bobbed. "It's not that easy."

"I know it isn't," Thor said, as gently as he was able. "I really do. But... we need to find a way to resolve this, with Vision if nothing else."

"Destroy the stone," Loki said mulishly. "Then there's no problem."

Thor's eye twitched. The idea was looking more and more tempting. He'd smash it himself if he could, one mighty blow with Mjolnir—his hand flexed, but there was only the edge of the table and not Mjolnir's smooth grip resting in his palm. You can't get revenge on an inanimate object. But that didn't change the fact that his blood was running hotter and hotter every time Loki and Vision got in the same room. The android was innocent, the logical part of Thor's mind knew. The less logical part didn't care, because he (not him) had hurt Loki. Was hurting Loki, just by being. "We'll see," he said, noncommittally. "Loki, you have every right to be afraid of the mind stone. But Vision isn't the stone. How about this? We talk to Vision for a little bit, just you and me. If it gets too difficult, he can leave right away. You can try to get used to him, to the stone. Okay?" Thor didn't want to do it—didn't want to put Loki and Vision in the same building again, even. But Loki needed to get over his fear—for himself most of all.

Loki crossed his arms, uncrossed them, and tugged at the fur draped around his shoulders. "Maybe," he responded eventually.

"Thank you," Thor beamed. "Is there... anything else?"

"You're very bad at this," Loki said dryly, finally lowing his gaze back down from the ceiling. There was, to Thor's relief, an amused twinkle in his eye.

"You wound me," Thor said, grin thoroughly undercutting his words. Loki rolled his eyes, a slight smile curving his lips. The thunderer knawed on the inside of his lip for a moment, watching his brother. "You're more important," he burst out. Loki jumped. "If you can't—if Vision still bothers you, then we'll figure something out. I don't want to make you keep trying to do something that'll make you uncomfortable." Understatement. "Really, brother. I don't want you to talk to Vision because... because I think you're, I don't know, broken or something. I just don't want you to have to be bothered by him."

"I didn't know you knew how to be tactful," Loki said, slight smile morphing into a slight smirk. "Could really use some work, though."

Stop deflecting, Thor wanted to say, but he didn't. "Alright."

"You need me," Loki said, and it wasn't bragging or exaggeration. Just truth. "No one can afford me being weak. Scared of a stone."

"Loki," Thor moaned. "Really not what I meant."

"Really true," the silvertongue shot back. 

"I don't care," Thor asserted, setting his jaw. "If you can't, then we'll just have to figure it out. I'm not going to force you. And no one else will either," he finished, a hint of a promise mixed with threat entering his voice. They needed Loki—his knowledge, his cleverness, his seidr—but not at the expense of his well-being. Thor was willing to make do if Loki couldn't handle it, but would the others? They would have to, he decided fiercely.

Brow furrowing, Loki opened his mouth, and then shut it. "You can't put one man over the universe, Thor," he said finally. "We have talked about this. More than once."

"What you don't seem to realize is that I don't care," Thor retorted, almost smiling at the dumbstruck look on Loki's face. It was true. It made him a bad hero, a bad king, a bad person—but Loki was all he had, and more than that, Loki was his little brother. The one he was sworn to protect. He'd done enough of putting others over Loki, for all their lives. Maybe it was a bad time to make the choice, with the universe at stake. But Thor had decided, that moment when Loki caught the stopper and smiled at him, that he was finished. The next time, he vowed, it came down between Loki and anyone else, Loki would be his choice. From then on. The fact that 'anyone else' was the universe didn't change his resolve.

"You're the king of Asgard," Loki echoed Thor's thoughts.

"Don't care."

"An avenger!"

"Don't care."

For a long moment, Loki simply stared at him. Eyes wide, shaking just the slightest bit, seeming suddenly very small and frightened. "You can't mean that," he said, faintly.

Thor smiled at him, pretending not to notice when Loki swiped away a tear with a little gasp. "Probably shouldn't. But I do." He stood up, clapping his hands against his thighs before letting them fall away. "Come on, you need to get some sleep." He extended a hand to pull the mischief-maker up, and Loki took it.

In the middle of the night, Loki sat upright with a soft gasp, his heart pounding wildly as wakefulness shredded the tangles of blue that wrapped his mind during the nightmare holding him. His heart seized at the thought of seeing the mind stone again.

A part of him desperately wanted to wake Thor. His older brother would comfort him. Wipe the tears off his face and hold him close. Loki gritted his teeth and threw the notion out of his head. He had to stop this. Quit being a burden. A pathetic, helpless child crying for its parents. Always needing his big brother to make it better. Loki almost laughed at himself, then. Enough was enough.

Loki laid down again, and closed his eyes.

Chapter Text

Loki pressed his forehead against the cool tile of the shower wall, hunching his back so the spray hit perfectly between his shoulder blades. Thor was going to come bang on the door and fret at him any minute, he knew, but he couldn't bring himself to move. The warm water eased the back pains he'd woken up with, while the tile soothed away the headache that had been steadily building since the night before. He'd hoped it would have gone away while he was sleeping. But no. Joy.

Knock. Knockknockknock. "Loki? Are you okay?"

The silvertongue groaned, quietly as not to be heard over the rushing of the water. "Fine," he called, lifting his voice. "I'm fine."

"It's been half an hour."

Oh. He hadn't thought it'd been that long. "Go ahead. I'll meet you later."

"You haven't had breakfast yet."

"I'll get something. Go."

"I'll make you something," Thor said. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yes!" Loki winced, snapping made his head throb. "Stop bothering me." Footsteps, and then, presumably, Thor was gone. Loki pulled his head back and thunked it lightly against the wall. Unconsciously, he wrapped his arms around himself in a loose hug, each hand resting on the opposite shoulder. He didn't want to move. If he stayed, he thought he could just fall asleep right there, standing in the shower. Tempting though the thought was, his back would hate him for it. With a heavy exhale, Loki took a step back from the wall, blinking dumbly when the water that had previously been going over his head hit him in the face. He took another step back, bracing one hand lightly on the frosted glass door to his left, and the other on the curiously triangular ivory tiles that walled off the shower. Staying in place only long enough to catch his breath, Loki reached for the handle and shut off the water. He scoffed internally at the slight pang of loss he felt when the warm water stopped. A soft push opened the shower door, and a flick of his fingers wrapped him in a towel.

Loki sat on the edge of the tub to dry his hair, starting to towel it off before he rolled his eyes (ouch) and used magic to do it. He rebandaged his injured arm quickly, part of him surprised it hadn’t finished healing yet, and then seidr exchanged the fluffy white towel around his waist for a set of clothes, Midgardian in style. One hand picked lightly at the almost-black denim of the formfitting jeans he'd chosen, and he ground the other against his forehead until the urge to switch back to his sleepclothes and crawl into bed had mostly passed. He did allow himself a sweater—gray-green in color, with large sleeves that crept down over his palms and a high neck—a turtleneck, the humans called it. Not the most flattering name, in his opinion.

He stood in one fluid motion, and made his way before the mirror. Frameless and filling the wall all the way up over the two sinks (he had wondered about that before he remembered that multiple people had, at one point, lived here), it was carefully cleaned and therefore did nothing to obscure his state. Well, Thor might say he was in a state. Loki thought he looked like himself. Perhaps a bit worn, with unflattering bags under his eyes and a subtle hollow to his cheeks, but himself. He brushed a bit of oil into his hair to keep it from fraying as it was prone, cleaned his teeth, and, after a brief hesitation, applied a subtle glamor to lighten the shadows under his eyes and add a bit of color to his skin.

To his surprise (though he really shouldn't have been), there was a plate waiting on the counter. Five pancakes and what seemed to be a bushel of purple grapes were piled optimistically on a plate, next to a mug of tea. A bright pink sticky note was attached to the mug, and even from across the room Loki could recognize his brother's handwriting. He sighed, plucking the note off of the mug and casting a wary glance at the breakfast Thor had prepared for him. Saved you some pancakes. Bruce made them. Eat them all!! Love, Thor ;)

He couldn't help a slight, fond chuckle at the winking smile Thor had drawn under his words. His older brother's exuberance shone through even in the little note. Loki then turned his attention toward the plate Thor had made up. He'd been planning on having a cup of juice, perhaps an apple—it wasn't that he felt sick, exactly, more of a lack of desire to eat. He could easily ignore Thor's request... but even without him being there, Loki could see the pleading look on his face. "Fine," he grumbled to himself, picking up the waiting fork. With no one around to see, he stuck out his tongue at the note. Just because.

Even eating one pancake had him feeling stuffed full. He switched to eating a few of the grapes, but the over-full feeling in his stomach didn't go away, nor did the tea help. It was peppermint again, but peppermint helped with nausea, not in creating appetites. Loki managed half of another pancake and a few more grapes before he started to feel like he'd lose whatever else he tried to eat. The rest of the food was unceremoniously scraped into the garbage. He did manage to finish the tea.

The mischief-maker teleported to the Statesman, instead of walking. He chose to teleport outside of the ship, and was glad he did so—Loki had to brace his hands on his knees and stand there for a few minutes to get his breath back. Anyone who saw might have tried to fuss over him, or at least told Thor, and that was not something he wanted. He was allowed a period of convalescence before he was at full strength again. Fretting was entirely unnecessary. He lingered for a few more minutes, even after the vertigo from teleportation had passed. The sky above was bright blue and cloudless, though there was still a brisk nip to the air that had his cheeks stinging. It was cold in the morning, here, Loki had discovered. Cold in the mornings, hot during midday, and cold again in the evenings. Would it be so hard to have some mild weather once in a while? Apparently so.

Just as the cold was starting to creep in, to take root in his bones in a way that Loki knew from experience wouldn't leave for hours, if that, he hurried inside. The chill had helped jumpstart his still lethargic mind, but he didn't want to freeze.

Thor was in the control room/all-purpose gathering area, as Loki had expected. "Loki!" the thunderer called as soon as he was within sight.

"Morning," Loki said as he slipped up next to his brother.

"Morning," Thor said back. "Did you eat breakfast?"

"Yes," Loki rolled his eyes, "I ate breakfast, Thor."

"Good." Thor fidgeted, waving to a passing citizen. "This morning, were you okay? You were in the shower an awfully long time."

Again, Loki rolled his eyes. "I just lost track of time, brother. I'm still a bit tired."

Thor nodded. "Okay. Let me know if you want to go back to take a nap."

"I'm not two hundred, Thor," Loki grumbled. "Now," he said, briskly changing the topic, "what do we need to do today?"

Thor couldn't help but worry, just a little bit. He wanted to insist Loki take another break, or skip the talk they were going to have. Particularly after what had happened with Vision the night before. Loki was shattering, crumbling at the edges, and Thor feared what would happen if he kept going under such pressure. While his face smiled at passing citizens, Thor's mind was busy trying to find a way for Loki to unwind. There was no doubt he needed it.

He'd talked to Bruce that morning, and the man had suggested something. He said he'd bring it up with Stark and Vision, first, but if they approved... One of Loki's problems might be dealt with. The idea was a relief to Thor. Though Loki would almost certainly deny it, he'd been on the edge of a breakdown constantly every time he was around the mind stone, and therefore Vision. And that didn't take into account the breakdowns he'd had.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Heimdall popped up. Thor yelped. "The Valkyrie wanted me to let you know that they're gathering for lunch."

"Did you have to sneak up on me to tell me that?" Thor shook his head. "Alright, thanks. Where's Loki?"

"Take two lefts and a right," the gatekeeper instructed over his shoulder, already heading on his way once more.

Thor took two lefts and a right—and collided with his younger brother, who was just leaving a room on the right side of the hall. "Ack," Loki yelped, stumbling back until he hit the wall.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," Thor apologized, reaching out to steady the trickster. The amount of time it took Loki to get his feet back under him was concerning. "You alright?"

"Yes, fine," Loki said absently. "Did you need me for something?"

"Lunch," Thor said.

Loki frowned. "Is it lunch already?"

Shrugging, Thor put a hand on Loki's back to guide him forward (and steady him). "Apparently." He half-expected Loki to teleport them, but they walked the whole way without him even suggesting it. Another thing that had a small alarm in Thor's head ringing. In the kitchen, it appeared Bruce had taken control. Whatever he was making smelled rather strong, in a way that took Thor more than a moment to place. Indian cuisine. Bruce had gotten good at cooking in the local way while on the run, and some of the things he could make were quite delightful. Thor turned to Loki with a smile, only to see utter dismay painted on the dark-haired prince's face. "Loki?" he asked, stepping closer to lay a hand against his forehead, "are you feeling sick again?"

Loki brushed his hand away with a weak smile. "No, just... it smells very odd, does it not? And... strong."

"I'm sure you can have something else," Thor promised him. Loki waved him off.

Loki quickly found a seat at the table, and Thor sat next to him. Brunnhilde was arguing with Stark over some bottle of amber liquid—Thor hoped it wasn't too expensive because there was no way the mechanic was getting it back after she'd gotten her hands on it. Rhodes loomed in the corner of the room, though perhaps looming was a pessimistic interpretation. He watched the action with a somewhat unreadable look on his face. If Thor really had to guess, he'd say the man looked amused. Vision, to the thunder's relief, wasn't present.

Over the course of ten minutes, everyone slowly migrated to the round table that Loki had chosen to take a seat at. Brunn plunked down first, bottle in hand, on Loki's other side. Stark quickly joined to grumble at her, and Rhodes followed him. Bruce was the last to join them, carrying a large bowl full of some orange-red meat stuff that Thor guessed was a kind of curry. He brought over a plate piled high with some sort of pancake-like thing and a bowl of cooked cubes of various root vegetables before sitting down. "Dig in," he pronounced, and there was a mad scramble for the middle of the table. One that Loki was noticeably absent from, at least to Thor. He put a few scoops of the curry-thing and the vegetables on his plate (Bruce had had the foresight to provide multiple serving spoons), and four of the flatbreads—and then switched out Loki's empty plate for the one he'd just filled.

"What's this called," Thor asked as he filled up a plate for himself.

"Butter chicken, and the bread is called pathiri. The vegetables are just... vegetables," the scientist informed him cheerfully.

"It's really good," Brunn said, already having cleared half of her plate. Loki, by contrast, was still staring at his meal.

Poking the trickster on the shoulder, Thor leaned over to whisper in his ear. "Eat at least two of the pathiri and half of the chicken and vegetables, or you're going back to bed."

"You can't make me," Loki hissed back, but he picked up his fork. Thor conversed lightly with the others, keeping a careful eye on Loki's progress with his food. He picked at the chicken, making a face and hastily taking a drink of water. Thor tried his own in response, but it wasn't spicy as he'd expected from Loki's reaction. There was spice, sure, but only to taste.

"Try the pathiri," Bruce said quietly, leaning around Thor to speak to Loki. "It's just rice, really."

Loki pursed his lips and speared one of them on his fork. Thor was pretty sure you were supposed to use your hands, but Loki was eating so it didn't matter. Thankfully, Loki ate all of the pathiri Thor had given him, and most of the vegetables, though he didn't touch the chicken again. Thor was willing to take it, though he still wished he could convince Loki to go back to bed. He looked tired.

Lunch wrapped up in clinking cutlery and sliding dishes, the scuffing of chairs and gathering of plates. Thor got Loki another glass of water, and both Brunn and Stark furnished themselves with alcohol, and then, by some unspoken agreement, they all sat down around the table rather than moving to the conference room. Stark was the first to break the silence. "So," he said. "We want to try and remove Vision's stone. And destroy it. Any objections?" Unsurprisingly, no one there wasn't for it. "Alright." The mechanic hesitated, taking a drink of whatever honey-colored liquid filled his glass, and then set it down. "Bruce and I can probably figure out how to remove it. But... there might be an easier way. Loki, would you be willing to try and remove it with magic?"

It was just as well that Stark wasn't meeting anyone's eyes, because Thor was giving him a death-glare. He should have spoken to Thor, as Loki's older brother, before he brought up such a thing. It would be Loki's choice, of course, but that didn't change the instinctive surge of protectiveness that rose up in Thor when he thought about putting Loki in any situation that had the potential to hurt him, physically or otherwise.

Loki shrugged, sipping at his water. "Alright. Now, I believe we were going to discuss... Thanos." The mischief-maker's voice when totally flat on the name, deadened in a way that chilled Thor's heart. He rolled his chair closer—rolling chairs, an amazing choice on the part of whoever had made it, probably Stark—and set a hand on Loki's back, rubbing light circles in between his shoulder blades.

Stark nodded. "What are his troops like? Does he have any armies besides the Chitauri?"

Loki's smile was grim. "Yes. He has entire species at his command. For the most part, he doesn't use them all. His favored armies are the Chitauri and the Outriders. The Chitauri are a simple species, controlled by a hive mind. They are capable of basic battle tactics and can somewhat adapt to circumstances, and they can operate weapons and battleships. The Outriders stem from Chitauri, but have been genetically engineered to be stronger, faster, and larger. And have more arms. They are just smart enough to keep from tearing each other apart, but otherwise they will attack indiscriminately and with brute force. There are no tactics involved, and really the only orders they can follow are is in which direction to run."

He was shaking. Loki probably didn't realize it, but Thor could feel the slight tremors under his hand. Hoping to steady him, he continued to rub Loki's back, and wished with all his might that his brother didn't have to do this. That he wasn't their only source of information. "Do you want to stop?" Thor asked him in a whisper. Loki gave a subtle shake of his head and continued.

"Who he'll send on his first attack, however, will be his lieutenants. The best of the best, the most elite warriors in the galaxy. He makes them that way. Takes them as children from planets he's culled, and raises them up to be loyal to him. There is one exception in his current lineup—a sorcerer who sought him out of his own accord." The way Loki's voice wavered when he said 'once exception,' and again on the word 'sorcerer,' had a red haze appearing before Thor's eye, and he blinked it away to focus on the younger prince's words. "He pulled children from many worlds, but only the strongest survive to adulthood. He has six, currently. His two daughters, his assasins, while the other four are more melee combat oriented. He calls them the Black Order." Loki paused. "There are rumors that his daughters defected. Unlike the Black Order, Gamora and Nebula frequently interacted with the outside world without supervision. It may be possible that they slipped his leash, especially working together... but I do not know for sure."

"What do they look like? Will they be able to stealth infiltrate?" Rhodes questioned.

"How do they fight?" Stark added.

Loki started with the assassins, the ones who may have defected. He had fewer dealings with them, Thor surmised. "Gamora is, or was, the jewel in his crown. The standard to which all others were set. She is intelligent and fearless, and skilled with all weapons but most especially daggers and guns. Her fighting style is similar to your widow's. She uses the strength of her opponents against them, and as with all of Thanos' children, there is no such thing as a dirty tactic. Easily recognizable by her green skin and magenta hair—she is the last of her kind thanks to Thanos, and no other species versed in galactic travel carries that particular combination of features.

"Nebula is his other assassin, and the most loyal of all his children. She... she craves family and recognition above all else, and will do anything for a scrap of it from him. I can't see her defecting from him, but I suppose it is possible. She is second best, but not by much, and should never be mistaken for harmless, for she is not. She is ruthless in pursuit of his pride. And," Loki hesitated, faltered, his voice cracking. Thor wondered if perhaps she had tortured him, and then he continued. "She is blue in skin," and then Thor didn't hear the rest of what he said as the parallels he'd been ignoring became crystal clear.

Oh, Loki, Thor mourned quietly. His quick, sharp-edged, brilliant little brother who spent his whole life trying to be who he was not—Thor—all because he believed that was the only way to win their father's love. Because he didn't feel worthy.

"Cull Obsidian," Loki was saying when Thor tuned back in, "is the brute force weapon of the Black Order. He is of size and strength as the Hulk, perhaps a bit larger though likely not stronger, but unlike the Hulk he wears armor and fights with weapons, mostly clubs and axes and large, brute force weapons, all close range. Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight are a unit, rather like Gamora and Nebula, though with much less rivalry. Midnight is the only female member of the Black Order. She fights with a trident, and he a sword. Finally is... Ebony Maw. He does not fight with traditional weapons, only relies entirely on his telekinesis. He is Thanos' favored member of the Black Order, being the one who joined willingly. Volunteered for their... cause." Loki was white and now visibly shaking by the time he finished, sweat building up a light sheen on his brow.

"Let's take a break," Thor said as gently as he was able, instead of dragging Loki away to put him to bed. "Just for a minute."

"No, no," Loki shook his head rapidly, hair swishing wildly around his face in a raven blur. "I am fine." He sounded much better than he had moments ago, but that only pinged a warning bell in Thor's head.

"We should stop," Thor tried again, blatantly changing his angle, "someone else might have something they want to say."

The glare Loki shot him was worryingly weak. "Stop it. I'm fine."

"No one here will care if you need a minute, man," Rhodes said, unexpectedly. He and Stark exchanged a glance Thor couldn't interpret—he was too focused on Loki.

"I don't need a minute!" The protest was angry, but tremulous, flavored by a hardly disguised note of panic. "I'm fine, honestly. Now," Loki inhaled deeply and shook his head once more. "For how they look. I can create illusions of them, and for the rest of your team when they gather here. Eventually."

"Why don't you wait till they get here?" Thor all but begged. This was dangerous, he felt. Something in Loki had snapped from all the pressure. "Would it not be better for us all to see it as a team?" 

Setting his jaw, Loki ignored him. Thor recognized the mulish glint in his eye. He'd decided he had to prove himself to them, prove that he wasn't 'weak'. "This is Gamora." He gestured, and a woman with leaf-green skin appeared, shimmering markings on her face and hair that gradated from a deep black to bright fushia in shade as it lengthened. She wore tight-fighting black clothes and the look in her eyes was that of a predator. Thor could see why Loki had said that she reminded him of the widow, but that wasn't important right then. What was important was getting Loki to stop.  "This is Nebula."

Gamora vanished, to be replaced by a woman with indigo skin and black pools for eyes. She too wore tight-fitting clothing in black, though it was much less revealing than Gamora's. Less designed for a seductress, perhaps due to the fact that at least half of her was metal. Blue and silver plating covered her skull, and an arm and leg were entirely made of metal. Her gaze was predatory, but in a different way than Gamora's had been. Gamora was a dragoness on the hunt, while Nebula smoldered with hate. How did Loki know them enough to capture them that way, Thor wondered, with so much of their essence shining through. "Loki, enough. That's enough."

"This is Cull Obsidian." Nebula was replaced by a great, dark brute with a club slung over one shoulder. Thor tore himself from his instinctive analysis to focus on his brother.

"Loki, stop!"

Loki was white, whiter than white, the blood drained from his skin so thoroughly that Thor could see the veins beneath his skin, and he was starting to gray. A drop of sweat dripped down his face like a tear, and indeed there were copious amounts of tears building up in his heavily shaded eyes. "I'm... fine."

"Dude, we get it, you're tough, that's enough," Rhodes said sternly.

"Loki, you have to quit it. You're not proving anything," Bruce added.

"Please," and now Thor was begging, "brother, please, that's enough. You need to stop, right now. Loki, please, listen to me. Listen to them. We can wait, it's alright, Loki, please stop."

"Proxima Midnight." The figure changed, shrank, but Thor refused to look beyond that. Loki didn't look back, his eyes fixed on his illusory figure. He was trembling. "Corvus Glaive."

"That's enough!" Thor almost roared, flinching himself when Loki flinched, and a tear finally escaped to streak down his face.

"Maw." The illusion changed again—and this time, Loki froze. Stilling as if he'd suddenly been turned to a statue by some unseen magic, the Asgardian prince stopped breathing, stop blinking, stop shaking, even, to stare with wide, wet eyes at the figure he'd created. This was the one that terrified Loki the most, Thor knew. That had hurt him the worst. He'd joined Thanos willingly, Thor remembered Loki had said. Red fuzzed over his vision again, and he forgot his little brother panicking in front of him while his blood sang for revenge. With a predator's grace, Thor turned his head to drink in the figure Loki had summoned.

Gray skinned, covered in wrinkles, and with a lack of hair. Thin, spindly fingers laced together in front of him, flat face curved with a hideous slice of a smile. Thor committed the sight to his memory. I will kill you with my own hands, he vowed darkly. You hurt him, and you will pay. His dark fantasies of bloodshed were interrupted by a soft thump, following by shouting, and the illusory figure vanished simultaneously. When Thor turned, the sight that greeted him was his baby brother, splayed boneless on the floor. The hot tide of rage in his veins was instantly written over by guilt. "Loki!"

The first thing he was aware of was a hand stroking his hair. "Ssh, don't move," Thor's voice said. "Lie still. I have you."

Loki turned his head anyway, but kept his eyes closed. He winced at the crick in his neck, and hesitantly stretched. "What happened."

"You—" Thor cut himself off. When he started speaking again, the anger has audibly drained from his tone, replaced by worry. Loki preferred the anger. "You fainted. How are you feeling?"

The trickster hummed, considering. "Tired." Exhausted, really. Like fatigue had reached into his bones, curled around his marrow and made itself at home. "I'm fine."

Thor clucked his tongue sharply—Loki almost laughed at that, as bad as he was feeling—and pushed him back down by the shoulders. "No. You lie down. Stay there."

"I'm thirsty," Loki complained. True, but mostly he was hoping Thor would let him up to get a drink.

"Okay." Thor shifted, making Loki shift as well. He was on a couch, Loki surmised, and Thor was sitting on it as well. "Hang on a minute." There were footsteps, and Thor quietly thanked someone. The footsteps left. "Here." He slid a hand behind Loki's neck, lifted him up and pressed a glass to his lips. Loki drank it all, and only then felt solid enough to open his eyes and glare.

"I can drink by myself, you oaf."

Thor smiled at him, but it was as weak as Midgardian alcohol. "I know," he said, clearly lying, which was insulting. "But humor me."

"I'm not made of glass," Loki complained. He pushed himself up, batting away Thor's hands. Despite what he said, he still felt fragile, unsteady, like a stiff wind could knock him off his feet. The room swam slightly before settling into place. "What happened? Really."

"You fainted," Thor repeated, and then raised his hands in surrender when Loki's glare sharpened. "Okay, okay. We were talking about... Thanos. Do you remember?"

"Oh." Yes, yes he did, now that Thor had said so. He remembered quite well. "That was... foolish."

"You think?!" Thor took a deep breath. "Sorry. Yes, that... wasn't one of your brightest ideas." There was an I-told-you-so on his tongue, Loki could tell, but he held it back. "Are you really feeling alright?"

"Yes." It wasn't really a lie, even. He was feeling more steady the longer he sat up. "I'm alright. I can continue."

"Oh no you're not," Thor barked. "You're going to rest."

"It's hardly noon!" the trickster argued back. He swayed slightly when he stood, but caught his balance quickly and waved off Thor's lunge to steady him.

Thor's eye was like flint. "You need to rest. Loki, you just fainted."

"Because I got a little worked up!"

"A little worked up," Thor scoffed under his breath.

Loki spoke over him, "not because I was ill. I feel fine already. Really. I can go back."

"How about we compromise?" Loki jumped, barely managing to keep his feet—he hadn't noticed Bruce was there, hovering a few feet away. He must have been the one to get the water. "Loki, you don't have to take a break, but no more Thanos talk until tomorrow."

"I am agreeable to that," Loki said stiffly.

"Fine," Thor conceded in a no less brittle tone.

Bruce sighed.

Despite his numerous protestations, Loki had ended up going to bed right after dinner. The speed at which he agreed, made Thor think he really had wanted to sleep—despite the volume of his protests. It was a relief to Thor. He clearly needed to rest.

"When is Barton getting here?" he asked as soon as he entered the conference room, returning from bringing Loki back to the rooms.

"In three days," Stark said. "Government reasons, red tape. I had to do a bit of maneuvering to convince them not to send surveillance. Another guy, too."

Thor nodded, slightly awkwardly. "I should find the wizard too, probably."

"Yeah, I was thinking," the inventor drawled, "if your brother can't remove the stone, maybe this wizard can? Or we could have him try first."

"Loki already agreed to try," Thor said after a moment of thought. "If he can't... I'll ask the wizard." He hoped he was making the right choice. He hoped he wasn't hurting Loki by agreeing to this. He feared he was. "Is there a car I can borrow? I want to drive into the city tomorrow, and try to find him."

Rhodes snorted an almost laugh, and Stark's expression twitched a bit. "Yeah. There's... a few."

"A few," Rhodes mocked quietly.

"I'll show you in the morning," Stark finished quickly. Thor had to press his lips together to keep from smiling—he remembered all of Stark's cars back at the tower quite well. "But you'll want this." Seemingly out of nowhere, he produced a box and threw it at Thor. The thunderer caught the box easily. From the size and clean white color, he had a suspicion about what it was—and the picture on the front when he flipped it over confirmed his guess. "Newest model, but with your old number. Not everyone has an all-seeing gatekeeper that can call friends for them."

Thor smiled for real that time. "Thanks, Stark." He wasn't at all surprised when Brunn and Bruce were tossed phones as well. He was surprised, however, when Stark passed him another box.

"Give that to your brother," he ordered, a slightly wary look in his eyes. A peace offering, Thor surmised. Perhaps even an apology.

"I will." He paused. "Thanks, Stark."

The man grinning, the clear relief in his eyes twinging something in Thor's heart. He's your friend, Loki's voice reminded him. Tentatively, Thor allowed himself a bit of hope. He still didn't forgive the man, though. Not yet.

Chapter Text

"Loki?"

"Nnnnph," the silvertongue groaned, burrowing his face into his pillow.

"Wake up," Thor coaxed, "just for a minute."

"Nuh," Loki complained, but he opened his eyes. "What."

"I'm gonna go and try to see the wizard. There's a phone for you on the side table, with my number in it. Call if you need me, but I should be back before lunch—and you can try to remove the stone afterward, okay?"

"Kay." Loki closed his eyes again. Thor smiled at him and patted his shoulder before leaving the room.

Stark waited in the hanger in front of an obscene amount of Quinjets, hands shoved into his pockets and expression far away. The melancholy cleared from his expression the second he sighted Thor, and he raised one hand from his pockets in an almost-wave. "Come on," he called, and though his tone was brisk the smile he followed the order with was friendly, "the cars are down at the end." In accordance with what he said, the pair passed by the Quinjets and other air vehicles, and next a few trucks, before reaching the cars. Stark's face was more than slightly smug as he spun in a slow circle, arms flung theatrically wide. "Take your pick, Thunderpants."

Thor had learned the appreciation of cars while on earth—in all likelihood, to his detriment. A trim red sportscar caught his eye within seconds, sporting a retractable roof and a sleek white racing stripe running across the side. He allowed himself a minute to drool before turning away, towards the more inconspicuous cars. His haircut and missing eye already served as a disguise, and most wouldn't recognize him even before those changes while he was wearing Midgardian clothes, but still. The less attention he drew, the better. He wandered closer to the less stand-out options, perusing them slowly and eliminating options in his mind one by one. The car he settled on was a little silver Lexus—a nice car, but not one that would grab too much attention. "This'll do," he pronounced, running a hand over the trunk.

"You sure about that, buddy?" Stark was wearing a wide smirk when the thunderer turned to face him. Once they had eye contact, he very deliberately looked towards the car that Thor had been salivating over minutes before.

"No," Thor responded mournfully, "but I don't think the wizard would be happy if I showed up in something so... noticeable."

"It's called having taste, but whatever. What would a wizard know about taste." Stark repeated the word 'wizard' under his breath with an incredulous edge, but Thor was no longer paying attention to him.

"My driver's license has expired by now," he realized aloud. Guess he'd have to make sure he wasn't pulled over. Then, Stark tossed him a card, because of course he did. Thor knew what he would see before he saw it—and sure enough, the little piece of plastic he'd been passed was a driver's license. It proclaimed him to be 'Ted Oscar,' and the picture even included his short hair and eyepatch. He had to hold in a snort at the birth date in 1992. "That fast?" Thor asked, looking up from the card with a raised eyebrow.

"Don't tell the goverment, all right?" That time, Thor did snort.

He was halfway into the car before he paused and turned to look back at the mechanic. "Don't I need keys?"

"Take a look."

Slightly confused, Thor slid the rest of the way into the car. A little button replaced the keyhole that had been prominent in cars the last time he was on earth, labeled quiet on the nose, 'Push to Start.' The speed at which Midgard changed astounded him. Asgard, once upon a time, had never changed. Or at least not when Loki didn't stick his nose into things. The changable and fast paced nature of life on Midgard was another thing their people would have to adjust to. Thor pushed the button and the engine started with a quiet purr. No need for keys—but then, how did they keep their vehicles secure? "How do these not get stolen?" Thor asked out the open window.

"You still need to unlock it." Stark came around the front of the car to pass him a little fob, the same kind that had been attached to car keys when Thor was last on earth, but now devoid of the key.

Thor pocketed the little remote. "Alright, well. See you later." He rolled up the window again, and switched the car from park to drive.

The trip to the city took a few hours. While he'd left when the sun was just coming up, it was high in the sky by the time he reached the big apple. From there, Thor had to depend on the GPS in his phone to get him to Bleeker Street. It was an area not too far from Manhattan, much more industrial in nature than the sleek skyscrapers most knew the city for. Apartment building and brick as far as the eye could see, but it was still a heavily trafficked area. Thor managed to find a parking spot not too far away from Bleecker—and after that it was a matter of hoping he'd remember what the building looked like.

In the end, it wasn't hard to find. Frighteningly easy, in fact. Even if the place hadn't sported that distinctive bubble window on the top floor, it was layered in such a multitude of misdirection spells that it could only serve as a giant neon sign screaming 'magic users here!' for anyone with a single shred of magical sensitivity. And, no matter what Loki claimed, Thor did in fact have a bit of that. He didn't need the skill and range of his ridiculously talented younger brother to spot a blazing beacon of magic in an area otherwise devoid of it.

Thor knocked. Having visited before, he was slightly more prepared to be instantly sucked inside the building.

"What are you doing back on my planet, Thor Odin's son?" The wizard asked loftily. Stephen Strange, if he remembered correctly. At least he had the decency to not float down from the ceiling that time.

"Wizard!" Thor cried, obnoxiously loud.

"Sorcerer Supreme," the wizard corrected, an edge of irritation behind his tone. "Why have you returned? Don't think I didn't notice when your signature showed back up on this planet—along with your brother's. Care to explain that one as well?"

"Sorcerer supreme, is that like a taco supreme?" Thor mused. "Ah, no matter," he cut off whatever indignant thing the man was going to respond with. "If you knew we were here, then why not come see us?"

"Sorcerer Supreme isn't an empty title, Thor. I have duties to attend to, not the least of which is protecting this planet from extradimensional threats. I would have sought you out within a few more days if you hadn't left by then."

"Yeah, we're not going anywhere, sorry," Thor hummed. "You said extradimensional threats. How about extraterrestrial?"

The wizard sighed, covering his face with one gloved hand. "This is going to be a long story, isn't it."

Thor shrugged. "I can condense it. My father is dead," he ignored the soft pang in his heart at that, "Asgard is destroyed, and there's a genocidal maniac with a savior complex coming for that fancy rock you have hanging around your neck."

Strange blinked. Several times. Blew out his lips in a short sigh. "I think I might need the long version. Let's sit."

"You do a lot of teleporting, wizard," Thor observed, sitting back in the same leather armchair the wizard had zapped him into when he visited before. "Are you showing off or do you just... hate walking?"

The man rolled his eyes. "No, I don't 'hate walking.' And it's Master of the Mystic Arts. Doctor Stephen Strange, remember?"

Thor flapped a hand at him. "It's been a while."

"So... you say Asgard is destroyed?"

Thor nodded. "Turns out Loki and I had a homicidal sister that was released from her prison when Odin died. She's dead now."

"That explains some of the things I sensed after you left," Strange said, more to himself than Thor. "And... about this 'maniac with a savior complex'..."

"Don't forget the genocidal part," Thor said. The wizard rolled his eyes again.

"Yes, yes, could you explain that?"

"Can I have something to drink, first?" Thor asked. Annoying this man was far too easy, honestly. He should probably stop antagonizing him. But. He didn't really want to. The wizard conjured a mug of beer. Thor drank it all, but held it out after it refilled. "Can I have some tea instead? Probably should stay sober if I'm going to explain."

"You said you didn't drink tea," Strange muttered, aggrieved, but he obliged. "Now please, please, get to the point. I don't have half so much time to waste as you seem to think."

Thor nodded. "So, what do you know about that thing you're wearing? About the infinity stones."

Thor kept his promise to return in time for lunch, with a large smile on his face and a bit of bounce to his step. "I saw the wizard," he announced, startling Loki as he attempted to puzzle out a report on Asgard's current resources through a pounding headache. "He'll be coming over in three days, when Barton arrives."

Loki dipped his head in acknowledgment, sitting up and banishing the papers in his hands. The headache he'd woken with had made him reluctant to get out of bed, and he'd eventually decided to do some paperwork as an excuse to stay under the covers, in lieu of heading out to the ship, leaning back against the headboard and using a conjured lap table to work. "Mm. But did he actually believe a word you said?"

As though the thought hadn't occurred to him—and of course it hadn't, he was himself after all—Thor's expression fell. He pulled a smile back up moments later, soothing, "I'm sure he did," too late for his words to be actually reassuring in any way. His eye flicked over Loki's form, and again his face settled into a slight frown, brow wrinkling up. "Are you feeling alright? I'd thought you'd be out of bed by now—and you're still not dressed."

With a dismissing handwave, Loki peeled back the covers and swung his legs out of bed. "I simply wanted to work somewhere more comfortable. And quieter. It's impossible to go unaccosted for two minutes on that blasted ship. As for not being dressed—why should I bother if I'm not going to see anyone yet?" He lifted a hand to the back of his head, tugging at the hairtie he'd used to sweep his raven locks out of his face while he was working.

"Let me," Thor cut in, thumping down on the bed next to him. "Up or down?"

Loki let his eyes drift shut as he slumped sideway to lean again his older brother's shoulder. "Just don't make it look stupid."

"I'll need a brush if I'm going to do anything," Thor pointed out. A flick of the wrist and a tug on his dimensional pocket, and a brush snapped into place in his open hand. Loki had to hold back a hiss of pain when the throbbing in his head increased in intensity. "Are you sure you're alright?" the thunderer asked seriously as he grabbed the brush.

"Positive," Loki hummed. Liar. "Just tired."

"You can't be pushing yourself so hard, brother," Thor scolded as he tugged the brush through the obsidian nest of snarls that was Loki's hair. "You're not giving your body time to rest and recover."

Despite the raging headache, Loki managed a roll of his eyes. "And so staying in the room this morning to work instead of heading out to the Statesman doesn't count as rest? Please, Thor. I've had plenty of rest."

"Worrying about you is my sacred right as an older brother. Let me do my job, hm?" Thor poked him lightly in the shoulder, and Loki shrugged him off.

Anger rose quickly, but it fell away just as fast to make was for a small, lazy smile pulling at Loki's lips. "You're just making excuses to hide the fact that you're a mother-hen. More than that, a mother-dragon." The solid warmth of his older brother at his back and the brush carding rhythmically through his hair lulled him into a sense of calm.

"There's something I want to ask," Thor said, effectively shattering that calm. Loki was unable to keep himself from stiffening as alarm set his every nerve on edge. "Nothing bad," his brother remedied quickly, but the damage had already been done. "All I wanted to ask was if you're sure you want to do this."

"Do what?" Loki asked unconvincingly. His hands twisted together in his lap before he made them still. Pain beat a heavy staccato in his brain. 

"The stone, Loki," Thor said gently. "No one will blame you if you change your mind." 

No one will blame you. Now that was a laugh. The blame always, always, always went to Loki. That was unfair to Thor, he reminded himself sternly. His brother was trying, truly. But as for the Avengers, well. The same could not exactly be said.

In any case, Thor might say he wouldn't blame him, and mean it, too... up until Loki made the wrong descision. Then he might not mean it quite as much.

Stop, he ordered himself. Thor loves you. Loki pulled in a shaky inhale to drown out the thought that followed. Now. He loves you now. But what happens the next time you make a mistake? What about when his friends come crying for your blood? Thor's love wasn't so fragile. Was it not? A vicious shake of his head was followed by an upsurge in pain. Loki relished it, the wave of hurt efectively drowning out all the thoughts he didn't wish to entertain. "I know," he lied in response to Thor's words, though rather belatedly. "I want to try." Another lie, this one much more blatent. The brush stilled in his hair, before resuming a moment later, like a skipped heartbeat.

"You don't have to," Thor almost-wheedled. "We can have the wizard try, when he's here."

Loki's stomach dropped out from under his as he forced a laugh. His head throbbed in response. We don't need you. "You do realize that only gives me more incentive to try, don't you, brother?" Deep down, something in his gut curdled, and a sour taste rose on his tongue. Valiantly, he fought the urge to curl in one himself. To hide. Maybe even flee. That's not what Thor meant, he told himself, but it felt hollow. Pitiful. Like a lie. They did need him, his knowledge, Loki tried to reassure himself again. You've given them all they need, you idiot. They don't need you anymore. Surely the mortals weren't so shallow. Surely they could see the value in keeping him around. Surely—

"Loki? Brother?" A strong, warm hand cupped his jaw, turning his head until his eyes met his brother's. "You've gone pale." With Thor's hand on his jaw, he couldn't turn away—he could shrug off the touch easily, but Loki ignored that—so even when he refused eye contact, he could still see the bright shine of concern and love dancing in the king's singular, crystal-blue eye. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Loki mumbled absently. It was a stalling tactic, not a true answer, while he reordered his scrambling mind. He wasn't naive enough to hold to the futile hope that Thor would ever let that answer lie, not when he'd gotten it in his head to press.

Thor scoffed. "Nothing? Don't try that with me." He gentled his voice. "I told you, brother, you don't have to try if you don't want to. No one is going to make you remove the stone."

"I want to try," Loki said evenly. He met Thor's gaze with only steel in his eyes. Or so he hoped. I can be useful. I can be useful. Shut up shut up shutup. "Really."

The worry in Thor's face didn't wane in the least (nor did the love). "If you're certain."

"I am," Loki told him. For all Thor said, if he didn't at least make an effort, that would only be another point of contention for the mortals to hold against them. Not that it would make them like him any better—but at least trying hopefully wouldn't make them resent him more. Hopefully.

"Okay," Thor said slowly and entirely unconvincingly. "It that's not what's bothering you, what is?" 

"Headache," Loki told him dismissively. "Nothing you need to worry about."

Thor, being Thor, latched on to that immediately. "Didn't I say you're not taking proper care of yourself?" Thor fussed. "If you're not feeling well, maybe we should wait a few days to try—"

"Thor," Loki snapped, cutting him off. "I'll be fine."

Setting his jaw, Thor made to open his mouth—only to sigh, all the tension leaking from his body like a deflating balloon. "Alright." At last, he let go of Loki's face, and gave his shoulder a hudge. "Turn around so I can finish your hair."

Without a word, Loki did as asked. He resumed his position leaning against his older brother's shoulder as Thor's fingers danced in his hair. He'd moved on from simply brushing, and though Loki wasn't quite certain what he was up to, it was relaxing, and therefore he tolerated it. The gentle scraping of fingers in his hair even soothed his headache the smallest bit, enough that me almost drifted off more than once. The soft tugging on his scalp as Thor fiddled with his hair always brought him back, though.

"Done," Thor pronounced at last, leaning in to kiss Loki's temple too quick for him to duck it. "Now get dressed, and I'll make us lunch. We'll go to the medbay after."

Loki waited until Thor had gone, the door fully shut behind him, to stand. He made it halfway to upright before his knees forsook him and he dropped back down onto the mattress, hard. A minute of stillness passed while he modulated his breathing before the vertigo passed enough for him to give it another attempt. The second time he made it to his feet, though he swayed slightly when he did get his feet under him. Loki raised a hand to his temple with a grimace, his other hand coming to rest on his stomach. It fisted in the fabric of his nightshirt as he kneaded his abdomen like the pressure would get his roiling innards under control. Perhaps Thor was right, Loki mused tiredly. He felt nearly as worn as he had been when he'd been ill. Maybe he could postpone the attempt to another day, stay inside and attempt to get some work done while avoiding having to deal with any other people. It sounded quite pleasant, actually. Almost as tantalizing as just climbing back in bed and going to sleep. Almost.

Inhaling a determined breath, Loki half-walked half-wobbled his way to the large, deep brown wardrobe Thor had up against the wall, and pulled open the heavy, gold inlaid doors. If he put off trying to remove the stone, he might never try again. And that was not an option. With a critical eye, Loki scanned the clothing available to him. He very much doubted Thor had noticed the enchantments he'd laid on it. If Thor opened it, it would reveal his clothes, and vise versa for Loki—with a slant toward the clothing they were looking for in particular. If either had the intent, they could see the other's clothing as well, just in case. The spell was silly, perhaps, and certainly frivilous, but exceedingly convenient. And it saved space.

Loki easily selected a pair of black pants, and then waffled between a deep green button-up with a folded collar and a smoke gray v neck. The pain in his head spurred him on to grab one at random—the v-neck. He added a dark jean jacket that matched the pants to hide the bandages still swaddling his wrist, and coincidentally any questions they might raise, and finished with a pair of lace-up boots. On his way out the door, he paused before the mirror to inspect his hair. Thor had left most of it down, pulling some up into a bun and mixing in a handful of pencil-thin braids.

When Loki left the bedroom, Thor pounced almost instantly, dragging him into the kitchen and plunking him down on one of the barstools, where a glass of water and another of some kind of juice waited, along with a bowl of salad and a couple of small capsules. "They're for your headache," Thor explained, bustling back over to the stove as the sound of sizzling meat permeated the air. "Take them both."

Silently, Loki complied. He knocked back the pills along with half the glass of water before picking up his fork. He speared a single piece of lettuce and put it in his mouth. Finally, something that didn't seem so daunting to consume. He chewed slowly and swallowed before stabbing another leaf, this one reddish-purple rather than green. He ate the salad that way, one piece at a time, until Thor noticed and bullied him into eating more than the lettuce. When about a third of the bowl was gone, Loki set down his fork and reached for the juice—apple, he surmised by the color. He took a sip and made a face. Not apple. Some kind of citrus, for sure. Not orange or lemon. Loki considered asking, for a moment, but didn't care enough to know and so said nothing.

Seconds later, Thor plopped down next to him. The barstool squeaked as it took his sudden weight, and Thor let two plates clatter down—one in front of him and the other by Loki. The mischief-maker fought to keep his dismay from showing on his face. He'd hope the salad was the only thing Thor would force down him, but there was a slab of grilled chicken on the plate and no way out. Blessedly, Thor seemed to have left it unseasoned. "You can get salt or pepper if you want," Thor said, confirming Loki's supposition as he dumped barbecue sauce over his own chicken. The stench caused a climb in Loki's headache as he glanced back and forth between both of their plates. Perhaps Thor hadn't given him such a large portion, after all.

"I'd rather not," Loki replied idly, watching his meal with semi-narrowed eyes.

Thor shrugged, chomping on a mouthful of chicken. He swallowed and wiped a bit of barbecue sauce off of his lip with a napkin. "Suit yourself." A short pause followed. "Want some dressing? For the salad." Loki could feel Thor's frown when he shook his head, even without looking away from his plate. "You don't usually like things so plain. Are you feeling nauseous?"

"Not really," Loki replied—truthfully, even. The fluttering in his stomach was all nerves. "I'm not particularly hungry at the moment, Thor. Let it rest."

"You haven't had any sort of appetite since you got sick. You're always a light eater—but not like this." The worry in Thor's voice caused a rock to form in his stomach. He swallowed and chanced a glance, only to look away again the moment after meeting Thor's eye. "What if it's an extension of that or... something. Are you sure you're alright?"

"Or something," Loki snorted. He sighed. "Yes, I'm sure." A loose rotation of his wrist summoned the salt and pepper shakers, and they popped across the kitchen to appear by his plate. Shaking a generous amount onto his meat, Loki sawed a piece off of the corner and ate it defiantly. He had to work to keep his face from twisting. Too much salt. Way, way, way too much salt. He chewed and swallowed anyway, then tried to act casual as he clutched for his water and downed the rest of the glass.

Thor sighed and shook his head. The long-suffering-older-brother face he pulled made Loki want to stab him. "You made your point. Now wipe some of that off so you can eat the rest."

Pinching his lips together, the silvertongue took the napkin his brother proffered him. After wiping off as much of the seasoning as he could manage, he turned back to picking at his salad, poking at the chicken for a minute or two at a time when Thor nagged him about eating. It was still too salty. He was eating, Loki thought resentfully after yet another pointed hint. Was that not enough for Thor?

The task of nourishing himself dragged on endlessly—up until Thor told him it was time to try and remove the stone. Suddenly, it felt rather as though time had passed in the blink of an eye. "Fine, then," Loki muttered, getting to his feet. He gestured loosely toward the stairs. "Lead the way."

The attempt was to be made in the medbay—ridiculous, in Loki's opinion. "It's not a living thing. What sort of medical aid is it going to need?" His hands wouldn't stop shaking, and he was beginning to grow dizzy as they made their way up the skywalk. His heartbeat pounded in his ears and his head throbbed. "It's unnecessary. And nonsensical."

"You don't have to," Thor said, still annoyingly, unwaveringly calm. "Remember that. And if you don't succeed, no one will blame you." Loki gave a stiff, jerky nod and continued walking forward. "Here," Thor burst out, practically out of nowhere. "Hang on. Let's sit down a minute."

"We should," Loki waved weakly forward.

"There's no time limit, is there?" Thor said reasonably. Yes there is, Loki's mind insisted shrilly. The titan could come at any moment. He allowed himself to be guided to a bench in spite of it. "Come on. Take a breath." Drawing in an over-exaggerated lungful of air, Thor held it until Loki copied him, and then exhaled. "Breathe with me. Just for a minute." Loki followed his breathing pattern and felt decidedly awkward about it until he felt steady enough to go on. Less likely to crumble apart at the slightest mishandling. "Good. Okay. That's good, brother."

"I can go now," Loki told him. "I'm fine."

Thor's face twitched oddly when he tried a smile. "I know." He extended a hand to pull Loki up. "Let's go." After a short pause where indecision flickered over his face, he clapped his hand on Loki's back and started walking them forward. "I'm right here, brother. Remember that."

Stressed and on edge, Loki still managed a strained laugh. "Mother-dragon," he jibed somewhat breathlessly.

The closer they got, the stronger the energy of the mind stone became. It was always present—there was no way it couldn't be, that kind of power could be felt for miles by anyone with a drop of magical sensitivity, and off the planet by a talented enough sorcerer—but he'd managed to somewhat tune it out as long as he didn't quite think about what, exactly, the ever-present power was. The closer in proximity he was, however, the harder it became to not simply curl into a ball on the ground and scream, as if that would do any good. Pathetic.

Despite the fact that he'd tried to prepare himself, mentally, and had been in the physical presence of the stone multiple times in the recent and not quite as recent past, Loki still flinched when the door opened and the power rushed out like a burst of hot air into a cool room, slapping him full in the face. Thor's hand, still on his back, steadied him, kept him from stumbling back or tipping over. "Breathe," the thunderer reminded gently. Loki gave a half nod and forced himself to step forward. The last thing he saw before the world went black was the current-red face of the mind stone's vessel.

Thor was selfish. It was a fact he was well acquainted with, something long-established. He knew it was a bad idea to make Loki try and remove the stone. He knew it wouldn't work, knew that even if he could do it, Loki wouldn't be able to handle trying. The mischief-maker was too on edge, too fragile, whatever he might claim to the contrary. Like an egg with a too-thin shell, prone to shattering at a clumsy touch. And yet he allowed it, didn't veto the idea the minute they realized the wizard could try instead, out of some stupid hope that, what, Loki would just get over all the pain he'd been through because of the stone? Foolish. Arrogant. Selfish.

In the door to the medbay, Loki came to a halt. As abruptly as if they'd been kicked out from under him, his knees buckled and he crashed to the ground like his strings had been cut. Thor lunged and caught him by the underarms before he'd even fully processed what had happened. "Loki!" he almost-yelled, frantic. "Loki? Brother!"

"He's out cold," Bruce pronounced seriously, having hustled over as soon as Loki fell. "Here, can you get him on a cot?"

Thor lifted him and carried him to the cot that Bruce had indicated, laying him down as carefully as he could manage. The doctor stuffed a few pillows he'd produced from... somewhere, Thor hadn't been watching—under Loki's feet. Squeezing one of Loki's hands in his, Thor watched anxiously as Bruce took his pulse and listened to his breathing. "Heartbeat is a bit slow," the man commented, looking worried. "His breathing sounds fine, though."

"I knew this was a bad idea," Thor declared miserably. He let go of Loki's hand with one of his in order to stroke back his dark hair. "What do we do?"

"He should wake up on his own in a minute or two." Bruce cleared his throat. "Vision, maybe you should..."

"I will move out of sight," the android agreed readily.

Even knowing, logically, it wasn't the Vision's fault, Thor was starting to hate him by simple virtue of what his presence did to Loki. He took a deep breath to calm the rage under his skin, demanding he make whoever harmed his baby brother pay. And ignoring the fact that it was his fault. Or trying to, anyway. "Thanks," he forced himself to mumble. The room descended into a paralyzing silence, then. Waiting. Frozen. After an eternity and a half of Thor stewing in his guilt, Loki's eyelashes fluttered, and irises danced behind closed eyelids. He groaned quietly when Thor abruptly straightened his slumped posture and squeezed his little brother's hand. "Loki?"

"My... my head hurts," Loki complained in a breathy voice, with eyes still shut.

"Anything else?" Bruce asked, doctor-made swiftly taking over. "Are you dizzy, nauseous? Feeling anything otherwise abnormal?"

"Hm. Feels... odd. Floaty." The half-conscious, tremulously weak voice of his little brother made Thor's heart hurt, and tossed another gallon of gasoline onto the guilt-fire burning in his gut. This was his fault. All his fault. He could have shut the idea down straight away. He was the older brother, and he said nothing, and let this happen. "Semi... semi-nauseous, I suppose... and it hurts."

"Your head?" Thor cut in.

"Everywhere."

Thor's heart pinched at the breathless admission.

"Okay," Bruce said. "You stay there. I'm going to get you some medicine."

"Alright."

"He had pain meds before we came here," Thor warned quickly, and the scientist nodded. With Bruce out of the way rummaging through the cabinets, Thor leaned in to kiss Loki's forehead. "I'm sorry, brother," he whispered against Loki's skin. "I'm so sorry." He pulled back a bit, but continued to lean over him until Bruce returned, bearing a small plastic cup of water and a pill.

"Help him sit," Bruce instructed. Thor did as asked, sliding a hand under Loki's back and slowly lifting him to a sitting position, reclining against the wall for support. Bruce handed off the cup to Loki, but there was a shake in his hands and he nearly dropped it. Thor managed to take the cup before more than a few drops splashed out.

"Let me hold it, okay?" Thor said softly. It frightened him further when Loki didn't seem upset by his weakness, only tired and dazed. Nodding absently, he took the pill from Bruce and popped it into his mouth with clumsy fingers. The thunderer supported the back of his head with one hand, and brought the water to his lips with the other. The white plastic crinkled under his hands when he pulled the cup back and handed it off to Bruce, who tossed it into the trash can.

"That should help with the nausea." Bruce explained. "Thor, help him lie down again." While he was trying to lower Loki back down, the silvertongue closed his eyes and started to pull his feet off of the pillows. "Nope," Bruce said, blocking him. "We need to get the blood flowing to your head, you won't feel so 'floaty' then. Don't move."

"I'm supposed to... the stone," Loki protested softly.

Thor was simultaneously both relieved that he remembered what was going on, and worried about him trying to remove the stone, particularly after he fainted because he walked into the same room as it. "Ssh, it's okay," he said quickly, trying to stop that idea before it got started, this time. "You tried, it's okay. Just rest."

"No," Loki said, voice stronger. All Thor felt was a pang of fear. At last his little brother opened his eyes, and fixed Thor with a fragile glare. "I haven't tried. Let me try."

"Wait till tomorrow," Brunn advised from where she stood a few feet away, watching with a mostly placid expression but for a gleam of worry in her eyes, well hidden. Thor knew her well enough to see it, though.

Loki started to push himself upright. "No, we're here, the stone's here, I'm doing it now."

"We may attempt it later. I assure you it's of no matter to me."

The way Loki flinched at the Vision's voice only strengthened Thor's resistance to the endeavor. "Brother, please, it's alright. You just passed out, you need to rest, recover," he babbled, trying to reach for his brother as Loki batted him away to swing his legs over the side of the bed. He pressed his hands down onto the cot, attempting to rise, and his face twisted into a grimace.

"Vision," he ordered haltingly, "come here." Thor whipped his head around to glare. The android slowly glanced between all the faces in the room, and then rose, regret clear in his demeanor.

"My apologies, Thor," he said as he walked over, "but I will not refuse your brother's request if he wants to try and remove the stone from me." He settled down on the cot across from Loki, watching the trickster's face calmly as he crossed his feet at the ankles. "Is there anything you need me to do?"

"Stay still," Loki barked through lips gone white. Thor tried to speak up again, but a vicious swiping motion by his little brother had him reluctantly shutting his mouth. He waited anxiously to catch Loki if need be, or comfort him should he start panicking. The younger prince's eyes fell shut, and through Thor knew he was doing something, he couldn't tell what. The uncertainty combined with the way Loki's breathing was starting to speed was not at all comforting. He couldn't speak, though—he knew how bad it could go if a mage was interrupted or startled during a spell—and so he stayed quiet and still even as it burned him up inside. When he looked closely, he spotted tendrils of green light swarming around the stone in Vision's forehead, close but not quite touching, blink-and-you'll-miss-it in their movements.

Just when hope was beginning to build back up in Thor's chest, Loki's eyes flew open again, and he bent at the waist to be violently sick all over the floor. In the ensuing shocked silence, Loki's eyes rolled up and he tipped sideways, once more collapsing into a dead faint.

Fluffy, was, strangely enough, the first thought to cross Loki's mind when he crawled his way back to awareness. It wasn't quite random, however—he was covered in something very soft and warm, his fingers buried in the... fur, it was a fur. He wiggled them experimentally and hummed, pleased at the softness like a little child presented with a new stuffed toy. The warmth was quite appreciated as well, because he was cold. An involuntary whimper squeaked out at the realization, and his cheeks burned as he hoped no one had heard him but—"Loki? Are you awake?"

Loki opened his eyes to the face of his older brother, drawn tight with worry and consuming his whole sightline. "How are you feeling?" Thor asked anxiously.

"Fine," Loki croaked. He made a face as he tried to sit—there was an utterly foul taste in his mouth.

"Stay down," Thor ordered. Loki ignored him, pushing himself up and leaning back against the headboard. He cast his gaze around the room, and a frown formed.

"This isn't the medbay. This is your room."

Thor didn't even look sheepish when he responded. "I brought you back after you fainted. Again. I told you to stop!"

"You brought me there, there was no point in not trying," Loki grumbled defensively. He had to hold back a flinch when Thor's expression twisted like he'd been gutted. That was the wrong thing to say.

"I'm so—" the king began. Loki held up a hand to cut him off.

"Don't apologize. It was a good idea, and my decision in any case." It's not your fault I'm too weak to handle my own memories. "Really."

Thor still looked miserable, patently so. "Still," he pressed, "I am sorry."

Loki considered snapping at him, but let the matter drop. "What now?" he asked instead.

"That's for later. You should rest," Thor said quickly.

The mischief-maker fixed him with a narrow-eyed glare. "I've done far too much of that lately, not including today's two involuntary naps," he drawled.

"You obviously need it!" Thor argued back. He inhaled deliberately, and let it out in a long sigh. When he spoke again, his tone was much calmer. "You don't have to sleep. But you fainted, brother. Can you read a book, or something? Please?"

"Fine," Loki huffed. He recognized an argument he couldn't win. Thor was too stubborn about it—and he too tired to fight. "But," he held up a finger, "only for two hours."

Studying him for a moment, Thor gave a slight nod. "Deal." He surged forward, and Loki had a second to think Thor had been much angrier than he assumed—and then he was being wrapped into a bear hug by his beast of an older brother. "I'm sorry," Thor said in his ear over and over again, sounding choked up.

Though he rolled his eyes, Loki tentatively set his hands on his brother's shoulder blades in a tentative return of the hug, and allowed Thor to spill apologies all over him until he calmed. When he at last let go, Loki gave him a wry smile. "Are we done now?"

Thor somewhat sheepishly cleared his throat. "Ah. Yes. Just... call if you need me."

Again, Loki rolled his eyes. "I will. Go." At long last, Thor left him alone. Once his brother was gone, Loki sagged against the headboard and closed his eyes, tipping his head back until it connected with the wood with a soft thunk. There was no way he would ever admit it to Thor—not with the inevitable fussing such an admission would induce, he wasn't stupid—but he still felt odd. Off. Slightly off-balance, and certainly tired. He groaned and ground the heel of his hand into his forehead. Fiercely, he wished he wasn't so weak. The little illness he'd had seemed to linger inside of his bones, shrouding him in a clinging bubble of malaise. He didn't like it. At all

After taking a moment to collect himself, Loki sat upright again and held out a waiting hand, ready for the tome that appeared in it—a history of Asgard. He shook out his wrists, trying to stop the budding ache in them, as he studied the cover. On the Statesman, it had been his pet project, a way to unwind from the stresses of managing an entire people packaged into one spaceship, albeit a large one. He combed history after history collected from various realms, looking for inaccuracies and inconsistencies. It was his hope to craft a more accurate history of Asgard for the future of their people, going forward. The past would not be erased, not again. The truth would not stay hidden. His heart twinged with the echo of cold, the secret chill that never left him—not since he found out what he was. Loki squeezed his eyes shut, holding his breath and battening down the hatches on the deep well of fury and grief that surged when he recalled the fateful truth of his being, of what he was. An exhale, and he opened his eyes with a decisive breath. No more wallowing. He cracked the cover of the book.

The next two hours passed by quickly, as Loki skimmed over the history books, attempting to parse which were more accurate and which... less so. It was engaging work—putting together a mystery, a puzzle with only some of the pieces, the rest of which he had to dig up for himself—and yet he found himself nearly drifting off periodically. Perhaps from the blandness of the books, which even his interest in the job could not quite overcome. He was surprised when he realized his obligated rest time had passed, squinting at the book in his lap. There were duties for him to attend... and yet Thor wouldn't complain if he skipped them, at least not for one day. It might even get him to back off a bit. Besides, he was doing important work for Asgard's future. He stayed.

Hours later, as the edge of the amber sun was dipping below the treeline like a particularly large, firey cookie dunked into a glass of leafy green milk, there came a knock on the door. "Come in," Loki called automatically. He looked up from his book and frowned. "Wait, who is it?" The door eased open to admit his older brother. Loki glared when his lips twitched. "What?"

"I haven't seen you like this in years," Thor said, with a revolting amount of fondness.

"Like what?" Loki looked down, and then around him. Books crowded for room in every square inch of space on the bed, ink and quills of all colors and types stacked precariously among the furs and balancing on the edges of books, most of which were flooded with his notations and corrections in a rainbow of inks. "Ah." He scowled at Thor, who returned an unrepentant grin. "Stop it," he commanded, to which Thor doubled over laughing. "Really?"

"I'm sorry, brother," Thor gasped after the laughing fit subsided. "It's just," and his expression turned disgustingly sappy, "I'm happy you're going back to some of your old habits." Before things broke between us, he didn't say. Before we stopped trusting each other, before we became divided, before we fought all the time. Loki heard the unsaid words even so. He didn't like to think about that time, and so he didn't.

"Alright, enough out of you," Loki grumbled. He blew on the ink in the book in front of him, to dry it, and then banished the whole mess, leaving the bed pristine once more—if rather rumpled. "Dinner?" He rotated his wrists in turn and massaged his forarms—the joints in his arms helpfully decided to ache again, and a soft prickling sensation swarmed in his palms.

"DInner," Thor agreed.

Stark had food delivered again—Mexican, apparently. "What makes it Mexican?" Brunnhilde asked, studying her plate. "What's the difference between normal food and Mexican food?"

"It's a style of cuisine," Loki explained, setting down his fork with a slight spark of relief. "Like the food you would find in northern Vanaheim, versus by the eastern coast, or in the mountains. Mexico is a place, Mexican food is their style of cooking."

"Oh." She blinked, "well, okay," and took a bite.

"That's better than I would have put it," Stark said, openly eyeing Loki. His shoulders tensed up under the man's gaze. He could tell when someone didn't trust him—and Stark certainly didn't. No small part of him was still waiting in suspense for the other shoe to drop, for the humans to demand Thor make a choice. And Thor was a good man. He would choose what was best for Asgard, for the universe. As much as the thought burned Loki, he couldn't find it in himself to resent either Stark or Thor. The Midgardian, after all, had ample reason to hate him. He remembered throwing the man out of his window, albeit through the sticky blue tangles and foreign emotions that clouded that period in time. He still remembered. It was still him.

No, Stark didn't trust him, and never would. But Loki was useful. He had information, he had knowledge and skills he could provide, he was another warm body to throw at the Titan if nothing else. Except, of course, for the fact that he hadn't been useful of late. A nuisance, even. A hindrance, with his constant swooning and falling apart at the slightest bit of discomfort. "Where is the... Vision?" Loki made himself ask. He stumbled over the name, a stone on his tongue, as ever. In the ensuing silence, the mischief-maker made himself take another bite of his food even while his appetite dwindled to utterly nothing, and then less than that.

"Not here," Stark said finally, warily. "He doesn't eat, remember?"

"There's no need to exclude him on my account," Loki tried. His cheerful tone sounded fake even to his own ears. "Surely he would enjoy the company?" Not that Loki believed a word he was saying. Unless, of course, the definitely of 'company' had changed sometime while he was unaware to mean enslaving, invading, crawling in and twisting and filling some spaces and emptying others, twisting and tugging out of shape until—no, breathe. But they believed it, so. He'd made a terrible impression thus far. It was time Loki got ahold of himself. Long past time. He was no blubbering child, for all that he'd been acting like it.

"He'll be fine," Stark said dismissively. "Besides, he likes his alone time."

"Does he," Loki said. His lips were numb, and the words sounded robotic. He wanted to laugh. The mind stone didn't have feelings. It didn't have preferences. Except, of course, mucking about in any minds it touched—breathe.

"Loki," Thor began, a deep frown etching itself into his brow, "what's—"

Suddenly, the room was stifling, and he couldn't stay there a moment longer. "I'm going for a walk," Loki announced, standing up abruptly. He hurried out of the room, deaf to anything that anyone else might have said.

Once making it outside, into the open air, he could finally breathe a bit better. Loki wandered up the steps and took a seat at the one of the benched in the courtyard, backed up against a large bush. The sun was just beginning to set, by the colors painting the sky—though it had by now dropped below the treeline, only a hint of crimson light seeping through the leaves. The edge of the horizon was tinting rose in the west, the east, over the ocean, turning a dusky azure. This far from the city, and with the lights outside kept dimmed, the stars would be quite bright once the moon rose, if not as visible as they would be without any buildings around at all. Loki sighed, putting his head in his hands and breathing deeply. He needed to get himself under control. The titan certainly wouldn't make any concessions for his weakness, not as Thor had. It was him, not the stone, he told himself internally. The stone was only the weapon, not the hand wielding it. His stomach curdled, rushing up to the back of his throat, when he imagined facing the stone, that self-professed Vision, again. Thor believed it, Bruce believed it, Brunnhilde didn't not believe it. Loki couldn't believe it. Couldn't let his guard down. If he did, then it would creep in, all blue mists and pretty words and gentle nudges until he looked into the mirror and his own face stared back with different eyes—monsters' eyes. He shuddered, in lieu of a scream.

"Aaagh!" Loki yanked on his hair with a half-screech, half growl, then dragged them down over his face. He couldn't. He couldn't do it. he was weak, he couldn't face the stone, not without breaking down. Not without falling apart like a small child after a bad dream. Weak, weak, weak, weakling. 

Part of him, shamefully, wanted to go get Thor. His big brother would hold him, soothe him, brush the tears from his eyes and tell him it would be well. No, he told himself, vicious. No more. He needed to pull himself together. Stand on his own feet. Stop being such a burden on Thor. Stop being so pathetic. Loki nearly laughed at himself. Pathetic wasn't a strong enough word. Idly, he wondered it Thor would get tired and turn him away if he kept behaving as a pulling infant. It felt like his heart was tearing down the middle. Half of him wanted to run. To reject, before he was rejected. The other half believed, with a child's unwavering faith, that Thor wouldn't turn him aside. Would love him for always. And Loki was caught in the middle, remembering "if you were here," and "that hope no longer exists to protect you."

The urge to run throbbed in his chest like a second heartbeat. It was an instinct. Part of him. He had the heart of a coward. If he ran now, he would never stop.

Loki gave in and wrapped his arms around himself as he ducked his head, trying to hold back the traitorous tears that welled up in frustration. Thor wouldn't be scared of the stone, a voice sneered. Thor would be strong enough to work with it, were it him. The thought almost surprised him, but not quite. The same sorts of things had crossed his mind often before his fall, though he hadn't followed that line of thought in some time. Or was too busy to, anyway, which rather amounted to the same thing. Now they were in the eye of the storm, providing the quiet needed for his darkest thoughts to gain voice. The niggling fears, the ever hounding insecurities—Loki felt them crashing back over his head, like a wave, a terrible tide, and he bit his tongue until he drew blood. No, he told himself. Thor loves me. He does. He stuck up for me, with Stark.

Stark believes you, or at least pretends to, the same nasty part of him countered. The others won't. When Barton cries for your blood, when Romanova and Rogers add their voices, will Thor continue to hold to his word? They are his friends, after all. What are you to him, beyond the monster he was tricked into calling brother?

They're worth more than you. Why shouldn't they be?

A soft, confused sob broke free. Loki held his breath until any further sobs died, and then pulled in air with an audible gasp. Tears continued to threaten. He wanted Thor. He wanted his brother there, to tell him he loved him, that everything would be okay. He just wanted Thor, even if the thunderer cursed him and threw him away, as Loki was still confounded he hadn't. The battle against his tears was lost at last, and they flooded down his face, and wasn't it funny that a monster could cry?

Oh, you liar. You're not afraid of the mind stone. You're afraid of yourself.

He cried until he was empty, watching the sunset through tear-blurred eyes. Pink bled to orange to red to purple in a smeary mess he could hardly make out through the dark frame of his wetly clumping eyelashes. Loki felt hollow when he finished. Gutted, scraped clean from the inside out. For a dizzying minute, he wondered if he was real. He didn't feel real. He felt dead, a ghost, a specter. What that why no one had ever cared? Did he even really exist?

He still wanted his big brother.

Chapter Text

"I'm just gonna check on Loki," Thor announced the moment he'd cleared his plate enough to feasibly excuse leaving. "Goodnight." He rushed outside, up the steps, and was already halfway to the living quarter's doors by the time he registered Loki. Thor stopped dead and turned on his heel, scanning the courtyard until he saw him again. A ball of dark curls and lanky limbs, curled up tight on a bench. Heart in his mouth, Thor approached. In the sharp artificial lighting and absence of the sun, at first glance he might be mistaken for a corpse. Sharp white light glinted against vertical streaks painted down knife-edge cheekbones, and Thor's heart seized. Tear tracks. Loki was asleep, lips hung every so slightly parted and head lolling back against the wall. He looked so small, there. "Oh, little brother," he whispered mournfully, sinking to his haunches to ghost a hand over the trickster's hair.

The harsh lighted leeched all color from Loki's skin, leaving him looking paper white and just as delicate. Fluffy, coal-black eyelashes looked like fragile strands of spun glass, and raven hair gleamed brightly under manufactured lights. He reminded Thor, suddenly and with intensity, of the princess from one of Earth's movies—Sleeping Beauty, the princess trapped in an eternal sleep. Loki would find the comparison insulting, in all likelihood, but the thought made Thor's heart skip. He stubbornly resisted the urge to wake Loki just to be sure he wasn't under that same sleeping curse, knowing his younger brother would most certainly not appreciate it. Ridiculous, he scoffed at himself, gently gathering Loki into his arms. Loki not awake to disparage the affection, Thor pressed a soft kiss to his semi-furrowed brow before readjusting the younger prince in his arms, careful to support his head. "Let's get you in bed," he murmured, turning again for the living quarters.

He took the elevator to the top floor instead of the stairs, so as not to jostle and wake his baby brother during the climb. Thor removed his boots and jacket and settled him on the bed, then went for the bathroom. He wet a washcloth in the sink and used it to carefully dab away the drying tear streaks on Loki's face. A bit silly, perhaps, but it made him feel better. Setting the washcloth aside, Thor hunted for a hairbrush, finding an ornate golden one set with rubies—yet another relic of Asgard—hidden in the drawer of his night table. After toeing off his own shoes and clambering up onto the bed, Thor put the brush down for a minute to pull out the bun holding back the top half of Loki's hair, and then undid the rest of the little braids in his hair with gentle fingers. His efforts left him with a frizzy canvas of pitch-black curls. A soft, fond smile unwittingly pulled Thor's lips as he reached for the brush again, and got to work.

Loki slept soundly as Thor brushed out his hair, never stirring for even a moment as he carefully worked out the tangles. Nostalgia gripped Thor's lungs in a vice so strong he could hardly breathe around it. He and Loki had spent many hours of childhood playing with each other's or their mother's hair, learning to braid and brush. In their teen years, they would often end up in one or the other's rooms before some formal event, helping each other with difficult pieces of armor and the braiding and pinning of hair, forgoing any attendants for the company of each other. It had been, secretly, one of Thor's very favorite activities. He could never laugh with a dressing attendant the way he did Loki, and no dressing attendant would ever dare to turn his hair green or braid in a hidden phallic symbol.

Other times, when Loki was too old to tolerate their mother brushing his hair for him, but still young enough to be nearly dead on his feet by the time a feast ended, Thor would let down his hair and brush it out for him, so it wouldn't be (more) unruly in the morning. More often than not, Loki would fall asleep before he was done, and Thor would simply remove his armor and boots and tuck him in before creeping off to his own room to get ready for bed. It was both achingly familiar and heartbreakingly different to be brushing Loki's hair out now. It felt like an evening at home, and yet—the room was too small. There wasn't the sound of a roaring blaze in the firepits crackling in his ears. He had no oils to brush through Loki's hair, making it shiny and fragrant. Too different and too similar, somehow all at once.

Thor brushed and brushed for quite some time, lost in memories of times long passed even before Loki fell. He nearly made himself laugh remembering how aggravating it was trying to brush out all the gunk Loki had begun smearing over his hair in his late teens. Their mother had almost staged an intervention for it, but in the end let Loki keep making his hair into a helmet without more than the occasional disappointed sigh and pointed hint about too many hair products being unhealthy for the scalp. The levity quickly faded away again, traded for stinging grief as Thor recalled their mother's exasperation with Loki's choice in hairstyle. Thor sniffed, swiped his eye, and put away the brush.

He decided to forgo wrestling Loki into sleepclothes. He hadn't woken while Thor brushed out his hair, but trying to dress him almost certainly would. Thor settled for pulling the bedcovers over his little brother, and though it was fairly early to be going to bed, changing into his own sleepclothes and crawling in with him. Drawing Loki into his arms, back pressed to Thor's chest, he burrowed his nose into his brother's hair and breathed in his scent. "I'll protect you," Thor promised lowly, hardly loud enough for he himself to hear. Loki was off-balance, stretched thin in a situation with people he didn't trust, tired and confronted by painful memories at every turn. Thor was the big brother. It was his job to protect, to keep him from harm. He resolved to do just that. "Goodnight, brother. Sweet dreams." 

The bed was cold when Loki woke. Long empty. His eyes blinked open, long enough to register the unfriendly gray slant of the ceiling above him. His eyes drifted closed, and then popped open again. The last thing he remembered was sitting (crying) on that bench... Thor must have carried him to bed. How lovely. At least he hadn't put him into his nightclothes, Loki thought with relief after taking stock. He yawned widely, tempted to fall back to sleep—but. He would rather not keep sleeping in his clothes. Holding in another sigh (that morphed into a yawn), he threw back the covers and tumbled out of bed.

Loki made his way to the wardrobe with eyes only half-open, and pulled open the doors, blinking slowly at the options before him. He selected a pair of black pants and a navy cable knit sweater without nearly as much thought as he normally put into getting dressed for the day. While he was at it, he unwrapped the bandages on his left arm. There was no sign he'd ever been injured, aside from the slight pink tint left behind by the scratches, and that would fade within the day. Loki traced his fingers over the now-healed skin. He was still getting over that illness, and it slowed his healing, he reasoned. Throwing the bandages into the trash, Loki pulled his hair up into a bun—he'd brush it later. Right then, he was too tired to bother.

Loki was vaguely surprised when no one was in the main room, eating breakfast or otherwise. He thought to pull out the phone he'd been given, only barely holding back a surprised squawk when he read the time. Twelve sixteen, the display dispassionately informed him. As occupied as his mind was with dismay at how late he'd slept, Loki nearly missed the text message underneath. From Thor. I left some fruit salad in the fridge for you. Text me when you wake up! it read. Somehow, Thor's exuberance managed to bleed through even in text form. Loki obeyed before he thought about it, sending back a quick 'I'm up.' He regretted it almost instantly—the moment his phone started to ring with a call from his older brother. And he didn't even have an excuse for ignoring it.

"What, Thor," Loki sighed, lifting the phone to his ear as he slumped down onto one of the barstools lining the kitchen counter.

"Are you feeling alright?" Thor asked without preamble. "You slept late, but you went to bed so early..."

Loki pinched his lips together at the tactful way that Thor put 'cried yourself to sleep outside on a bench.' "I'm a little tired, but it's fine, truly. Don't worry so much."

"You should take it easy today," Thor insisted. "If you slept that late, you clearly needed it. Make sure to eat. I felt some fruit salad in the fridge for you, but you should have something more substantial too."

Rolling his eyes, Loki shifted his grip on the phone. "Yes, yes, I'll eat. And then I'll come to the ship."

"Are you sure?"

"Thor!" Loki snapped. Somewhere in the back of his head, he was surprised at how short his temper was that day. "I've already slept half the day away. I refuse to do nothing."

"I didn't say you had to do nothing!" Thor refuted quickly. "Just... something quieter. Like whatever you were doing yesterday, with all those books." 

Loki inhaled deeply through his nose to keep himself from lashing out. He hadn't told Thor what he was working on—why should he expect his brother to know? It wasn't like he didn't care (would he?). "Fine," he said, voice clipped. He hung up and let the phone from with a sigh. All of the rage rushed out of him at once, leaving him empty. And numb. Loki shook his head and padded for the refrigerator.

As Thor had promised, a bowl of fruit waited, covered in cling wrap. Loki removed it from the fridge and fetched a fork before sitting down to wrestle off the sticky plastic wrap. The fruit salad was composed of a mix of fruits he recognized from Asgard—strawberries, peaches, grapes, apples—and those he knew were native only to Midgard—banana, watermelon, apricot. A somewhat eclectic mix, but that was Thor for you. If, in fact, he had made it. Loki could easily see either Stark or Brunn also cobbling together such a hodgepodge of fruit.

The minute it occurred to Loki that Stark might have made the salad, an uncomfortable instinct warned him to check for poison. He stabbed one of the pieces of fruit with his fork. Neither Stark nor Rhodes would risk it for the fear that someone other than Loki would eat it. The mind stone wouldn't bother. Wrinkling his nose at the fruit, he stared long and hard without lifting it to eat, before giving in with a sigh and murmuring the spell. He was rewarded with a brief golden flare—safe to eat. Loki made himself take a bite.

He managed to finish the whole bowl, though he felt disgustingly overstuffed by the time he was done. How had Thor expected him to have something more, Loki thought with dismay. He was more than full as it was. Loki stood, and then slotted his bowl into the dishwasher. After straightening again, he stayed in place for a long minute, wavering between heading for the Statesman and remaining where he was. In the end, his lingering fatigue decided it. He didn't want to bother with making himself truly presentable, at least not yet. Loki returned to the bedroom long enough to snag an obscenely fluffy crimson blanket, woven through with ostentatious golden thread in intricate knotwork. If it wasn't so ridiculously comfortable, he would feel obligated to utterly despise it. He still did despise it a little bit. Loki let his eyes fall closed as he settled himself on the couch, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders, and then he pulled out his books.

Loki worked for about an hour before he set down the notebook he had in hand, surprising himself with a yawn. Leaning back against the couch, he stretched his arms about his head. He winced slightly as his joints cracked, and then he lowered his arms again and allowed his eyes to shut. He'd rest a minute and then get back to work.

"Loki?"

Loki groaned and batted away the hand on his forehead. "M' tired," he mumbled.

"You shouldn't be," said Thor's voice, it was Thor. "Maybe I should call Bruce—"

"No!" Loki sat up abruptly, the blanket sliding down off of his chest. The fringes of his vision darkened for a few seconds, and he blinked a couple times to clear it, disoriented and slightly unsettled. Once it passed, he put it firmly out of his mind and gave his older brother the best smile he could conjure on the spot. "What are you doing here?

"I called to check on you but you didn't answer your phone," Thor said, leaning down to look Loki in the eye. "How long have you been sleeping?"

"What time is it?" Loki countered.

"Almost three thirty," Thor said worriedly. 

"About two hours then," Loki responded. He smiled again, and this one felt a little more natural. "I'm fine, brother."

"You said you were tired, but you slept so much," Thor pressed on. "Are you sure—"

"Thor!" Loki reached up a hand and tugged at his hair, "were you not just saying that I needed to rest more?"

Thor's frown eased in intensity, but only some. "You're sure you're not getting sick again?"

Loki rolled his eyes, and didn't let himself wince at the twinge that caused in his head. "Yes, Thor." He reached out and grabbed his older brother's hand, bringing it to press against his forehead. "See?"

After letting his hand linger, Thor pulled back. "Alright. Did you eat?"

Loki wanted to hiss. "Yes," he said, tone clipped. "I ate."

"You missed breakfast," Thor went on as if he hadn't said a thing, "you should probably have something more, food is important—" he kept rambling as he made his way into the kitchen. Loki groaned, throwing an arm over his eyes and letting his head tip back to rest against the top of the sofa.

"Blast it," he muttered to himself, tempted to simply melt into the couch and vanish between the cushions. Maybe then Thor wouldn't find and fuss over him. Knowing his brother, that wouldn't stop him. Or even stall him one bit. "Why did you come to bother me again?" he called, resigned.

"I told you," Thor called back, as the sound of pots and pans clanging began in the kitchen, "you didn't answer your phone."

Loki groaned. "I would have if I'd known you'd come pester me, otherwise."

Thor's silence was smirking, Loki could swear. A few minutes passed in quiet, apart from the noises Thor made fumbling around in the kitchen like an idiot. Loki must have drifted off again, because he woke to his brother shaking his shoulder and the smell of... something heavy in the air. "Wake up," Thor said softly, cupping Loki's neck. "You need to eat, brother."

Do not, Loki retorted mentally. He sighed and dragged himself into a sitting position. "What did you make," he asked dryly, pushing the blanket off of himself. "Is it edible?"

"Hey!" Thor said. "I can cook alright!"

Loki's lips twitched. "Better than you could a few years ago, certainly." Thor flushed like he knew exactly what the trickster was thinking—and he probably did. The Roast Bilgesnipe Incident wasn't going to be forgotten any time soon. Abruptly, Loki's mood soured. Outside of the two of them, anyone who could have remembered was dead now. What little appetite he might have had fled rapidly. "Really, brother, what did you make?" Thor was already walking back to the kitchen when Loki stood. He had to stay still for a few seconds, locking his knees to keep from falling back down on his rear. Swaying in place, Loki tried to keep quiet as he gasped for breath. He'd been sitting too long, he reasoned, and was now paying the price.

"It's a type of soup," Thor answered his question, and Loki had to bite his tongue to keep from retorting something rude about not being a sick patient.

Thor's trying to be helpful, he reminded himself harshly. Would you rather he not care? Loki blamed his sudden irritability on the headache he was nursing. It had come and gone in waves since the morning, and right now the pain seemed to be intensifying the longer he spent on his feet.

"It's called minestrone," Thor was saying. "I found a recipe on the internet, and Stark has stocked a lot of ingredients for a compound with not many people in it."

"You're here," Loki jabbed playfully, forcing more levity into his voice than he felt. "That counts for at least five Midgardians."

"We balance each other out," Thor countered. "You eat like a bird, and I make up the difference."

"Yes, well," Loki drawled, pulling the conversation away before Thor could start to fuss or lecture—he wasn't sure which he'd least prefer—"Brunn and Bruce can both pack away enough for three of themselves. You and I canceling out is really of no matter. Stark has plenty of reason to stock so much."

Thor paused in his rummaging through the cupboards to glance at Loki. "It seems strange he would have so much lying around before we came to the compound, though."

Loki dipped his head, though Thor's back was now turned again. "Before we got here? True. Did he know we were coming? I suppose you're correct. Don't go thinking it'll happen again soon, brother. We just managed to get that swelling of your ego down." When Thor turned back around, his smile was stiff. Watching him set a pair of bowls on the counter and dish out a serving of soup into each, Loki gnawed on his lip. He knew, objectively, or at least intellectually, that the thunderer was feeling bad for how he'd acted... most of their lives, really, but the instinct was still there. The careful pruning of his brother's ego, the precise balancing of sincere compliments with enough insult to keep it from going to Thor's head but not enough to drive him into a rage, the constant undercutting of his victories just enough for his head to still fit through doorways. It was a habit of centuries, and a hard one to break.

"We did contact him before we landed. That would certainly be enough time for him to stock up." A bad rebuttal, but he couldn't think of another way to break the mood.

Thor's smile seemed slightly less fragile when he turned back around, to Loki's emphatic relief. He deposited one bowl in front of Loki and circled the counter to sit next to him with the other. "Eat it all."

"Go find someone else to mother," Loki groused, picking up the spoon Thor had provided and giving it a distasteful look. "I can assure you I'm able to take care of myself."

"Able, but you don't have to," Thor nodded. A spoonful of the... minestrone, Thor had called it?—punctuated his words. Relief flooded Loki when his brother didn't seem to expect a response. As shell-shocked as he was feeling, he didn't trust his words for the moment. Clearing his throat, he shook his head, and took a bite of the soup just to give himself something else to think about. Loki needed to get ahold of himself—he had no idea why he was reacting so childishly. At least, that's what he told himself. He closed his eyes in reflex because the soup seared his tongue, not because there were tears building in his eyes for some inane reason. And if there were, well. He had just burned his tongue.

After he managed to swallow around the sudden lump in his throat, Loki set down his spoon. "It's hot," he explained sharply when Thor gave him a look. "I'm just waiting for it to cool." That cooling it with magic took less than a thought, he refrained from mentioning.

The way Thor sighed and shook his head made Loki feel uncomfortably like a misbehaving schoolchild again. "You're not going to get out of eating, Loki."

Loki gave the king his very best innocent expression. "I wouldn't dream of it."

Thor scoffed. Ignoring the twinge of hurt it caused him—he wasn't telling the truth, why should it bother him to have Thor suspect so?—Loki turned his eyes back to the bowl, this time to try and pick out the ingredients by sight. It was mainly red—tomato based, then—but with many colorful ingredients mixed in, covered as they were by thin red broth. Meat of some kind, ground, likely beef, and various vegetables were easy to pick out, as were the pea-sized, cylindrical noodles. Dispassionately, Loki wondered whether Thor had cut them that way or if that was how it was manufactured (and knowing Stark, Loki would bet on the latter). He waited until Thor seemed to be about to start a conversation to take another bite. Cooler now as it was, he could actually taste it, and it wasn't bad... not that he would ever say that to Thor. Loki made a face. "It's good," he said quickly. I've had better, he kept himself from adding. It was true, but not the point.

The beam that spread across Thor's face was almost painfully bright. "Really?" he said, appearing rather like a particularly excited golden retriever, "do you want more?"

"Thor," Loki said, slight amusement crinkling his face, "I'm not even half done with this bowl."

Thor blushed, ducking his head. "Right, sorry. But when you're done—" he clamped his mouth shut at the look on Loki's face. "Sorry," he repeated somewhat sheepishly, going back to scraping the edge of his bowl with the spoon in an attempt to get the last few drops.

In the time it took Loki to finished one serving, the thunderer had refilled his bowl twice. He refused another quite firmly, much to Thor's chagrin, but he seemed content enough with having browbeaten Loki into eating at all. Loki was half tempted to ask if this meant he could skip dinner, even full well knowing the answer. "Are you done bothering me now?" he asked instead. Though he shouldn't have been surprised when Thor's face fell, he was.

"I thought we could watch a movie?" Thor offered, almost shyly. "Something just us. It feels like I haven't spent much time with you, lately."

We've seen each other plenty, Loki wanted to retort, but. He knew what Thor meant. They hadn't had time to simply relax and enjoy each other's company for the past few weeks at least, what with preparing to land on Earth, and then actually being on the planet. Even before, the leisure time on the Statesman had been limited, particularly for her king and prince. It would be... nice, to spend some time in his brother's company, before things doubtlessly sped up again at the arrival of Barton and the wizard. "Oh, fine," he agreed halfheartedly. "What do you want to watch."

Thor shrugged. "Turn on the tv and we'll see what there is."

To Loki's silent dismay, Thor badgered him into watching a cartoon about anthropomorphic animals. He regretted agreeing to watch a movie even more as soon as it started, featuring a... small rabbit that wanted to be a police officer? Loki huffed. Midgardian entertainment could be quite strange. Though he'd found some that surprised him, he couldn't imagine how such a peppy children's film could be anything outside of dreadfully dull. Sighing when Thor tucked the blanket around him, Loki allowed himself to be pulled to rest against the thunderer's shoulder and they settled in to watch.

Thor, as per the course, was instantly enraptured. "Look, brother, do you see the—"

"I have eyes, Thor." He was finding it harder and harder to stay civil. Closing his eyes for a moment, Loki inhaled and let it out slowly. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," Thor said, giving him a smile. "I'll try not to bother you."

"Did you like it?" Thor asked, poking Loki in the shoulder.

The mischief-maker yawned and rubbed his eyes. "It was alright. Better than I thought it would be. Still childish. Are you going to leave me alone now?"

"Actually, Bruce just texted," Thor told him. "He and Brunn are gonna meet us here for dinner."

"Little early for dinner," Loki hummed. Heedless of Thor's eye on him, he reached up with one hand to rub at his aching forehead.

"Well, they wanted an excuse to leave the ship," Thor said. "Tell me, what project were you working on?"

In spite of the headache and his irritability, Loki could almost physically feel his mood rising—as well as a bit of trepidation. "Trying to create a more accurate history of Asgard. One without all the whitewashing. Looking for inconsistencies across different books, and trying to compare them to what we know. Likely we won't ever know the whole truth, but some truth is better than none at all," Loki offered with deceptive casualness. Inside, the part of him that would always be the younger brother waited with bated breath for Thor's opinion. He shouldn't still be seeking so hard after his family's approval, Loki scolded himself. His heart kept racing, traitorous thing.

Thor smiled at him, like he couldn't see the desperation in Loki's eyes, how he waited on edge for the thunderer's pronouncement. And maybe (hopefully) he didn't. "That'll be a really good thing for future generations. Thank you, Loki," he said, aggravatingly sincere. His brow wrinkled in thought. Loki had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from making a joke. "Have you asked Brunnhilde or Heimdall to help?"

Loki scoffed. "Of course I did. They gave me some basic points, but neither has perfect memory. I'm still planning to ask them to look over whatever I collect, see if it seems accurate. And anyway, Asgard existed before both of their times, so there's really no way to know if what we were told about what happened back then is accurate." Something occurred to him, suddenly. "The wizard has the time stone," he thought aloud, under his breath.

"Loki, no," Thor said quickly. "No, bad idea. Stop it."

Loki rolled his eyes, wrapping his arms around himself and huddling into the blanket without a response. He was starting to feel chilled for some infernal reason, and muscle aches had joined the persistent pounding in his head to turn his whole body sore and stiff.

Brunnhilde arrived first, a few minutes later, a flush to her cheeks and a wildness to her hair that had Loki thinking she'd sprinted the whole way.  His hypothesis was confirmed when she pumped her fist in the air, a wide smirk spreading across her face. "I beat Bruce!"

"Good for you," Loki drawled, amused in spite of himself. "Did you know you were racing?"

Brunn shrugged, giving him a saucy wink as she sauntered over to slump on the arm of the sofa. "I still won."

Thor snorted, concisely summing up Loki's thoughts.

Bruce arrived within the next five minutes, noticeably not out of breath. "I beat you," Brunn sing-songed smugly. The scientist ignored her—which Loki found amusing right until he realized Bruce was making a beeline for him.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, pushing his glasses up on his nose and squinting at Loki's face like he was trying to see into the prince's head.

Loki hunched his shoulders and sunk back as best he could, using the blanket as his shield. "Fine," he offered grudgingly. He would be, anyway. This would pass, and Loki was certain it would pass much quicker if only everyone stopped bothering him. "Stop staring," he added, tucking his limbs in even closer to his body.

The other three exchanged knowing glances that made Loki grit his teeth, but they didn't press, so he made himself let it go. "Let's have dinner," Thor said. Loki buried his face into the blanket and groaned.

They ended up deciding to order pizza and finish up The Princess and the Frog, rather than cooking anything themselves or playing a board game. By the time the pizza arrived, the movie was all but over, virtue of the compound being so distant from civilization—a small price to pay for a bit of peace, in Loki's opinion. Thor had ordered eight boxes of the foodstuff, and Loki had no doubt it would all be finished off. Quickly. One box was cheese, for Loki himself, who didn't feel like eating at all, much less heaping his food with unnecessary toppings. Two more boxes were 'everything on it,' for Bruce, and the remainder were meat lover's pizzas, because Thor and Brunn would both be carnivores if anyone let them—outside of alcohol, of course. Loki disentangled his arm from the blanket long enough to take a slice of pizza, with a napkin rather than his bare hands because he wasn't a hooligan. Delicately, he bit off the tip of the slice, chewed, and swallowed, resolutely keeping his eyes on the screen. If he had to watch Thor and Brunnhilde attack the food like starved manticores, he knew he'd be unable to stomach his own meal. "Don't drip sauce on anything," Loki ordered, poking Thor with his elbow. Thor nudged him back.

Almost exactly a minute later, Thor started trying to covertly mop at the blanket with a fistful of napkins. "It's red sauce," he tried weakly when he noticed Loki watching him. "You won't even be able to see it."

"It's your blanket," Loki grumbled. "Stop making such a mess." He had another nibble of pizza. The cheese stretched when he tried to bite it off, leaving behind long, gooey strings that dripped down to dangle threateningly close to his wrist. Loki tried his best not to think about entrails. The taste of pizza—which wasn't all that impressive, in Loki's opinion, no matter how many Midgardians would consider such a statement sacrilege of the highest order—did not outweigh the mess.

When the credits rolled at last, the silvertongue still had half of his slice left, and all but the rest of pizza and a box each of the others' were long gone. "Loki," Thor started scoldingly.

Loki groaned. "I'm fine," he did not whine. "Leave me alone."

Par for the course, Thor ignored him utterly. "You've barely eaten anything! Is that really still your first slice?"

"I was distracted," Loki deflected, motioning towards the credits still scrolling slowly over the black screen as music played. "Have the rest, if you want to," he added.

"We got it for you," Thor said sternly.

"Well, I'm not going to eat it all," Loki said dismissively. "Unlike you, I don't have an army of starving direwolves living in my stomach."

"Unlike you," Thor returned hotly, "I eat, not graze like a—"

"Cow?" Loki interrupted with a scowl, whipping his head around to glare at his older brother. His head throbbed and sight swirled at the sudden motion.

"A deer," Thor finished, now looking guilty, but Loki didn't care. "Loki, I—"

"Save it," he growled into a bite of pizza, filling his mouth so he wouldn't say something worse and start a fight no one needed. And, incidentally, to prove to Thor that he was, in fact, eating. By the time he managed to swallow, the conversation had been carefully steered away by the Valkyrie, onto what movie to watch next (because apparently Thor's 'watch one film with me' had at some point turned into 'let's have a movie night'). Loki would have complained, but no one was paying attention to him, so. With the others politely leaving him alone, his temper began to cool, and then he just felt stupid for getting so upset for an insult Thor hadn't used in the last half-decade at least.

The other three eventually settled on a movie called 'Ice Age,' while Loki wasn't paying attention. Soon, he wished he had given any input, because it was the most idiotic, inane excuse for 'entertainment' he had ever before been forced to burn his eyeballs with. He was going to need to bleach his brain, Loki realized distantly, inhaling softly and slowly shutting his eyes. Thor found it hilarious. At least it distracted the big oaf. Bruce, not so much. "You need to be eating," he whispered as he passed by Loki, returning from an excuse to get himself close to the trickster getting a drink of water. Loki scowled at the half-finished pizza crust in his hand. He was eating. On the television, a scraggly-looking squirrel was lusting shamelessly after an acorn. Loki had seen prostitutes in the streets of Asgard with more shame.

Not many minutes passed before the so light but persistent chill he’d been dealing with took a dive into actual cold. Loki tried to shrink even further into the blanket, pulling his limbs as tight to his body as they could go, with only his head and his hand holding the almost finished pizza uncovered. Quickly, he finished the pizza so he could pull his arm back into his blanket cave, where it was marginally warmer. Marginally. Then, wonder of wonders, he started shaking. Trembling like a Muspel on Jotunheim, even. Luckily the blanket was large enough to all but hide it.

To distract himself from the sudden discomfort, Loki studied the other boxes of pizza. Two boxes left, both half empty. The others were focused on the movie. Loki concentrated, and transported two slices of the pizza that was supposed to be his into other boxes, glamored with the correct toppings. That done, he settled in to try and mitigate his shivering. Because the universe hated him, the aches that had been plaguing him jumped from 'uncomfortable but endurable' to 'impossible to ignore.' Loki gritted his teeth against the pain, giving up on trying to hold back the shakes. Stiffening only made it worse.

"Loki?"

Loki blinked. The movie was paused, the room gone quiet. They were all watching him. He forced a knife-cut of a smile. "Fine."

"Loki," Thor repeated, "you're trembling."

Somehow, Loki's smile didn't drop. Maybe because it was frozen to his face. "I'd noticed."

Thor looked unbearably concerned, really. A particularly harsh tremor wracked Loki's body, distracting him long enough for Thor to feel his forehead. The thunderer's face quickly morphed from worry into utter dismay. "Brother, you're freezing," he gasped, eye widening. "Bruce, get over here."

"Stop fussing," Loki mumbled crossly. He was cold, not dying, and he wished Thor wouldn't act like he was in some mortal peril. "I'm just a little chilled."

"You shouldn't be, it's not cold in here," Bruce said, crouching down in front of Loki and squinting at his face. "Certainly not enough to make him shiver. How much did you eat?"

"What's that have to do with anything?" Loki grouched.

"If your blood sugar is too low, it could be the cause," Bruce explained. Loki refused to feel guilt when he frowned in the direction of the pizza box. "You are three pieces, though, so it might not be that. Still, maybe you should eat something else." He turned to Thor, giving him a reassuring smile. "It's probably just nothing—bodies do funky things when they're worn out."

"See," Loki said pointedly. "I'm fine."

"Let's get you warmed up anyway," Thor said.

"I'm fine."

"Maybe," Thor said, infuriatingly calm, "but it can't be comfortable to be shivering so much." In one quick tug, he whipped the blanket off of Loki, who yelped as his only source of warmth was taken from him.

"I thought you said you wanted to warm me up!" Loki started to accuse, but Thor was manhandling him into a bear hug and wrapping the blanket back around them both.

"Brunn, can you get a few more blankets?" he requested, cool as you pleased. Loki locked his jaw so he wouldn't pout. Annoyingly, Thor's body heat was already making him feel better. From the smirk his big brother was wearing, he knew it anyway.

Almost before Loki could blink, the brothers were wrapped in so many blankets it would take an hour to clamber out, and Bruce had pressed a mug of hot chocolate into his hands. The movie was resumed, and Loki sipped at his hot chocolate—more because it was warm than for the taste. Eventually, his shivering started to taper off, and then stop entirely. The aching, however, was not so easily remedied. Loki had to fight to keep himself from shifting in discomfort and drawing his older brother's all-too overbearing concern. Focusing on his breathing helped some—he latched onto a precise rhythm, one he'd used many times in his life, whether to steady his thoughts before performing a particularly difficult spell, or, later, to control himself when his emotions got the better or his rational mind. Keeping his breaths exactly, uniformly on the pattern helped to drown out the throbbing pain, if he could do nothing else to mitigate it.

When it occurred to him that he could simply cure himself with a spell, Loki was almost ashamed to have not thought of it sooner. It wasn't advisable, perhaps, but he was steadied enough by the breathing pattern to overcome any physical discomfort that might hamper his spellwork. Loki grasped for his power with well-practiced hands, flexing his wrists under the blanket when they tingled unexpectedly. After tapping the well deep inside him, he let his power gather and grow at it's leisure, slowly coaxing his seidr to use. Normally he would grasp his power much more swiftly, but his wrists continued to tingle, and the sensation was beginning to spread up to the crooks of his elbows. The uncertainty of it, not to mention the distraction caused by his body aches, had him going more slowly, like a young student first learning to use their power without being too heavy-handed and overloading their spell. Loki was long past the stage of needing to wait for his power to gather lest he ruin a spell or burn himself out, but it wasn't as if anyone would know he'd cast a spell, much less that he did it with a lesser skill than his normal. And he was finding it hard to concentrate, even using the breathing pattern, so he gave himself a pass. 

When he had enough power at the ready—which to be fair only took a minute or so at most, no great inconvenience—Loki began the spell. A simple one, for healing what could be healed and numbing what could not. It was an ambiguous spell, and would go for whatever hurts it found in the person it was cast upon. In Loki's case, himself. It was very useful for quick battlefield healing, when an injury wasn't life-threatening but there was no time for a proper healing. Or, conversely, to hold a near-death warrior to life long enough for more thorough spells to be performed.

Unexpectedly, almost the minute Loki started the spell his stomach began to cramp, badly. He hissed on his next inhale, eyes rolling back a bit before he found control of himself again. The tingling in his arms and wrists had intensified into a more burning sensation, as though it were boiling oil pumping through his veins instead of blood. The dark prince bit his tongue to keep himself from gasping, and breathed heavily through his nose so he wouldn't vomit. Nothing like this had ever happened when he'd done this spell, before. Loki started to hunch over onto himself despite his best efforts at keeping his posture relaxed and unconcerned. Thor was bound to notice if he didn't get himself under control, soon. Hurry up and work, he willed the spell, pushing more seidr into it in the vain hope that it would help. A very poor idea, since the sudden upsurge in pain made him bite down on his tongue hard enough to draw blood.

The burning was becoming worse. A lot worse. And it was beginning to spread, past his arms to quickly encroach on the rest of his body. Every cell stung. Loki's rigid self-control broke at last, and he wheezed raggedly, curling over and clawing at his stomach. Oh, this was worse. This was much worse. He should have toughed it out, perhaps suck a healing potion when no one was paying attention to him. It would have hurt less.

"Loki?"

The mischief-maker allowed himself one very sound mental curse, and turned his full attention to the spell. If any tutor in seidr he'd ever had saw what he was about to do, they'd scream themselves hoarse in the ensuing lecture. Do not stop a spell half-finished was more than a rule. It was a sacred law. One he was about to trample all over. Too bad, Loki thought near-deliriously, did you ever think you could make me listen anyway? I break all the rules. Loki let go of the spellform all at once, and drew his power back into himself. He also vomited all over the floor, rather spectacularly.

"Loki!"

"Sorry," Loki rasped. "I'm. Sorry." He reached for his seidr, to clean up the mess... and vomited again the minute he tried, the pain flaring back from embers into an inferno. Shuddering with exertion, he tipped sideways, and only stayed relatively upright because he slumped against his brother. The pain ebbed again, back from scorching into simple burning, though now Loki felt wrung-out like a damp rag, and like his insides had been vigorously scoured with sand. Blood from his bitten tongue mingled in his mouth with the taste of bile.

"It's okay," Thor soothed. "I have you, brother." Distantly, Loki knew he should be trying to rectify the situation. Pull himself together. Instead, he stayed still and pliant, neither dodging nor protesting when Thor manhandled him up and felt his brow with a large, calloused hand. "He's not warm," the thunderer reported, seemingly confused. "Could he still be sick?"

"He might not be sick. Eating too fast, or sometimes eating too little or too much can cause nausea," Bruce said, nudging Brunnhilde over so he could sit next to Loki and scrutinize his face. "Bad pizza?" Loki shut his eyes against the inspection and burrowed his face into his older brother's neck. The pain in his head pulsed mercilessly, and his ears were ringing.

A hand settled on the crown of Loki's head, lightly ruffling his hair only to slide under his chin. Ever so carefully, Thor turned Loki by the jaw until they were face to face. The trickster watched him through slitted eyes. "Brother," Thor started, hatefully gentle, "what's wrong? How can we help?" Thor's free arm curled around his shoulders, a comforting weight. The open concern and care playing in Thor's expression made something in Loki's chest twist. He shut his eyes so he wouldn't have to see it, and said nothing. The pain was still strong, though no longer overpowering, and he was finding it all too difficult to put together a coherent thought. "Loki," Thor prompted.

"Give me a minute," Loki snapped. His head throbbed, and he swallowed a moan.

Thor's thumb stroked against his jawline, and the arm around Loki's shoulders dropped to rub slow, firm circles on his back. "We should go to the healers."

"No!" Loki flinched, a bit more from the pain his outburst caused than objection to his brother's proposal. "Don't," he continued in a steadier tone, if thin with pain. "I'll be fine."

"You don't look good," Brunnhilde cut in. "I think Thor is right. We should get you checked out. If something is wrong..."

Though his eyes were closed, Loki was pressed close enough to Thor to feel it when the king stiffened. Internally, he sighed. This had best not go on any longer, or Thor would burst a blood vessel somewhere important. Lying crossed his mind, because he was himself, but trying to make something up seemed entirely too exhausting, and so he settled for a partially altered form of the truth. "I may have tried a headache cure spell," he lied after swallowing several times. It wasn't as if his answer was too far from the reality. Loki grimaced. His mouth tasted foul, and his tongue felt thick and clumsy when he spoke.

"Loki!" Thor half gasped, half scolded. "You know how dangerous those are!"

"I know. It hurt. Hurts." Loki's face screwed up momentarily when his stomach roiled. 

"Migraine?" the thunderer asked, voice considerably quieter. Tears welled up in Loki's eyes when Thor kneaded at his shoulders, both easing some of the tension and aggravating the burning sensation in his body. He lifted and dropped his should in a tiny shrug. At least I'm no longer cold, some small part of him was put together enough to think. "It's okay if you don't know. We'll take care of you."

"Any symptoms besides nausea?" Bruce asked. All the trickster could manage was a half-shake of his head. His veins were on fire. "Alright. I guess we can hold off on the healers for now. If you get worse, though, you're going. Thor, can you get him in bed?"

"I can walk," Loki insisted, with much more confidence than he felt. He pushed at the blankets and somehow managed to scramble his way out, swung his feet to the side to avoid the mess he'd made, and forced himself to his feet. Staying upright took effort, and the one shuffling step he took nearly sent him flat on his face.

"Hardly," Thor scoffed, though kindly, scooping Loki into his arms before he could form any protest. The sudden change from vertical to horizontal sent his stomach churning again, and Loki nearly gagged. "Sorry, brother."

"Put me down," Loki said when he felt like he could speak without being sick. Thor did—on the bed. He'd walked the whole way while Loki was still fighting his queasiness. "I could have walked," Loki grumbled as Thor pulled back the covers and, to his annoyance, helped him crawl under them. Well, he would have been annoyed if it didn't mean he was finally in bed.

"Stay there," the thunderer instructed quietly. "I'll be back in a minute."

"And where would I go?" Loki questioned acerbically, folding his arms defensively in front of his chest. His exhale shuddered, and he closed his eyes. Then the bed jumped, and he bit back a yelp.

"How're you feeling?" Brunnhilde asked as Loki peeled open his eyes to glare. The light hurt his head, so he shut them again.

"Bad," Loki informed her succinctly.

"I'll bet. Quite a mess you made out there." The prince flushed. Somehow he'd managed to forget that bit of humiliation for a minute. At least three of his tutors would have said it served him right. "Is the light bothering you?" Loki's eyes flew open again, and she gave him a smug smirk that was trying, inexplicably, to be gentle. "That's a yes. What was it... day, something day... Stark's AI girl, get the lights?"

"It's FRIDAY," the AI replied as the lights snapped off. 

With his best smile, currently slightly strained, Loki dipped his head to the Valkyrie. "Sorry about all that."

"Just don't yuck it up on me, and we're fine." A laugh burst from Loki's chest, weak though it was. The door creaked.

"I'm back," Thor announced unnecessarily in a loud whisper. He bore a glass of water in one hand, and when he opened the fist of the other, revealed two pills. "Take these."

Loki downed the pills as quickly as he could manage, without giving his stomach a chance to revolt. Though the nausea was no longer quite so bad, the stomach cramping was still going strong, and in any case he couldn't be sure if ingesting anything would worsen it. Bruce entered the room right as he tossed back the second pill. A scowl started to crawl over Loki's face as he set the glass aside, and his eyes darted from one face to the next. "Stop staring," he ordered in an irritated growl.

"We're allowed to worry about you, idiot," Brunn said bluntly. Loki's prepared retort died in his throat, and he gaped dumbly for a long moment before regaining his composure.

"We should probably let you rest, though." Bruce came close enough to give Loki's shoulder a squeeze. "Get some sleep. I'll check on you in the morning." He left, and Brunnhilde followed, leaving the brothers Odinson alone.

"You should get in your nightclothes," Thor said, sinking down onto the bed where Brunn had been a minute before. He stroked the mischief-maker's hair. "I'll get them for you—"

Loki called up his magic. "I've got it—" He leaned over the side of the bed just in time, or he'd have been sick all over it. "Oh."

"Oh," Thor echoed kindly. He kissed Loki's forehead and stood. "No magic when you aren't feeling well, remember? Don't worry about that, I'll clean up. You rest."

"Sorry," Loki mumbled. He toyed with the edge of one of the furs—from a bear, perhaps?

"It's fine. I'll be right back."

Contrary to Thor's implicit instructions to stay put, Loki pushed the bedcovers off of himself and not-quite toppled out of bed. He did have enough of his wits about him to get out on the opposite side of the mess he'd made. Using the edge of the bed to push himself off, he hobbled to the wardrobe, hunched like an elder and clutching at his midsection. He grabbed his sleepclothes and then let his knees fold, sinking slowly to the floor in a controlled collapse. One hand massaged the back of his aching calves as Loki tried fruitlessly to remove his sweater one-handedly. He gave up quickly, and tugged the hem up over his face using both hands. A pained huffed hissed out from his lips, and his arms trembled. "Loki," Thor's voice sighed from behind him as he tried and failed not to tense, "I said I'd help you."

Loki was blushing a furious crimson by the time Thor finished divesting him of his sweater. He crossed his arms loosely over his torso as if it would hide anything. The smile on Thor's face was rough as he pressed the palm of his hand flat against the large, gnarled scar resting over his younger brother's sternum. "You said you would help me," Loki snapped, shoulders hiking up. "Did you mean it, or are you only going to stare?" Thor drew his hand back.

"You're so thin," he said as he grabbed the silvertongue's nightshirt—a soft sage green thing with gold trim, and yet another relic from the fall of Asgard. "I can see all your ribs."

"Just don't look," Loki said under his breath. He sighed. "Give me that."

Thor pulled the shirt away, out of his reach. "Lift your arms." Loki held his stare for a full ten seconds before he gave in and did as his elder brother asked. He threaded his arms through the sleeves, and Thor slipped the shirt down over his head. "Here, grab my arm." Without comment, Loki obeyed, and let Thor pull him to his feet. "Take off your trousers and I'll help you with the new ones."

"No way," Loki replied instantly. "Leave."

"Loki," Thor tried, pleadingly, "You can hardly stand up straight."

"Leave," he hissed, snatching the trousers while Thor was distracted and sitting down on the bed. After watching his face for a few moments, Thor sighed and left the room.

"You can come in now," Loki called grudgingly, a few minutes later. He had no doubt that Thor was listening at the door. The latch clicked, and the thunderer stepped inside.

"Let me clean up, and then I'll get in bed," Thor said. "You try to sleep. I know your head is still hurting."

Yawning, Loki watched his brother crouch down to deal with his mess. "Why am I still sharing your room?" he asked abruptly. The fatigue in him had him blurting out the question without thought, the second it passed his mind. He flushed when Thor turned to look at him, and then answered his own query out loud, because his brain-to-mouth-filter seemed to be malfunctioning. "Because none of your friends will want me contaminating their space."

Thor, on hands and knees with ugly yellow rubber gloves on and a spray bottle in one hand, frowned. "No, of course not!" he reassured quickly. Loki pressed his lips together and let his head fall slightly to the left. "Really," Thor continued, sitting back on his haunches. "If anyone minds, that's their problem. I just... didn't want you to be alone."

"Because I'm so sick and fragile? Because I might have a nightmare and need my big, strong brother to make it better?" Loki faux cooed, glaring poisonously.

Unexpectedly, Thor blushed. "Maybe I didn't want to be alone, either."

As swift as it had sparked, Loki's rage drained away to nothing, leaving shock in it's wake. "Oh," he said dumbly. 

"You can have your own room if you want," Thor's voice was almost too casual as he went back to scrubbing the rug with a paper towel.

"It's fine," Loki dismissed, leaning back against the pillows and shutting his eyes. "The rest of the Avengers will be back soon enough. I'm sure it's better to save the room space."

"Right," Thor agreed readily. They went quiet. Thor finished cleaning up, left, and returned. Listening to the rustle of clothes, Loki kept his silence, and soon enough the bed sagged under Thor's weight. "Did you comb your hair today?"

Loki frowned. "Actually, no."

"Let me brush it or it'll be a mess tomorrow." Thor batted down his hand when he raised it. "No magic, Loki. I got a brush."

"A worse mess than usual, you mean," Loki mumbled as Thor tugged the hair-tie out of his hair. "Just grow your hair out already, brother. You know you want to."

"How are you feeling, now?" Thor deflected. "You sound a little better." He started to hum under his breath. Loki listened for a moment, brow furrowing. His eyes popped open.

"That's a lullaby," he accused. "You're trying to put me to sleep, like an infant."

"You're not an infant," Thor refuted readily, neither confirming or denying his intent. "Now shush." A pause. "I know you're not all better yet. Want a distraction?"

"Might as well." Loki shifted, rubbing one hand over his hip. Ouch. He was finding it difficult to stay still—the aches made him restless, but moving made it worse. Feeble though the hope was, perhaps a distraction could help.

"Okay." Thor ran the brush through his hair one more time, then set it aside. He leaned them both back against the headboard of the bed, tucking Loki under his arm. Giving Loki a light squeeze and a gentle kiss to his hair, he started to speak. "This fur." Thor ran a hand over the one Loki had been fiddling with earlier. "Do you remember where it came from?" Loki shook his head. "Good. It was—"

Alone in the dark, Loki breathed.

Well, not technically alone. Thor was curled around him, chest to Loki's back, breathing deep and even. Warm and safe, the ever-present small child in him insisted. He certainly felt like a small child, the past few days. But that didn't count. For all intents and purposes, he was alone.

Loki closed his eyes. Inhaled deeply. Turned around to face his brother, buried his head in the crook of Thor's neck. Allowed himself to curl close and cling like a limpet. It's late. I'll wake up before him. He won't know. It doesn't matter.

For someone famed for his lies, sometimes Loki thought he wasn't very good at it.

Chapter Text

Loki's eyes opened to his brother looming over him. "How are you feeling?" Thor asked earnestly. He was perched on the edge of the bed, eye dark with worry as he watched his younger brother.

"Were you watching me sleep?" Loki stretched and sat up. "Really, brother."

"How are you feeling?" Thor pressed again.

"What time is it?" Loki countered as he sat up. He held Thor's gaze for a moment, then rolled his eyes and swiped his phone from the side table before Thor could block him. "Ten o four," he read in a murmur. Late, but not terrible. "How long have you been watching me?"

"Just a few minutes," Thor answered after a short hesitation. "I was going to get you for breakfast, but..."

"You decided to be creepy instead," Loki finished. He flapped a hand at his brother. "Stop sitting on the covers so I can get up. Shoo."

"How are you feeling?" Thor said again, a dog with a bone.

"You're not going to give this up, are you?" Loki sighed. "Fine, I feel fine."

"Any nausea? Do you still have a headache?" the thunderer continued to grill him.

"No, no nausea, and I don't have a headache. By the nine, Thor." The first was true, the second less so. The headache wasn't bad, anyway, so it hardly counted as a lie. The aches that had so tormented him the night before were still present, and by far eclipsed the minor headache he was nursing. Every inch of him was sore. "Move, you oaf."

Thor sighed. "I don't believe you," he said as he stood, "but you do need to eat. Come on."

"You're not my nursemaid," Loki felt compelled to remind him. "Just in case you weren't aware of that." Thor ignored him. Rude. Very rude.

The kitchen was mostly empty, only occupied by Banner, who was finishing a bowl of yogurt. He waved. "How are you feeling, Loki?"

"The next person who asks me that," Loki said, deadly calm, "is going to have their tongue removed, and fed to them."

"Generally, most people don't respond to concern about their well-being with threats," the midgardian said mildly. "But really. Any headache, nausea, other symptoms?"

"No." Loki flopped down on the couch because he didn't feel like walking all the way to the kitchen. His decision was in no way related to the need to get off of his feet. Not in the slightest.

"Loki," Bruce said, exasperation heavy in his voice, "I can tell from how you're walking that your stomach hurts—sore from throwing up last night, right? Maybe your head doesn't hurt, and maybe you aren't feeling queasy right now, but I know you're not fine."

Toying with answering more honestly, Loki scrubbed a finger over his upper lip. "My back," he admitted finally in a low tone. "It aches." Of course, his back was far from the only thing giving him trouble, but he would more than rather avoid the inevitable fussing and poking and prodding that would result if he mentioned anything about the whole-body soreness plaguing him. It was truth enough.

"Loki," Thor groaned. "Why didn't you say something?"

"Are you really asking me that? I really thought you were smarter than that, brother," the silvertongue drawled idly.

Thor poked him on the top of the shoulder. "Rhetorical question, brat. What do you want for breakfast?"

"Nothing?" Loki tried hopefully. When his answer was met with stony silence, he huffed and dropped his head. "Fine. Cereal?"

"You need something with more nutrients than that, though cereal is a good start. How little you've been eating is probably contributing to your fatigue," Bruce advised.

"I'm not tired," Loki refuted quickly. The swift, automatic nature of his rebuttal might as well have been a conformation, by the deeply exasperated and yet somehow pitying look that Thor shot him. The first was tolerable, the second was not. Loki bared his teeth until Thor looked away. 

"I'll see what Stark has," Thor said, moving into the kitchen.

"Try eggs, they have a lot of protein," Bruce suggested.

"I thought you asked what I wanted. Apparently that doesn't matter," Loki complained, largely to himself. "If you were going to choose for me, why bother to ask?"

"I was being polite," Thor said. "How do you want your eggs?"

"Hard boiled." It would take the longest, with the double benefit of postponing the need to eat and being more of a nuisance to Thor.

"I shouldn't have asked, should I," Thor sighed. "Fine, hard boiled, but don't think you're going to get me to drop this."

"I wouldn't ever dream of it. You're too annoyingly persistent," Loki said honestly.

"You think you're insulting me, but I take that as a compliment."

They fell quiet, letting the sound of Thor messing around in the kitchen fill up the silence. Pots and pans clattered, the faucet turned on. Loki let his eyes fall shut. He was exhausted. Maybe there was truth to what Bruce had said, about not eating enough making him tired. Bother. As tired as he was, Loki might worry that he was going to fall back asleep on the couch, but his utter discomfort took care of that problem quite neatly. Small mercies, Loki supposed. He had better be careful or he was going to start thinking the glass was half-full, among other Thor-like tripe.

"Loki." Loki's eyes flew open and he shot from slouching to ramrod straight in an instant, with a quiet yelp as his whole body protested the rapid movement. Bruce smiled at him, and, thankfully, pretended not to notice. "I've got something I think might help you."

"A heating pad?" Loki squinted, recognizing the object. He grabbed the faded, blue fabric-covered rectangle between thumb and forefinger and lifted it up to eye level. "I was under the impression that these are for pregnant women or the elderly, and, despite what Midgard's myths might want you to believe, I am neither of those."

"You're a thousand years old. That's plenty elderly by earth standards." Bruce shook his head. "Anyway, I don't know where you heard that, but it's not true. Just try it, please? This one is battery powered, so you don't have to deal with a cord. Just put it on your back, or your stomach, if you prefer."

The prince stayed still for a long moment, considering. "Fine," he said at last. Turning the thing on, he slipped it up the back of his shirt, and then leaned against the couch to pin it in place.

"I don't think you're supposed to put it on bare skin, it could burn you," the scientist cautioned.

Loki opened one eye. "If it does, I'll just blame you." He shut it again.

"Do you have any self-preservation?"

"Nope!" Thor yelled from the kitchen.

"You aren't a part of this conversation!" Loki yelled back. "Where's Brunn?"

"Already on the ship, filling in for us," Thor told him.

Loki hummed. "How many black eyes do you think she's handed out? I'm calling three." Silence. "Oh, come on, do you really think she's going to not punch someone if she has to listen to petitioners?"

"Six," Bruce said.

"Seven."

Loki smirked. "Bet."

"Well, I'm headed to the ship now, so I guess I'll see for myself. Call me if you feel worse, Loki, and take it easy." Bruce patted him on the shoulder and departed.

"Busybodies, the lot of you," Loki observed when the man was gone. "Really, Thor. Can none of you mind your own business?"

"Stop trying to make me mad, brother,” Thor said over the sound of something sizzling. "It won't work."

"I'm not trying to make you mad!" Loki objected.

"Really. You're not trying to get out of eating anything, either, I suppose."

"Shut up." Loki was too tired to keep up the back and forth any longer. The quiet in wake of his words persisted, at long last. He was tempted to comment on it, but then Thor would probably say something back, and Loki would rather enjoy the blessed absence from pestering brothers.

"Here." Something clunked, and Loki opened his eyes. Thor was setting a plate on the glass coffee table, and a cup of some type of juice. "Your eggs are still coming. Eat this first."

"French toast?"

Thor nodded. "Want some syrup for it?"

Visibly, Loki wavered. On the one hand, he still didn't want to eat any more than he had to, and syrup sounded disgustingly filling. On the other, he had a wicked sweet tooth and it was calling his name quite loudly. As Thor well knew. "Rude," he pouted.

Thor smiled at him, sappy. "I'll get the powdered sugar, too."

"Is this your master plan?" Loki asked when Thor came back bearing not only syrup and powdered sugar, but chocolate chips, "coerce me into eating with sweets?"

"Yes," the thunderer said bluntly. "Is it working?"

"Possibly," Loki hummed, pouring a generous amount of chocolate chips over the golden, buttery toast.

"Good."

"Cheater."

"Eat your food, Loki."

French toast deemed appropriately drenched in an unholy tide of maple syrup, chocolate chips, and powdered sugar, Loki picked up his fork and knife and sawed a small piece off of the corner. When he took a bite, Loki's eyes closed in bliss. This was almost worth having to eat with no appetite to speak of. He cut himself another bite and from there, to his surprise, finished the whole plate. Thor's face when he brought over three hard boiled eggs was unbearably smug. Of those, Loki only managed half an egg before he couldn't manage any more. "It's almost eleven," Loki announced, rising to his feet. The heating pad slipped out the back of his shirt, and he felt a pang at its loss. Possibly a physical one. "We should get to the Statesman before Bruce and Heimdall are no longer able to dissuade Brunn from homicide."

"Are you sure you don't want to stay?" Thor stood from his position stooped over the dishwasher, a plate still in his hands. "Maybe get some more sleep in?"

The idea was tempting, and so Loki rejected it all the more fervently. "Absolutely not," he growled, stomping for the stairs as fast and with as much dignity as could muster when every step sent stinging jolts up the backs up his legs.

"Loki!" Thor yelled. "At least take something for your pain before you go running off to make a point. I get it, you're very tough and you don't need to sleep like us normal people." Loki ignored him. "You're going to want to come back here." Loki kept walking. "You're still in your pajamas," Thor said bluntly. Loki blushed.

Dressed in a coal-black v-neck and sporting a black leather jacket and nearly knee-high combat boots, Loki though his apparel matched his mood rather well. "Going to a funeral?" Thor quipped when Loki exited the bathroom. Loki shoved him, and Thor shoved back. The thunderer didn't even blink when Loki pushed him, whereas his returning push had Loki stumbling back five steps until he slammed into the wall, shoulder first.

Of course, being the dutiful big brother, Thor rushed forward to steady him by the arms, and Loki dodged sideways with a snarl. "Let's just go. We've wasted half the day."

"It's eleven," Thor said, half-jogging down the steps to catch up. "That's not 'half the day.'"

"Close enough." Inhaling deeply through his nose, Loki shook his head. The pain had put him in a foul mood, and he knew it. The heating pad had helped marginally, but as soon as he left it behind any relief if brought him was gone, and he had little faith in the pain-pills Thor had persuaded him into taking (mostly by not shutting up about it until he acquiesced). His left shoulder blade was particularly sore for some unfathomable reason. With one hand he gathered up his hair, and started a loose braid behind his right ear. Though he could have done it in the bathroom, Loki wanted to get going and braiding his hair was something he could easily do while walking. When finished, Loki held the braid in place with one hand and tugged the dark hair-tie off of his other wrist with his teeth. The fact that his braid smacked into Thor's face when he tied it off and let go was a coincidence. Completely.

"You're grouchy today," Thor observed after spitting out a few strands of hair. Before he could stop himself, Loki growled. "And that's how I know you're tired. You get grumpy when you're tired. Or, alternatively, really cuddly." He sidestepped easily when Loki lunged for him, and they fell back to walk side by side as if nothing happened a moment later.

"I'm not cuddy," Loki blurted, when he couldn't stand holding his tongue any longer.

"Not most of the time," Thor agreed. "At least, you don't admit it."

"Rude."

"But I'm right, aren't I?"

Crossing his arms and gritting his teeth, Loki picked up his pace—only to slow again when his body rapidly remembered that it was sore.

"You're still in pain?" Thor asked.

"Shut up," Loki said, very politely. Thor obeyed, and silence resumed.

On the ramp of the Statesman, Thor stepped into his brother's path, forcing him to halt. "I think you should go to the healers." He raised his hands when Loki started to protest, and gave him a quelling look. "Not that I think you'll listen to me, but still. Even if you don't, if you're feeling bad, tell me. Tell someone, at least. Understand? I won't have you working yourself to the bone."

Involuntarily, Loki's lip curled. "I can look after myself," he said sharply, dodging around Thor and stalking off. As soon as he found an empty corridor, he slumped against the wall, put his head in his hands, and shook for a long minute. When the shakes eased, Loki straightened, one hand smoothing down his braid and the other brushing non-existent dust off of his pants. He had work to do. Away from the eyes of prying brothers.

"How's it going?" Brunnhilde asked when they passed each other in the hallway. She shifted the box full of spare parts she was carrying onto one hip, and motioned him over to the side of the hallway. Loki pinched his lips together, but followed her lead. He drew himself against the wall with deliberate nonchalance, hooking one ankle over the other and planting one hand on the wall at his waist. Though her question was phrased like a casual inquiry on his day, her tone conveyed a different message, one Loki was very tired of hearing—"How are you feeling?"

Loki stepped on his irritation to draw up a smile. "Well enough, for dealing with the endless issues of the citizenry." Certainly better than he had been, that morning. Though he hated to admit it, even within the privacy of his own head, he thought perhaps the Midgardian medicine had helped to some degree. When Thor had browbeaten him into taking the medicine, he hadn't thought it possible for an Asgardian (Jotun) to be affected by the stuff—and yet Stark's specially made, 'super-strength' concoctions had lowered his pain level to simply annoying, whereas it had been driving him to distraction. The slight aches were nearly more of an irritant, running up and down his limbs and in his core. With the exception of his upper back, on the left in particular, which was giving him no small bit of grief. And running around on the ship for a few hours had him somewhat winded. "What are you up to?"

She puffed up her cheeks and blew out all her air with a horse-like huff. "Ship repairs. There's always more ship repairs. For the time being and the foreseeable future, people are gonna be living on this thing... so landing on earth doesn't mean getting out of it. Unfortunately. You?"

"Currently? Going to speak to the greenhouse worked about adapting our crops for earth's soil, and possible produce exports."

"Sounds boring. Try not to die of boredom, Lackey. It'd be even more boring if you were dead—and your brother would cry. Nobody wants to see that."

"Very funny." Loki sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose like that would make his head stop spinning. This was not helpful. "I should—get to it." He pushed off the wall and started to walk.

"You're going back the way you came," Brunn told him.

"Am I?" Loki blinked. "Well then." He spun, and for a moment, it felt like he kept spinning.

"You don't look good," Brunn said, taking a half-step closer.

"Flatterer."

"I'm serious. You should sit down, or something. Take a break. Have you had lunch?"

"I'm fine." Loki shook his head and inhaled as steadily as he could manage. "Now, we both should be getting back to what we're doing." As he stalked by, she reached out to grab him by the arm, and he shrugged her grip easily. Or, it should have been easily. Loki's ankles wobbled and he threw his hands out for balance, eyes going wide and lungs tightening. "Fine, fine," he panted as Brunnhilde reached for him again. "Just lost my balance." He stepped away again, and this time it was his knees to betray him. Loki had time for one sound curse before it all went black.

When he saw the messenger approaching, something in Thor told him it would be bad news. He tried to wrack his brain for what had gone wrong—the heating system is broken? A fight started? ...Loki? Thor pressed his lips together and folded his arms, suddenly feeling the need to look stern and kingly. It felt more like playing pretend than Thor was comfortable acknowledging. "My king," the messenger said, placing one fist on his heart and going down to one knee. Thor wished people would stop doing that.

The messenger kept his head down, fist still pressed to his heart. "Rise," Thor remembered to say belatedly. When the messenger stood, it didn't seem like he'd thought anything of Thor's delayed response. Thankfully.

One hand adjusting the scarlet swath of fabric tied around his arm that marked him as a messenger, the man threw his shoulders back and tilted his chin up. Clearly, he was proud of the job he'd been given. Thor only wanted him to get on with his message. "The Lady Valkyrie bid me tell you that the crown prince collapsed while they were speaking. He is currently with the healers, being seen—"

Thor shot up out of his makeshift throne (technically a pilot's chair, it was much smaller than the grand golden throne that had burned with the rest of Asgard-the-place, but still felt far too large at times) the minute the messenger mentioned Loki, stomach dropping into his feet. When the man kept speaking, he sliced a hand through the air to cut him off. "Where?" Thor demanded. "In the compound, or on the ship?"

"In the ship's medbay, my king."

"You're dismissed," Thor said brusquely, taking off at a brisk walk. Blast propriety, he wasn't going to stand there and be bowed to and called 'my king' one more time while his brother had... collapsed? Thor picked up the pace. The medbay was on the top floor along with the bridge, thankfully, so Thor didn't have to go far. On the downside, it was a heavily trafficked area and he couldn't run without causing a panic. Thor slapped the button for the doors and shifted impatiently from foot to foot as the hydraulics hissed and the double doors parted, darting in sideways the second he could fit. "Where's my brother?" Thor demanded. Three of the ship's healers were hovering near one of the curtained-off berths, while no others were in sight, so it wasn't hard to guess.

One of the healers said something, but Thor darted over to yank open the slightly ratty baby blue curtain instead. As he expected, Loki was there. As he should have, so was Brunnhilde, seated on one of the two little folding chairs jammed into the berth. The space was wide enough for a cot to be set into the wall, on which Loki was laid, but it was hardly deep enough for Thor to turn sideways without his shoulders brushing the curtain and the wall on both sides. A decrepit screen in the wall was displaying his brother's vital signs and brain waves, recorded through a white patch stuck to the back of his hand.

"Hey, majesty," Brunn said, rising to her feet.

"What happened," Thor demanded of Brunnhilde, trying not to sound accusatory. It wasn’t her fault, there was no way it was her fault, just because she happened to be there—it’s mine.

”I passed him in the halls and... he didn’t look good. I told him should take a break, but you know how he is. He started to storm off, and then he just... fell.” With a sigh, Brunn ran a hand over her hair. “They’re planning to do a few tests, try to figure out why he passed out.”

”And he hasn’t woken up yet?” Thor asked.

”It’s been like five minutes, Thor,” she soothed. “Give him a little more time to come around before you start to panic.”

"His heart rate is too high," Thor said, ignoring her in favor of studying Loki's vitals. He didn't know what most of the vital signs were measuring, but... "his heart rate is too high."

"That doesn't mean anything is wrong," Brunn said gently.

”He fainted, Brunnhilde,” Thor snapped. “Don’t tell me not to worry about him.”

”I never said that. I’m worried too, Majesty. But you panicking won’t help him at all.”

Thor groaned. “Stop being reasonable,” he growled into his hands. “I don’t want to be reasonable. I should have made him get some more sleep,” Thor interrupted himself. “I should have made sure he ate more, should have checked on him earlier and made him take a break, I should have—“

”Guilt also won’t help him,” Brunn interrupted. Suddenly, one of the charts on the screen spiked, and a beep sounded.

"He's waking up," one of the healers said, brushing past the curtain and cutting off Thor's surge of fear at the root. She pressed something on the screen in her hands and the noise cut off. "One of you needs to leave. This berth is not meant for more than two people, excluding the patient."

"I am your ki—" Thor began. Brunnhilde stood up, patted him on the shoulder, and left. Thor snapped his mouth shut.

"Step to the side," the healer told him bluntly. "You're blocking my view."

Loki stole Thor’s incensed reply by groaning softly, instantly drawing the full attention of both the others in the room. “My head hurts,” he said clearly.

”Did you hit your head, or is it just a headache?” Thor demanded. “What hurts?”

”Everything,” Loki moaned with feeling.

Thor’s face spasmed. Guilt and fear heavy in his throat, he had to swallow several times before he felt like he could get any words out. “Anywhere in particular?”

The healer cleared her throat, sharply. "Who here has the healer training?"

"You do," Thor mumbled grudgingly.

“Then, your majesty. If I could see to my patient?”

He’s not your patient, he’s my brother, Thor resisted the urge to snap, because that would just be silly. Gritting his teeth, he stood up and took a few steps back, gesturing toward the cot. “There. What’s wrong with him?”

Decidedly unimpressed, the healer raised one eyebrow and tipped her head. "That is what I'm attempting to discern." Thor didn't recall her name, but he recognized her—mostly by her fizzy red hair, but also from her sharp amber eyes and superior attitude. She was one of a small team of palace healers that had been out in the city when Hela attacked, seeing to the casualties of a tragic skiff accident near the outskirts of the city. A gaggle of adolescents, most not old enough to legally pilot a skiff, had decided to have a race. When no one allowed them to have any skiffs, they'd procured their own, and what they found weren't up to code by any stretch. Of course, disaster followed. That stunt meant a handful of healers from Gladheim had escaped Hela's indiscriminate slaughter. They were lucky to have any healers, Thor reminded himself, sour temper or no. He sighed.

"His heart rate is elevated," the healer reported smoothly. I knew that already, Thor didn't say. She pointed out a little gauge on the chart, a yellow line bobbing up and down in time with Loki's heartbeats, and a fraction floating next to it. "His blood pressure is a bit low, as are his blood oxygen levels, but otherwise his vital signs seem to be normal, and in any case neither is so low as to be a cause for concern." She swiped something on her tablet, and the screen changed, now displaying a tall, bipedal figure covered in branching red and blue lines. "Lie flat on your back," she ordered Loki. When he obeyed, the figure moved with him. The screen flipped through a few more body systems, or at least that was what Thor assumed they were, before pausing. There was a large red blaze on the left side of the figure's upper back, and a less intense patch of red on its forearm. "Deep bruising on his back, fainter on the forearm," the healer murmured to herself.

"What?" Thor exploded, lunging for his brother and manhandling him into an upright position. He hastily divested Loki of his leather jacket and pulled up the back of his shirt—whereupon an angry expanse of purple bruising stared back at him. "What happened?!" Loki looked just as dumbfounded as Thor felt, which didn't actually help.

Brunnhilde drew back the curtain and poked her head in.

"I ordered you to leave—" the healer started sharply.

"Let her in, Healer Delfia," Loki interrupted. Delfia, that was her name. Thor had known that. Not important right now.

"Do you know how he got hurt?" Thor demanded, spinning to face the healer.

Delfia shook her head, the few carrot-colored curls that had escaped from her tightly drawn bun swishing around with the motion. "I'm afraid that's not something machines can tell me. I can, however, estimate the age of these injuries. The bruising on his arm is around ten minutes old, whereas it had been nearly four hours since his back was injured."

"I grabbed him by the arm," Brunnhilde murmured.

Thor's blood ran cold, and he wracked his brain. Four hours ago... he'd been having breakfast with Loki. "I pushed him into the wall," he said, voice faint with horror.

Delfia looked down at her tablet. "It appears that bruises are forming from your handing, my king. They should be visible within a few minutes."

When Thor chanced a glance at him, Loki's eyebrows were drawn tightly together, and his expression was simultaneously both dark and blank. Without saying a word or meeting anyone's eyes, he drew his jacket back on and hunched into it like the garment was a shield. Thor was going to be sick. "This is a development," Loki said lightly and seemingly addressing the floor.

The laugh that burst, involuntarily, from Thor's throat was in no small part hysterical. "A development? Are you—" His eyes widened with horror and he stumbled backward from Loki like he'd been burned, hands outstretched and fingers curled. He'd been... he'd been about to shake his brother. To hurt his brother. Tears burned in Thor's eye, and he swallowed hard. "By the Norns," he whispered fervently. In the seconds that followed, his tempter ignited like a match had been struck. "Where is Banner?! He roared. "Why isn't he here?! Where are the other healers?!"

"Thor," Loki soothed, "it'll be alright."

"You fainted! And those bruises!" Any other time Thor would be embarrassed at how shrill his voice went, but he was concentrating too hard on not sparking to be bothered. "You've been getting plenty of sleep, you've been eating—despite your best efforts to the contrary—and you're not getting better! How do we know you're not still sick," Thor fretted. His heart hammered a desperate tattoo in his ears. "Or if it's something else, something worse—"

"Thor, calm down," Loki said over him, reaching out. Thor drew back again, and his eye streamed. If he wasn't careful... he could hurt Loki again. Worse.

"Don't," Thor growled, fear making his voice harsh. But Loki didn't deserve his rage. He was the one who wasn't well. "Lie back down," Thor said, this time softer. "Try to rest."

The mischief-maker scowled. Something in the normalcy of the expression eased Thor's heart. "I am not a child, and I will be involved in this discussion," he declared hotly. That said, he dismissed his older brother entirely, and turned to the healer. "What do you see in the rest of the scans? Anything else abnormal?"

The redheaded healer once again directed her attention back to the tablet in her hands. "From what I can discern by these scans, you have no further injuries. Your lungs are perhaps working a bit harder than they should be—I would guess slight respiratory distress."

"R... Respiratory distress?" Thor croaked, paling.

"Slight," Loki countered.

"I'll send someone to get Bruce," Brunnhilde said quietly. She paused, lightly biting her lip, and then set her shoulders. "Clearly this isn't some bug."

Thor didn't watch her go. That would mean taking his eyes off of his little brother. His undeniably very sick little brother. "Oh, Loki," he moaned, voice choked. Unthinkingly, he reached for the trickster, only to draw back at the last second. "Oh, my goodness, brother."

"Calm down," Loki said again, but even as his voice was consoling his eyes were slightly wide and shiny. That, more than anything else, forced Thor to get a hold of himself. Loki was scared, and in pain. It was up to Thor to be the big brother. To protect him, make sure he was safe. There would be time for his own fear later. When Loki couldn't see him.

"What can you do to help him?" Thor asked, forcibly shutting off his instinctive reaction, which was to yell and electrocute things—coincidentally, probably the worst thing he could do in nearly any situation. Older brother, he reminded himself. Right now, Loki came first.

Delfia at last looked up from her tablet. "He should rest, firstly. Healing these injuries is a matter of no difficulty, and medication can be provided for some of the symptoms. Anything beyond that must wait for further testing, which I advise you arrange as soon as possible."

"If healing him is no difficulty, then heal him." Thor folded his arms.

The healer was visibly neither impressed nor intimidated. "If you would allow me the time, my king, I shall." She swept out of the berth, the curtain fluttering closed behind her. Gritting his teeth, Thor settled down in the chair next to Loki and tried not to strain his ears to hear what the healers were discussing outside the berth.

"It'll be okay, Thor," Loki said.

"Ssh." Tentatively, and with a minute tremble to his hand, Thor reached over to stroke his younger brother's hair.

"I'm not going to break if you breathe on me too hard," Loki said. He closed his eyes.

Thor hummed. "Let me worry about you."

"Not when you overreact—"

A healer swept in, a different one this time, interrupting what could have quickly turned into a nasty fight. "Remove your shirt," she directed Loki, peeling the patch off of his hand and passing it to one of the other healers, through the curtain. Thor's fingers twitched to help, but he bit his tongue and waited instead as Loki first removed his jacket, and then shirt. As Delfia had predicted, new, sickly mauve bruises decorated his sides. Thor inhaled sharply upon seeing them, but the new healer was unphased. She waved her hand around Loki's torso (it was glowing, so Thor knew she must be doing something, but what?) and then handed him a potion. Loki took it, but didn't drink it, instead giving the cloudy liquid a suspicious once-over.

It took a great deal of valiant effort that Thor was sure went unappreciated for him to refrain from facepalming. "Loki," he growled, and he knew, he knew his brother was sick and certainly in pain and this was the worst time to be angry at him and he didn't deserve Thor's wrath anyway, "take the bloody potion."

Loki looked back and forth between his face and the potion. His expression twisted into one of revulsion, but he tipped back the bottle and drank it all. Within seconds, the bruises on his sides, back, and arm started to shimmer. When the glimmering stopped, Loki's skin was back to the same creamy porcelain as always. Or is it paler—not the time. "There," he said pointedly, and started to pull back on his clothing before the healer had a chance to say a word against it. Luckily, she didn't seem to need to do anything further, and allowed him to re-dress himself. Thankfully so. Thor was in no mood to deal with a tantrum from Loki, and he had no doubt that if his younger brother was forced to go without his clothing a moment longer, a tantrum there would be. Loki had always been modest, but the ravaged state of his body after Thanos' work had only heightened his resolve against anyone seeing him in the slightest state of undress. And if he was being honest with himself, Thor found it difficult not to stare. The bruises had been distracting, but with them gone the scars over Loki's body drew his eye like a magnet.

"It's finished," the healer reported unnecessarily. 

"Thank you," Thor said sincerely, but his eye was only for his brother. Carefully, oh-so-carefully, Thor lifted Loki into his arms, cautiously positioning the prince with his head pillowed against Thor's shoulder.

"I can walk," Loki said quietly.

"Shush," Thor replied. To his silent relief, Loki did. "Let's get you in bed."

"Your majesty," the healer cut in. "When can we expect our prince for further testing?"

Thor hesitated. "Tomorrow." He left.

Loki stayed silent, letting Thor fuss with the pillows and blankets all he wanted. He hadn't uttered even a single protest when Thor insisted on—carefully, always carefully—dressing him in sleepclothes and tucking him into bed. While Thor knew it was likely supposed to reassure him, and in some ways it did, it also unnerved him all the more. "Do you need anything?" Thor asked quietly, once he had gotten Loki settled into bed. 

Mutely, the mischief-maker shook his head.

"You should have something to eat," the thunderer blustered on. "You haven't eaten lunch, have you? Let me get you something."

The second the door shut behind him, Thor started to panic. Quietly. Because Loki was sick. Loki was very sick. Something was very, very, very wrong. No human should bruise so easily, never mind an Asgardian (Jotun). And that didn't even being to take into account Loki's other symptoms, the fatigue and headaches he'd been suffering. He's not dying, Thor told himself firmly. It felt shallow. He isn't.

After the storm of terror passed, Thor made for the kitchen. He ended up making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, still too shaken to do anything more complicated than put jam on bread and pour a glass of milk. "Here you go," he announced as he walked back into the bedroom and set the plate on the bedside table—and winced internally. That was... far too cheerful sounding. Oops.

"Stop worrying," Loki ordered, crossing his arms and rolling his eyes. He sounded so normal it hurt, particularly considering his pallor. "Whatever this is, it's bound to pass." The smile he gave Thor was one of his rare ones—genuine and sweet, but it shook at the edges. "Worrying doesn't suit you."

Thor smiled back so he wouldn't snap. His anger wasn't really at Loki, he knew that. Or even anger at all, just fear. Fear for his little brother, tucked up in bed and looking so very small it was painful.

”Eat,” Thor instructed. Loki obeyed. Likely, the docile response was intended to calm him, but it only worried him further. Loki quiet and obedient never heralded anything good. Whether because he was plotting or ill or upset, when Loki followed orders without even a quip or an eye roll, Thor found it cause for deep concern. "How are you feeling?" Thor asked timidly after Loki had taken a few bites. 

"Well enough," came the answer. "I am tired, but otherwise alright."

"We're going to fix this,” Thor promised impulsively.

Loki looked like he wanted to say something scathing, but then his face twisted up, clearing a moment later. “Ever the hero, brother.”

Suddenly, the conversation felt tentative. Fragile. Thor fought the urge to flee from it, setting a hand on Loki’s knee and trying not to worry that he was hurting him by doing so. “We’ll let the healers do their tests, we’ll figure out what has you sick, and we’ll get you better.” Or, that was his hope. He was trying very hard not to think about other possibilities.

The wry, fond smile and knowing look in Loki’s eyes made something squirm inside of Thor’s chest. “I really am alright, Thor. Just tired.”

Thor’s eye burned. He leaned forward and planted a lingering kiss to Loki’s temple. And if a few tears streamed down his face, only to vanish into obsidian curls—Loki didn’t have to know that. “Promise you’ll be alright?” Thor mumbled against his younger brother’s skin in a shameful lapse of will. He was supposed to be the strong one. Unshaken, valiant, ever fearless. The protector. Loki was unwell, and needed him to be strong—and yet he was the one in tears while the trickster tried to comfort him. “I can’t lose anyone else.”

Loki’s breath hitched, and he stiffened. Slowly, haltingly, lithe but well-muscled arms curled around his back, spidering hands coming to perch on his shoulders. Bit by bit, Loki relaxed against him, gradually letting go of the tension in his body. “I promise.”

Thor bit down on his lip to halt a sob. “Thank you,” he breathed. They stayed in that position, Loki’s arms around him as Thor tried his hardest not to move for fear of harming his little brother, until someone knocked on the door. Loki let go instantly, and Thor reluctantly shifted away—though not far.

“Come in,” Loki called, once all evidence of their hug had been suitably erased to his satisfaction.

The latch clicked, and Bruce eased the door open. "Hey, Thor," Bruce cleared his throat. "Can you give me a minute alone with Loki?"

"Of course," Thor said, trying for a smile. His face felt oddly stiff as he rose hesitantly to his feet. He didn't look over his shoulder as he walked out—if he did, he would just turn around and go back. Kicking the door shut behind him, Thor started to pace.

"Thor," Brunn barked, and aforementioned Asgardian nearly leapt a foot in the air. "You freaking out won't help Loki. You need to get it together or get out of here until you do, because you're only making it worse for him."

"I know," Thor growled. He did, he really, really did. And he hated it, hated that couldn't just get over this. "I just... he's my brother, Brunnhilde!"

"And he's my friend, but you don't see me having a coronary over this! Thor Odinson, you need to get yourself together or so help me I will throw your idiot self out that window right there, right now."

Thor blinked into the silence for a few moments as his breathing slowed. At last, the blunt, sincere threat knocked something back into place, shoving the fear out of the way, or at least dampening it to a reasonable level. "Right," he said, then shook his head and said it again, slightly stronger. The fear, the terror was still there, still strong, but no longer so overpowering. He could think around it, cloud reason. Slumping against the wall, he put his heads in his hands and breathed deeply. No more freaking out, or breaking down. Loki came first.

When the bedroom door opened again, Thor was as calm as he was going to get. He stepped into the room with his expression under control. "Did you examine him?" he asked Bruce, hurrying to sit on the edge of the bed and take Loki's hand in both of his own.

"Yup. As far as I can tell, I agree with everything your healers told me."

"Do you have any idea what this is? How we can treat it?" Thor rubbed lazy circles on the back of Loki's hand with his thumb, trying to comfort. Not that Loki seemed like he needed it, at the moment. He was remarkably composed, but that had never really meant much with Loki. Even if he was as unruffled as his face appeared, the little act reassured Thor himself, and so he didn't stop.

Bruce ran one hand up through his hair and puffed out his lips momentarily. "I don't want to alarm you two, but in younger people, younger humans at least, bruising so easily is usually... not a good sign. I'd like to do some blood tests, but Loki isn't human so I don't really know what I could do from the results. What's completely normal for us could be super out of whack for him. Right now, I think it's best for Loki to take it easy, and we'll just have to observe and have your healers do some tests, and possibly start him on a couple of medications."

"What about when the others arrive tomorrow? Will he be up for that?"

"There's really no reason to keep him on bed rest," Bruce said. "Loki, I wouldn't push yourself if you start feeling tired, and maybe take naps as needed as well as being more cautious, but at this point, with what we know staying in bed would really just be overkill."

Though unease stirred in Thor's stomach at the words, Loki looked nothing but relieved. "So I can still be of help on the ship, yes?"

Bruce smiled kindly at the trickster. "Well, I wouldn't be doing anything overly physical, like heavy lifting, just because you don't want to give yourself any more injuries, but otherwise yes. I will be keeping a close eye on you, and I know your brother will be, too. Now, it's only three thirty, so it's a few hours until dinner. It would probably be good if you took a nap for at least an hour, and went to bed early tonight." He brushed his hands together and nodded towards the door. "I'll leave you two alone to talk."

Loki waggled his fingers in a little wave as the doctor left. Then, once again, it was just them. "Are you hurting?" Thor asked, lifting the blanket of silence that had settled over the brothers in the wake of their friend's departure.

The thing Loki's lips curved into was just a touch too exhausted to be called a smirk. "I'm alright. Still a bit sore, but that will be gone soon enough."

"Do you have any healing cream in your dimensional pocket? Or numbing," Thor asked. "I can put some on for you, if you like."

Loki raised his eyes to the ceiling for a moment, mouth pressing into a straight line. When he looked back down, it was to study the thunderer with narrowed eyes. "Alright," he sighed, dipping his head. A jar of sea-green glass, corked shut, appeared hovering in front of Thor, and he plucked it easily from the air. Glancing back to Loki, he found his younger brother decidedly paler than he had been moments before, with sweat beading on his brow. "Are you alright?" Thor asked quietly, alarmed by the sudden change in his brother's condition. "What happened?"

"Just a bit winded," Loki wheezed, a pasted-on smile doing nothing to hide that fatigue in his eyes. "Just... just start putting the stuff on. I'll be fine in a minute."

Thor gave him a skeptical look that conveyed exactly how much he believed that assertion, but uncorked the jar and scooched closer to his brother on the bed without comment. Getting Loki's nightshirt off of him was a bit of an ordeal, what with the way the silvertongue winced every time he had to raise or move his arms, but working together they managed to remove the garment. By the time they had it off, Loki's color and breathing had improved quite a bit. Turning back to the jar, Thor swiped two fingers through the thick, mossy green and slightly chunky paste, flecked with shining bits of turquoise. "What is this made of?" Thor asked as he painted the poultice carefully down Loki's side. Before his eyes, it flared and then vanished in a burst of aqua light. 

"Some healing herbs, and one particular kind of crystal spelled to make the poultice sink into the skin on its own. The crystals dissolve once they've done their job. Do it quickly," he added, "if you pause it'll vanish."

Thor nodded and scooped up another bit of the paste. He worked swiftly, and as long as he kept applying the tincture it didn't vanish. When he finally finished coating Loki's sides and paused for breath, the stuff pulsed once, twice, and then disappeared in a slight shimmer that dissipated in the next moments. "Give me your arm," he instructed quietly, holding out one hand with palm open. Loki placed his arm into his brother's grip.

As carefully as he could, Thor curled his fingers around Loki's birdlike wrist, threaded through with delicate, twining veins of cobalt and indigo just under the surface of the skin. Holding it in his grip, with just enough force to keep his brother's arm still, Thor was acutely, painfully aware of how easily he could snap that wrist like it was a Midgardian pencil, several of which he'd broken before he'd become used to handling the flimsy, wooden writing implements. He had no idea how he kept his own arm from shaking as he applied the paste and let Loki's arm drop like it had burned him. "Turn around," he ordered next, and Loki did.

Even though it was no longer visible, Thor could still see the bruise in his mind's eye with sickening clarity. It was expansive, starting over his shoulder blade and ending at almost the center of his back, and a full handspan wide, if not more. The majority of the bruise had been a deep, near black purple in color, edged by blooming shades of cyan, indigo, sickly green, and scarlet. It looked angry even in his mind, but instead of the rage it might conjure in other circumstances, Thor only felt sick. He did that. He did that to his little brother. You don't know for sure, some part of him tried to wheedle out of the guilt, you don't know it was you—but Thor knew. "This might hurt," Thor said roughly, this time using four fingers to grab some of the paste, not two. He smeared it quickly over the pale expanse that had held the wound, trying to touch Loki as little as possible, trying to keep his touch gentle. From the way Loki twitched when he made contact, he didn't succeed. Was hurting his little brother, still.

The worst thing about the lack of the bruise was that without it as a distraction, the scars on Loki's body were all the more obvious. Thin, precise white lines littered his torso, along with sickly precise burn scars and, of course, the large, gnarled scar with its twin on his sternum. Thor tried not to think about them—when he did, the rage and guilt took over. At that moment in particular, that was the last thing Loki needed. Thor focused on his task.

"Done," he announced finally, with no small amount of relief. He re-corked the jar and handed it off to Loki, who made it vanish again, back to wherever he kept his things. That done, Loki sagged back against the pillows. Thor desperately hoped the gray tint to the trickster's skin was just in his imagination, or caused by the cool, natural light flooding in through the uncovered windows. "I'll go get you some water," Thor offered impulsively, jumping to his feet.

While he was digging through the cabinets in search of the cups, Thor was finally able to put a finger on what had been bothering him about that bruise—aside from, of course, that it happened at all. It looked fresh when he saw it. Not at all healed. In four hours, the bruise should have faded, even one that severe. Not only was Loki bruising easily, he wasn't healing right, either. Taking a deep breath, Thor shook his head to banish the rush of vertigo that came on the heels of that small revelation. He'd mention it to the healers later, if they hadn't already surmised. Right then, he was seeing after Loki. It could wait.

(What if it can't? What if he's dying?)

It could wait.

In case Loki had a headache, as Thor guess he might, he detoured to the bathroom to get a cool towel for his head. While he was there, he debated grabbing one of the Tylenol for Loki to take, but decided against it. He wasn't sure if giving Loki any medication would mess with the healer's tests—it was best not to mess with that.

"Here," Thor blurted the second he crossed the threshold, thrusting the water in his brother's direction like Loki's arms could extend all the way across the room to take it. He lowered the cup a bit and tried not to flush. Before he could say anything, Loki gingerly flipped himself to lay on his stomach, face hidden by the pillows so Thor couldn't get a look at his expression. To his private relief (and guilt at that relief) Loki had put his nightshirt back on, once again hiding his scars. "I'll just... put your water on the table. I got you a towel too, for your head."

"My headache isn't that bad," Loki said, voice muffled. He lifted his head and craned his neck around to give Thor a weak, watery smile.

So he does have a headache. Thor's returning smile was just as fragile. "Lie down again," he coaxed. "I bet that position hurts your back."

Loki turned back around, voice going muffled again. "You can leave now. I'm going to sleep. Very boring, I assure you."

”You don’t need anything?” Thor asked anxiously. “Some more blankets, or—“

”What I need,” Loki said, his voice taking an abrupt turn from quietly tired to distinctly crabby, “is to be left alone so I can sleep.”

Thor looked down at his toes. “You’re sure?” he said, trying not to shift uncomfortably in place. He knew what the answer would be, knew it probably would help Loki to be given some quiet to rest, and hopefully begin to heal—but logic didn’t change the visceral, fearful chill that went up his spine to curl around his heart when he thought of leaving Loki alone.

As if he’d sensed Thor’s thoughts, Loki sighed, exhaustion once more seeping into his voice. “You know Stark’s AI is watching me every second I’m within its view, and alerts him of my every doing. If something drastic happens, I’m sure he’ll call you. If Heimdall doesn't, of course.”

Thor forced a chuckle. “Alright. Sleep well, Loki. I’ll be back later.” He shut the door, and tried to pretend like he wouldn’t worry every second they were apart, anyway.

Chapter Text

Loki picked aimlessly at the salad in front of him, ignoring Thor’s worried scrutiny. They were eating lunch somewhat early—eleven o clock—in anticipation of the arrival of the wizard, Barton, and another man that Stark had finally told them was called Lang. Even though Bruce had given him the okay to be up and about the day before, it took a lot of convincing before Thor allowed him out of bed for dinner, and the same struggle had been repeated that morning. "I'm going to get dressed," Loki declared to a silent room, setting down his fork and rising to his feet. “Thor, I suggest you do the same.”

"Okay," Thor agreed, like he hadn't actually heard what Loki had said, which was a distinct possibility. He clenched his jaw in a way that meant he was about to say something stupid, so Loki hurried to the bedroom before he could open his mouth. Door safely shut behind him, and with no more risk of Thor's fussing, Loki sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose. He stalked to the wardrobe and threw the doors open, inhaling harshly. Loki gnawed absently on his lip as he studied his choices—did he go for a Midgardian style, or something more formal and Asgardian?

A few minutes of deliberation passed before Loki made up his mind. Earth fashion would be less intimidating, and hopefully allow him to seem somewhat less 'other' to the humans. His armor would give the impression that he was gearing for a fight. Of course, he was, but that was the last thing Loki wanted to project. Likely, it would also bring up memories for everyone involved in the ill-fated invasion of New York. Yes, Earth fashion was by far the preferable choice. In any case, Thor was sure to prefer human clothes, and Loki would look quite odd as the only one dressed in Asgardian armor even if every other factor in his decision was negligible. He was bound to be the bilgesnipe in the bar no matter what he did, no need to add bells and tinsel and a glaring sign screaming 'look at me!' The only worse choice he could make would be to wear his helmet.

Still, his choice still left Loki with the question of what exactly to wear. Something impressive, projecting confidence without being overly showy, but what beyond that? Loki's first selection was a loose-fitting, long-sleeved shirt of deep emerald silk, just shy of iridescent in the right light. Silver embroidery partially reminiscent of norse knotwork framed the neck and the subtly flared wrists, delicate enough that unless caught by the light, the details were invisible. A pair of looser jet-black pants were chosen next, and short, equally dark leather boots bearing night invisible heels. Adding a touch of height never hurt when a confrontation was imminent—and if there was one thing Loki knew for certain, it was that a confrontation was headed directly for him, drawing nearer and nearer with every second passed.

A heavy scarf toeing the narrow line between deep silver and black was the last thing Loki selected, and he headed for the bathroom with his clothing, hurrying through the main room and blatantly ignoring Thor when he called out. In the shower, he took extra time with both the body wash and shampoo, washing his hair no less than three times and conditioning twice. Stepping out of the shower while wrapping a towel round his waist, Loki caught sight of himself in the mirror and quickly glanced away, trying not to remember the expression on Thor's face when he applied that healing salve the night before. He had no desire to see more of that kicked puppy look on his older brother’s face, even in memory.

Loki dressed swiftly, deliberately turned away from the mirror as he did. His relationship with his own reflection had always been complicated. Learning what lurked underneath pale skin and verdigris eyes made it impossibly worse, as did the elaborate, ugly picture painted by his scars. Mirrors were not friends of his. Not in the slightest.

Once he was dressed, however, Loki had no choice but to turn his attention to the mirror. While Thor liked doing his hair (it was about time he started growing his out instead of commandeering Loki’s) he still preferred doing it himself, and unfortunately a mirror was required. A touch of magic dried his hair thoroughly from inside out, leaving it ridiculously fluffy and no less tangled. The silvertongue swayed on his feet and hurried to take a seat on the toilet, breathing slightly labored.

Loki kept up a soft mental litany of curse words until his breathing steadied again, brushing his hair out all the while. With the knots all worked out and his breathing back under control, he returned to the mirror. He gathered up his hair in one hand and conjured up a hair tie that matched the exact shade of his raven locks with the other. Seconds later, the dizziness reasserted itself, and after quickly conjuring a clip to keep his hair up, had to sink down to the ground and put his head between his knees. Another development, he thought wryly to himself, swallowing hard at the sour taste of bile budding on the back of his tongue. He alternated rubbing one wrist with the thumb of his other hand for a few minutes—they’d begun to ache again. A quiet cough did nothing to clear the pressure in his lungs, nor the creeping soreness.

”Loki?”

Loki bit his tongue to silence the sigh that tried to slip free, grabbing onto the edge of the counter to haul himself upright. “What?” he snapped, not in the least attempting to hide his irritation.

”Are you okay?”

”Don’t you have better things to do than bother me, Thor?” he yelled, crossing his eyes and pulling a face in the mirror. “I told you I’m getting dressed—shouldn’t you be, too?”

”Okay. You sure you’re al—“ Loki screeched like a wet cat and Thor went quiet. “Sorry. I’m going.”

”Good,” Loki muttered fervently to himself. Bracing his hands on the counter, he shook his head and breathed deeply through his nose. Thor didn’t deserve his anger, he tried to convince himself. He was only concerned. But, after the last week, it was hard to feel anything outside of stifled. A loose fist rubbed circles into his sternum as he worked on breathing evenly. 

When he was calm enough to focus again, Loki unclipped his hair and got to work. He went simple, piling most of it up at the back of his head in an artfully messy bun, leaving a few pencil-thin curls to frame his face. Certainly not going to evoke any memories of his hairstyle during the invasion, and also hopefully dignified while being further disarming. Hair done to his satisfaction, Loki scrutinized himself in the mirror with narrowed eyes. Something was missing. He looped the scarf once, snug around his neck, and let the rest trail down his back. While the effect pleased him, it still didn't seem complete. Disarming, yes. Confident, yes. Dignified, yes. But royal? No. Loki harrumphed, tipping his head from side to side like getting a different angle might fix the problem. Abruptly, he had it.

With a snap of his fingers,  a black leather case with decorative silver clasps shimmered into being on the counter. Loki doubled over with a frustrated (and somewhat pained) hiss as his legs shook, and had to lower himself back down to the floor, seeing as gravity had suddenly decided to become a lot more convincing. The aching, both in his wrists and chest, was still just as persistent, if not more so. "I'll just stay on the floor then," he grumbled to himself, half rising long enough to snag the case and bring it down to the floor with him. Crossing his legs, Loki undid the clasps and flipped open the top of his case, revealing a dazzling array of the jewelry he'd collected over the years in a case much bigger than its physical boundaries. He dismissed anything too gaudy or bright out of hand—he was going for elegant, not flashy.

Loki dropped a medium-thick silver chain over his neck, and a much thinner chain in gunmetal gray he looped twice so it wouldn't hang too low. A good base, but a centerpiece was needed. Something simple and yet eye-catching. The trickster toyed with a chain of white-gold peppered with black pearls and chips of smokey quartz, comparing it to a sleek leather cord strung with polished beads of jade, before he spotted it. Right away, Loki knew it was what he was looking for. A long silver chain supported a pendant of jagged onyx, coated in a slight gloss and framed on each side by a pair of iridescent beads, gray in color but with a shimmer like an oil slick. Loki dropped it over his head, shut the case, and banished it.

When he managed to haul himself to his feet a few minutes later, Loki gave himself a considering once-over. He looked regal, he decided. Regal, confident, and powerful, but also unconcerned. Relaxed. Sure of himself. Just as he'd wanted. The image was complete.

If his legs weren't so heavy, Loki would have all but floated out of the bathroom. As it was, he was pleased enough that Thor's fussing didn't bother him. Much. His older brother had dressed while he was getting ready, going for simple jeans and a red t-shirt, to Loki's mild exasperation. To his absolute surprise, Brunn had dug up and clambered back into her Valkyrie armor—even the cape. Her hair was held back in the ponytail twist she favored rather than flowing free, but the effect was no less intimidating. Especially since she'd added a vertical stripe of white war paint, in a series of hollow diamond shapes that began under her left eyebrow and ended level with her top lip. "Impressive," he told her as he made for the couch.

Her lips twitched. "You don't clean up so bad yourself, highness. Fancier than your usual look. How's the back?"

"It was healed yesterday," Loki dismissed. It still ached, but as long as he didn't stretch too far or move too rapidly, the pain was hardly more than mental white noise. He let himself slump against the side of the couch and absently rubbed his wrists again, attempting to massage out the ache.

"Clint Barton and Scott Lang have arrived," FRIDAY announced, thoroughly startling everyone in the room.

Loki nearly jumped out of his skin, only to shake his head and laugh weakly. "Just in time, then," he remarked, planting one hand on the armrest of the couch to push himself up, and waving off Thor's offered assistance. "Where are we meeting them?" Calm, he told himself. Confident.

"Boss is bringing them to the Avengers' common area. He requests you meet him there."

Nodding in acknowledgment (and feeling idiotic a moment later), Loki made for the stairs. Thor half jogged to meet him at his elbow, heaving hardly an inch of space between the two of them. The trickster pointedly ignored his not in the least subtle hovering as he made his way down the stairs. He rolled his shoulders and refused to wince, in an also less than subtle pointed gesture. "Where's Bruce," Loki thought to ask once they were halfway down the steps.

"With Stark," Thor answered quickly, "greeting the others."

Loki dipped his head absently and picked up the pace. On the last step, his ankle slipped, and he pitched forward. Thor caught him by the elbow and steadied him. "Thanks," Loki muttered grudgingly, hurrying forward so the thunderer couldn't see the pink tint to his cheeks. He blamed the heels. Apparently even a quarter-inch was enough to throw off his balance. "Let's get on with it, then."

Loki leaned back in the seat he'd claimed—off-center, but with a line of sight to all entrances—and crossed his legs at the ankle. He curled his hands into fists, to curb the impulse to wring them together or play with the hem of his shirt. His aim was to appear casual and calm, neither of which would be projected by fiddling. Though fists didn't project calm either. Thor set a hand on his elbow and his grip spasmed, nails digging momentarily into the meat of his palms before he managed to relax again.

"Are you going to be okay?" Thor asked quietly, having wandered over from the corner of the room (where Loki would prefer he stayed) to stand at Loki's side.

Loki scoffed, turning his head just enough to glare at his brother. "For the last time, I don't need your coddling—"

"With Barton," Thor said over him. "I meant... with seeing Barton."

"My point still stands." Lips pinched together in a facsimile of a grin, and one raven eyebrow rose. "Shouldn't you be worried about him? He's your friend, your shield brother, after all, and I the one who betrayed you and violated his will." Loki pressed his lips together again and swallowed hard. Hearing the words aloud made him sick to his stomach. Monster, his mind supplied helpfully. I know, Loki thought back. He swallowed again, blinking rapidly. Through carefully even breaths, he reminded himself of glowing blue eyes, of blood spilled and debts owed and vengeance deserved. Forgetting where he stood would do him no good in the coming battle—of words and wit, if not physically. Loki detested naivete, in himself most of all. Facing things as they were, without any sugarcoating, was the best possible course, always.

"It wasn't your fault," Thor said. Loki snorted, about to respond, but Thor went on, having spouted his token platitude. "It's okay to be nervous. But it's going to be alright."

"I'm not nervous," Loki denied sharply. A blatant lie, and undoubtedly Thor knew it. For a bitter moment, he hated Thor, and his new ability to discern what Loki was feeling at the absolute most inconvenient of times.

"No?" That time, it was Thor's turn to raise an eyebrow. "You went through all this effort to dress this morning. You only do that when there's someone you want to impress or intimidate. Or both." He smiled softly, reaching over to pluck at the shard of onyx that dangled from Loki's neck, running a thumb over the glossy surface of the stone. "You've never been one for jewelry, brother. Scarves, yes, but not jewelry. Not unless it's for a reason. It's really not hard to guess."

Ducking his head like it would disguise the furious blush spreading across his face, Loki grumbled his response towards his lap. "One of us has to look like royalty, and it's clearly not going to be you. I'm only picking up the slack." Thor patted him lightly on the elbow and drew back, only to plop down into the seat next to him and sprawl like he was never going to move again. Sourly, Loki envied his easy confidence, an aura he still had yet to project. He realized his hands were twisting together and pried them apart with a soundless growl.

The soft clinking of Brunn's armor as she shifted drew Loki's attention to her, and away from his thoughts, so he welcomed the diversion. She had taken up a position in the wide doorway separating lab from living space, with a direct sightline through to the entrance to the semi-underground common area. One hand rested on her sword at her hip, and her features were highlighted by the sunlight streaming in through the expansive skylight that was the lab's roof. Her expression was a curious one. Protective, Loki might call it if he was anyone other than himself.

He heard them before he saw them. Footsteps, and then a pair of feet on the stairs. Feet that turned to legs that turned to Stark, and the next to appear behind him was Barton. For a minute, Loki stopped breathing. He made himself start again with a harsh, grating inhale, forcibly pulling in air before he was able to settle into a more natural breathing pattern. He was sitting at an angle. Not in front of the doors. It would have hidden him, had the walls not all been made of glass. They couldn't make him out at that distance, not yet, not Midgardians—unless they were the famed Hawkeye. Loki gave up and started pulling at the fingers of his left hand with his right, so he wouldn't scramble up and attempt to hide behind the chairs like a child diving under the covers, thinking that would fool all the monsters that lurked in the dark. Loki himself had been one of those children. He wished he could go back and tell himself—he had nothing to fear from the monsters, for he was one in kind. Hiding wouldn't conceal him, anyway, not then nor now. Why was he so afraid? Loki chided himself derisively. It wasn't like the man could hurt him. He didn't care what the hawk thought of him.

Thor's hand was on his elbow again. Loki shrugged him off. Stark and his entourage were coming in through the doors at the far end of the long row of rooms. As he expected, Barton's eyes found his instantly, and his expression darkened just as fast. His walk was slow, measured, in the way that a predator's was. A hawk circling, preparing to dive. He tried to turn his eyes away, to find a less hostile face in the approaching thunderhead, only to see the mind stone was with them, and somehow he hadn't ye noticed. Bile rose in his throat, and he shuddered. He breathed through his nose with eyes closed until the urge to be sick abated. When he opened them again, Barton was right there, passing in through the doorway. Loki gripped the edges of his seat, knuckles going white, so he wouldn't jump.

"Explain why I shouldn't kill him right now," The man said flatly. No one had to ask who he was talking about. His words were addressed to someone else—Stark, or maybe even Thor—but that marksman's steady, assessing gaze was only for Loki, hate burning bright within those cool depths. Loki stared right back, let himself be plunged into the simultaneously burning and freezing abyss, some secret masochistic part of himself relishing in the way it hurt. Hatred shone upon him like unfiltered starlight, and Loki was without shade. When he took a breath, the air seemed to burn like acid in his lungs. He held it, not exhaling, letting the burning sensation build. The cloying power of the mind stone made everything seem like a sick sort of fever dream. Loki certainly felt sweaty, shaky, and achey enough for that to be true.

"I'll give you a reason," Brunnhilde cut open. Loki had to lock his jaw so it wouldn't fall open. "I'll kill you first if you make a move." Her tone wasn't one of rage. It was a promise, cool and sharp. A verbal executioner's axe, poised for the swing. If Loki could reach out and touch her words like a physical thing, he thought they would draw blood. 

He exhaled again in the wake of her vow, letting the air flood out of his lungs and easing the pressure, the burn, if not the dull ache. It wasn't worded like a vow, but it was one, of that he was certain. The knowledge warmed something inside of him, blissfully, addictively sweet, and as he hated himself for it he also closed his eyes to savor it, tongue darting out to swipe his lips. It nearly surprised him when there was no taste of sugar. Her words, her promise, the sharpened edge of the most finely honed knife, held ready in his defense. The Valkyrior had once lived and died in the service of the throne, until they had all died and not lived. All but one, the one who stood before him now, with all the glory of her sisters riding her shoulders like an invisible train, a bride's wedding veil or a thief's cloak. The carrier of a legacy. A bitter duty, but one she wore well. The legends of old—of those valient sisters dying for their land, their people, and their rulers—seemed not so distant, and in the quiet of his mind, Loki was awed. 

"Dosen't convince me," Barton said, and Loki opened his eyes again, dismissing fancy. Back to reality it was. "Sacrificing myself to do the universe a service. Isn't that what they do in the storybooks?" Something bubbled up in Loki's stomach at the words that so echoed his thoughts, though he couldn't tell whether it was laughter or sick and wouldn't unless he let it come up. Still so calm, the hawk was. Loki wished he would rage. Get it over with. Gooseflesh prickled his arms.

"You would never get that close," Brunn said. Her hand was no longer simply touching her sword—it was wrapped around the hilt instead.

"We need him." Loki bit his tongue so his jaw wouldn't drop. Stark. Stark was defending him. "What he knows... we need it. To kill this big bad. We've got nothing else, no other option, no other play. Just him."

The hawk furrowed his brow. "Better. Still not convinced, but I'll let him live. For now." He took a seat, never taking his eyes from Loki. The mischief-maker could feel it, even when he himself looked away.

Could he even kill me? Loki wondered. Asgardians (Jotnar) were sturdy. He dismissed the question easily. Barton would find a way, even if he wasn't so inexplicably weakened. Hate was a good motivator like that. Loki continued to bite down on his tongue until blood sprung, trying to steady himself, only to be hit with instant regret. The taste of blood in his mouth and the mind stone so, so close, the world seemed to fade out, to dance and swim and reform before his eyes, Sanctuary flashing and then fading away. Loki was left dizzy and panting harshly, scrambled and strained and unable to hide his distress. So much for composure and calm, though really, that had been out the window even before Barton was in view. Loki blinked rapidly, trying to focus on the reality in front of him. The task seemed impossibly difficult.

"Breathe," Thor whispered, squeezing his shoulder.

"Wow, you're Thor." The star-struck tone yanked Loki right back to the real world—and also instinctively ignited his ire. The man who'd spoken was unfamiliar. Scott Lang, then, Loki surmised, squinting. The worshipful look on his face was one Loki had seen thousands of times before, in regards to his brother. "Hi, I'm uh—I'm Scott. Lang. Ant Man. You heard of me?"

"Ant Man?" Bruce muttered. "Ant Man? Like Hank Pym Ant Man?"

Lang nodded convulsively. "Yeah, he made the suit. Oh, wow, and you're the Hulk! The Hulk knows Ant Man!"

Loki bit down on his lip, hard, as the doctor ducked his head. "Something like that," he muttered. Across the room, Brunn's gaze had narrowed in on the human, and it wasn't friendly.

"Actually, he's Bruce Banner. He and the Hulk just happen to share a body."

"Like multiple personalities or something? Oh, sorry, that's probably an invasive question. Still, that's cool. I don't really understand it but Hank has said good things about your work, Doctor Banner." The man spun around. "Oh, wow, you're scary. Are you an Avenger?"

Brunn snorted. "Definitely not."

"Okay then. Um, why are we here?" Why am I here, was the implicit question behind the human's words. Loki wondered the same, both on the count of the 'Ant Man' and himself.

"The end of the universe is at hand," Thor said ominously. Loki rolled his eyes, sorely tempted to hit him for the dramatics, and for how it eased a bit of the tension in his bones.

"Gee, that's not terrifying at all!" Lang exclaimed. "I, uh... and you want me? To help? I don't know man, I mean, really, I'm flattered, but I'm just a dude who has a suit I didn't even make. I don't know how good I'd be at... stopping the end of the universe, man, isn't that more of a job for the Avengers?"

"It's the end of the universe," Stark cut in, gesturing for the man to take a seat. "We need as many hands on deck as we can get."

"Iron Man needs my help," Lang whispered, eyes wide, as he sat down. Stark, Rhodes, Bruce, and the mind stone sat as well, leaving Brunnhilde the only one standing. "You gonna sit?" Lang asked her, craning his neck to see her face.

"No," she said simply.

"Where's the wizard?" Loki made himself ask. If they were going to talk about this, then he wasn't going to be repeating anything, and certainly not for the benefit of that odious, self-aggrandizing sorcerer-wannabe.

"He should be here any time now," Thor said. "I showed him a picture of this room—he said that was all he needed. And I told him to come at noon."

Almost as one, everyone in the room glanced at the clock. "It's twelve o six," Lang announced unnecessarily, turning back to face the rest of the group.

"Probably making us wait," Loki mumbled, mostly to himself and partly to Thor. Thor sighed, but didn't disagree.

An uncomfortable silence commenced. Loki kept his eyes on his feet, pretending not to notice Barton's continued glaring. "Wait," Lang said, "Wizard?"

"Yes," Bruce said, "apparently."

"Like this?" the man flicked his hand once, twice, thrice, and the third time there was a playing card in it.

"Stop talking," Loki snapped. "Just... stop talking." The man's chipper, good-hearted innocence was giving him a headache. Maybe he just had a headache. 

"But really, I want to know," Lang pressed.

"Come get me when the wizard arrives," Loki said curtly, rising to his feet. "I'll be outside." He left at a quick clip, a not-quite run, but certainly on the edge of one. The eyes of everyone in the room behind him burned into and through him like the concentrated blasts of pulse rifles, spurring him on just as ardently as if there were actual pulse rifles trained on his back. Whether hostile or not, the attention, the judgement, wasn't something he wanted when he was fleeing from a harmless Midgardian because he was asking too many questions and otherwise being a minor nuisance. His heart hammered in his ears as he scaled the steps, and by the time Loki was sinking down to sit on the edge of a low wall, he was gasping for breath. Eyes streaming, Loki was pitifully relieved to be alone, with no one to see how humiliatingly laboured his breathing was after crossing a few rooms and going up a flight of stairs. It's fine, he told himself. Breathe. One hand lifted to rub up and down his sternum as he pulled in air. The light weave of the shirt he wore allowed him uncomfortable awareness of the scar right there, hidden from sight under the cloth but more than evident to the touch. Every dip and raise, a topographical map of his almost-death at the hands of a Kursed dark elf. A sob bubbled low in his throat, and his shoulders trembled.

Biting down on his lip, Loki ripped his necklaces up over his head and let them slip through his fingers to slither to the ground, and unwound his scarf his hasty, shaking hands. "Stupid," he hissed, banishing the lot. Just in time, it seemed, since he grew lightheaded only moments later. Dark spots popped at the fringes of his vision, the courtyard starting to blur. Splaying one hand over his cheat (his scar) and gasping inefficiently for air, Loki leaned forward, tucking his head between his knees. The hand that was free clenched on the edge of the wall until his knuckles whitened and his grip shook. "Stupid, stupid, stupid!" Loki bit out between gasps. He dug his teeth into his lip again, but a second too late to stop a sob from crawling out of his throat, anyway.

Peeling his hand away from his sternum, Loki fisted it in his hair at the root, wrapping the inky strands around his fingers and tugging harshly. His other hand spasmed in its grip on the edge of the wall. Loki forcibly slowed his breaths, trying to shake off the vertigo. In. Out. In. Out. He still didn't feel like he was getting any air, his lungs drawing in half capacity (if that), but he continued to keep the rhythm. The black spots began to clear. Loki stared intently at the toes of his boots and focused on nothing but his breathing.

"Loki? Are you alright?"

Loki started, a hiss escaping. "Why are you here," he demanded roughly.

Thor's voice was unusually, aggravatingly soft. "If you don't want to—"

"Stop!" Loki snapped, his voice at least an octave higher than normal. "Just.. stop." With effort, he managed to let go of his death grip on the wall, and untangle his other hand from his hair, at which point he made himself look up. Loki snarled. "Don't... look at me like that!"

"Like what?"

"Like that!" Loki screeched. He dropped his head forward again and shut his eyes, breathing heavily through his nose. "Is the wizard here yet?"

"I just thought—"

"Then go away." His anger was rising, and Loki gritted his teeth against it.

"Loki." Thor's voice was stern. Commanding. Against his will, Loki fell silent. "Brother. Please. I just want to be sure you're alright. I know this is difficult—"

A wild laugh burst out of Loki's mouth, high and harsh and hysterical. He shuddered under the weight of it, ire rising until he could hardly think around the pulse of blood in his ears. "Save your pity," Loki snarled, lifting his head to glare. "Don't treat me like some fragile, helpless thing. Stop trying to... to protect me from everything, because you can't, and I don't want you to. I can handle it. I just," and the rage drained away, as quickly as it had come. "I need a minute. Alone. Please."

Thor sighed, hesitance skittering over his features. "You know you can come to me... right? If there's ever anything you want to talk about, you can tell me. I promise."

Ordinarily, perhaps, the words would have thrown him directly back into a rage. At the moment, Loki was only tired. His emotions were changing rapidly, bouncing from anger to exhaustion to despair and back again like a particularly devious, mental carnival ride. He hardly knew what he felt, anymore. "Leave, Thor." Loki's exhale shuddered audible, and he curled further in on himself, burying his face in his hands. "Please," he enunciated carefully. The alternative was a screaming meltdown.

"I... the wizard is here. I came up to get you."

Loki nearly laughed. At the same time, tears welled up in his eyes, and something in his chest twisted violently. "And not to tell me that, what, I could go back to bed? You could handle it? It's fine," he continued quickly, not giving Thor a chance to cut in, "it's fine. Let's go, then." He started to wobble his way upright, pushing through the yet-persisting dizziness. Thor didn't move, but for the furrow that formed between his eyebrows.

"He can wait. He was the one who was late in the first place. I'm not going to try and keep you out of this," Thor placating, raising his hands and taking a half step back when Loki hissed at him. "But you said you needed a minute. Take a minute. He can wait."

Blinking once, twice, Loki shook his head. He's treating you like a child, like you're broken and frail, a dark voice hissed. And am I not? Loki countered it, bleakly. His stomach lurched at the thought. Thor had reason to fuss after all, didn't he? Much as Loki was trying to ignore it. "Thank you," he half-croaked, sinking back down again.

Thor nodded, smiling tremulously. "Take as long as you need."

Inhaling through his nose, Loki breathed out slowly and tried not to think. He focused on nothing but his breathing. Let the thoughts wash away, let his heartbeat slow, allow the diziness to pass. Gather back up his courage, at the very least a veneer of serenity, and then face the wizard. His lack-of-thought was interrupted by a soft whoosh.

Loki knew what he would see before he spotted it, lifting his head out of his hands to look around blearily. In the air slightly to the left of his elder brother, brilliant orange sparks spun outward in a steadily growing wheel, the center of which blurred and warped the scenery behind it. When it reached about the size of a standard doorway, the portal cleared to reveal the downstairs seating area and the rest of their little Thanos-killing powwow. "You coming?" the wizard asked loftily, one eyebrow raised. Same condescending expression, same fancy scarlet cloak, same navy blue robes. Same time stone hanging innocently around his neck, nestled in quite possibly the gaudiest, most overblown pendant Loki had ever seen.

Loki didn't try to fight the scowl that morphed his face. "You most certainly take your time, wizard." He expected a jab back, some entitled, self-aggrandizing sneer from the wizard. It was a shock to him, then, when the wizard's face morphed to one of utter bafflement. The human stepped through the portal, and it snapped shut behind him with a fizzle.

"What did you do," the man muttered, stalking closer and peering intently at Loki. Or, rather, through him. His face had gone odd. As though he had seen a ghost—but a particularly puzzling one.

"Is there something on my face?" Loki half-joked, narrowing his eyes at the wizard and staring right back. He fought the urge to squirm backward, but there was nowhere to retreat to, so he got to his feet instead. Having a higher vantage than the wizard made him feel better, if only marginally, but his heart still fluttered rapidly in his chest.

Thor, the blessed idiot, chose that moment to break in, in all his menacing, thunderously protective glory. "What do you think you're doing," he rumbled threateningly, a note of danger well hidden in his voice. Catching the wizard by the arm, Thor pulled him to a sudden halt.

"Me?" The wizard's face twisted with affront. "I'm just trying to figure out what he did!" His voice was incredulous and accusing both.

I didn't do it, Loki nearly blurted, like he was a schoolchild again, ready to confess to any manner of ill deeds, real or not, at the first sign of disapproval in any authority figure. Long gone were the days when everything he thought or did was painted clearly on his face, as glaringly obvious as Asgard's great golden castle, and yet, the instinct to confess rose in him all the same. His thoughts raced, trying to discern what he could have done to make the wizard look at him that way. Like he was a freak. A monster? Loki's heart sank, choking, bitter disappointment causing wet to prickle in his eyes. Oh. Oh. It wasn't anything new, then. Funny, and he'd thought Barton would be the biggest problem that day. Should have accounted for the wizard. He had seemed terribly self-righteous during their first, sort-of meeting. Then, something in the wording belatedly caught his notice. Trying to figure out, Loki mouthed. Was this not about New York? What else could it be?

Meanwhile, Thor and the wizard had gotten in each other's faces. "I don't know what you're on about," the thunderer growled, "but I'd ask you not to harras my brother, or we're going to have a problem." As if echoing him, clouds started to form in the sky that had been cloudless mere moments before.

The wizard shrugged Thor's grip (or rather, Thor let him go, otherwise he would have shattered his own arm trying) and threw his hands up, his cloak flaring simultaneously. "I'm not harassing him, I'm trying to figure out what could have possibly happened."

"No?" Thor folded his arms and loomed. "See, from where I'm standing it looks an awful lot like harassment."

"An explanation would be nice," the human grumbled, turning his attention back to Loki. Thor stepped between them. "Really, is that much to ask? How powerful an artifact is the Eternal Flame?"

Suspicion rose in Loki’s chest. "And why would you need to know that?" the silvertongue purred, stepping to the side in order to see around his brother’s bulk.

"Or was it an infinity stone?" the wizard rambled on, as if he hadn’t heard Loki at all. Again, Thor stepped between them. Loki moved to the side again.

"I think you need to leave. Now. Stark can always brief you later," Thor put his hand on the wizard’s shoulder and squeezed. It looked like a friendly gesture, but Loki had no doubt in the slightest that it would bruise.

The wizard didn’t flinch. "Is simple curiosity a punishable offense on Asgard?"

"Simple curiosity." Thor barked a laugh, discordant and dangerous. He had yet to let go of the wizard. "Is that what you call inquiring after our most powerful and deadly artifacts, and accosting my brother, the crown prince of Asgard?"

"Is it really so hard to believe that when someone’s aura changes so drastically I’d want an explanation?"

Loki blinked. What?

The wizard’s frown slowly moved from incensed to confounded as he looked back and forth between the brothers. "Do you... not know?"

"Know what?" Thor leaned in, still holding onto the wizard’s shoulder—a minor part of Loki was impressed, likely the man had a fracture or two in his shoulder at that point—until their faces were mere inches apart. "Speak plainly, before I lose any more of my patience."

"Your brother's aura has changed. Drastically. How could you not know?"

"Different how?" Loki demanded. His heart thudded dully in his chest, and the tips of his fingers tingled. He locked his knees rather than lose his balance and topple to the ground. "What changed?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out," the wizard snapped, still obviously stung. Loki couldn't—well, shouldn't—fault him for being irritated at being given the third degree by Thor if he truly was only curious, but he still bristled slightly at the tone. "If you would let me," he finished.

"Fine." Nerves bubbled in his stomach, but Loki still managed a wide smile, spreading his arms. "Then figure it out." What am I not seeing, he demanded mentally. A curse? Some damage left behind by summoning Surtur? A latent effect of holding the Tesseract in my dimensional pocket? What?! 

"Loki—" Thor began.

"Shut it," he snarled. I need to know. "Wizard?"

The man didn't seem to hear, again staring through rather than at the trickster.

A minute passed, as Loki's shoulders drew tighter and tighter until he was nearly vibrating with tension. "Well?" he demanded the minute the human's eyes focused on him.

"The majority of your life force is gone," the wizard informed him without preamble. 

Loki's stomach sank. "Ah." That would explain it, then. He stumbled back a few steps and, had he not run up against the wall, would have fallen to the ground when his knees buckled. As it was, he sat down hard and nearly overbalanced. Would have, had Thor not lunged to snag him by the arm. The moment he felt steady enough, Loki shook him off and turned back to the wizard. "Well then."

Thunder cracked in the sky above. "I don't know what your game is," Thor growled, as threatening as Loki had ever heard him, his voice all but crawling with threat, "but I'm done with it. Get out of my sight before I do something you'll regret."

"Thor." Loki waited in silence until his brother, still near glued to his side, turned to face him. He met Thor's eye. "It explains... everything."

Thor was already shaking his head, frantically. "He's lying, Loki."

"Is he really, brother?"

"Yes!" Expression softening, Thor reached towards him. Loki flinched away, and his face fell as his hand dropped. "Brother," Thor whispered, "I don't know what he's up to, but he's lying. I'm sure of it."

"Thor," Loki responded slowly, as gently as he could manage with his mind racing at the pace it was, revaluating the past few days, months, weeks, trying to guess when this could possibly have occurred. If it had. "Do you really think that? Or do you want to think that." Stricken, Thor stumbled back. Loki's heart dropped, but he soldiered on. "You know it makes sense."

"No." Once again rapidly shaking his head, Thor set his hand on Loki's shoulder. "No," he repeated, voice wavering just the slightest bit, "it doesn't. I won't... I can't... I won't lose you. Not again. Not again, Loki." He stood from his crouch and spun to face the wizard as another boom of thunder shook the air, and lightning flashed low and ice blue in the belly of the clouds. "How dare you."

"Thor!" This was getting out of hand. Quickly. And loathe though Loki was to defend the wizard, nothing good would come of Thor frying him to a crisp. At the very least, his Avenger friends would be angry (and blame Loki). "Calm down. Let me confirm or deny what he said before you go barbecuing the wizard. Frying someone alive isn't the sort of thing you can just take back, brother. Don't be so hasty."

"I can't believe I'm agreeing with him, but yes, please," the Midgardian drawled. He held himself loose, hands up—ready to dodge, hands poised to cast. Perhaps he wouldn't be taken down so easily, but a fight between him and Thor would really be no better. "I find I prefer myself not charred to a crisp."

A growl, long and low and primal, issued from Thor's throat, and his hands curled into fists. "Fine," he bit out. "I suppose I can wait."

Loki silenced a sigh born of both exasperation and relief, and turned his attention inwards as his heart fluttered wildly. This is why... a traitorous part of him began. Loki silenced it ruthlessly. I don't know for sure. Not yet, he reminded himself. Still, his heartbeat echoed in his ears, and his hands trembled the slightest bit when he folded them together in his lap. He found his seidr first, as always. From the time he was a very young child he was taught to find his seidr, in order to harness and direct and nurture it into flourishing, like a gardener with his shears slowly guiding his plants to grow into the proper shape. It was instinct now, as it was in any mage worth their salt. He had a constant awareness of it, able to call on his power quickly without needing to dig inside himself to find it. But it was still good to look deeper from time to time. To delve into the core of his power, rather than skimming on the surface for easy, day-to-day spellwork. As a plant needed constant pruning, so did seidr need gentle upkeep. He'd internalized a good deal of his mother's gardening metaphors, Loki realized with a pang. He let the thought go swiftly—his intent wasn't to fall into the waiting well of grief that dogged his heels. Loki pushed forward.

The next lesson he learned as a boy, after how to find his power, was how to shut it out, or dim his awareness to it. Seidr was... entrancing. Captivating. The allure of it was a tricky thing, at times. A mage had to know how to let it fade from their focus, lest it steal all their attention. Loki had been told no few horror stories of untrained mages drowning in their own power. The first step of protecting oneself from such a fate was learning how to close off their mind to it entirely. Doing so allowed Loki to look closer at things the dazzling maelstrom might cover over in its brilliance. Things such as his life force.

The minute Loki closed off his awareness to his seidr, he jolted in shock. The wizard was right. Not that he'd doubted it, not truly, however much he'd wished to, but it was still a shock. He could see it, now. An absence in him. A hole. He hadn't known because he hadn't looked, but it was plain to see the moment he did. "Oh," Loki said faintly, again.

"What, what's wrong?" Thor demanded, right in Loki's face. He planted his hands on the younger Odinson's shoulders and rattled him back and forth. "What's going on?!"

"The wizard wasn't wrong," Loki murmured, a touch of wry amusement that almost felt like despair tugging the edge of his lip. Thor started to say something, demand something, but he closed his eyes, turning his attention back inwards. There was an absence of life force, yes. The question now was why. He had thought, upon circling the edges of that jarringly hollow place inside of him, it echoed of something familiar, in a half-dreamed way. Loki stretched out a mental hand, ghosting over the space where something should have been, but wasn't. The echo it left behind was indeed familiar, but not of himself. When he reached toward his remaining life force, it felt like him. The essence of himself, in the same way his seidr was, and yet a different flavor. Brushing up against it, his mind filled with ravencurlsslenderhandssearchingmindemeraldpower and Loki pulled back before he was overwhelmed by the consuming sense of self pouring directly into the forefront of his awareness.

Again, Loki reached for the empty space. What are you? he asked it. The echo answered him with images that filled up everything behind his eyes—mountain peaks and ice shelves, biting gales and gentle snows, colors he didn't have the words for and creatures he had never seen, and above all the slow, steady pounding of an ancient heart. In that moment, he understood. Blue people with scarlet eyes crowed for space in Loki's skull with all-encompassing cold and that constant heartbeat that grew louder and louder and louder until it drowned everything else out. The whole of Jotunheim—every mountain, crag, and frozen lake, every silvery tree and critter large and small, and the tall sapphire inhabitants above all—filling every inch of his mind, Loki fainted dead away.

Chapter Text

When Loki fainted, his words were still echoing in Thor's ears. So consumed by them, Thor almost didn't notice. The wizard wasn't wrong, Loki had claimed. But he had to be mistaken. He had to be. The alternative was too terrible to think about. That was when his brain caught up with the present moment, enough to realize that Loki was tipping backwards, and Thor lunged to grab him before he tumbled off the wall entirely and into the garden below.

"Loki?" Thor sank down to the ground and pulled his half over his lap, wizard forgotten. "Brother? What's wrong? Tell me what's wrong, brother." Please talk to me Loki, please. "Loki? What hurts? What do you need?"

"Thor," the wizard said, sounding condescending pitying to the thunderer's ears, "he's out cold."

"Shut up," Thor snarled. He stared into Loki's face, nausea swirling deep in his gut. Fear made his tongue heavy, his throat tight. "Loki, look at me," he managed to plead demand anyway, if haltingly. "Come on, little brother. Look at me. Look at me." His breath caught, and he searched frantically for Loki's pulse. Thor's fingers turned into bumbling logs, stiff and unresponsive, and he may well have stopped breathing until he finally found a pulse—faint and rabbit-quick, but there all the same. His heart thudded heavily in his chest, adrenaline fading into sudden relief.

Bowing his back, Thor buried his face in Loki's hair, rubbing his nose against soft raven hair. "It's gonna be okay," he promised in a hoarse whisper. "We're gonna fix it. I'm gonna fix it." He pressed a kiss to Loki's hair and straightened his back.

Rage thrummed heavy in his breast when Thor's eye found the wizard's, but he beat it down without mercy. Not yet. First, Loki. "Fetch Banner," he commanded. "I'm taking him to the medbay."

The wizard may have replied, but Thor barely heard it. He stood with Loki cradled carefully in his arms, and took off for the medbay at a pace just shy of a flat out sprint.

"It'll be okay," Thor promised quietly, taking the stairs three at a time because he was faster than the elevator. "But you have to stop passing out on me, brother. We don't want to make a habit of this." It was only as he said it that Thor realized just how true it was, and the warning sign it should have been. Loki had fainted repeatedly over the past few days. He'd been sleeping so much. Tiring so quickly. The wizard had said... Thor didn't let himself think it.

He sniffed, hard, and pressed a firm kiss to the crown of his little brother's head, but the tears still fell. "Don't die on my," he begged softly, feeling stupid but continuing all the same. "Don't you leave me. Don't you dare. I can't lose you, too." Not you. Never you.

Thor reached the top floor at last, and hurried into the medbay. With no more reason for action after laying Loki onto a cot, his fear was given free rein. His arms felt empty without Loki in them. "Please," Thor whispered. "Just... be okay."

A hissing sound from behind him caught Thor's attention. He turned just in time to see Bruce, Brunn, and the wizard stepping through one of the wizard's sparking orange portals, before it fizzled into nothing on their heels. "How is he?" Bruce asked right away, hurrying to Loki's side and immediately feeling for his pulse.

The wizard followed Bruce, looking archly over his shoulder as the other man looked Loki over. Thor started to follow, feeling numb. Barely paying attention to anything but Loki as he was, he tripped over his own feet. Brunn caught him by the shoulder and steadied him, even as she pulled him back out of the way of the two doctors.

"They've got this," she half murmured, half hissed, leaving her hand resting on Thor's shoulder. "Whatever's going on, they've got it."

Thor shook his head. Helpless agony contorted his face as he turned to meet her eyes. "Brunnhilde, the wizard said his life force was diminished. Drastically."

The Valkyrie went a shade paler, but her expression didn't change. "They've got this. Besides, that brother of yours is too stubborn to die," she went on to joke lightly, giving his shoulder a firm squeeze. Heartsick and weary, Thor wished he could believe her.

"He's not dying," Strange announced, glancing over his shoulder at the two Asgardians hovering a few feet away. Thor's knees went weak, and he shrugged Brunnhilde's grasp, barely managing to stumble his way over to a cot before his legs gave out. Loki would be okay. Whatever this was, they would fix it. Loki was going to be fine. Thor dashed away a sudden tear with the back of one hand and inhaled tremulously. Loki would be fine.

"What's wrong then," Thor made himself ask, mildly proud that his voice didn't shake. The question came out in a croak rather than the steady tone he'd aimed for, but it was better than nothing. And really, he was too relieved to care.

"He's coming around," Bruce interrupted, leaning over Loki only to straighten again. Thor shot to his feet and staggered swiftly to Loki's bedside. On the cot, Loki twitched, and his eyelids fluttered. Thor found himself holding his breath as hazy, sage-green eyes flickered open. He blinked once, twice, and Thor drew in a wavering breath, preparing to speak.

Loki effectively shattered the relief flooding Thor by beginning to laugh.

"Loki!" Thor tried to yell, but it came out in a rasp. "Loki!" he tried again, this time with somewhat more success in the volume area. Still, Loki didn't seem to hear. He only kept laughing, the sound taking on a deranged, feverish pitch. Thor's lungs froze, and with a resounding boom of thunder, he lost control and the clouds opened up. "What's wrong with him?" Thor demanded at a yell, spinning on the two doctors in the room—both of whom looked to be at a loss. And Loki would not stop laughing.

More than slightly frantic, Thor grabbed his brother by the shoulders and rattled him back and forth. "Stop it!" he ordered shrilly, shaking him even harder. There was yelling, and Brunnhilde was trying to pull him away, but Thor ignored her. He only had eyes for Loki. Who was still laughing.

Finally, Bruce's shout broke through his panicked desperation. "You're going to hurt him, Thor!"

Thor dropped Loki like he'd been burned and stumbled back, fear turning to a roiling sickness deep in his stomach. Still Loki laughed—though if Thor weren't looking at him, he might mistake the sound for sobs.

Strange strode forward, his cloak brushing Thor out of the way as he passed. In the split second Thor was stumbling back, wondering blankly what the wizard planned to do, he lifted one mustard-gloved hand and, without hesitation, slapped Loki full in the face, hard enough to turn his cheek.

Thor's thus far internalized rage found a target. Thunder cracked.

"Don't touch him," Thor growled, grabbing the wizard by his shoulder and wrenching him back into his waiting fist. The wizard's head snapped back with the force, and he groaned. Thor kneed him in the gut and went for another punch, but the cloak caught his fist and threw him back. Rocking back on his heels so he didn't fall, Thor flexed his palms and splayed his fingers, crackling blue light dancing between them, filling his palms and arcing over his fingers like living gloves. Blood roared in his ears as electricity filled his vision, and Thor smiled his berserker smile as he charged forward again. It had been too long since he'd smashed something to a pulp.

Thor never saw the hit coming. Brunnhilde creamed him over the head with a thick book she'd managed to find while Loki wasn't watching her, and caught Thor as he crumpled to the ground. "We done being stupid?" she asked curtly. No one was dumb enough to disagree with her. "Good. Bruce?" The scientist nodded. "Put him on a cot or something."

"I... can't lift him," Bruce told her, shuffling his feet.

"Do I have to do everything myself?" Brunn lamented, hefting Thor over one shoulder and dumping most of him over the nearest cot, leaving his feet dangling awkwardly halfway to the floor.

Loki flinched when someone poked his shoulder. Bruce, the poker, passed Loki a cold, crinkling blue ice pack and flicked his eyes up to Loki's face. Taking the hint, Loki pressed it to his cheek. The wizard hit hard, particularly for a mortal. Jilted lover level slapping skills. Loki was tempted to ask him if he'd ever slapped an ex that way, and bit his lip to curb the urge. Brunnhilde might slap him herself, at the moment. When Bruce pressed a cup of water on him, Loki drank.

"Want to explain what that was about?" Brunn asked.

Loki's stomach dropped to the bottoms of his feet. Oh, she was going to kill him. Rip his arms from the socket and beat him to death with them. "Nothing," Loki said glibly.

"Somehow I don't think that was nothing," she pressed.

"It was nothing," Loki argued. "It's just—it's funny, isn't it? I really should have known." He felt a mad giggle bubbling up in his chest, and bit down on his lip to stop it. A bit of a stuttered noise burst out anyway, closer to a hiccup than a laugh.

"Known what?" Bruce asked, sounding cautious.

"Oh, you know. That it would come around to bite me." Loki bit down on his hand to stop himself from laughing.

"Don't do that!" the doctor yelped, jumping forward to wrench his hand away from his face. "Don't."

Loki grinned at him, his shark's grin with all his teeth. "Why not?"

"Because," Bruce said firmly, after a moment of quiet. "Now, what exactly is so funny right now?"

"I thought—" Loki shook his head, trying to tug his hand to his mouth again, but Bruce still had a firm hold on his wrist, and he didn't try to fight it. "Nothing."

"It's something," Brunn said. She was scowling, arms crossed over her chest. Thunder boomed outside—though Thor had been knocked out, the storm he'd started was still going strong.

"It's not," Loki argued back.

Suddenly, she was in his face. "Tell me right now or I'll—"

"Rip my arms off and beat me to death with them?" Loki interrupted to suggest helpfully.

The Valkyrie's face twisted, and she stepped back. Loki watched her take a breath through her nose and shake her head. "You're being weird, Lackey." When he didn't say anything, her frown grew. "And you didn't even tell me not to call you that."

"Don't call me that," Loki obliged. She glared at him.

"Let's just all calm down," Bruce said, stepping between them, holding his arms out like he could physically push either of them back in his calmer, less green form, should they come to blows. "Loki, drink your water and be quiet. Brunn, don't provoke him."

Begrudgingly obedient, Loki took a sip of his water.

When Thor woke a few minutes of awkward silence later, he did it dramatically—as he did most things. He went from lying prone to standing within seconds, stumbling across the room and roaring inarticulately. Loki wasn't surprised in the least. His brother had a habit of waking in the same way every single time he was knocked unconscious during a fight (and, on some occasions, without the fight). Eventually, the healers had learned to strap him down, so his flailing and bellowing routine wouldn't break any sensitive equipment.

When Thor spun around, his eye found the wizard within seconds, only for Brunnhilde to step between them. "Either you start being reasonable or you're not allowed back in this room until you get over yourself," she threatened. "I'll knock you out again if I have to. Your Majesty."

Thor's visible aggression banked from a boil to a simmer. He sagged with a sigh, rubbing a hand over his forehead. "My apologies," he muttered sullenly, glaring at the wizard like he was picturing peeling the man's face off.

"No harm done," the wizard replied magnanimously. And smugly, in Loki's opinion.

"Hey, Loki," Bruce said. Loki jolted and had to grab the edge of the cot to steady himself. "Can you take off your shirt? I want to see if you've got any bruising." Across the room, Thor wilted.

Loki swallowed a great number of jokes that welled up, and an equal number of protests. He set down his water and put aside the icepack, pulling his shirt over his head. It was a nice shirt, but he was profoundly regretting his choice to not wear armor. When he lifted his arms, Loki very deliberately didn't wince—despite the fact that his whole torso was beginning to feel like one extended bruise. At least the mottley painting of dark colors that were his shoulders somewhat distracted from the scars. The wizard's eyebrows rose, and Loki fought an angry blush, casting his eyes down and biting his lip.

It's the bruising, Loki told himself. At least, he hoped that was why the wizard was making that face. Brunnhilde, Bruce, and Thor had all seen him without a shirt (or illusion) at one time or another. That was far too many in his opinion, and Loki had at the very least some degree of trust for them all (as much as he hated to even think it). The wizard... Loki wrapped his arms around his torso like the man hadn't already seen everything, like it would even do any good. He wasn't blessed with Thor's tree trunks for arms. At least the human hadn't seen his back, Loki tried to comfort himself. It felt hollow. "Your verdict?" Loki snipped at Bruce.

Bruce ignored the pitiful attempt at a jab for the deflection that it was. The urge to keep pushing, get a reaction, rose in Loki's chest, and with difficulty he let it pass. He pulled on a pair of dusty blue latex gloves with a snap, and proceeded to lightly probe at Loki's sides and shoulders, skimming his fingers over the ugly grape and wine red painted in angry swatches over the swan white canvas of skin, broken only by an expansive network of clean, precise scarring. At one point, Bruce hissed lightly, eyes narrowing as he scrutinized a spot just to the right of Loki's left shoulder blade.

"Well," he said, stepping back to give him a full once-over, "you're certainly bound to be feeling pretty sore, right now. The most I can do right here is bandage you up, and we'll see about going to the healers after we discuss what we came up here for in the first place. Something about," his face wrinkled up, and he said the words slowly, as though he wasn't certain if he was correct, "life force?"

The silence in the room was heavy, charged, as Bruce wound an obscene amount of bandages around Loki's shoulders and upper back. The final effect was rather as though Loki had attempted to make a shirt out of gauze, but stopped halfway. At least it covered the worst of the scarring. Loki crossed his arms over his stomach the minute Bruce was done.

"Loki?" Thor asked quietly. Of course, he would be the first to break the silence. "Are you... alright?"

Loki held back a sigh at the guilt he could see filling his older brother's eye. If remorse had a scent, Thor would be reeking of it. "I'm fine," Loki told him, giving the best smile he could muster. Thor's face stayed the same. "I will be fine," he tried. "Stop worrying."

Still, Thor's expression didn't change in the slightest. "The wizard said your life force was diminished."

"It's less than it was, yes," Loki conceded. "It's also not fatal." He forced a wide grin. "Ergo, not dying." As he inhaled, his shoulders hiked up, and he forced them back down. He couldn't seem to peel the smile off of his face, in spite of how insane he knew it made him look.

It was Bruce who spoke up, then, clearly skeptical. "Losing... life force... isn't fatal."

"No," Loki said with the wizard, voices overlapping. When Loki turned to glare at him, the wizard didn't even have the decency to look in his direction.

"That's not how it works," the wizard continued instead. Loki wondered what would happen if he stabbed the human.

"Life force isn't nearly as simple as it sounds," Loki cut in to explain, before the wizard could say anything further. "It's hard to explain to those who can't sense it themselves."

"Try anyway?" Bruce asked.

Loki waved a hand at him in an odd mixture of dismissal and acknowledgment, pressing his lips together as he thought. "Life is very complicated," he began. "There are many factors that go into its creation—a soul, for instance, or what you humans call DNA. The physical aspects of life are much better understood than the more magical in nature."

"Mystical," the wizard interjected.

Loki glared at him, wishing rather childishly to stick out his tongue at the man, before reining in the urge and looking away. "What life force is, no one fully understands. But we can observe what it does. Life force acts as a sort of... tether, between the body and soul. It enables them to be coupled together, where otherwise they would be incompatible. That's why it's called life force. It's, to put it most simply, a force that allows for life. Only the most infinitesimal amount of life force is needed to tether a body and soul together. Excess life force acts as a kind of... steroid, I suppose is the closest concept. More life force lends itself to more physical strength, better immune systems, longer lives. Humans have more life force than dogs, and Aesir have more life force than humans, for example. So no, having less life force isn't going to kill me."

Bruce shook his head, brow heavily furrowed. "I... think I see what you're saying," he said slowly. "As long as I don't think about it too hard. So you have less... 'life force,' now, and that's why you're not as strong as you were. That would explain why you're bruising so easily, for starters."

Loki wanted to bristle at the implication that he was weak, but was it not true? He relaxed his shoulders and gave a slow nod.

"Why, is the next question I have, here." Bruce pushed the heel of his hand against his forehead, exhaling in a gusty sigh. "I thought I got used to weird stuff with you guys, but—I'm sorry, I'm just trying to figure out what's going on here so I can... try to treat it. How do you lose life force?"

Loki had been expecting that question from the minute he had started his explanation. "You don't," he answered promptly, with a perverse relish that felt just a bit like driving a knife into his own stomach. "At least, not usually. There are exceedingly few forces that can drain life force, the most notable being the Aether, but even in those if the influence is removed, life force will naturally regenerate itself. I suppose it could be compared to a gauge, or blueprints. However much life force you have dictates your highest physical standard, your peak condition. It's practically as impossible to rewrite as genetic code, though it is possible to damage."

"Which is why it makes no sense for your life force to have dwindled, and not at least begun to repair," the wizard cut in, full of the self-importance of one who knew a lot less than they thought they did. "I've never heard of anything like it."

Loki found a dubious relish in informing the wizard, "if my life force had been drained, it would have replenished itself, yes. But it isn't my life force that's been drained." The look of baffled frustration on the wizard's face was a poor consolation prize for the knowledge he now bore, but Loki would take what he could get.

"The wizard was wrong?" Thor interrupted, all but bouncing on the balls of his feet in anxious anticipation, merged with confusion in the furrow of his brow. "But... you said he was right. He wasn't?"

"He was somewhat correct. Surprisingly." Loki didn't look forward to crushing Thor's feeble hopes. More than that, he would rather forget everything he had discovered in the last hour—no, last decade—and begin again, blissfully ignorant. But when did Loki get what he wanted? Not a one of the others would permit him to pretend like nothing had happened. For a fierce moment, Loki resented all of them, particularly Thor, for it.

"Stop being cryptic and explain it," Brunn demanded, proving Loki's point nicely when she put a hand on the hilt of her sword and narrowed her eyes pointedly.

"Somewhat correct?"

Several rather nasty curses flitted across the surface of Loki's mind. He tipped his head to the side and met the wizard with a flat stare."Somewhat," he chirped, pulling his lips into a rictus grin. The false smile stuck itself to his face, and he had to work to make it drop. "Who even are you? What makes you think you know more about magic than me, Loki of Asgard, foremost mage of the nine realms? Seidr is vastly superior to your sparkly party tricks."

"Doctor Stephen Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts, Earth's Sorcerer Supreme," the wizard replied. The cool arrogance in his voice was begging for a stab. He wouldn't hold himself so high and mighty with a knife hilt-deep in his spleen. "As for what I can do, I figured out what was going on before you did, didn't I?"

"Only partially, and that because I didn't know to look, doctor. Do mortals hand out doctorates in balloon animals, these days?"

"I have zero PhDs in magic," Bruce contributed.

"I don't have any PhDs in magic, either. I do have an MD. I think that makes me a little more qualified to figure out what's going on than you." The wizard never raised his voice nor smiled, though there was a hint of something in his tone that might have been laughter.

For a moment, Loki was distracted by trying to discern how many stabs he owed the human. "If I were a mortal with a mundane ailment, perhaps. I'm afraid," he drawled sweetly, "I know better than you. It's not my life force that's missing, Strange. It was a separate energy, doing the job of life force, but one that didn't originate in me."

"That's impossible." Now the sorcerer wannabe was starting to turn red. "The only way to artificially boost your own life force is by using the very darkest of arts, and I don't sense the Dark Dimension anywhere in you. If you have gone anywhere near it, I would know."

In spite of turmoil raging in his mind, the whirlpool eating a tornado consuming a black hole that threatened to swallow him back down into the depths of madness, Loki managed a satisfied smirk. "Impossible, according to you. I have lived for over a thousand years, wizard. Your knowledge of seidr, or at least the sad imitation you play at, is pitiful compared the what the youngest Asgardian child learns in the cradle. Are you really so arrogant as to believe there isn't a single mystery in the universe you aren't privy to? No, it's entirely possible, and true." Loki was almost panting when he finished his rant, and baring his teeth like a wild animal. He clamped his jaw shut with a huff and set his shoulders stiffly.

"Loki," Thor began, drawing the name out over several extra syllables, "I know I don't know even half so much about seidr as you, but I've never heard of any way to boost life force, either." His face went a bit pale, and he swallowed rapidly. "Aside from... taking it from someone else—but I'm sure you would never do that," he all but tripped over his words to assure. Who he was assuring, Loki honestly wasn't certain.

The wizard was giving him a look, now. "I didn't sap anyone of their life force, charlatan." Not that he'd believe Loki. Why did he even bother to say it? That, Loki didn't know. What was it that mortals said, about insanity being doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result? At least Thor looked a bit chagrined when Loki met his eye. "No, this was another source."

"Well, can we get it back? Life force," Bruce finished in a low grumble.

"We can't," Loki informed bluntly.

"Why not?" Thor started to step closer. He blanched and backpedaled before his foot even hit the ground, as his face twisted up. "How do you know?" he tacked on anxiously, clumsily smoothing his features, hands flexing by his sides.

Loki pursed his lips and studied the other occupants of the room. He could always lie, but the thought was exhausting, and nothing plausible crossed his mind. Might as well get it over with. Why not let everyone and sundry know of his humiliation? Shamefully, he closed his eyes against the information he was about to impart. Hiding, though from Thor's the others' reactions or his own words he couldn't really say. Both, probably. He'd always been a coward. "The artificial life force was being supplied by one of Asgard's many plundered relics. The Casket of Ancient Winters, to be specific. Known as the Heart of Jotunheim, if you want to get even more pretentious." Loki mentally girded himself and peeled open his eyes to gauge the reactions of his spectators.

Thor had blanched to all but bone-white. Loki might have assumed his brother had been hastily replaced by a wax statue if he wasn't breathing and blinking. "It was destroyed during Ragnarok," Thor rasped. His throat bobbed with a heavy swallow. In the next breath, he started cursing.

Thor displayed a truly impressive vocabulary of swears before the well ran dry. Nothing compared to Loki's, of course, in no small part courtesy of multiple months on Sakaar, but impressive all the same. Once he was done swearing up a whole new storm to accompany the one raging outdoors, he clammed up. No one else seemed to know what to say.

Bruce was the one to break the silence. "Um," he muttered, pressing his lips together in an uncertain twist, "I hate to be the idiot here but... I have absolutely no idea what that means."

Loki's face froze—in what expression, he had no idea, but it felt strained. Similarly, Thor's shoulders stiffened and what little color that had returned to his skin drained out again. He cast an almost frantic look at Loki, who would have sneered back if he had any control over his facial muscles. Or any of his muscles, for the matter. The innocent question from Bruce had frozen him solid as effectively as the ice of any Frost Giant. And wasn't that an ironic thought. Any number of replies, from insouciant to scathing to numb, danced on the edge of his lips, if only Loki could unfreeze himself enough to speak.

"It's—um—" Thor started to stammer. His head whipped back and forth between his younger brother and the human at such a speed that Loki was distantly concerned he would give himself whiplash.

"An artifact from Jotunheim," Brunn offered. The surprise unfroze Loki, and he jerked his head to look at her. Somehow, it hadn't occurred to him that she would know of it. "Nobody knows how old it is or who made it. The Jotnar used it for everything. Travel between realms, building their cities, controlling the weather, you name it. Like he said, they called it the heart of their realm, or at least that's what I heard." She snorted. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised that Asgard took it. Odin never did like anyone being able to stand up to him."

After she explained, everyone stayed quiet for a moment. Thor looked grieved, Strange pensive, and Bruce simply unsure. Loki was equally as unsure of how he felt. He both wanted to defend Odin, and didn't. He didn't want to think about it at all. Any of it.

"Well then," Bruce said. "That's no longer an option. Can we replace the missing energy with something else?"

"How?" Loki snorted before he could think better of it, bitterness surging to his tongue and spilling out like bile. "If that thing sustained all Frost Giants, then it's something inherent. Not something that can just be replaced like a blown fuse."

"I don't think that's true," the wizard said.

Loki couldn't help it, he snarled at the human. Lips curled, teeth bared, the works. He probably looked insane. Monstrous?

To his impotent disdain, the wizard only flapped a dismissive wrist in his direction, and kept talking. "Someone made this artifact. It wasn't around forever. What did they do before it existed?"

"They must have had something," Thor broke in, a sudden, unfeigned cheer to his voice. When Loki whipped his head to look at him, there was a suppressed beam twitching in the corners of his mouth, and his eye was nearly glowing. Outside, the ominous blanket of steely-gray clouds finally dispersed into light wisps of cotton, revealing clear cerulean sky and Midgard's lone sun. Someone was going to start suspecting Thor's presence, the way he kept messing with the weather. Loki made a note to speak to him about it, later. "The Casket was gone from Jotunheim for over a thousand years. They must have found some workaround, or replacement."

Traitorous thing that it was, Loki's heart fluttered with a sudden flicker of hope. "They didn't repair their cities, or their world, did they?" he scoffed, trying frantically to grind the little spark under his heel before it could spawn a flame. It didn't help. Hope was a vexingly resilient thing. "I'm not a Frost Giant, if you recall, just a runt. Who's to say the loss affected them as poorly as it has me?" He paused, frowning. "For Norns' sake, can I put my shirt back on now?" Abruptly self-conscious again, Loki tried to shield his exposed torso with his arms, and almost certainly just looked stupid.

"Ah, right, that," Bruce handed the garment back to him, and Loki started trying to maneuver it onto himself without bothering any of his injuries, which quickly proved to be an impossible undertaking.

"So, you're not Asgardian?" the wizard said, as Loki had both his arms threaded through the sleeves.

"No," he said shortly. Of course, Strange hadn't known what the others did. He had no idea that Loki wasn't Thor's real brother, or even Asgardian at all. Now he did. The knowledge stung, and Loki scoffed at himself. All of Asgard knew. What was one more, in the grand scheme of things?

"Not Aesir," Thor butted in where he wasn't wanted, as he was so prone to. "Asgardian, yes."

The scoff Loki gave was thankfully muffled by his shirt as he pulled it over his head, stubbornly ignoring the spikes of pain in his shoulders and back. Thor would have made a big deal out of that, too.

"Makes sense," Strange said. Loki bit into his cheek until he tasted blood, stiffening so he wouldn't shudder. "You don't seem very giant to me."

"Kindly choke and die," Loki informed him highly politely when he at last got the shirt pulled over his head. "In any case, you're all forgetting something. There are more pressing matters at hand."

"More pressing?" Thor gaped, putting his hands on his hips as his face tinged slightly purple.

Loki dragged his teeth slowly over his lower lip so he wouldn't laugh at his older brother. "Yes, more pressing. There's no time limit on this," he wrinkled his nose and waved a contemptuous hand, "whatever it is, unlike the patience of your little hero pals waiting downstairs. There's no more Casket energy for me to lose, and my life force isn't going to suddenly start draining away."

"You should rest," Thor insisted stalwartly, with that deliberate, infuriating set to his shoulders that meant he'd got something in his head and wasn't going to let go of it.

"Good idea," Bruce agreed. Loki turned the full force of his frustration into a withering scowl directed the scientist's way. "You're pretty banged up, Loki. You should really be seen by the healers, but getting some rest right now will do you good, too."

"Medical doctor, I concur."

"No one asked you!" Loki snapped, not at all hysterically. The collar of Strange's cloak flared in an almost offended way, and he sneered at it. "You're forgetting, in any case, that I am the only one with the information on... him." He ground his teeth together and inhaled sharply through his nose. He was not afraid to say—"the titan," he amended, stiltedly. Curse it all.

"We can cover the basics ourselves," Brunnhilde offered, her voice irritatingly steady. Loki hated it when she was being reasonable and level-headed. "Aside from the wizard, none of us are going anywhere anytime soon, and he can just—" she mimed drawing a circle in the air complete with whooshing sound effect, "back. It's not like this is the only chance you'll have." Thor and Bruce both nodded. Loki folded his arms and glared at all of them. He was beginning to feel ganged up on.

"Besides, it might be good for Barton to get used to the idea of..." Thor trailed off, flashing that irritating, pleading blue eye of his, earnestly widened and glinting with sincerity. Who knew, losing an eye would make that sad, wheedling look of his twice as hard to resist. It was ridiculous, and Loki resented him for it.

"Not separating my head from my body?" Loki completed cheerfully. "Tolerating my existence? Perhaps we should take inspiration from those myths you mortals have—I'm sure Barton would be at least a little mollified if my mouth were sewn closed," he finished, stretching the corners of his mouth into a wide, demonstrative beam.

"Loki," Bruce said slowly, "that is really, really not funny."

Ignoring the flash of pain when he shrugged, Loki rolled his head to one side in defiance of continued bodily protests. "I'm hilarious."

"No, you're not," the wizard deadpanned, his mouth an inscrutable line.

Loki had nearly forgotten he was there, and now itched to pull a reaction from the currently too-composed man. "You have no basis on which to say that," he announced, jolting out of his slouch and pointing at him. His back howled in nonverbal protest. Loki gave it an imaginary middle finger. "I'm very funny. You probably don't have a sense of humor. I bet you wouldn't know a joke if it kneed you in the balls."

"Brother, please."

The inhale Loki had drawn in, preparing to keep going, stuttered and broke. His stomach soured. He hated that tone. Thor shouldn't beg. Even his worst, most woeful puppy eyes couldn't cut quite as deep. Thor, pleading, truly pleading, had never once failed to fill him with a pervasive sense of wrongness. It was as though his guts had been turned inside out, and his stomach stuffed with ice.

"Please stop, Loki," Thor entreated again, so soft it was a hairsbreadth away from a whisper. And the look in his eyes—

Loki looked down at his toes, scraped the toe of one boot slowly over the tiled floor. "Fine," he choked. It was difficult to get out around the sudden knot of cloying guilt taken up residence in his windpipe.

"Please," Thor repeated.

Anger flared in Loki's belly, and his next exhale escaped in a low hiss. He grabbed onto the edge of the cot and flexed his fingers until they blanched. He'd stopped. Why wouldn't Thor? It drained away quickly, a bubble burst by the sharp prongs of shame. Even with his eyes deliberately focused on the toes of his shoes, he could see his older brother inching closer at the edge of his sightline.

"Please, Loki, just for a little while. Not long. You don't even have to sleep. Just—please—give yourself a break. You passed out hardly ten minutes ago. We can handle the others."

The wizard cleared his throat. "I don't think you need me for this." A portal formed with a rotation of his wrist, and he promptly vanished into it.

"Please," Thor said.

"Alright, alright, alright!" Loki snapped, embarrassingly shrill. His cheeks colored a violent crimson. "I'll—whatever, just. Stop. Fine. I suppose I'll be heading back to the rooms, then."

"I'll come with you," Thor said, words spilling over each other in his haste.

There was no point to protest. Loki didn't bother. The slightly sick feeling in his stomach he refused to think of as guilt wouldn't let him, anyway. Brushing his hands over his knees in an entirely unnecessary gesture, he popped to his feet. He waved off any attempts to steady him as he swayed where he stood, waiting just long enough to find his balance before he stalked off. Thor, of course, on his heels.

No words passed between the pair until they reached the lounge. "You can go now," Loki said shortly, pausing in the door to Thor's bedroom, one hand lying casually on the frame not because he needed support. "I'm fine. No need for this... hovering thing you're doing."

"Can we talk?" Thor asked softly.

Loki cut his eyes away from where his older brother stood. The skin on his back prickled with chills. "About what?" he scorned. "I don't see what we have to talk about." An absent hand was raised to his chest, rubbing slow circles over the deep-seated ache in the center of his chest. The fingers of his other hand drummed rapidly, nervously on the doorframe, like a rabbit's heartbeat. Loki noticed and stilled them, tightening his grip until his fingers shook with the strain.

"That," Thor said pointedly.

"You're going to have to elaborate, there," Loki droned, an acerbic edge to his voice. He wasn't even being facetious. There were multiple things Thor could have been referring to, and Loki wasn't altogether positive which minor issue Thor had chosen to unnecessarily fixate on at the current moment.

With a gusty sigh, Thor pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. The lines in his face, not present less than a decade ago, seemed to deepen with that one exhale. When he opened his eye, Loki couldn't help a slight flinch at the exhaustion winking at him from sky blue depths, and his hand spasmed on the doorframe. "You're lashing out," Thor explained quietly. "Pulling away. I don't want to watch you cut yourself off again, brother. Can we please talk?"

Please. Loki hated it when he used that word. He wavered in the face of such unbridled honesty, vulnerability. As though his hesitation was an affirmative, Thor motioned for Loki to enter the bedroom. His feet obeyed before his mind caught up with him, and then Thor was shutting the door behind him as he entered, preventing escape by normal means. And Loki was too tired to teleport out. He scowled at nothing in particular.

"Sit," Thor offered, motioning to the overstuffed chair in the corner of the room while taking a seat on the edge of the bed.

Again, Loki followed his direction without saying a word. He sank down into the seat and pulled his legs up to his chest, resting his chin on his knees. "Sitting," he half-sang, lifting a single ebony eyebrow. "Now what?"

Thor sighed heavily, and stayed silent, rubbing one hand up and down over his forehead.

"If you're not going to say anything, you can leave," Loki sniped, aware of the whine in his voice but unable to help it.

Another breath, and Thor spoke. "Loki," he said hesitantly, as though he were chewing on his words, "are you afraid?"

Loki blinked. Lifted his head from where it rested on his knees. A muscle in his jaw jumped. And then he laughed. Threw his head back and laughed and laughed, and if it was breathless and slightly hysterical, well, that was none of Thor's business now, was it? "Why would you think that?" he demanded airily. "Do you really think me so weak? What do I have to be afraid of?" Many things, but again, none of Thor's business. "You're just—come off it, Thor. Whatever you think you're doing, just—stop. Leave me alone. I don't need you to play hero. Go find someone else to play your damsel in distress." His last words came out snarled with a great deal more venom than Loki had intended. Slightly surprised at himself, he let most of the tension drain out of his body and rested his chin back on his knees again.

Thor's voice was maddeningly gentle when he answered. "You haven't answered my question yet, brother."

"Because it's a stupid question," Loki insisted petulantly.

Thor's eye flashed. Literally. "Would you stop that!" he snarled. "I can tell you're upset, but I can't read your mind so I need you to tell me what you need from me!"

"I don't need you," Loki growled back, knowing it was petty and cruel (and untrue) and, for the moment, not caring. Something in his heart jumped—no don't leave me, he's going to leave me now—while the darkest corners of himself were grimly, sickeningly satisfied.

"You do!" Thor yelled back, lunging to his feet. "You're—" he jump himself off, chest heaving, hands curled into fists at his side.

Loki drew a vicious grin like a sword from a sheath. "Weak? Mad? Defective? Oh please, don't hold back, brother dear. Tell me what you really think." Thor mumbled something, and Loki's smile expanded, slipping his control and crawling over his features like an uncontrolled climbing vine, one he didn't care enough to prune. "What was that, now?"

"You're not well," Thor enunciated. His single, sky-bright eye bored directly into Loki's skull.

A cackle broke free from Loki's lips. "Oh, any fool with a brain could see that, Thor," he half-gasped. "Tell me something I don't know." Something that definitely wasn't guilt made a hard knot in his stomach.

Thor tried to placate him. "I'm not saying there's anything wrong with you."

"I believe that is exactly what you just said," Loki countered.

"Stop twisting my words!" Thor growled. He started to step forward, and stopped, pushing one hand up through his hair almost aggressively. "I didn't mean it that way. Just—" with a huff, Thor closed his mouth, and plopped heavily down onto the edge of the bed again, prompting a protesting creak from the mattress.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Loki sing-songed. He didn't know why he was still pushing. His heart thudded madly in his chest. "I'm obviously wrong, because the Mighty Thor says so, and—"

"Shut up!" Thor swallowed a few times, leaving the resulting pause hanging. For some reason unknown to him, Loki didn't take the easy opportunity to jump in with another cutting remark. When Thor spoke again, he'd forcibly gentled his voice, sound as though he was talking to a spooked horse or a frightened child. In fact, Loki was relatively certain he'd heard Thor use that exact tone with children on the Statesman. "Getting a... a broken leg, or something, doesn't mean that someone is... defective."

"And I have a broken mind, I assume?" Loki made no attempt to hide the bitterness in his voice, so thick he nearly choked on it. Would serve me right.

"No!" Thor's eye blew wide, and he sounded genuinely distressed, lurching forward for a moment like he was going to stand before easing back. How sweet. "Just... you're obviously hurting. And I'm worried about you."

The earnestness in Thor's voice pierced directly through the walls of rage Loki had been hastily yanking up around himself like nothing else could, and his temper deflated as swiftly as a popped balloon. Leaving him feeling cold and empty. "Oh," he said dumbly, wrapping his arms around his knees.

Thor gave him a smile, weak but still cursedly sincere. "Can we talk, now?"

"What do you want me to say?" Loki asked honestly, lowering his eyes to inspect his kneecaps as though they were terribly interesting. Still, he could all but hear Thor thinking. A brief glance upward showed his elder brother gnawing on his lip.

"Well," the king started slowly. "Barton. Are you okay with him being here?"

Snorting a weak facsimile of a laugh, Loki burrowed his nose into the little dip made where his legs pressed together. "I think you're asking the wrong person that question," he told his knees.

"I'm asking you. Are you okay with him being here?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" he said, infusing a lightness he didn't feel into his tone. His heart still hammered at an incongruous pace. Beating at the inside of his ribcage like some trapped thing trying to bash free.

Thor narrowed his eye and gave Loki a supremely unimpressed look.

"I'm fine."

"It doesn't bother you? Having someone here who hates you?" Loki twitched at the word ‘hate,' but Thor wasn't done. "Or just having that reminder around. I know Vision bothers you, so don't even try to lie about that."

Loki sighed. "It's... certainly odd. And... maybe not entirely comfortable." He looked up, and frowned. "Thor, stop nodding like that, you look simple."

"I was trying to look encouraging," Thor muttered, slightly sheepish. "But go on."

"Fine. No, I don't exactly love having around someone who'd like to see my head parted from my neck. That doesn't mean I'm not used to it." Loki raised an eyebrow and summoned a weak smirk, lifting his head up long enough to make sure Thor saw. "I grew up a mage on Asgard, if you remember? It's practically disconcerting to not be around anyone who wants me dead. I'm not going to—break, if that's what you're thinking."

Thor's face twisted. Loki fully expected some sort of defense of Asgard, and his jaw dropped when that didn't come. "That's not what I think," Thor said.

Shutting his mouth so rapidly that his teeth clacked together and jarred him, Loki sneered. He tried to hold onto his summoned ire, but it quickly fell away, like a snake shedding its skin. "Anything else you wish me to spill my guts on? Or are we done with this interrogation, now?"

"Loki," Thor groaned, or sighed. It was hard to tell exactly. "I'm not... this isn't an interrogation. I only... are you okay? This life force thing... I know it must be..." he paused, the search for a word written all over his terminally open face. "Strange," he finished delicately.

"I don't know," Loki huffed. "Thor, I've hardly had time to think about it at all. I don't know what I feel. Maybe you want to talk, but I don't. I'm not..." he paused, sucking in a breath through his teeth. Blew his lips out. Closed his eyes. "Not... ready. Not right now."

"Okay."

The relief nearly made Loki's chest cave in. He opened his eyes again, with a steadying breath.

"Tell Stark's AI if you need me." Thor stood up and hurried over, pulling Loki into an awkward hug that Loki clumsily returned around his knees. "Or, just text, call—whatever." Thor kissed the side of Loki's head and pulled back. "And tell me if you want to come down and join us again. I'll come get you." In one swift movement, faster than Loki realized it was happening, Thor pulled the fur off of the back of the chair and draped it over Loki's front.

"Go," Loki prodded when Thor lingered, eyebrows heavily furrowed.

Thor opened his mouth slightly, then his shoulders dropped. "Alright," he said with a small smile.

The door clicked softly as it pulled shut. All the remaining tension drained out of Loki's body at once, and he let his head fall back against the chair. His eyes drifted closed and he shifted slightly, leaning against an armrest with his legs shifted to the other side. One hand he burrowed into the fur, twisting the strands between his fingers, and the other he pillowed under his head. Loki tilted his head slightly to brush his cheek against the fur, trying not to think about why, exactly, it was so ridiculously comforting. He had said he wasn't going to sleep... or thought it, at least, but... maybe a short nap. Then he'd rejoin the others.

When Loki woke, somehow he felt even more fatigued than he had when he'd drifted off. Leveraging upright as his body creaked and groaned in silent but vocal protest, he covered a yawn with his hand and glanced at the clock. It'd been barely twenty minutes. Short nap indeed. Perhaps that was why he felt so drained. Or maybe... Loki shut down that thought aggressively. He pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned deeply, bringing up his free hand to massage his throbbing temples. Loki lingered there for a minute, rubbed his eyes, and then huffed, clambering to his feet. The fur that Thor had put over him slithered to the floor. Stooping to pick it up made every last ache and pain in his body announce their presence. Loki draped it over the back of the chair and propped his hip against the armrest until he felt steady again.

Gnawing lightly on a knuckle, Loki inspected the silvery thread framing his sleeve and frowned. Getting dressed up was for nothing, apparently. He reached up behind his head with his free hand and tugged insistently at his hairtie until it came loose, and then looped the little black band around his wrist. He'd do something with it later.

Crossing the room, Loki threw open the wardrobe while worming his way out of his shirt. The endeavor was painful, but he succeeded after a bit of struggle. The bandages now revealed, Loki made a face at them and resisted the urge to rip them all off. They were irritating, and chafed against his battered skin. Shaking his head, Loki started leafing through his clothing as he shucked off his boots. An overlarge, sage-green sweater was quickly selected, and he dropped it over his head. The ridiculously soft fabric and ample size made him feel a bit as though he were wearing a blanket. The garment nearly dripped down to his knees, and the sleeves were so long only the very tips of his fingers peeked out. The neckline sagged slightly, but it was an acceptable price to pay for a shirt that wouldn't further irritate his injuries. Even if it was liable to drive him nuts, constantly slipping down. His pants were quickly exchanged for a soft black pair with an elastic waistband, and Loki pushed the doors of the wardrobe shut.

Dressed in something more fitting for lounging around, as he was evidently going to be doing that day, Loki decided to make himself a cup of tea. He yawned as he opened the door, eyes falling shut as his jaw cracked. Loki spun to shut the door behind him, and then turned back around. At which point he froze. His stomach jumped up into his mouth, and his heart skipped painfully. Loki stood stock still, desperately wanting to flee but unable to so much as blink. Suddenly, overwhelmingly aware of his messy hair, bare feet and oversized sweater—currently slipping down over his left shoulder to leave his collarbone exposed. His hand jerked up and then back down again as Loki aborted the impulse to try and adjust the collar. The pressing need to fill the silence drummed within him like a self-contained heartbeat, but his tongue had turned to ice. Silvertongue turned to lead, his brain helpfully provided.

"Loki," Barton said coolly. The man sighed, scrunching his nose with distaste and reaching up to rub his forehead. "Should have guessed you'd be here."

"Barton," Loki managed stiltedly, after a bit of dumbfounded blinking and fishlike gaping. Heat burned crimson in his cheeks. The sense that he was an intruder pressed down on his shoulders like the weight of Thor's dearly departed hammer, both pinning him in place and filling him with the fervent desperation to flee that came from being trapped. This was the man whose will he had subsumed for another's. The guilt was crushing. As was the nausea.

Clearing his throat, Loki tried to muster something else to say, something clever. His mouth opened and shut a few times before he gave up. The archer's posture seemed non-threatening, but Loki was poised to flee at any second... mentally. His feet seemed to have rooted themselves into the floor. "Are you going to kill me?" He gave a weird twitch that was almost a wince at the impulsive words—he didn't want Barton to think he was goading him, but he wasn't exactly thinking clearly at the moment. A fog had settled in his brain, shrouding his thoughts and muddling his mind until he could barely grasp a single, fleeting thought through the haze.

"Maybe," Barton shrugged. "Maybe not."

Loki worked his jaw for a few seconds, and somehow managed to swallow. His mouth was bone dry. "Not... reassuring. But I... suppose you... didn't mean it to be."

"Nope." The archer popped the 'p' when he spoke. "I've been told you weren't responsible for the invasion."

A slightly hysterical laugh surged up Loki's throat like bile, and he nearly gagged on it. "Oh, I was, I assure you," he told the man, voice high and wavering. "You're free to keep... holding your grudge. I'm not... nearly so presumptuous as to—ask for forgiveness. I knew exactly what I was doing."

"Good," Barton nodded, a darkness settling on his features. "I want to hate you."

"I'm not asking you not to." Loki was beginning to feel a bit more steady. In spite of his acutely undignified state of dress, he knew this. The push and pull, the conversation balanced so carefully on the razor's edge of a blade. Danger lurking in every word and phrase and figure of speech. Thor's battlefield had always been swords and shields and blood and guts and glory. Loki fought in speech and prose, careful maneuvering and outthinking of opponents. This was his arena, he reminded himself. This was where he excelled. In matters of the mind, Loki was reigning champion. "I will not try to stop you."

"Huh?" He was pretending confusion, but Loki knew he understood.

He elaborated all the same. "If you try to hurt me. Kill me. I won't try to stop you." Loki offered him a tiny, mirthless smile.

Barton growled. "Stop that."

Loki blinked, utterly taken aback. "...what?"

The human crossed his arms, leaning heavily on the kitchen island. An inoffensive position, or at least not battle ready. The vulnerability of it made Loki's head spin. If he were in front of any member of the Titan's court again, he wouldn't relax the slightest bit. Much less put him at disadvantage in the event of a sudden attack. The fact that Barton would give himself even the very slightest disadvantage was... disconcerting. "Vision said you were influenced by the stone."

Paling, Loki stumbled back a half step before catching hold of his reaction and smoothing his face the best he could manage. "And... you... believed i—him?"

Barton cocked his head. "Well, I won't say I'm not skeptical. But he seems sure."

Loki forced a little laugh and shook his head. "Even if... it were true. Why would that... matter? I did what I did."

"Yeah," Barton agreed. "You did. And if Vision had said that it had been controlling you like it did me, I would have put an arrow through your eye like that. ‘Good guy' or not."

"But you haven't," Loki murmured, curious. "Why not? None... of your friends would blame you... except perhaps Thor. But he wouldn't... kill you. He would understand."

"I seriously doubt that, but. Not the point." Barton exhaled heavily, dropping his head. "The scepter changed you. If it had been the same for you and me, then." He shook his head, and lifted it to meet Loki's eyes. He flinched, and then forced himself to hold steady and meet the archer's gaze. "I'm not sure how to explain this. What you did to me, to Selvig, to others, it was... different. We, or at least I was, were still ourselves underneath. The only difference was new loyalties. The things I did... were nothing I wouldn't have done for Shield, if I was in control of my own mind. I assume that would be the same for you. If that scepter had done nothing but switch your loyalties, then you'd be the kind of guy willing to enslave other people's wills and take over a whole planet if it would serve your goals."

Loki burst out laughing. He bit down on his hand to stop it, but muffled giggles still spilled out around it. "And... and you think," he gasped to the stunned man, trying not to giggle at his wide eyes and the sideways twist to his lips as he carefully straightened again, "that I'm... not?"

"I don't know." Barton planted one hand on the counter and leaned forward into it. "It changed you. Made you different. Not just switched your loyalties. That guy who attacked earth? Wasn't you. At least, if I believe Vision. So... I guess what I'm saying is that... take this like a new start. You and me? Never met. Hi, I'm Clint Barton." He waved somewhat sarcastically. "Maybe you'll turn out to be the kind of dude who likes to make other people into his meat puppets. For now? You get the benefit of the doubt. At least, I'll try to give you the benefit of the doubt," his expression twisted momentarily. "You become a problem, I find a way to kill you. Capiche?"

"I don't understand you," Loki managed to rasp after what was at least a full minute of silent staring.

The archer leaned back and clapped his hands together. "Fine by me. Besides, you gave me a target to hate. Someone nobody will blame me for holding a grudge against. Killing this Thanos dude?" Loki flinched so hard he nearly fell down. "I can get behind that." He smirked, pretending like he hadn't noticed Loki's very obvious slip, but he could see him filling it away behind his eyes for later contemplation. "Drink?"

There was a bottle of alcohol on the island, and Barton nudged it with a finger. Loki hadn't noticed before.

"Please," Loki said, picking his way across the floor like it was a minefield. Barton pulled a couple of glasses out of a cabinet, popped the lid on the bottle, and filled them both to the brim. When Loki reached the other side of the island, the human shoved one of the glasses across the surface, and he caught it gently in the palm of his hand. He inspected the liquid inside, considering checking for poison.

"The bottle was unopened," Barton drawled, demonstratively taking a large swig from his own glass.

That didn't discount any manner of poisoning methods, Loki didn't say. He decided to refrain from checking. He hadn't been lying—if Barton had decided to try and kill him, and everything he'd said was only a performance to get Loki's guard down, he wasn't going to try and thwart the man's revenge. Loki picked up the glass—intricately etched, so that the light spilled through it and onto the counter in prismatic patterns—and brought it to his lips slowly enough that his hand didn't shake. The substance inside was innocuously clear, but the smell was incredibly strong, leaving no room for the misconception that the content was simple water. When Loki took an experimental sip, the potent taste had him all but wheezing. His eyes streamed, and he took another sip to cover it. Barton smirked at him, but didn't say a word. When Loki drained his glass and slid it back over, the archer refilled it and passed it back.

The next glass Loki drank more slowly, as he and Barton stood in silence. Thor entered as Loki nursed his third cup.

"Barton?" the thunderer asked incredulously, moving to Loki's side and angling himself slightly in front of him. "You two are..."

"Not killing each other?" Barton said dryly. "Yeah, I know."

"No killing, maiming, or ssssetting on fire," Loki volunteered with a bubbly giggle that made his brain fizzle strangely. "We're bessst friends now!" he added, flinging his arms wide. There was still a glass in his hand. Loki had forgotten that, but there was liquid dripping over his fingers and a puddle on the island. Also the glass seemed less full. Either it spilled or he was melting. Maybe he was melting. "Oops." He tried to figure out how to set down his glass—couldn't check if he was melting if his hand wasn't free—but his hand wasn't working right. He gave up and dropped it. It didn't break, exactly, probably, but there was a loud cracking sound that resonated in his brain like a backwards echo. Loki flapped his hand, trying to get the liquid off. "Ugh," he sighed, bringing his hand to his face to lick it off. It wobbled weirdly and he bonked himself in the nose. Ow. Rude. Who was rude?

"Loki!"

Loki dropped his hand and squinted at his brother. Thor was frowning at him. His face looked like a—squash, Loki decided. Or one of those little Midgardian dogs with the wrinkled faces and flappy cheeks. There were a lot of wrinkles in Thor's face right then. "Stop ssquishing your face. You look like a dog."

"Are you... drunk?" Thor asked with slight alarm. One hand came up to cup Loki's cheek, while the other stroked a bit of hair away from his eye. "I think that's enough for you. Come on, you need to lie down."

"I'm not—" Loki protested. He didn't know what he was protesting, but it felt important to protest. Because. He tried to step backward, away from Thor, but his feet didn't want to follow his directions and he nearly toppled backwards like a falling tree (did someone chop off his legs when he wasn't looking?). Would have, had Thor not caught him by the shoulders and hauled him back up. Loki would yell at him, but he was having trouble getting his feet under him. Maybe someone did chop off his legs. Or... "I may be... drunk," he announced after a bit of contemplation. Loki wrinkled his forehead. Did he look like a dog now, too? He glanced around for a mirror, but the room was blurry and it made his head hurt. The mirror would be lying, anyway, Loki comforted himself when he couldn't find one. The mirror would lie, because Loki was a lie. His face. It was blue. Now it was not-blue, but it was blue. Because he was blue. When he was blue.

Loki bent at the middle and vomited on Thor's shoes. It was just clear liquid. Loki wondered if it would work as a mirror. He bent further to see.

"Loki!" Thor hauled him back up again.

"I was... trying to sssee!" Loki snapped at him. "Let go."

"See what?" Thor asked, not letting go, rudely. His face was still wrinkled.

"Wrinkles. And blue," Loki explained clearly. He snorted when Thor didn't seem to get it. Thor was an idiot, anyway. He wouldn't understand. He might if Loki explained more—there was a word for it, for being blue, and he could probably find it if he wanted to, but he didn't. "My face is lying," Loki whispered to Barton. He then laughed.

That time, Loki vomited on Thor's shirt.

"Okay, time for a nap," Thor said.

"I don't want a nap!" Loki started to say. Naps were for small children and the infirm. But he was distracted, because everything went wobbly and the ceiling moved. It wasn't until Thor plopped him down on the bed that Loki realized his brother had picked him up. "Hey," he objected belatedly.

"Ssh," Thor soothed. For some reason, Loki listened. "Go to sleep." Loki did.

Chapter Text

When Barton stormed out of the meeting in a quiet rage, Thor made it almost fifteen minutes more before he spouted his hasty almost-excuses and fled as well. They didn't actually need him there to talk about Thanos. He was redundant. He was also making excuses to himself.

Of all the many, many terrible things Thor had done very badly at not imagining, Barton and Loki ending up in the same room had made multiple entries on the list. Most of them involved large volumes of blood. None of them involved alcohol, or, even more unbelievably, some kind of apparent... civility. Both parties seemed to be pretending the other didn't exist, which was far better than Thor had dared hope for. He moved in carefully, eye flicking back and forth between his brother and the newly un-retired Avenger.

It was somewhere between the first and second time Loki vomited on him that Thor started to deeply regret leaving the little Thanos-debriefing Stark had going on. Nobody was vomiting there. Not even a little bit.

They were fine. Thor dropped Loki on the bed perhaps a hair less gently than was necessary. Nobody was trying to murder anybody. Loki didn't need me.

"Heeyy," Loki shout-slurred. One eye snapped open from its half-mast position but stayed out of focus, staring aimlessly somewhere through the ceiling.

Perhaps that last bit had been a lie. Thor soothed his younger brother and Loki's eyes slipped closed within seconds. "Let me get you some water—" Thor said, reaching for an abandoned glass on the side table. "I'll be right—oh."

Loki released a soft, almost snuffling snore. A dribble of liquid leaked from the corner of his mouth.

Thor wasn't actually entirely sure whether it was vomit or drool.

Either way, he snatched up a tissue and wiped it away, before brushing a kiss against the top of Loki's head. "Sleep well," he murmured.

Thor changed his clothes and threw the soiled ones in the wash. He left his shoes dumped in the laundry room to worry about later. Barton had vanished by the time he walked back through the common room, along with the remainder of the alcohol. He'd thrown a paper towel over the regurgitated alcohol on the floor before pulling a runner, at least. Thor wrinkled his nose at it and decided to deal with it... sometime in the future. Maybe he'd make Loki clean it up.

Probably not, Thor could admit to himself as he eased back into the bedroom that had basically become his and Loki's. Loki had shifted on the bed, throwing one hand up by his face, twisting the other (sticky) hand in one of the furs. Somehow he'd gotten a bit of hair in the corner of his mouth. Thor stifled a snort as he pulled it free. What am I going to do with you?

He was, Thor could admit to himself while alone, staring at Loki's sleeping features, worried. Beyond worried. He was terrified.

Loki didn't drink. At least, not to excess. In Asgard, that was practically the same thing. When half the feasting hall was being carried out, the other half stumbling into each other and the walls with said first half on their shoulders, Loki was sneering from the corner. When Thor and the Warriors went out carousing, Loki was the one cutting off their drinks and herding them back home while berating them as fools. He took great delight in withholding hangover cures until favors were promised. When he was feeling particularly cross, no amount of begging could get Loki to divulge one.

Over the centuries, Thor's memories of feasts blurred as the nights went on, but the one near-constant was Loki, not a hair escaped from his viciously slicked helmet, nearly always holding a goblet but with not so much as a blush warming his cheekbones. There were few times Thor could recall seeing him tipsy, much less drunk enough to slur his words and shout. Or vomit on someone's shoes. Just about every one of those times coincided with Loki being in a great deal of emotional distress. Loki driven to drink was a Loki who was distraught enough that his wish for oblivion overpowered everything else.

Thor's mouth was dry. He sniffed, hard, and scrutinized Loki's face, hoping against hope that those porcelain features would divulge whatever was going on behind them. Trying to wipe the drying alcohol off of Loki's hand, arm, and the blankets could only occupy him for so long, as could tucking him under the covers. He was so small buried under all those layers. Thor was half-afraid that he would suffocate under the weight, as fragile as he looked. Someone could tell him Loki was actually composed entirely of spun glass, and Thor would believe it.

Thor removed a blanket. Then another. And an extra fur. Somehow, he managed to make himself stop and dump them in the chair in the corner before he stripped the whole bed clean.

The flush on Loki's cheeks caught his eye when he returned to the bedside. Did he have a fever? Thor laid a hand over his forehead and frowned. Maybe he should take another fur—

Tightening his hands into fists as he withdrew his arm, Thor closed his eye, took a step back, and breathed slowly until the urge to fret and fuss receded to manageable levels. He was deflecting. Loki was in bed, sleeping off the drink. He'd wake with a wicked hangover, but no harm done. The logical, responsible thing to do would be to leave him, head back to the group.

Thor eased onto the bed and curled up around Loki, on top of the covers. He tangled their fingers together in a knot, and draped his other arm over Loki's stomach. "I have you," he whispered against his little brother's hair. "I'll fix everything. I promise."

Nearly half an hour later, there was a knock at the door. Thor hesitated, squinting at Loki's face. "Come in," he called, stroking Loki's hair when he shifted and making soft shushing sounds until he huffed and stilled again.

The door eased open and Brunnhilde stepped inside, elbowing the door shut in her wake. "How is he?"

Thor sighed, pushing himself up with an elbow, and scooting slightly until his back met the headboard. "Going to have a pretty bad hangover," he said wryly, giving Loki's hand a squeeze and unlacing their fingers to drop his own hand over his lap. "I don't know. Physically, otherwise... I really don't know. Is there anything you need me for?" 

"Not exactly," Brunn said, tilting her head to the side and craning her neck just the slightest bit. There was a tenderness in her eyes when she looked at Loki, before she relaxed again and her gaze snapped back to Thor's. "Since we're all here, the wizard was going to try to remove that android's stone..."

"And they want us all there," Thor finished. Dragging his teeth over his lip, he turned his head just enough to catch Loki's profile in the edge of his vision. "All all, or..."

"Just you."

"Right." Thor nodded, barely more than a sharp outward jerk of his chin, somehow both deeply relieved and bitterly resentful. Something inside him stomped its' feet and whined, "do I have to?" The rest of Thor agreed with the sentiment, no matter how juvenile. Throwing a temper tantrum seemed like a tempting course of action. But... you need to play nice, countered a voice that sounded an awful lot like Loki's. "Fine." This better not take long.

"Loki's not coming?" the wizard asked before Thor was even all the way through the doorway, with the air of someone who knew the answer already and was asking to be polite. Thor nodded, but the man didn't even wait to confirm before turning away again. "Then let's get this show on the road."

Vision was seated primly on the edge of a cot, with Bruce and Strange hovering around him. Or, in the wizard's case, standing imperiously in proximity.  "Is there anything you need me to do?" the android asked.

"Mm, yes." The wizard pulled his hands apart, an orange strand stretching from palm to palm uninterrupted—so Thor assumed, what with the man's back turned to him. "Don't talk and stay still. That goes for all of you, in case you were wondering. Especially you, Stark."

Stark shut his mouth, looking put out.

Thor stood with folded arms, shifting his weight from foot to foot and fighting the urge to ask how long this was going to take. Loki had been solidly asleep when he left, but what if that changed? What if he had a nightmare, or even just woke up alone with no one but his thoughts and a killer hangover for company? Thor jerked into motion before he knew what he was doing, orbiting around the room until he was standing a few feet removed from the cot, with a better angle to see the wizard work. His magic was so different from Loki's. Even when he was showing off, Loki's magic was never quite so flashy. Silent and subtle, where Strange's form of magic was bright and noisy. The expression of deep concentration on his face, however, greatly reminded Thor of his brother. His stomach lurched.

"Can you all... back away a bit?" Strange asked. Though his voice was light, his face never changed. Somehow, he managed to give the impression of a shooing motion with only his tone. Thor didn't move. "Okay, I said everyone, but really. Mr. Odinson, Dr. Banner. You're blocking my light."

"Oh, sorry." Bruce jumped, backing away. Thor locked his jaw, the urge to dig in his heels rearing its' head. Bruce, however, already had him by the shoulder, and Thor let the man tow him backward instinctually. "It's just—fascinating." After backing up a few yards, he stopped.

Thor kept going until his back was against the window.

"And we're all sure nothing is going to explode, right?"

Thor half turned enough to see Lang, the source of the question, had retreated all the way to the far side of the fairly long room.

"Nothing is going to explode," Strange said, "if everyone stops talking."

"I'm just gonna hang out here in case something blows up." Lang grinned and gave two thumbs up. "Just in case."

"Fine. Now everyone please be quiet." Strange pushed at the air, and the golden energy that had been coalescing in a tangled mass between his hands uncoiled into a slowly revolving ring of unfamiliar runes. Thor squinted, unsure if Loki would recognize them. Interestingly, at least to him, each rune looked as though it had been handwritten. Loki didn't often use runework, but what distant memories Thor could call up involved perfect, even lines with no drips or slips or variations in thickness.

"What's—" someone asked.

"Quiet!" Strange barked. His hands stilled less than a minute later. The magic pulsed a few times, slow and rhythmic, and then vanished. Swiping one hand over the palm of the other, a burst of light flashed from the wizard's hands, struck Vision, and broke apart into dozens and dozens of runes no bigger than a grape.

"There's more?" Stark asked gleefully. "FRIDAY, baby girl, tell me you're recording this."

The lights blinked. "Of course, Boss."

"Remember when I mentioned the no talking rule? Because I did say that. I also recall saying it especially applied to you, Stark."

Stark started to open his mouth, but Rhodes covered it with a hand before he could get out whatever it was he had meant to say.

"Stay still," Strange barked at the android before slapping a palm-sized rune in the air, directly in front of the mind stone. "I mean it. Whatever you do, don't move, or the spell will fail." He barked a short word that stung Thor's ears and left them ringing for a long moment. The runes brightened in response, before all but the largest one, positioned over the mind stone, sank into the Vision's skin. The remaining rune continued to glow, growing in brightness until even Thor was squinting slightly.

When the light went out, it was abrupt. Thor blinked the afterimages away and frowned. He moved around to get a better look, and frowned harder. "The stone is still there."

"Yes, because that was a diagnostic spell." Strange arched an eyebrow as though that had been obvious.

"What?" several people said, with various degrees of irritation.

"If it was just a diagnostic, why was it so important that nobody talk?" Stark asked. He glared at Rhodes, who stared back evenly.

"Because I didn't feel like doing the spell over and over again, not to mention the off chance that something might explode?" 

"You said nothing was going to explode!" Lang yelled from the far end of the room.

"I said nothing would explode if everyone stopped talking. Ordinarily the spell is perfectly safe, but excuse me for being cautious when dealing with a primordial singularity contained in a rock the size of a small lemon," Strange snipped back primly. Thor caught the start of an eye roll as the man spun around to face the majority of the occupants of the room. "So, the good news is that I can remove the stone using the mystic arts."

"And what's the bad news?" Rhodes asked. A pause. "What? You said good news, that right there implies there's some bad news, too."

Strange sighed heavily. "The bad news," he drew out the words, "is that I'll need Miss Maximoff's help. If her powers really do come from the stone, that is."

"They do," Stark said.

"There's no guarantee her power will be similar enough to the mind stone's energy to work. If not, removing the stone can be done, but keeping him online? That's a whole other ballpark. I hope you've got some alternative energy sources lined up."

Stark said something in reply, but Thor didn't hear it over the sudden roaring in his ears. He curled his hands into fists and held his breath until he wasn't on the verge of releasing a shower of sparks. Hope bubbled giddy in his breast, and he barely managed to get out a quick goodbye before sprinting from the room.

Loki woke at just past four in the morning with a truly spectacular specimen of hangover, throbbing with an intensity he hadn't felt in... ever, quite possibly. Certainly, he hadn't gotten so drunk in centuries. Though he had many vices, drink had never been one of them. The last time Loki could remember reaching such a height of inebriation was after he’d hacked off Sif’s hair in a fit of desperate rage. The words ‘I hope you know you deserve to be alone, and you always will be,’ had rung in his head like a demented, verbose bell and driven him to open a bottle of wine. Followed by another. And then another. He’d ended up passing out in the bath after realizing he was too drunk to stand, and woken in the morning in the long-cold water with what was, at the time, the worst hangover he had ever experienced. Loki hadn’t touched so much as a drop of spirits for over half a century afterward.

And yet, that hangover still hadn’t been quite this bad. Loki let out a strangled oath as he jackknifed upright, blankets slithering down over his chest to pool in his lap while he clawed weakly at his stomach. The only thought in his head was a desperate, crystal clear, I'm going to throw up on Thor's bed, repeating over and over again in time to the drumming in his skull. The mattress jumped and Loki moaned, clamping a hand over his mouth to cover a painful retch. Tears stung in his eyes, and his chest burned. His vision swam, and when Loki tried to blink away the tears, the resulting pain only made them spill over.

Loki's free hand trembled violently as he attempted to shove the bedclothes off of his legs—move, do something other than sit there and cry pathetically and be sick all over himself. Oh, his head ached. He heaved again, letting the tears flow freely as he gagged into his palm again, this time bringing up a thimbleful of bile. Loki inhaled sharply through his nose, but the thought of trying to swallow it back down was too much. He bent at the waist and what felt like the entirety of his organs surged up out of his mouth. It hurt, and his head hurt, and—Loki barely managed half a breath before he was sick again. And again. And again. Five consecutive times before his stomach calmed enough that he could collapse back against the headboard, trembling and sweating buckets. His skull thunked loudly against the wood, but the pain didn't even register. He still felt vaguely queasy, not to mention fundamentally foul. And everything ached. Even his eyelashes.

He should move. Do something. Clean up, probably. Loki closed his eyes, nearly halfway asleep again despite the unrelenting pain. A tear trailed down over the slope of his neck.

"Are you asleep?" Thor's voice. A hand—Thor's?—on his chin. Something mopping his forehead, wiping his mouth. "I know you're awake."

"Mnot," Loki groaned. "Hurts."

"I'm sure. That doesn't mean you're asleep."

Loki grunted.

A sigh. "At least drink something for me? Just water, I promise."

Putting anything in his stomach seemed like a bad idea. His insides sloshed threateningly at the mere concept. But there was a glass already held at his lips, and the taste of bile was thick on his tongue and his throat burned, and so Loki drank. He was acutely aware of the cool liquid soothing his throat and trickling down into his stomach... where it lasted for perhaps five seconds before his eyes snapped open and he lurched forward. Thor pushed a basin in front of him bare seconds before he brought the water straight back up. He tried to stop there, clamping his jaw shut, but his chest spasmed painfully and then he was sick again. That time, he didn't bother to count how many times he vomited before he caught ahold of himself. Panting, Loki braced the palm of one hand against his forehead and let his eyes flutter shut. A mix of spittle and bile dribbled from his half-open mouth into the basin resting on his lap.

"That's it," Thor was murmuring, his palm stroking up and down the contours of Loki's back in slow, heavy circles that made his bruises twinge. The pain was negligible compared to the pounding in his head or the burning in his chest, so Loki didn't bother telling him to quit. Thor's hand was warm, anyway. That was nice. "Get it all out. It's okay. It's okay."

"I—" Talking was not a good idea. Loki was sick again. Thor made a soft clucking, shushing sound that was nearly swallowed by the ringing in Loki's ears and continued rubbing his back, while his other hand gathered up fistfuls of tangled, sweaty curls and held them back. "Hate you," Loki whimper-slurred, fisting his hands over his stomach. Spitting weakly into the basin, he moaned again.

"I'm sure you do," Thor said, as though they were discussing the weather, or something equally inane. Despite the way he'd lowered his voice, every syllable was a hammer strike on the anvil of Loki's skull. "Will you be alright on your own for just a minute?"

Loki tried to nod, hastily aborted the motion, and made a nominally assenting noise through his teeth.

"Alright. I’ll be quick." The bed bounced as Thor moved, and again at the loss of his weight. Closing his eyes, Loki kept his breathing as deep and even as he could manage. His skin was quite possibly melting off of his body like a snake shedding its skin—if snakes shed their skin like wax dripping from a candle. 

The door clicked open just as Loki dashed away an escaped tear. It was dark enough that he hoped Thor missed it.

"You’re lucky this place has such good soundproofing, you know." Thor pressed a damp cloth to Loki's brow, and petted his hair straight back over his skull.

Loki dispassionately flailed one arm in the direction of his brother's voice. He was trying not to cry, but he couldn't stop trembling and his heart was pounding so hard it hurt and he was humiliated and tired and lonely and homesick and frightened and everything was awful and he hurt, and something inside him snapped and then Loki was weeping softly into his hands over everything and nothing at all.

"Oh, Loki," Thor sighed. "It's okay. It's gonna be okay. I promise." He sank down on the bed and enfolded Loki in his arms. "We're okay. We're okay." Thor rocked them both back and forth. Perhaps it should have made Loki's head hurt worse, or made him sick again, but he could only cry his eyes out and feel absurdly safe. The tears tapered off somewhere along the way, and Loki drifted in a haze of pain. Thor placed the damp cloth over his eyes at some point, and he had yet to stop stroking Loki's hair.

"Feeling better?" Thor asked eventually.

Loki had no idea how long it had been, but even with the cloth over his eyes he could tell the light had changed, and his headache had eased ever so slightly, even as a chorus of intangible hammers continued to beat on his brain. Most everything still ached, but it was a raw, tired ache instead of a deep pain that made him want to dive into a volcano and see if that hurt less. His stomach churned unhappily, but otherwise stayed put. "Yes."

"Do you think you can conjure a hangover potion for yourself? Or do you not feel well enough yet." Thor's lips pressed against the side of Loki's head, and he was too tired to not lean into it. He huffed a soft sigh when his older brother pulled away, and curled slightly closer against his chest. Only when Thor cleared his throat did Loki remember the question.

"Mmm," he hummed, almost positive that the answer was a resounding no. "Just a moment."

"You're sure you won't hurt yourself?" Thor asked.

"I won't," Loki bluffed, desperately hoping that Thor's new, occasional perceptiveness wasn't making an untimely appearance. Squeezing his eyes shut, he mentally reached for the correct potion and twisted his hand, willing it to materialize. But the potion didn't appear. His seidr, stretched thin, snapped like an elastic band. And like elastic, it lashed back at him, full force. Loki barely had time to bite out a mental expletive before he was unceremoniously knocked out.

"You said you were sure you wouldn't hurt yourself."

Loki didn't open his eyes. Maybe if he convinced Thor he was dead, he would stop talking.

"Oh, I can tell you're awake."

Noooooo.

"And we're going to talk. Now, where should I start? The lying, the reckless endangerment of your own health, or why you just about drank yourself into a stupor last night? Open your eyes."

Despite the fact that, by some incredible streak of luck, he now hurt even more than when he had woken up the first time, Loki peeled his eyes open. As soon as they were opened by a bare sliver, the light stabbed directly into his brain, and he slammed them shut with a yelp, thoughts momentarily whiting out.

"Yeah, I bet your head hurts quite a bit now, doesn't it? Magical overexertion on top of a hangover will do that, I've heard." Thor grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled him upright, and Loki was powerless to stop him. "Drink."

Even if he had the energy to refuse, there was no arguing with Thor when he took that tone. Loki swallowed a whimper when something hard was slammed against his sternum, and clumsily groped up the—bottle, bringing it to his lips and tipping it down his throat. The taste was sharp and the liquid sludgy, nearly oily. His stomach lurched quite forcefully, and Loki was forced to swallow down a wave of sick in addition to the potion Thor had forced on him. Clapping a hand over his mouth, Loki waited for it to take effect. When the nausea passed, he deflated with relief. "Thanks," he remembered to rasp after a beat, swiping his tongue over chapped lips. The pounding in his head eased a few moments later, and he cautiously cracked one eye. When the surge in pain was minimal, he opened the other as well.

Unfortunately, this meant he could now see Thor. More specifically, the look on Thor's face. Loki dropped his chin to his chest and shifted his legs ever so slightly closer to his body. He pinched a bit of a blanket between his fingers, rubbed them back and forth over the fabric. Set his jaw, and stopped when it ached (more). Grasped one wrist and rubbed his thumb over the center of it, trying to soothe some of the ache. "Would you say something?"

"I'm just waiting for you to look at me."

Loki lifted his head, forcing himself to meet Thor's eye. Almost immediately, he cast his eyes away. When Thor continued to stay quiet, he slowly shifted his eyes back to his older brother's face. "Will you say something now?" He was beginning to feel a touch of nausea again, and pain pulsed in his forehead and behind his eyes. All he wanted was to lay down and go back to sleep.

"Why, Loki?" Thor's voice was raw, nearly hoarse, when he spoke, and it cracked on a mix of anger and hurt. "Why would you do that to yourself? I could have fetched you a potion from the healers. You didn't have to hurt yourself to prove anything! You didn't do anything but cause yourself pain—I don't understand it. What were you thinking?"

"I—" Loki stopped, setting his jaw and grinding his teeth together. He didn't have the words to explain it. What would Thor know of needing to prove himself, needing to not be weak, when he'd never been weak, powerless, less, a day in his life?

"You weren't," Thor sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between forefinger and thumb, "were you?"

Loki didn't answer. It was rhetorical, and more than that, he was happy to let Thor have whatever explanation he came up with on his own. It was infinitely easier to let others decide what he was thinking and feeling, rather than struggling to explain and being told he was wrong, anyway. "How long was I out?" he asked.

"Five-ish minutes, maybe?" Thor sighed, pushing both hands up through his hair. For a minute, he seemed to sag in on himself, before straightening again. "You owe Bruce a thank you, by the way. He went and got that potion for you. A couple others too, actually."

Loki followed Thor's motion to the bedside table where, in the dim lighting, he could make out two vaguely bottle-shaped silhouettes. "I don't need them," he said petulantly. Dark as it was, Thor's glare and pointed folding of his arms were still quite visible enough to make Loki wilt, relenting in an instant. "Fine. Give it." After making himself swallow both down, Loki wiped his mouth and shuddered. "What were those even for?"

"The first one was for the hangover."

Actually, Loki had known that. The taste and texture of hangover potions were quite distinctive. There were few other potions that felt so much like drinking a live slug as a hangover cure. He flicked a wrist at Thor, and didn't wince when that caused a spike of pain.

"The other two were for your bruises—which you're still going to be seen for, I hope you know—and to start replenishing your seidr."

"Mm. May I go back to sleep now?" Loki stretched his arms over his head, his breath stuttering as every last pain in his body made themselves known all at once. "I'm very tired, you know," he added. His faked yawn very quickly turned into a real one. He also felt rather like garbage, in desperate need of a hose down at the very least, but he wasn't going to mention that to Thor.

Thor sat down on the edge of the bed. "I'm sure. Just a second, and then you can sleep. Well, I'd like you to have some water, too, but then you can sleep."

Oh. Thor wanted to talk. Loki made a face. He pressed a fist over the knot of aching underneath his sternum. "What, then. Not got all your scolding out of your system, yet?"

"Loki—" Thor cut himself off with a sound that was almost a growl. "Yes, I'm still angry at you, but no, that's not what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about the whole... thing."

Snorting, Loki flopped back against the pillows. "Tactful," he said, laying a hand over his eyes. His head still ached. It wasn't so bad, exactly, but it was there, a bright ache that stayed quiet but nevertheless wouldn't let itself be forgotten. "Talk, then."

"I think we can fix it." Thor inhaled, and then hurried on as though he expected Loki to interrupt him. "We have three infinity stones here, brother. That's plenty of energy! And now that we know it can be done, the wizard can—what?"

Loki thought he'd hidden his quiet snort rather well. "What," he snapped.

"You just got this look on your face." Thor morphed his own expression in a demonstration that Loki thought was probably highly exaggerated. Probably.

"I don't make a face like that."

"You're making that exact face right—" Thor inhaled deeply. "You're trying to distract me."

Really, Loki hadn't been. "I don't make that face," he muttered petulantly.

"Just answer my question, please."

"You really think that second rate could pull off something like that?" Loki scoffed. "He's a wizard, Thor! He doesn't even have his own magic!"

Thor raised an eyebrow, irritatingly unruffled. "He figured out that your life force, or, something like it at least, was drained before you or any of our healers did, didn't he?"

"Because no one thought to look for that, specifically! And if we'd been on Asgard, the soul forge would have discovered it right away." If they'd been on Asgard, it wouldn't have been a problem, because the Casket—"Anyway, they would have figured it out when they did more intensive diagnostic spells. He didn't do anything special."

"He has experience with infinity stones, though."

"So do I!" Loki started to throw his hands up in frustration, half sitting up in the process, before what felt like his entire body twinged in pain and he flinched back against the pillows with a soft yelp that was far, far too loud in the silent room. He eased back down, refusing to meet Thor's eye. "I don't want some moron in a costume who thinks he's some kind of sorcerer mucking about in the energy that keeps me from being not dead, Thor."

"But if he can help—" Thor tried.

"You're asking me to let an overconfident toddler with access to one of the fundamental building blocks of the universe bang it around on me and hope that maybe by the time he's done my insides will still be inside!" Loki shouted over him. The effort left him gasping for breath, sweat springing up on his brow as he fought through the sudden resurgence of nausea and the increased pounding in his head.

"Do you need to throw up again?" Thor was half reaching for something on the floor. Loki tried to glare at him, but only sort-of squinted his eyes.

"Nnnfine," he managed to hiss, biting down on the inside of his cheek a second later. "Gimme... a moment." Shutting his eyes, Loki tangled his fingers in the blankets and squeezed until his arms shook, relying on the sensation to ground himself. His heart was hammering in his ears like a stampede of bilgesnipe, and his mouth was suddenly dry.

"This is why I want you to let him try, brother."

Loki stifled a groan. Unfair, he thought loudly, still too drained to voice it. Thor was taking advantage of his semi-enforced silence to yammer at him.

"You're not well, and if something can be done to help you, I want it done. If there's even a chance that the wizard can help you, shouldn't we try? It's not like he can make it any worse."

Despite himself, Loki barked an incredulous laugh that burned like a lump of hot coal coming up. "Oh, Thor," he croaked, peeling his eyes open. "It can always get worse." He sighed, turning over onto his side to put his back to Thor. "I'm going to sleep now. Bother me later, if you please."

A sigh. "Fine, I guess." Thor's hand settled on his head, smoothing over Loki's hair before he pulled away, replacing it with a brief press of his lips. "Rest well, brother."

Loki tucked his chin to his chest and curled his arms around himself. He hurt, and Thor's little brotherly love routine was too difficult to deal with right then. Though he was clearly waiting for a response, after a minute, Thor sighed and the mattress jolted with the removal of his weight. The door opened and shut a minute later. Good, Loki made himself think. He felt cold.

Chapter Text

"Are you sure you don't want to go back to bed after breakfast?"

Loki breathed deeply, head buried in his hands, elbows planted on the counter. "Stop asking me that, brother," he snapped through his fingers. "Your voice makes my head hurt." He tipped his head forward slightly, digging the heels of his hands deep into his eye sockets until the stinging behind closed eyelids was replaced with liquid blooms of neon color. His head throbbed in perfect time with the echo of his heartbeat in his ears. Thor's hovering was not helping. At all.

"Specifically my voice?"

"Yes. So stop." Dragging his hands down over his face, he groaned, "I feel like a wet dishrag."

"I'm sorry," Thor said, so sincerely that it made Loki want to stab him. A large hand settled on his back, rubbing in circles. "I bet you'll feel better when your stomach isn't empty."

"You're trying to trick me," Loki groused.

"You need to eat. I don't know why you're so against something that's good for you."

"Repeat the last three words." Brunnhilde yawned loudly, her jaw cracking, and slumped against the counter. "Beer?"

"No."

"Fine. Coffee?"

Loki lifted his head out of his hands just long enough to flash her an acidic glare. "Once the coffee is made this whole place will be up. Do you really want that?"

Over by the stove, Bruce chuckled and lifted the lid of his teapot, releasing a feathery plume of steam. He turned off the burner and moved the teapot to let it cool. "You two are never up this early."

"Thor made me," Loki accused.

"You're all loud," Brunn's complaint overlapped his.

"I told you that you can go back to bed after you eat," Thor said mildly.

Bristling, Loki brought up his head again to snap, "well, I'm awake now, so no. There's no point now."

Bruce caught his eye and started to drift over from the stove. "How are you feeling today, Loki?"

"Not you too," Loki moaned in dismay. "Leave me be."

"You're not well," Thor said, still rubbing his back. "We're just trying to help."

Loki grumbled something into his hands as he slumped again. "Blast your help. I'm fine."

"You're obviously not fine." Thor's other hand came to perch on the crown on Loki's head, lingering for a moment before starting to smooth his hair. "We'll talk to the wizard about getting this all fixed. We'll get you better, brother. But even if everything was normal you'd still need to eat."

"I hate you," Loki mumbled. Why would Thor not leave him alone? His throat still seared from vomiting, and his stomach sloshed uneasily at the mere thought of putting something inside of it. And beside all of that, he had no desire for it. Eating when he didn't feel like it was just as difficult as trying to drink water when he wasn't thirsty. There was nothing that sounded appetizing, as simple as that. His head throbbed again, and he bit the inside of his cheek to hold back a groan.

"Too bad. I love you."

"I'm going to stab you. I will." That was debatable. Probably summoning a knife would go better than his attempt at calling up a hangover cure... last night? That morning? Loki was momentarily sidetracked by the realization that he actually had no idea. Morning, probably. Right, maybe? In any case, he was relatively mostly sure that he wouldn't throw up all over Stark's fancy island. He paused. That was actually sort of a tempting thought. But no. He'd really rather not. Especially not with an audience.

"No one here doubts that," Brunnhilde said.

Twisted up in his own thoughts, Loki momentarily forgot what he had said out loud and what he hadn't and was offended. When he did recall correctly, he felt a momentary flicker of satisfaction. At least no one else seemed to think he'd made a hollow threat.

"Has anyone started making breakfast yet?" Brunnhilde interrupted before he delved too deep into his musings for the umpteenth time that morning alone.

"Are you offering?" Bruce asked.

"Nope."

"Then you can wait." Bruce's voice had moved much closer. Loki nearly jumped at the clink of something being set down at his side, barely managing to reduce his reaction to a slight twitch. "Here, this should help with your headache."

Loki let his elbows slide outward until he was forehead down on the cool plane of the island. He lingered there for a few breaths, steeling himself and letting the coolness of the stone seep into his brow and soothe the edges of his headache, and then straightened. Something in his spine cracked with embarrassing volume. He peeled open his eyes and use both hands to cup and tug close to his chest the teal mug that had materialized.

Bending his head over it very slightly, he gave the steam wafting out of it an experimental inhale. It smelled mildly floral with a hint of sweetness, and the vapor was pleasantly warm as it tickled his face. "Thank you," he said belatedly, giving Bruce his best spur-of-the-moment effort at a sincere smile. A roll of his wrist cooled the liquid to a more drinkable temperature. Loki lifted it to his lips with one hand, shaking out the other to try and disperse the stabbing aches in his wrist and elbow. Swapping the mug to the other hand, he repeated the motion as he sipped at the tea. It tasted much the same as it smelled—floral and sweet, and thankfully not overpowering or aggravating to the dull but persistent pulsing in his brain.

"What do you want to eat?" Thor asked. His hand moved up Loki's back to squeeze his shoulder, and he nearly choked on his next sip. "Nothing is not an answer."

After clearing his throat with a few coughs, "nothing," Loki said mulishly, anyway. Thor should know better than to ask him, really. He made a face into the liquid, and his own distorted reflection on the sloshing surface made one back. His throat was burning again from the coughing, and his chest ached.

Thor stepped away with an exasperated sigh. "I'll get you some cereal."

Loki rolled his eyes and nursed his tea in silence, watching as Bruce set a frying pan on the stove and then turned to rummage through the fridge.

"You're making bacon?" Brunnhilde asked as he turned around again, a somewhat unholy glee in her voice.

Bruce said something back, though Loki barely paid attention. Letting his eyes fall shut and setting down his mug, Loki let his mind drift as a soft sizzling sound and the smell of cooking bacon filled the room. The scent turned his stomach slightly, but he managed to ignore it well enough to nearly fall asleep again on the island. At the very least, he was dead to the world enough to startle and nearly topple off of the barstool when Thor spoke up from next to him.

"Sorry, sorry," Thor caught him by the shoulders and steadied him on the stool, ignoring Loki seething in his direction as he gasped for breath, one hand with a white-knuckled grip on the edge of the island and the other draped limply over his heaving chest. "I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to scare you. I promise you can go back to bed after you eat. I was just going to tell you that I got your breakfast." He nodded hopefully to a bowl and a glass of water, nudging the former slightly closer to Loki with a finger. With his other hand, he seemingly drew a spoon from the air behind his back and offered it like he was presenting a sword.

Suppressing a reluctant tickle of amusement at Thor's possibly unintentional theatrics, Loki took the proffered spoon, pulled the bowl close, and stirred it through the cereal. Simple bran flakes, with added chocolate chips and finely diced chunks of fresh strawberry. He'd had similar probably dozens and dozens of times on the Statesman, minus the luxuries of chocolate or fruit. Grain was rather universal.

"Thank you," he said begrudgingly, levering the spoon against the lip of the bowl to carefully pluck up a few flakes and a single cube of strawberry. The peace offering/bribe written between the lines was obvious, as was the thought put into picking something that was fairly familiar. A small part of him was touched. Mostly he thought Thor was a moron. Loki did have enough self-awareness to realize he was being slightly irrational—Thor had nothing to apologize for. But that was his brother.

Thor patted his shoulder as he circled back around the island. "You're welcome. Eat it all."

A door creaked, and Loki spun just in time to see Barton walk out of one of the bedrooms, yawning widely. The minute he realized who it was, he turned back around and pretended to be completely focused on his cereal. Stupid, he grumbled internally, fighting to keep a flush from rising in his face even as he felt his ears heating. Stupid. The skin of his back prickled like he was being watched. Or, well, he was almost definitely being watched. Loki sucked in a breath through his teeth and shoved the spoon in his mouth after it, then felt silly again. It wasn't like he needed an excuse to not talk to the man.

Barton wasn't going to kill him. He'd said so, and he certainly wasn't dumb enough to attempt it in front of witnesses, at least. Thor specifically would take objection (he thought). Unease joined the nausea swirling deep in his gut, all the same. As though his insides had abruptly constricted, he almost choked on the next bite he tried to take. The bran flakes scraped against his throat when he swallowed, and the drink of water he tried to follow it with did nothing to help. His next inhale stuttered and caught. Stop it, he growled at himself. Fighting the feeling that his lungs had been replaced with uru weights, Loki forced a deep breath.

Apparently, he'd been lost in his head long enough for Barton to be neatly absorbed into the group. Next to the stove, he was chattering with Bruce, leaned up on the counter in a way that suggested he was seconds from hopping up to sit on top of it. The familiar rise and fall of Thor's voice drew Loki's gaze to where he was fiddling with the coffee maker. Everyone else was bound to be up soon, he realized morosely. When he looked back, Barton was rummaging through the cabinets and Bruce was using a spatula to ease a few strips of bacon out of the frying pan and onto a waiting plate. Loki half caught the word "pancake," and he snorted. Futile, childish jealousy rose up from somewhere deep within him, insisting that he was being left out. He much preferred being ignored to whatever small talk might be happening, and it wasn't like he actually wanted bacon or anything. The smell was still making him feel sick, and the ache in his head was growing again along with the influx of light and sound and scent suffusing the space.

The aroma of coffee gradually grew stronger. And, as he'd expected, it was as effective as a blaring siren at drawing the rest of the compound's occupants. Quite possibly moreso. Stark materialized from... somewhere and made a beeline for the coffee maker, and Lang stumbled in soon after, looking as though he was sleepwalking. Loki felt his shoulders begin to hike up as the room filled with people, and tried to push them back down. The only ones who didn't join their gathering within five minutes were the mind stone, who presumably lacked a sense of smell along with the ability to eat, and the wizard. He'd most likely portaled himself home the night before. Loki's lip curled slightly at the thought of him. More specifically, at the reminder of Thor's insistence on getting the wizard to use an infinity stone like a battery. On Loki. It was one of the most Thor-like ideas he'd ever heard.

It felt as though he was observing the scene via a decrepit holographic projector, slightly muffling words and blurring figures. Stark said something Loki didn't catch and slapped Rhodes on the back, Brunnhilde slung an arm around Bruce's neck and peered over his shoulder at the next batch of bacon, and Barton stirred something together in a large mixing bowl with aplomb. Loki put his full focus on eating—and then he blinked and the bowl was empty. He started to stiffen in place, uncertainty hitting as he watched the sickeningly domestic performance.

Thor's hand came down on his shoulder. "Do you want to go back to bed?"

Loki gave a slow nod, letting Thor take his hand and pull him off the barstool. The minute the door to Thor's room shut, he exhaled heavily, and all the tension he'd been carrying drained out with it. He was left lightheaded and empty feeling, fatigue enfolding him into a bubble of molasses.

"I'll call Doctor Strange," Thor said as he turned down the covers of the bed. "We'll figure this out. Who knows? Maybe we'll have you fixed in time for lunch."

Snorting lightly as he slid under the bedcovers, Loki shot him the best glare he could muster while half asleep. "I'm not letting that wizard muck about in my life force."

"He has an infinity stone. We have three infinity stones within reach. There's plenty of power around to fix this, and he already has an example to work with," Thor said.

Loki opened his mouth to argue, then shut it again. Exhaustion washed over him, and he said, "I want to sleep." He went rigid as Thor leaned in and kissed his hair, wanting to squirm away.

"Right, sorry. Sleep well. I'll be nearby if you need me."

Despite the dampened whirlwind of emotions churning just below his surface thoughts, by the time the door clicked shut Loki was all but completely tumbled into a dead sleep.

For the second time in two days, Loki himself, Thor, Brunnhilde, Bruce, and the wizard all packed into the medbay. Loki had his arms crossed defensively over his chest, glaring at anyone who dared catch his eye. The wizard's magical examination had him feeling like a beast on display at a market, being evaluated for sale. The suffocating feeling of another, foreign source of magic pressing against his own certainly didn't help. He nearly expected the wizard to start poking in his mouth to inspect his teeth. Loki held no reservations about reacting exactly like a beast if he tried it.

"Stop pushing me away," the wizard said. "I can't do anything if you don't let me look at you."

"You have eyes," Loki said sourly.

"I can't see your life force with them."

"You saw it yesterday."

"I need to see it now."

"Loki, he's trying to help you." Thor sounded exasperated when he butted in. "Would you let him?" Merely the sound of his voice made Loki's scowl deepen. He didn't know why he'd let Thor force him into this. No, that's not true. Arguing had no effect when his older brother really got something into his head, and the thought of beating his head against that wall was... exhausting. His skull throbbed at the thought, and the persistent nausea that had refused to entirely leave him alone writhed like a disturbed snake in his stomach. He ached all over and the light streaming in through the windows stabbed directly into his temples like bludgeons. He wanted to go back to bed again.

"I'm not trying to block him," Loki grumbled. "It's just happening. Our magics are like oil and water. They don't mix."

"Only because you're so determined to lock me out," the wizard said. "Do you want me to fix this or not?"

Something nasty hovered on the tip of his tongue, all of his doubts at a human wizard being able to fix him coalescing into a dart of venom. But that would only drag things out, which was quite possibly the least attractive prospect he could think of. Instead, Loki pressed his lips together and locked his jaw. "Fine," he hissed, reluctantly lowering the magical defenses he'd instinctively pulled up in response to the wizard's evaluation spell.

"Thank you." Strange's tone conveyed a heavy undertone of 'finally' that Loki didn't appreciate. "You're blocking me again."

Loki cursed under his breath in Asgardian, bending at the waist slightly and uncrossing his arms to cover his aching forehead and sternum with his hands. He felt sick.

"I assume that was insulting, so right back at you."

Thor hovered just outside the sparkling circle of magic conducting its invasive inspection. Every minute or so he would twitch forward and then pull back again. The wizard had been very firm about no one besides Loki being inside the radius of the inspection spell.

"I'm fine, Thor," Loki said. He forced himself to straighten and cross his arms again, despite the protesting twinges from... everywhere, really. Tipping his head to the side in a show of boredom and ignoring how it made his temples throb, he sighed, "how long is this going to take?" Every minute that he spent being magically poked and prodded was another minute not spent in the company of a dark room, a horizontal surface, and a cold washcloth.

"The more you keep moving, the longer it'll take."

"I can't move now?"

"It would also be nice if you stopped talking."

"Well, we can't always get what we want."

"Loki!" Thor sounded at the end of his wits. "Please, brother. This is to help you."

"Right," he said quietly, some of the fight draining out of him. A sneaky bit of shame rose in the back of his mind, and he quickly quashed it down.

"I think I've got the method figured out," the wizard said, finally, dispersing the spell.

"You think?" Loki echoed in dismay. Catching himself with his hand halfway up to rub his sternum again, he glanced to Thor, hoping desperately to see a sign that he had changed his mind. No such luck. Brunn and Bruce, when he looked at them in turn, both seemed at least somewhat concerned, but neither spoke up. "Am I the only one who doesn't want to stake this whole stupid endeavor on an 'I think?'"

"I'm supplementing your life force, not tampering with what you already have."

"That's definitely tampering," Loki muttered bitterly, but the wizard spoke over him. He might not have even heard, which was a mildly insulting thought.

"Nothing I'll do will drain your natural life force. It may not work, but you're not going to end up any worse off." He raised an eyebrow, smirking slightly. "Scout's honor."

A wave of pain prevented Loki from snapping anything in response. Apparently, saying nothing was as good as an agreement, because the conversation had moved on by the time he could open his mouth and have words come out instead of a moan.

"The only real question is power source. We have three infinity stones at our disposal right now. Raw power is a given."

"Use the one you have," Loki gritted out right on the heels of the insufferable wizard's little speech. "May as well get this over with. Besides, you've played with it before. Might be less of a chance of you blowing me apart into bloody scraps if you have some degree of familiarity."

"I think there was a compliment hidden somewhere in there. Anyway, time stone it is. Stay still." Doing something fancy with his hands, the massive amulet around the wizard's neck peeled open just enough to let a blinding sliver of brilliant green radiance spill out.

As though a bomb had been set off in his face, Loki flinched back and slammed his eyes closed. Instantaneously the aura of the stone had suffused the room. He'd been constantly aware of the stone's presence, of course, but it was muted, somehow, by the tacky hunk of tarnished metal that housed it. While it was closed. With the amulet opened even just a sliver, the raw power was overwhelming. If he'd been standing, likely he'd have fallen to his knees as the surge hit him. His headache magnified by an exponential amount, even stronger than it had been when his hangover was at its worst, and his heart drummed frantically in his ears. He could feel sweat breaking out on his skin. There was a reason infinity stones were never wielded raw—the sheer strength of one stone's magic was more than the heat of a hundred thousand suns.

It set off a beacon just as bright, too.

At that reminder, Loki forced himself to open his eyes. Thor and Brunnhilde both seemed a little shaken, but not even a quarter so much as Loki himself felt. Annoyingly, the wizard seemed unaffected. Bruce's similar lack of reaction only mildly mitigated his irritation. "Let's get this over with, then." He paused then, fighting to recall what the wizard had said just before he'd opened the amulet. "Do I really need to sit still?"

To his surprise, the wizard shrugged. "I'm not really sure. You can take your chances if you want." When Loki gave him the best glower he could manage (which he feared was very pathetic seeing as he could barely think around the pain in his head) he smirked. "That's what I thought."

"You're really sure this isn't going to make anything worse?" Brunn finally spoke up. Loki was torn between gratitude and irritation.

"Like I said. Scout's honor."

"What does that even—" she started to snap, but Bruce spoke over her.

"I kind of really doubt that you were a boy scout," he said.

"I was!" Strange reared back a bit like a snake, but with theatrical offense instead of threat. "For two weeks. When I was... six, I think. That counts."

"Maybe." Bruce squinted heavily, but also seemed slightly mollified. At his quelling look, Brunnhilde also relaxed the smallest bit.

"As I said," Loki spoke up again, mildly strained. "Could we get this over with?" A bit of desperation unintentionally spilled over into the latter half of his sentence. Every second the time stone was exposed was another second it was setting off a signal flare to the entire universe, but more importantly, the Titan. Not to mention he could barely see for the headache and he was starting to tremble from a mix of pain, fear, and sheer fatigue.

"Right. Starting now. Everyone hush up so I can concentrate." And Loki definitely must have been beginning to hallucinate a bit, because for a moment he thought he might have heard a muttered, "sorry," tacked on the end.

But then the wizard started the spell and his thoughts scattered in all directions like a herd of sheep before a dragon. Loki closed his eyes, fighting to keep his breathing even and slow. The overwhelming power of the time stone, though of a different flavor, carried the same base note as the mind stone. His thoughts flitted unwillingly to it, dwelling so near and entirely unshielded. It may have been his imagination, but it felt as though the mind stone's grating song was growing louder, though not closer, like it heard its twin and was crying out in reply.

Biting his tongue until it bled, he tried to turn his thoughts to less chilling things. I should check on the filtration systems. It's better to discover any issues before we might have to use it again. And maybe the rest of the mechanics. I don't know if anyone had thought to keep up the upkeep of the engine room after landing—Loki bit down harder, locking his shoulders so he wouldn't flinch, as a powerful buzzing sensation filled him to the brim. It felt like his very cells were vibrating in his own personal earthquake. The sensation started out intense and only grew more by the second. Hissing an exhale through his teeth, he clenched his hands in the fabric of his pants. He couldn't tell if they were really shaking or it only felt like it.

Something inside snapped. A roaring tide of immeasurable power rushed like a tsunami, blistering his seidr and nearly rending him in two from the pain. Loki's back arched as he screamed, clawing the air with fingers like talons and icy green light flooding from his eyes—the same color and yet so different a shade than his own magic. It was a level of sheer, unadulterated agony he had never felt before, not even under the titan's tender mercies.

No physical pain could compare to what he felt, nor did the Maw's attacks on his magic come close. His seidr burned, and Loki burned with it. Every nerve in his body was firing to signal pain, all at once and unceasingly. Loki could barely hear the shouting of those around him over the blood roaring in his ears. Finally, finally, finally, the agony reached a crescendo his mind could no longer take, and the world turned black.

Chapter Text

It hadn't really crossed Thor's mind that something could really go wrong. At least anything beyond 'not working' being going wrong. And it not working wasn't even a possibility he'd entertained. The answer seemed so clear.

Maybe we'll have you fixed in time for lunch. Ha.

Loki had been right. He'd known better. Thor should have listened to him. Of course the human wizard had no idea what he was doing, but he'd been so desperate for a solution, so fearful that no matter what Loki said he really was going to lose him if he didn't do something... Thor wished he still had Mjolnir, if only so he could hit himself over the head with his own hammer. It couldn't make him more of an idiot.

It had seemed as if everything was going fine. Loki kept snapping and fidgeting, but that was only expected. Thor was more afraid that he'd try to run than anything else.

Now, as Loki screamed, that assurance that he'd held just seconds before might as well have belonged to a different person for how foreign it felt to him. Terror like nothing he'd felt before beat in Thor's chest like a second heart as he lunged forward to seize the wizard by the shoulder.

"Stop it, now!" he demanded, electricity arcing freely over his body as charcoal thunderheads swallowed the sky and the room plunged into darkness. One of the overhead lights shattered in a spray of brilliant orange sparks. "Or I swear—"

"I can't help him if you electrocute me, so back up!" the wizard snarled. Loki was still screaming, and green light blazed from his eyes and his open mouth as he contorted in clear agony. "I can promise you that knocking me out right now will make this much worse!"

"What, like you promised you wouldn't hurt him?" Brunn demanded. She'd drawn a dagger from somewhere and had shifted into an attack-ready position.

"You want to take that risk?" Strange said. His form was rigid as his hands danced frantically through the air, gold spilling in their wake. "Fixing it now, frying me later, please."

Contrary to his enraged visage, Thor was more terrified than angry. His real wrath would come later, when Loki was no longer actively screaming. The lightning was gathering heavy in his blood, and the sparks popping around him and arcs of electricity skipping up and down his arms were growing stronger by the second. Nothing had hit the wizard yet, but it would. Thor forced himself to let go of him, and took two stumbling steps back. Thunder rumbled outside.

Loki slumped abruptly, caught by the wizard before he hit the floor, but the green light still poured out from his face. "He's just passed out, I'm still working it, no questions please—"

Thor exchanged a glance with Brunnhilde, who had yet to put away her dagger.

The light shining from behind Loki's closed eyelids and his slightly open mouth blinked out in the same instant that the wizard's amulet snapped shut and he dropped to the floor, breathing heavily.

Thor barely registered it. He lunged forward, and past the wizard, grabbing Loki and lowering them both to the floor, holding his baby brother against his chest. Though the sky stayed dark and his heart still thrummed at a frantic pace, the electricity in him started to settle once he had his brother within his grip. Thor fumbled for Loki's pulse point, and crumpled inward with raw relief when he felt it. Just finding the soft and thready but there beat of Loki's pulse against his fingertips brought him near to sobbing. Brunn and Bruce crouched on either side of them, Bruce reaching out to check Loki's pulse for himself.

The relative respite vanished in an instant when Loki stiffened up like a board. Eyes roved wildly behind closed lids, and Loki gave a small gasp. "What's—" Thor started, glancing to Bruce. His question was answered before he finished asking it—Loki started to seize.

"Lay him on the floor!" Bruce ordered sharply. "Turn him on his side and put your hands under his head so he doesn't bang it on the ground. Strange, call the time when he stops seizing."

They waited in a tense silence as Loki bucked and twitched, his whole body tensing and then relaxing at a dizzying speed. Thor held his breath to keep from sparking. Time seemed to warp as they waited for the seizure to cease—like the clock had stopped on a single moment, one terrible instant they were doomed to never escape. Rain now beat against the windows in an angry tattoo, and thunder wailed Thor's helplessness when he didn't have the strength to speak around the terror that swelled his throat shut. Eye stinging and sight wavering with the tears that were desperate to fall, Thor nearly missed it when Loki stilled.

"One minute twenty-two seconds," Strange said.

"Don't move him!" Bruce ordered sharply, when Thor started to pull Loki back onto his lap. "Just let him wake up." The man checked Loki's pulse and scrutinized his face and—hands, Thor thought?—before sitting back again and fixing Thor with a quelling look.

Thor obeyed, though it burned him to leave Loki there on the floor. He was so still, in sharp contrast to less than a minute before. Haltingly, Thor brushed his fingertips over the porcelain pale skin of his little brother's cheek. "This is your fault," Thor growled suddenly. Rage broiled in his gut as his head whipped around to face the wizard. "You did this to him."

Loki made a quiet noise deep in his throat, and Thor's ire waned as quickly as it had sprung. "Mnuuphh," he moaned, shifting his head a bit to the side.

"Loki!" Thor leaned over him and peered fretfully at his face. "How are you feeling?" 

"He's bound to be disoriented," the wizard said. "Give him some time to come around before you start expecting him to talk."

"Don't tell me what to do," Thor retorted. "What did you do to him?"

"I didn't—" Strange cut off, inhaling sharply through his nose. When he spoke again, his voice was much more level—deliberately so. "The energy of the time stone wasn't compatible with him. While the power could technically do the job, it was like trying to wrap a wound with a bandage made of salt. You saw the result of that. I couldn't just stop the spell. I had to draw the energy of the time stone back out of him or it would have kept doing damage until it dissipated on its own, and who knows how long that would have taken."

Thor ground his teeth together, looking at his little brother's face. Blood was beginning to dry under his nostrils, and another trickle of crimson spilled from the corner of his lips. The deep red was all the more alarming against the greyish pallor of his skin. He traced the path of one twining azure vein, visible just under the surface of Loki's cheek. "Could it have killed him?"

"I wouldn't have let it," Strange said.

"You swore it wouldn't hurt him, you son of a—" Thor snapped, ready to lunge.

"I said," Strange said back, his tone as sharp as the crack of a whip, "that it wouldn't make anything worse, and it didn't. I know it doesn't look like it right now, but he's not actually any worse off than he was before we tried this."

Bruce raised his hands in a placating gesture, looking between Thor and the wizard. "Look, Thor, I don't know magic, but seizures themselves aren't actually harmful to the person who had one, as long as a seizure doesn't last any longer than five minutes. I can't speak for the effects of infinity stones, but he doesn't seem to be in any imminent danger of dying to me. I want to monitor him for the next few hours at least, but my guess is he's probably going to be okay. He woke up quickly, he's breathing, nothing seems wrong about his pulse—those are all good signs."

"If you want, I can do a spell—" Brunnhilde and Thor both made simultaneous but differing sounds of anger, and the wizard mimicked Bruce in lifting his hands pacifyingly. "To check and make sure that there's no damage of the imminent medical emergency variety, which I highly doubt, but if it'll put you at ease..."

"No more magic," Brunn said.

"That's understandable," Strange said.

Thor's mind moved on a bit, as the panic settled and he fully realized that what they'd tried had failed. "Would it work with one of the other stones? If we try—" he blurted, a bit of his desperation bleeding into his tone.

Strange was already shaking his head. "If the time stone isn't compatible, then space and mind won't be, either. Reality or soul might, but those aren't on the planet."

Thor deflated, face twisting in defeat. "What do we do, then? I won't give up," he declared, glaring preemptively.

Bruce sighed. "No one is saying we give up. But right now, Loki is bound to be exhausted and probably pretty sore. We can talk about plans later, preferably when Loki is cognizant enough to give his own input. I think we should get him examined by one of the healers and then let him sleep some of it off."

"I'll take him—" Thor started, but Brunn cut him off.

"Should we move him, or bring one of them here? I don't think they can examine him any better on the ship then they can here, but you certainly can start a whole lot of panicked gossip by carrying him through the halls like this. Plus, here there's... a lot more space."

"I think it would be better to keep him somewhere his vitals can be monitored, just in case of a repeat seizure. Can you do that on your ship?" Strange asked.

"I think you should go," Brunn said flatly.

"Finally worn out my welcome? No problem. Get in touch if you need anything." Moments later, the wizard was disappearing through a portal. Some of the tension in the room finally abated with him gone.

Thor's thoughts turned back to where they'd been before the wizard cut in. "So Loki has to stay here?" He frowned heavily, glancing around the room. While it was medically very well equipped, the bright white walls and sterile equipment gave it a cold, impersonal feel. Baby blue curtains to draw around individual cots provided the only semblance of privacy. The floor-to-ceiling windows along the front of the room were the only redeeming feature in Thor's eyes, and Loki would probably see that as another fault of the space. He'd hate it.

"If I could interject," FRIDAY cut in smoothly, "there's a room equipped for recovery on the common floor. It has an adjustable bed and basic medical monitoring capabilities already in place. Would that be an acceptable compromise?"

"That would be great," Thor said quickly, relieved.

Loki surfaced to mostly full awareness sometime between being picked up and placed in a bed, at least enough to realize it wasn't the room he had been sharing with Thor. Wondering where he was seemed to be too daunting a task to engage in, however, so he let the thought go. He was lying down somewhere soft, and at the moment that was enough for him. Everything ached, and he couldn't seem to stop shaking. His seidr throbbed pitifully at the edge of his awareness, horribly warped and bruised under the overwhelming force of an infinity stone. He itched under his skin, and no matter how he tossed or turned nothing relieved the sensation. Sounds filtered to him as if underwater, slightly warped and hushed in volume. When he tried to peel his eyes open, the light hit him in the face with the force of Thor's dearly departed hammer. Loki moaned and shut his eyes again. Unfortunately, the pain didn't go away with the absence of light.

Someone was petting his hair. Thor, Loki assumed fuzzily—he couldn't see Brunn or either of the doctors doing such a thing, especially not the wizard. Strange. Appropriate name for the man, Loki thought bitterly. But bitterness was too hard to keep ahold of, and it quickly waned for pure misery again. "Loki?" Thor's voice, near enough to belong to the hand currently petting his hand.

"Hmm?" he managed, halting peeling open his eyes and squinting until the figure at his side came into focus. Thor, with his lips pinched together until they blanched, and remaining eye filled with a disconcerting amount of intensity.

"How are you feeling?" The hand in his hair paused, and Loki heard a slight squeak. When the petting resumed, he rather belatedly realized the squeak had come from him. Embarrassing, but he would give himself a pass since the walls seemed to be swimming. "Brother?"

The inquiry squirmed through his brain like a mass of spastic worms—or perhaps that was just his thoughts. Loki didn't know. His eyes felt oddly gummy when he attempted to blink. "Fine," he tried, knowing very well it was incorrect and wouldn't fool anyone in the least. Particularly since his voice soared up at the end like he was asking a question.

"Try again," Thor said, face doing something weird. Loki found he didn't really care enough to try and decipher the reaction.

"Bad," he said, a touch more decisively.

"Maybe with specifics?" Thor's other hand gripped his shoulder. It occurred to Loki, rather too late, that he should probably be protesting the contact in some way, but the urge to pull back quickly flitted by. He didn't have enough energy to deny himself the comfort of Thor's closeness, however little it might be. And he didn't really know if he could move, and would rather not find out by humiliating himself. "Brother."

Specifics, right. Thor had asked for specifics. "Dizzy," Loki said, because the ceiling was moving quite a bit and he was fairly certain it wasn't supposed to do that. Spots of a sucking black dappled the edges of his vision, fading in and out like some sort of personal, reverse light show. It might be pretty if it wasn't so disorienting. "Headache. Hot." Loki twitched. "Itchy."

Thor moved his hand from Loki's shoulder to his cheek, and his expression spasmed momentarily from deliberate calm to a half-step from outright panic. A roll of thunder accompanied the shift. "You're on fire, Loki. Norns. FRIDAY, tell Bruce to bring some fever reducers if he isn't already."

"Your hand is cold," Loki told him.

Again, Thor's expression dropped. The pitter-patter of rain outside surged in volume, though it died down again seconds later. "My hand is normal. You're just feverish."

Loki furrowed his brow. That hurt. He stopped. But there was something—"my metabolism," he blurted. When Thor's face turned confused, he waited, but it didn't clear. "It's slowed," he further elaborated. Thor was still confused. Giving a little growl deep in his throat, Loki tried again. "The medicine, Thor."

At last, Thor understood, his eye widening. "FRIDAY," he said quickly, "tell Bruce to bring normal human strength medicine. We think Loki's metabolism has slowed."

"I'll tell him."

Loki relaxed, message successfully imparted, and hunched in on himself. He kept absently trying to shake out his limbs, hoping the motion would do something for the aches or the sensation of something crawling under his skin. Thor put a hand on his bouncing leg and Loki gave him a slightly betrayed look.

"How is he?" Loki turned his head just enough to catch Brunnhilde in his peripheral vision, though partially obscured by a field of dark splotches. Well, he thought it was Brunnhilde based on the voice—her face was blocked by a towering stack of. Something. The something was set on his stomach with a soft whump, and Thor manhandled him forward. Pillows were stuffed behind his back and he was lowered back down again before he could properly find the words to expressed his displeasure at being dislocated from his comfortable position. He sighed softly and turned his cheek into one of the newly provided pillows. It was blessedly cool on his skin, and the silkiness of it was further comforting to the infernal itching sensation pervading his body. The slight weight remained was removed from his lap only to be redistributed over him—blankets. It was more blankets. Duh. He should have realized that.

"Ah," Thor said, holding out a hand to her. "Maybe only one or two. He's running a pretty high fever right now."

"Hey," Loki protested as she removed half of the blankets she'd just added, dumbing them over the little dove gray armchair in the far corner of the room.

"No," Thor said sternly, and Loki fell quiet. He didn't care about the blankets being taken, not really, but it felt like something he should protest about. For reasons. "Try and sleep."

The prideful part of Loki wanted to resist, to prove that he was fine, he didn't need all this hovering. It was mercilessly drowned out by the rest of him. His head pounded like it was trying to split in half, and gooseflesh rose on his arms, prickling against the blankets. Loki swallowed and squeezed his eyes shut. The worst part of a seidr-wound wasn't the pain. Or at least not the physical pain. The part that made it agonizing was the sense of soul-rending strife. The sense of wrong that abounded, like a missing limb or a gaping hole torn in the gut. That the universe had been irrevocably twisted in some horrific way, so the air stung and the sun shone wrong. Seidr was his connection to the deeper energies of the universe, and the ability to manipulate them. When it was damaged, everything felt damaged. The cognitive dissonance made him feel sick to his stomach, and it was beginning to set in with a vengeance. Loki rather thought he'd rip his brain out to make it stop.

"Are you—" Thor sounded alarmed, "are you crying? Brother?"

Loki sniffled. "No," he said defiantly. The waver in his voice betrayed him.

Brunnhilde swore softly, staring at him with large eyes. "Lackey?" she asked, more open concern in his voice than Loki had ever heard from her. "What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know." Thor sounded slightly heartsick. "Can you go fetch a healer?"

"Yeah, I think that'd be a good idea." Brunnhilde went for the door.

Loki tried to smile at them both. "There's no need. I'll be fine."

"You're still crying," Thor said gently.

Oh. Loki blinked. He was? That was unfortunate. "I'm hot," he said. And he was—for some reason, he was feeling like he was sitting in a furnace. He could feel sweat beginning to gather on his temples, and his palms sweat profusely under the blankets, which suddenly seemed heavy and oppressive.

"That's your fever." Thor turned to Brunnhilde. "Can you go get a cool cloth for him before you go?"

"Sure," she said. "Where?"

"Go straight ahead and take a left when you reach the end of the hall. The bathroom will be on the left," FRIDAY offered.

"Thanks." Brunn left.

If Loki had been fidgety before, he certainly was now. Thor took pity on him and removed another blanket—but it didn't actually help. He tried vainly not to pant, only to quickly give up the endeavor. "It's hot," he said again, uselessly.

"I know," Thor smiled at him, though it wavered at the edges. "Just try and relax, okay? I have you, Bruce is getting some medicine, and Brunn is getting a cold towel for your head. We'll get you feeling better."

"You said that before," Loki mumbled absently. He didn't realize how Thor would take it until his face crumpled. The hangdog expression on his older brother's face made Loki want to take it back, somehow, make it better, but he was tired, so tired, and everything he thought of just sounded pathetic.

"I'm sorry," Thor said miserably.

The apology only made Loki feel worse. "It's fine," he mumbled, finally closing his eyes. Without any outside stimuli to focus on, the headache and fever heat became that much more prominent in his mind—and he realized he was trembling. Probably had been for some time. Thor put his hand on Loki's cheek, and he whimpered. Pride stirred in the back of his head, but he felt far too wretched to truly care if he was behaving pitifully. That would be later. Thor withdrew his hand.

"No!" Loki protested, then flushed. He could hear the question in Thor's silence, and for a moment struggled with his thoughts, with the idea of resistance, but he'd already spoken, and he couldn't get more pitiful at that point—"Stay."

"I will," Thor soothed. The warmth in his voice had Loki wanting to sob. He bit his lip so he wouldn't speak—or cry, more likely. It hurts, please, it hurts, he wailed internally. A shiver rocked his body and a large, warm tear streaked down over his face. "I'm not going anywhere, brother. I'm staying right here, with you. It's gonna be okay." A large, calloused thumb swiped away his tear before it reached his chin, and caught the next one before it fell.

"I got the cloth."

"Thank goodness." He heard Thor stand, and then something blessedly cold was being pressed to his cheeks, one after the other. Loki gave a shameful little moan when the cloth was laid over his forehead, another tear falling. "Does that help?"

Loki made himself give a little nod, hardly more than a dip of the chin. Thankfully it was enough for Thor. He peeled his eyes open when the edge of the bed sagged. Brunn had sat down by his legs. She gave him a crooked almost smile, and Loki would have jolted had he the strength. He must look two fingers from death if Brunnhilde was attempting to look comforting. "You'll be fine in no time, Lackey," she said, patting his legs, before standing to leave again.

Oh. He was definitely dying, then.

At least his head wouldn't hurt if he was dead.

"Where is that Bruce?" Thor mumbled as Brunnhilde walked to the door. Loki thought he probably wasn't supposed to hear.

"Right here." Bruce hurried over to Loki's side. "It's a good thing you warned FRIDAY, Loki really doesn't need an overdose on top of this," he said, plunking down a pair of pill bottles on the little swinging table attached to the bed. "Can someone get a glass of water for him?"

"I've got it," Thor said, starting to stand. Brunn interrupted with a shake of her head and left, returning a minute later with a full glass.

"Thanks," Bruce said, taking the glass and setting it down. "I brought some pain medication and a fever reducer. We'll start you on the lowest dose of both and go from there, okay?"

While Bruce busied himself with opening the pill bottles, Loki attempted to wrestle his arm out of all the blankets and grab the cup of water. He managed to get his arm free, but it trembled so badly when he picked up the glass that he had to immediately set it back down before raising it so much as a centimeter. "Let me," Thor said, reaching across the bed to grab it. Rubbing Loki's shoulder comfortingly, his older brother brought the glass to his lips.

"I can do it," Loki mumbled, eyes cast down. "I'm—" he paused, teeth chattering for a moment as his trembling surged, "—fine," he finished lamely.

Thor looked mostly calm, but the rain was still holding steady outdoors. "Just let me help," he said quietly. "There's no reason to be embarrassed."

"Easy for you to say," Loki mumbled, turning his face away. But he let Thor hold the cup for him. Protesting was too tiring, and at that point there was little Loki wouldn't concede to if it meant he could try and sleep. A drop of sweat dripped down the back of his neck, and he shivered, even though he felt as though he was cooking alive.

Once he had taken the medication, Loki sagged back against the bed, rocked with slight tremors when he tried to lie still. Sitting up for even a minute to drink a glass of water had drained him fully, to the point where Loki wasn't sure if he could lift his head from the bed again should he try. Thor resumed petting his head. "Can you go for one of the healers, Brunn?"

"Sure."

At some point, Loki closed his eyes. Eventually, there was talking—words here and there from different voices. A few minutes later a light sensation brushed over his body, relief settling in its wake. Like putting balm on a burn, it eased the damage to his seidr. "Oh," he gasped near soundlessly, a shiver running the length of his spine.

"Feeling better?" Thor's voice asked.

"Mm," Loki mumbled. The shrieking alarm in his head, the crushing sense of something being terribly wrong, had not gone away, but it had quieted enough for the adrenaline rush to abate. He felt hollowed out in the absence of it, and even the pain in his head and the still burning fever couldn't keep him from falling straight to sleep.

Chapter Text

Chapter 16: Temporary Band-Aids

            “Loki,” Thor said, gentling his voice. He set the bowl he carried down on the side table and placed a hand on his little brother’s shoulder. “Wake up, please.” Though he stirred slightly, Loki otherwise gave no sign of hearing him. “Brother,” Thor tried, giving Loki’s shoulder a light squeeze. “Wake up.”

            Finally, Loki made a soft noise, and his head shifted slightly to the side as a furrow appeared in his forehead. It seemed to take him several tries to get his eyes open, and even once his gaze was fixed on Thor, they were still glazed over. Only half-aware at best. He made a quiet, somewhat questioning noise, and his eyelids started to drift closed again.

            “No, stay awake,” Thor said quickly, voice growing a bit louder despite his intent to keep it quiet. “You need to eat, brother, then you can go back to sleep.”

            “Right,” Loki said slowly. Hearing him speak both relieved and further frightened his elder brother. On one hand, he was speaking but there was a slur to his voice, and it was soft, passive, in a way that Loki should never be. “Where?”

            “I brought you something, you don’t have to get up,” Thor assured quickly. He swung the attached side table over Loki’s lap, and the silvertongue stared at it for a long moment before he seemed to register what he was seeing. His movement was stilted when he reached to take the spoon, as though he wasn’t quite sure of what he was doing. “You’re going to be okay,” Thor promised impulsively. Loki dropped the spoon and looked at him, and Thor kicked himself internally. “Sorry, brother. Eat, it’s soup.”

            “I am,” Loki mumbled. The bit of bite to his voice soothed some of the worry building inside of Thor, but only a little bit. He picked up the spoon again, but didn’t do anything with it. Only held it and stared off into space.

            Thor pulled over the small, faux-leather upholstered chair from the corner of the room and took a seat in it. “Eat, Loki,” he reminded as kindly as he was able to. He wanted to punch something, specifically the wizard, and knowing that it wasn’t a helpful impulse didn’t make it go away. Shifting in the tiny chair (really, Stark was a billionaire and he bought a chair that looked like it belonged in a waiting room?) Thor directed his eye up toward the ceiling in the vain hope that looking away would make Loki more likely to eat something. When he looked back, Loki had gone so far as to dip the spoon in the bowl, but no further. How hard is it to eat soup? some part of Thor grumbled in exasperation. The rest of him was just afraid.

            “Let me help,” he tried, a bit gruffly. Giving up on the little plastic chair with it’s cold and equally tiny metal arms, (who had arms that skinny, really. A three-hundred-year-old had more muscle mass) Thor sat down on the bed next to Loki or tried to. More half sitting and half hanging off the edge, but it gave him the right angle to wrap his hand around Loki’s and guide the spoon into Loki’s mouth while giving him the semblance of control. Though really, Thor didn’t know if Loki would even care about being fed in his state. He might care later, but that was only if he remembered it had even happened. Knowing Thor’s luck, he would. The thunderer grumbled to himself and gave Loki another bite.

            The process of all but having to spoon-feed his younger brother was an uncomfortable one, and the repetitive motion gave Thor much too much time to think about the situation. Illnesses of seiðr were rare, injuries less so, but both were extremely damaging to mages, if not fatal. The wizard had assured them that Loki was in no danger, but Thor’s heart seized all the same. He was a wizard, not a mage, his magic was different. He’d badly damaged Loki’s seiðr already with his lack of understanding. What did he know about Loki’s state of health? He could be dy— Thor quickly shut down the thought, but it lingered in the back of his mind all the same. To dispute it would be to acknowledge it, and so Thor didn’t. He, like the rest of his family (except perhaps Hela, who seemed rather blunt) tended to deal best with problems, particularly emotional ones, by ignoring them. That was really something he should work on.

            The sky outside continued to reflect Thor’s mood, overcast though no longer so dark as to be mistaken for night. Every now and again as his thoughts drifted a rumble of thunder would sound, which was as good an alarm as any to snap him out of his head. When the bowl was emptied Thor swung the little semi-oval table aside again, and reluctantly lowered himself back into the restricting little plastic chair that was the exact gray of sadness. Thor wondered if Stark had gotten it precisely to annoy people, and if so wanted to have a talk with him about why exactly he’d put such a terrible chair in a recovery room. Abruptly, Thor’s temper snapped. “Stupid chair!” he growled to no one, jumping to his feet and stomping around the room in a circle. He nearly flushed when he caught Loki watching him with narrowed, still clouded but somewhat more alert eyes. Glancing away, he made an aggrieved noise in his throat and lifted his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose, only to abort the motion partway and let his hand fall.

            The gray armchair in the corner of the room caught his eye. The extra blankets had been thrown over the back but Thor just shifted them to the little table next to the chair, before hefting it in his arms and carrying it back to Loki’s side. “Just getting a better chair,” Thor explained to Loki, who was observing with a furrowed brow. He plunked it on the ground by the bed and set his hands on his hips, it was short. Very short. When he sat down in it, his knees were level with the bed. At least it was wide enough for him to sit in comfortably. He’d take it.

            Once he was settled, he looked back to Loki, where else was he supposed to look? The feeble excuse of getting a chair had allowed him a distraction for a minute, but in the silence again everything came crashing back. This is my fault. Thor closed his eye and breathed deeply, trying to clear the clouds outside. Though the curtains were drawn, he could sense how the sky was reflecting his turmoil, not to mention the occasional rumble of thunder and the sporadic patter caused by little spurts of rain. He’d gotten much better than he had been even five years ago at reining in the weather when his temper was stormy, but clearing the sky of clouds was incredibly difficult when his mood was dark. To banish the clouds was to calm his mind. Sometimes it was doable, but today it most certainly was not. Thor opened his eye again with a sigh of defeat. He nearly jolted when he caught Loki’s gaze.

            Loki was still tired, still dazed but that didn’t make having his utter and complete focus any less unsettling, as he watched Thor like a puzzle he was trying to solve. “What’s upsetting you,” he asked slowly.

            “Nothing,” Thor tried, but Loki wasn’t having it. He sighed. “You’re unwell. Am I not allowed to worry?”

            For a minute, Loki looked as if he might answer in the affirmative, with a mulish set to his jaw. “No,” he said at last, shoulders dropping.

            Thor nodded. “Anything you need?”

            “I’m just tired,” Loki replied, voice going airy as his eyes once again fluttered closed.

            Frowning, Thor leaned forward in his chair, removed the now mostly warmed rag from Loki’s brow, and placed his hand where the cloth had rested. “Norns you’re burning up.”

            “I’m just tired,” Loki said again, but with less surety.

            “FRIDAY,” Thor addressed, not looking away from his younger brother’s face, “can you ask someone to bring a fresh cool cloth for him? And ask Bruce if he can have another dose of fever reducers.”

            “Doctor Banner says it’s too soon to give him any more medication, especially since you no longer know the limits of his metabolism,” the AI responded promptly. “But I’ve relayed your first request.”

            “Good. Thanks.” Thor cupped Loki’s cheek with one hand, fear forming a heavy knot in his stomach at the steady, suffocating heat the mischief-maker’s skin gave off. “You’re so warm,” he reiterated quietly, casting a nervous glance at the blankets. “Maybe I should—” as he spoke, he reached for the blankets, peeling all but the very bottom one, a thinner, off white thing that was a step away from being called a sheet, away. Loki protested and tried to hang on, but Thor was able to pull them away from his grip without even trying. “You shouldn’t have so many blankets, brother, your fever is too high,” he explained slightly desperately, cradling Loki’s face.

            “Fine,” Loki muttered, casting his eyes away.

            “You ordered this?”

            Thor jumped upright, then cleared his throat and tried to act like he hadn’t been startled. He folded his arms over his chest and nodded to the man standing in the door. “Stark.” What are you doing here? was the unspoken question that lingered in the air.

            “Brought this.” The man lifted his hand, displaying a washcloth. “FRIDAY said you asked for one.”

            “Yes,” Thor said, but I didn’t think you’d bring it.

            “Your scary lady is on the ship, and I don’t know what Bruce is doing but he’s busy. Unless you’d prefer someone else...”

            “No, thank you,” Thor said quickly, stepping forward to take the cloth. He laid it over Loki’s brow and let his hand linger for a moment before straightening up and drawing away. “I thought you’d be busy too.”

            “I called Rogers,” Stark said, which wasn’t what Thor was asking, but he gave a nod all the same.

            “What did he say?”

            Stark shuffled his feet and looked down, a bitter smile quirking his lips. “He gave me a place to meet, and a time. I was going to make arrangements when, well…”

            “Sorry,” Thor said.

            The human flapped a hand. “It’s fine.”

            “Where are we going? And when?” Thor asked haltingly. It was painfully obvious how wide the divide between them was. Where once it was so effortless to speak with him, the camaraderie had eroded away until they stood on opposite sides of a chasm, with no bridge across, forced to shout if they wanted to hear the other’s words.

            “Africa,” Stark told him. “In a week or so.”

            “Oh,” Thor said. “Okay, then.”

            Stark turned to go then paused, and his shoulders hiked up. “Listen, I’m sorry about… Everything, I guess. With your brother, and things. I shouldn’t have acted the way I did, I just—”

            “Stark,” Thor said, interrupted the flood of words spilling haphazardly out of the inventor’s mouth. “I get it.”

            “Yeah, right.” Stark made random gestures with his hands and began to turn. “I should…”

            “Wait,” Thor burst out. Stark turned around, raised an eyebrow. “I’m not going to say I forgive you, not yet. Just... thank you. For telling me. And the towel.”

            “Anytime.”

* * *

            “Loki, wake up.”

            Even more asleep than awake, Loki had an extensive repertoire of insults, several of which he employed in a half-slurred voice, directed toward whoever had dared to wake him. Not that his sleep had been terribly restful. Now, with the fog of slumber slowly beginning to clear from his head, Loki could feel his aches and pains returning. His awareness of the wounds on his seiðr, however, hadn’t faded one bit even with unconsciousness, warping his dreams to a nauseating mash of colors and sounds and textures, suffocating in their intensity. It was almost a relief to be awake, if only to escape from the deranged circus his subconscious had concocted trying to explain away the sticky wrongness clinging to his mind and clouding his senses like diseased cobwebs.

            “Loki, open your eyes.”

            Close enough to wakefulness to now recognize Thor’s voice, Loki peeled his eyes open with a long, protesting groan. Oh, he felt terrible. “What do you want,” he complained dryly, making absolutely no effort to hide the irritation in his voice. When he shifted his head, the cool cloth resting on his brow slid off. He let it, too tired and dazed to be bothering with putting it back.

            “A healer is on her way to see you. I thought you’d want to be awake before she got here.” Thor paused, expression going tight. “How are you feeling? You seem like you feel a bit better than you did earlier, at lunch.” Lunch. Now that Loki thought about it, he could vaguely recall eating something and speaking with Thor. His eyes twitched to the window almost without thought, the sky was still clouded over. “What do you remember?” Thor continued.

            “The spell failed. You brought me here.” Most everything else was obscured, partially or fully, by an overpowering haze of pain and delirium.

            Thor’s face grew pinched. “You had a seizure.”

            “Guess that explains the body aches.” Loki yawned, and his eyelids drooped slightly before he forced them back open. “Anything else I should know, besides the healer?”

            “The wizard is supposed to find a spell to undo the damage he did, in case our healers can’t fix it.” Thor sounded sour about that, Loki wondering if he was holding a grudge, and if so against who, himself or the wizard. Both, probably. “He set up a healing field over this room for now.”

            “Ah.” Loki screwed his eyes shut and concentrated. Yes, he could feel it and his seiðr really did not like him using his metaphysical senses. Loki shuddered and bit down on his tongue so he wouldn’t vomit. “It seems to be helping,” he added diplomatically. It was true. His brain was still perceiving every sound as slightly warped, echo-y, and sometimes things left trails of color when he moved his eyes too quickly from one object to another, but the pulsing wrongness he remembered from earlier was no longer quite as overpowering. More than somewhat uncomfortable, but he didn’t feel on the brink of bursting into sobs from it. Which he was quite grateful for. That would be terribly embarrassing, not to mention how Thor was bound to react.

            “How’s your fever?”

            “Is this an interrogation?” Loki snapped, before sighing. “Better, Thor. I feel a bit warm, but it’s hardly anything to complain about.”

            “Would you say the bruises are the worst part, then?”

            Honestly, the bruises and relentless deep muscle aches were nothing compared to the psychological effects of a seiðr wound, but Loki nodded all the same. He couldn’t regret lying in the slightest, not when the tensions in Thor’s shoulders eased somewhat at his words.

            “Alright, alright,” Thor said, mostly to himself. “You just rest, then. The healer should be here soon.”

            When the healer arrived, along with Brunnhilde, Loki hardly had time to register she was in the room before she pounced. “How are you feeling, my prince?” Signild asked, gliding over to the bedside. She was a willowy, flaxen blonde thing, exceedingly kindhearted and equally as skilled in her job. Loki wondered if they had sent her for the purpose of placating him. “Are you certain you would rather he be treated here, and not the ship? We have better healing facilities—”

            “No,” Loki barked. He coughed and gasped through a brief upsurge in trembling as the pain in his head pounded sickeningly. “I’ll stay here.”

            “If you wish it, my prince.” Healer Signild pulled a tablet out of the little satchel on her hip, and a scanning pad she stuck to the side of his neck. “Oh dear,” she mumbled after looking down at the tablet. “You are in quite a state, my prince. Where did all this bruising come from?”

            “He had a seizure,” Brunn said when neither Thor nor Loki offered anything.

            “And you said his life force has been drained?” The healer looked momentarily aggrieved. “In Asgard, we would have been able— ahem. The equipment we currently have isn’t able to scan for magical injuries, unfortunately, or we would have detected this on your last visit. Further testing would have revealed it, but that is no matter now.” She plucked the scanning pad off him and tucked it back into her bag. “Now, I need to do an examination of your seiðr.”

            Loki blinked several times, mind struggling to parse out the meaning of her words as fast as she was speaking. He only caught one word in five, but the tail end of her last sentence was enough to catch her intent. Scrunching his eyes shut, Loki stifled a moan of dismay. He hated letting others look at his seiðr, even his mother while she was alive. A seiðr wound on top of an examination would only make it worse. His stomach lurched at the thought, and new sweat sprang into being on his brow. “Fine.”

            “I’ll be as swift as I can manage,” Signild promised. Blush pink seiðr lit in her hands, and then Loki could feel it brush against his own. He shuddered and cried out, shrinking back against the pillows like he could physically pull away from the examination. Each time her seiðr touched his own, it sent sparking jolts of pain through his own body. By the time she was finished, he was thoroughly soaked in sweat and panting desperately for breath, hands gripping the sheets until his knuckles went white.

            “Done?” Loki managed weakly when he felt her power withdraw. His eyes fluttered shut and he tried to curl in on himself, only for the stinging pain to stop him. His ears were ringing, and nausea was a nest of roiling snakes deep in his gut.

            “Yes, I’m done.” She continued, but relief and weariness together washed away whatever else she said, not to mention the ringing in his ears. He might not be able to make out her words, but the rise and fall of first her voice and then Thor and Brunn’s stabbed directly into his brain like well-placed knives.

            “Loki, did you hear that?” Thor asked.

            “Nnn,” he moaned in response, turning his head and burying his face into the pillows. The air in the room felt wrong against his skin, scratchy, like sandpaper. Or perhaps it was his skin that was wrong, layered like scales with ridges for the breeze to brush and send shivers up his limbs. He wanted to sleep, but also knew that sleep wouldn’t give him an escape from the torment that was a seiðr wound.

            “Loki, you need to take off your shirt.”

            “Don’t want to,” the trickster informed his brother petulantly. He felt too sick to care about dignity at that moment. Even such a brief conversation, coupled with the arduous examination of his seiðr, was enough to drain him dry of any energy his sleep might have replenished. Slumber tugged at the corners of his mind, and the only reason he hadn’t fallen into it already was the pain wracking both body and soul.

            “Please?” the cot jumped when Thor sat down on it. “She’s going to heal your injuries, but you need to take your shirt off first.” Loki frowned. “I can help. You just need to sit up a minute, alright?”

            Loki eyed him silently. “Fine.”

            “Wait, don’t move,” Thor said quickly, throwing out a hand like he could stop Loki from pushing himself up. “Here, let me...” a trim remote seemingly appeared in his hand. When Thor clicked one of the three or four buttons on the thing, the head of the bed began to rise. It stilled when he took his finger off the button and vanished the remote again to wherever he’d had it before, leaving Loki reclining in an almost upright position. “There. Now lift your arms.”

            Upon trying to comply, all the bruises that Loki had somehow managed to forget about reasserted themselves, loudly. He let out a strained wheeze, holding his arms half-lifted in front of him like the humans’ fancified idea of the undead. “Oh, I forgot about that.”

            From the stricken look on Thor’s face, so had he. “Take it as slow as you need to,” he coaxed. “Alright?”

            “Stop babying me,” Loki grumbled quietly. The pain was hardly so bad that he couldn’t lift his arms. Not fun, to be certain, but in the grand scheme of all the pain he’d endured in his life, or really in the past decade, it barely registered. And truly, it was nothing compared to the agony his seiðr was in. He finished raising his arms over his head and refused to wince. “Stop looking... at me like that,” Loki scolded the hangdog look his older brother was sporting. “I’m letting you undress me. Hurry up... or I’ll do it myself.” The ultimatum jolted Thor from his staring, and he surged forward to peel the loose-fitting jet shirt over Loki’s head. The trickster screwed up his face when the clothing passed over his face, it smelled quite strongly of sweat. Lovely. Something occurred to him. “Have... bruises on my legs too.”

            “I know,” Thor soothed. “One step at a time, okay?” He leaned over and grabbed the collar of Loki’s shirt, pulling it up over his head. The instant the last of the fabric passed over his head, Loki collapsed back against the bed while trying to look like the motion was in fact entirely casual and not because he was worn out from sitting up on his own long enough for his shirt to be removed. A bead of sweat dripped down his temple, and Loki wiped it away. His gaze caught on his now-uncovered arm when he pulled it away from his face. Sangria and indigo, peppered with touches of mossy green at the edges, wrapped his wrists and forearms like bejeweled cuffs. He looked back to Thor and blinked away the rush of vertigo at turning his head too fast, but his brother didn’t notice, busy as he was staring at Loki’s torso.

            As soon as the shirt was off, Signild began to unwind the bandages that wrapped Loki’s entire torso. After she finished unwinding the bandages and tossed the whole bundle into the trash, the healer pulled a jar of salve from her satchel and got to work covering every bruise on  Loki’s upper body with the pale blue, lotion-like stuff, which, practically meant every last bit of his torso and all along the undersides of his arms. She was trying to be gentle, Loki could tell, but it was still painful. Every slight touch sent dull bolts of pain into his bones. The salve felt like ice on his skin, but disgustingly slimy. Loki didn’t know whether that was due to his seiðr wound and feverish skin, or if everyone had the same experience with it. Signild seemed unbothered, but she could be used to it.

            When she finished slathering him in the salve, a powered word sent it sinking into his skin. Loki reached for his shirt again, but Thor stopped him. “I brought some sleep clothes for you to change into. I figured they’d be more comfortable.” And smell less. He offered up the nightshirt, and Loki yanked it out of Thor’s hands and had the garment over his head before his brother had finished talking.

            “I’m afraid you need to remove your trousers now,” Healer Signild said.

            “Alright,” Loki made himself say. He licked his lips, his tongue felt thick, and exhaled gustily, wormed his arms out from under the sweaty sheets over him, and planted his hands on either side of the bed to push himself up fully. The small effort had him panting within seconds, arms trembling and pain flaring nearly everywhere on his torso before he made it from reclining back to upright. He swayed a bit, but he was up. With a bit of struggle, he managed to swing his legs over the side of the bed and stand up from there. On his feet, Loki swayed heavily, and his vision turned monochrome for a long moment before beginning to settle. His ears rung, and he gasped for breath, planting one hand gingerly on his sternum.

            “I’ve got you,” Thor said, wrapping his arms around Loki’s shoulders and taking most of his younger brother’s weight. “You just pull them down a bit, alright? You’ve got this.”

            Tired and disoriented though he was, Loki managed a snort. “I can... take off my own... clothing, brother.”

            Thor sighed. “Just hurry up so you can sit down again.”

            “You should not be on your feet for long,” Signild confirmed.

            “Fine,” Loki mumbled breathlessly, grabbing the waistband of his tight-fitting black jeans and pulling it down. He had to sit down with the motion, landing on his rear, hard. Luckily it was onto the bed and not the floor, or he’d likely get even more bruises to replace the ones just removed from his already impressive collection. “Just... give me a minute…”

            “It’s fine,” Thor cut him off, plopping to the floor. He grabbed the ankles of Loki’s jeans and pulled them off in one smooth motion. “There, see?” he said as he rose. “I’ve got it.”

            “Could have done it myself,” Loki muttered childishly. He swung his legs back up onto the bed, or started to, but Signild caught his attention with a quiet noise in the back of her throat.

            “I’m sorry, my prince,” the healer said, sincerity bright in her eyes, “but you must stand in order for me to apply the salve.”

            Loki sighed so deeply he felt it in the soles of his feet. “Alright then,” he mumbled, standing back up again. That time, Thor was there to catch him when he wobbled forward and set him more securely on his feet.

            “Come stand over here,” the healer instructed. When Loki walked over, Thor stayed nearly a half step behind him. “My king, you must allow me space to work.”

            Thor grumbled as he moved away. “Fine.” His eye was hard with frustration when Loki caught it, and something deeper he wasn’t quite certain about but could be worry. The thought sent a flush to his cheeks, and he quickly looked away. Loki wrapped his arms around his middle and tried not to shiver, standing there in his nightshirt, underclothes, and nothing else. He glanced to the side and then froze, the flush on his face deepening. The wall was glass. Anyone could walk by and— “Is there no... privacy here?” the prince demanded irritably.

            Thor swiftly apologized, his voice covered by the sound of the clacking vertical blinds as he lunged to pull them over the glass. There were still gaps between the curved plastic segments, but anyone who came by would have to deliberately peer in to see anything that was going on. Loki relaxed. Somewhat. The healer crouched in front of him and got to work. The process was doubly awkward, or would have been, had Loki not been concentrating fiercely on not falling on his face. His knees shook, and the pounding in his head reached a painful crescendo. Time passed oddly while she worked. Loki was surprised at both how long and short it had taken, but mostly was interested in getting back to bed. Thor was there to hand him the loose trousers, and Loki swiftly snatched them up. The mischief-maker pulled the loose trousers on and then sat, internalizing a sigh as his protesting muscles were at last allowed to rest. The air in the room felt freezing against his bare skin, and Loki knew he would have started trembling any minute, which would only set Thor off.

            “Does that feel better?” Thor asked anxiously, drifting over to stand at the bedside. “More comfortable?”

            “Yes, Thor,” Loki drawled with exasperation, but the words were true, it did feel better to be in the softer sleep clothes. Not to mention the absence of the restricting, itchy bandages.

            Thor nodded. “Good, that’s… good.”

            “I’ve a few potions for you to take, and then the poking and prodding will cease,” the healer assured kindly, drawing Loki’s attention away from his older brother, who was still nodding to himself.

            “You can’t fix his seiðr?” Brunnhilde asked from the corner. She’d stayed silent during the treating of his bruises. Loki had nearly forgotten she was there.

            “I’m afraid none of the healers we have are trained to deal with seiðr wounds,” Signild explained as she pulled a few small vials out of her bag. “Nor do we have the equipment we might have treated him with, back at the palace. We can administer potions to speed his healing, but otherwise, the only cure available to us is time.”

            He’d been expecting that answer. Loki was the only one left with the skills to heal a seiðr wound and he was the one that needed healing. Still, Loki felt his heart sink. The wizard could find something, he tried to convince himself, but it fell flat. He would just have to endure until he healed, whenever that may be. The very thought was exhausting.

            “Loki?” Loki blinked. Signild had left while he’d been distracted by his thoughts. The blinds had been opened again to allow her passage. “Take the potions, and then you can sleep,” Thor coaxed. Narrowing his eye at his brother, Loki plucked the first bottle from the side table and tried to uncork it. His fingers were fumbling and weak, and he waved off two attempts from Thor to help before conceding defeat and letting his brother open it. Though he couldn’t see himself, he knew his face was scarlet when he accepted the bottle back and downed the potion. At least Thor had the forethought to open the last two before he handed them off.

            Now dosed, healed up, and in sleep clothes, the allure of rest was that much stronger. Loki might have succumbed right away, if he hadn’t caught his elder brother’s eye. “Thor,” he croaked softly, waiting until the thunderer was paying attention. “I’ll heal. Stop worrying.”

            “I’m not worrying,” Thor said lamely. Loki couldn’t help but roll his eyes at that blatant lie, even though it made his head throb, and from the way Thor flushed, he seemed to realize it was a futile thing to say.

            “I’ll heal,” the prince repeated.

            “But you’re miserable,” Thor said quietly. He sat down on the edge of the bed and plucked the abandoned rag off the mattress. “Brunn, can you…” She nodded and left as Thor set the damp cloth down on the side table, and then turned his attention back on Loki. “Your fever is so high,” he whispered, trailing his fingers over Loki’s brow. Leaning in, Thor brushed a light kiss to his temple.

            “Worrywart,” Loki teased lightly. Blinking languidly, he forced a half-smile. “The wizard will find something.” Thor looks just as skeptical at that pronouncement as Loki felt, but he nodded. The trickster yawned. “I’m... gonna sleep. Be quiet.”

            Closing his eyes, Loki deepened his breathing and listening to his older brother shuffling around before finally taking a seat, and then continually shifting in place. The sound of Thor’s breathing was embarrassingly comforting to him. Loki let it lull him into a drifting sense of calm, or at least as much of a calm as he could get. The aches and pains quickly faded to the back of his mind, and even the hair-raising discomfort of injured seiðr couldn’t lessen the allure of sleep. His thoughts, however, were harder to shake. We’ll fix it, he told himself. We will. He ignored the niggling in the back of his mind that told him without the Casket it was impossible. The alternative wasn’t something he wanted to consider.

            To be like this... forever? A shiver ran down Loki’s spine. He stilled his thoughts and let sleep take him.

* * *

            Thor didn’t much consider what it meant that Loki was staying on the common floor until Barton walked by, whistling to himself with a bow slung over his shoulder, and then did a double take. “The heck?” he mumbled, stopping short. “Why are you two in there?”

            Putting a finger to his lips, Thor scrambled out of the bed as quickly as he could manage without disturbing Loki. Hurrying out of the room, he pulled the sliding glass doors shut to hopefully block some of the sound of their conversation, and then spun to face Barton. “What are you doing here?”

            “Me?” The archer shook his head slowly. “What are you doing, man?”

            “Keep your voice down!” Thor’s neck flushed when he realized he’d been raising his voice, and he coughed. “Loki’s sick.”

            “Really? Aren’t you guys supposed to be gods or something?” Barton drawled.

            “That was just the misconception of humans at the time, and yes, really.” Biting his lip, Thor looked back over his shoulder. Loki seemed to be sleeping soundly, for now. “Bruce wanted him monitored so he’s in there.” Folding his arms, Thor let a bit of threat seep into his tone. “I trust you won’t bother him?”

            The archer sighed. “Listen, man. I hate your brother. I don’t forgive him. But I can put it aside and deal. I was a SHIELD Agent, it’s not new to me. I’m not gonna knife him in his sleep, even though I want to. Alright?”

            Thor inhaled through his nose. Just because he knew, intellectually, that Loki being tortured and influenced didn’t change the effect his actions had on others, didn’t mean that a protective anger wasn’t roused by Barton’s words. “Alright,” he echoed begrudgingly. Barton nodded and left. Thor watched him until he was out of sight, and then returned to Loki. He made sure the plastic, vertical blinds were closed again before climbing back into the bed, to hopefully give them some semblance of privacy. Partly for Loki’s sake, but mostly for his own. Because Loki was vulnerable. Sick. If someone wanted to hurt him right then, he wouldn’t be able to protect himself. And his little brother being basically defenseless around people who didn’t care about, if not actively hate, him had Thor’s blood boiling.

            Stroking a bit of hair away from Loki’s face, Thor felt his brow. The breath rushed out of his lungs in one huge exhale when he found the younger prince’s skin to be, if not cool, not burning to the touch either. Once he had Loki settled comfortably in his grasp again, Thor started to play with his younger brother’s hair, putting it into braids only to undo them again. The action helped to calm his mind at least somewhat, enough that he wasn’t in danger of shorting out the medical equipment.

            Some time passed before Loki stirred. “Loki?” Thor asked quietly, giving him a squeeze.

            Loki made a noise that was a cross between a snuffle and a squeak, his eyes easing open. “Brother?” he mumbled, tipping his head back. When he caught sight of Thor’s face he relaxed again, eyes starting to close.

            “Hang on,” the thunderer said swiftly, “don’t go to sleep just yet. How are you feeling?”

            There was silence for a long moment. “Foggy,” Loki croaked. “Sore. Headache.”

            “Anything I can get for you?”

            “...water?”

            “Of course.” Thor was probably a little too eager in his acceptance of the task, but Loki wasn’t in any state to care. In the kitchen, Thor got a glass of water and took the liberty of bringing a piece of fruit and a juice back with him as well. Loki seemed to have dozed off again when he got back but roused quickly when Thor touched his shoulder. “I got your water,” Thor told him.

            Loki accepted the cup in both hands with a distracted nod, bringing it to his lips with hands that trembled only a touch, Thor wouldn’t have been able to tell if the slight tremors didn’t make the water slosh in the glass. He drank down half the cup in one go, then restricted himself to short sips.

            “Does it help?” Thor asked, trying not to seem like he was hovering.

            “Yes,” Loki said, but didn’t elaborate. He took another sip.

            “I brought you some fruit,” Thor said. “And some juice. A snack might make you feel better.”

            Loki gave him a flat look, but he accepted the fruit that Thor passed him and started to peel it. It was one of Midgard’s citrus fruits, something that Asgard didn’t have. Oranges were pleasant enough, but lemons and limes less so. His human friends had been quite appalled when Thor mentioned having peeled and tried one of each. “That’s not how lemons work,” Stark had told him, “or limes. Just... no. Stick to oranges. Please.” Thor had no idea what he had meant by ‘how lemons work’, but trusted his judgment and steered clear of those two citrus fruits. Splitting the fruit in half, Loki peeled one of the sections away from the whole and popped it into his mouth. He gave a tiny shudder doing so, and seemed to have trouble making himself swallow, but he was eating, so Thor would take it.

            Somehow, Loki managed to stretch munching on the fruit into several minutes of work. He’d almost finished one half of the orange by the time he was starting to wear down, visibly on the verge of falling back into sleep. Thor took the orange away from him, setting it on the side table, and handed him a glass of juice. “Grape juice,” he explained. “Like wine without the alcohol.”

            “I know what grape juice is,” Loki said into the cup. He added something afterward that Thor politely pretended not to hear. Rapidly draining the glass, the mischief-maker handed it off to Thor, who set it down on the side table. “I’m gonna... sleep,” Loki near-whispered. He was out like a light seconds later.

            Thor looked at him for a long moment, and then sighed. He collected the cups and took them to the kitchen and finished what was left of the orange himself. When he returned, he took a seat in the chair beside the bed again. Loki looked pale, nearly bloodless, but for the twining strands of purple and blue just under his skin. Mauve shadows deepened the hollows under his eyes. He looked unnervingly like he had on the sands of Svartalfheim, minus the greying skin and blackened veins. The thought had gorge rising in Thor’s throat, and once again he lost control of the weather outside. This time, he didn’t even bother trying to stop the rain. It was beginning to become exhausting, he might as well let it fall.

            He’s not dying, Thor reminded himself sternly. No one was worried about that.

            The fear didn’t go away, small and niggling but impossible to tune out. Thor leaned forward slowly, resting his forehead on the mattress, and there he stayed.

* * *

            Footsteps in the distance made Thor look up from his book. Though no one was yet in sight, Asgardian hearing was leagues better than human and unlike before with Barton, Thor was paying attention. He snapped the book shut, something in the history of some war or another, Thor thought it would be interesting but it turned out to mostly be droning on statistics and dates and places rather than any information on the battles fought and set it on the chair behind him as he rose to his feet. Thor positioned himself in the small gap he’d left in the blinds allowing for someone to walk through, folding his arms over his chest and jutting his chin out slightly.

            When Vision appeared around the corner, Thor’s stomach dropped. “Hello, Thor,” Vision smiled, turning to approach him. “FRIDAY informed me that you and Loki were down here, and I have been meaning to speak with you both, but him in particular—”

            “Maybe another time,” Thor said quickly, taking a step forward. Vision clearly meant well, but in Loki’s state nothing good could possibly come from the two of them meeting. Try as he did, Thor was having a hard time reacting to Vision as anything other than a threat. The lightning hummed under his skin, ready and waiting to be let out, squirming and fighting like a hound on the leash having spotted game.

            Vision frowned. “I thought this would be an optimal time, with no one else around. I do want to apologize to him—”

            “I know, Vision,” Thor almost growled. “But not right now.”

            The android tipped his head to the side, looking baffled. “But you said you wanted me to speak with Loki and yourself. Did you change your mind?”

            “Well, no—”

            Vision took a step forward and Thor threw out a hand to ward him off. “Then why not now?”

            Unease stirring in his gut, Thor inspected the wine-red android. He was a bit odd, but empathetic enough, and would almost certainly back off if Thor explained the reason for his hesitance. However, the thought of revealing Loki’s vulnerability to someone Loki was terrified of, even if he would do nothing to harm him, left a sour taste in Thor’s mouth. But Vision was walking towards him again, and Thor knew he could just phase through, blocking the door was worse than useless— “He’s sick,” Thor blurted. “He’s sleeping right now. Loki’s sick.”

            Vision frowned. Blessedly, it didn’t seem to occur to him that Thor could be lying. “What happened? I suppose he left quite suddenly yesterday, and he was unwell when you arrived at the compound. Is he alright?”

            Thor’s shoulders dropped. That little bit of information had been like letting a stream of water through a dam and now all the words were pressing against his lips as Thor battled the absurd urge to spill everything to a being that, in the end, he hardly knew. “He is... under the weather, but Bruce and Doctor Strange have both assured me that he should recover in the next day or so.” Recover from the magical incident, at least. Once they found a spell to heal him. Then they’d fix his life force, too, Thor told himself staunchly. And that was a fact. There was no way he was giving up until his little brother was fully well again.

            Dipping his head, Vision seemed to accept Thor’s words without needing to press any further. “Thank you for informing me. Let me know when he is well enough for us to speak.” With that, the android left. Finally. With a soft, relieved exhale, Thor turned around and his heart sank. Loki had woken up.

            Though his eyes were open, they stared unseeingly at the wall, and he was shaking so much that for a moment, irrationally, Thor was worried he was going to shake apart. Then the situation caught up with him, and he rushed forward to comfort his little brother. The minute his hands made contact with Loki’s shoulders, the silvertongue flinched away with a soft cry and a wave of emerald pushed Thor back against the door. His cry increased in pitch and volume as his shaking intensified, and Thor realized, far too late, that he had made a rather large mistake. “Loki,” he called, carefully keeping his distance even as he wanted to rush closer. “Brother, it’s okay. You’re safe. He’s gone, Vision is gone, the Stone is gone.” Loki didn’t respond.

            The fit, or whatever it was, lasted several long, tense minutes before Loki abruptly relaxed against the bed, the trembling starting to ease. “Loki?” Thor tried. This time, Loki clearly heard him and turned to face Thor. The thunderer was hard put to keep himself from running forward, but he made himself approach slowly. Every move was carefully telegraphed as he reached out to pull his brother into a hug. “I have you,” Thor mumbled to the shivering puddle of brother in his arms. “You’re safe now.”

            It was a while longer before Loki started to flag, and Thor eased him back against the bed. Pulling back just enough to see his whole face, Thor cupped Loki’s jaw and bent to meet his eyes. “Sorry,” Loki said breathlessly before Thor could speak. “Nightmare.”

            Indecision warred in Thor’s mind. He could let Loki keep thinking it was a nightmare... or he could tell the truth and possibly frighten him further. “It wasn’t quite a dream, or at least not fully. Vision came by.”

            “The Mind Stone.” Loki gulped. A shuddery laugh followed, hurting Thor’s heart in its fragility. “Well. That explains how... vivid it was.”

            Thor tried his hardest not to frown. Loki looked quite a sight after that fit of panic, or rather, a panic attack. Thor used the now mostly dry washcloth sitting on the side table to wipe the sweat off Loki’s face, watching his expression carefully for any signs of how he was feeling. His face was rather blank, but that was just as much an indicator as any open emotion Loki could show. “How are you feeling?” Thor asked. Loki might not be shaking with fear anymore, but he was still trembling. When Thor placed his hand against the younger prince’s forehead, Loki didn’t even try to lean away, blinking a few times in rapid succession. “FRIDAY, what’s his temperature? If you know?” Thor questioned.

            “One hundred and one point eight degrees Fahrenheit,” the AI told him.

            Pinching his lips together, Thor further studied Loki’s face. “Lie still,” Thor said decisively. If he couldn’t do anything for the turmoil in Loki’s mind, he could at least make him more physically comfortable. He adjusted the bed to recline back a bit further. “Rest,” Thor ordered, gathering up the junk on the side table. “I’ll be back soon.”

            When Thor returned, Loki had curled up on his side away from the doors, but otherwise not moved any. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut, forehead furrowed, and his breathing was heavy. Worried though he was, Thor did his best to keep a confident mien. He placed a water bottle and a bowl on the side table, next to the waiting pill bottles. “Lay on your back,” Thor said quietly, stroking a hand over Loki’s tangled raven tresses. Slowly, his brother did as asked and Thor laid the cool cloth he’d brought onto his brow. Placing a hand on the middle of Loki’s back, Thor lifted him long enough to place a second cloth on the back of his neck, then eased him down again. That done, Thor turned his attention to the pill bottles. After conferring with the healers and confirming that Midgardian medicine wouldn’t have any adverse effects with the potions Loki had taken, Bruce had given him the okay to give the silvertongue another dose, much to Thor’s relief. He twisted open the cap on the water bottle and handed it to Loki, shifting his grip to cover the trickster’s when he grasped it. “Open up.”

            Loki glared but let Thor place the pills on his tongue and said nothing about Thor’s assisting hand when he raised the water to his mouth and downed the medication. “Are you done fussing yet?” Loki groused when Thor took the bottle away.

            “I wouldn’t call it that, but no, not quite.” Gripping the edge of the little, dark table, Thor swung it over Loki’s lap. His younger brother’s eyes widened when he realized what was on it. “Did you really...”

            Thor attempted to give him a wink with only one eye, silently crowing. “Don’t tell anyone I let you have ice cream before dinner.”

            “Idiot,” Loki scoffed, but there was a touch of a smile tugging at his lips, so Thor considered it a success. Picking up the spoon, he swiped it through the ice cream and lifted it to his mouth, with a happy hum as he swallowed. “Is this supposed to be some sort of bribery? I stay in bed if you get me ice cream? It won’t work, I assure you.”

            Thor hadn’t even thought of it as bribery, just something to cheer Loki up, but... “We’ll see about that,” he smirked, raising an eyebrow smugly. Loki stuck out his tongue.

* * *

            Thor was more than a little reluctant to leave Loki alone, but his younger brother was very firm.

            “You’re going to be what, four rooms away?” Loki scoffed loudly, rolling his eyes. “And I’ll just be sleeping, anyway.”

            Thor leaned in to kiss his cheek, ignoring Loki’s affronted yelp. When he pulled back, he forced himself to smile to cover the frown that wanted to form. “If you need me—”

            “Yes, yes, I’ll call you.” Loki’s sigh turned into a yawn partway through. “Now leave me alone.”

            “Alright.” With another quick kiss to the crown of Loki’s head, Thor left.

            Most of the others had already congregated in the kitchen. Only the wizard and Bruce were missing, and Thor highly doubted the wizard would be joining them. “Thor,” Barton called from his perch on the kitchen counter, using one of the barstools as a footrest. “Stark ordered pizza. Should be here soon.”

            Thor nodded, pasting a smile on his face as he took a seat at the table next to Brunnhilde. She squeezed his shoulder and gave him a significant look. “He’s fine, majesty.”

            “He’s not fine,” Thor argued back quietly. Loki’s drawn, tired face flashed through his mind, and he swallowed before continuing. “He’s sick.”

            “Yeah, but you don’t need to be there every second of every minute.” Thor sighed heavily, tempted to bury his face in his hands. Or the more attractive option, to just go back to Loki. Brunn seemed to see what he was thinking, since she elbowed him. “Don’t you dare. You’ve been cooped up in that little room all day, and if I know anything about Loki at all, he’s got to be wanting for some breathing room. Let him be.”

            “Fine,” Thor grumbled.

            “Where’s Loki?” Rhodes asked, suddenly on the other side of the table in front of them.

            “I was wondering that too, actually. He’s not with you?”

            “Bruce isn’t here either,” Thor tried to deflect. Unfortunately, neither of their expressions changed.

            “Wonderboy’s caught a cold,” Barton drawled.

            “Really?” Rhodes sounded more than a little disbelieving.

            “He’s sick, yes,” Thor muttered. “Not a cold, though.”

            “Is he contagious?” Lang asked. “I mean, I don’t want to get sick,” he said hurriedly upon catching Thor’s glare.

            “No,” the thunderer said firmly, but refused to elaborate.

            Brunnhilde stared at her hands, and then stood. “I need some booze.”

            “I’m here!” Bruce called, trotting into the room and thankfully dissolving some of the tension. “Sorry about that, I’m here now. What are we having?”

* * *

            After they’d eaten, Stark informed everyone he’d been in contact with Rogers and they would be meeting him in an African country called Wakanda. As soon as he was able, Thor slipped away to Loki’s side. Loki was asleep, thankfully, if not looking any more relaxed even in rest. Thor placed the back of his hand against his cheek to try and gauge his fever, then brushed a feather-light kiss on his hair. “I assume you’re staying with him?”

            Thor turned around and gave Brunnhilde a slight smile. “You assume correctly.”

            “That’s what I thought. Bruce is asking Stark to bring in a cot for you, so you don’t have to sleep in that chair.”

            “You didn’t have to, I’ll be fine,” Thor protested, but without much fervor.

            “Mhm, and what would your brother say to that? Besides, how are you gonna be able to stare at him and fret effectively if you’re half-asleep?” she smirked.

            “That was uncalled for,” Thor pouted.

            “That’s the truth,” she shot back. “Night, majesty. Let me know if you wanna sleep in your own bed. Not like I get much sleep, anyway.”

            “Are you... offering to watch him for me?” Thor tried (badly) to hide a delighted smile behind his hand. “Aww, you do care,” he cooed.

            “Never mind. Sleep on the floor.”

            Thor’s quiet laughter followed her as she departed. The little bit of lightness he’s felt quickly melted away again when he turned back to Loki. “You’re going to be okay,” Thor told both of them, petting Loki’s hair. His younger brother’s breathing stayed even and deep. Relief welled in his chest knowing his conversation with Brunnhilde hadn’t woken Loki up. His brother could use all the sleep he could get.

            Soon, Bruce called him to help carry in a cot and Thor set it up on the floor with a few blankets. Once Bruce had gone and the common floor had emptied of everyone but Loki and himself, Thor asked FRIDAY to turn off the lights. “Sleep well, little brother,” Thor whispered, tucking the blankets closer around Loki’s shoulders before crawling onto his cot.

* * *

            Loki woke up in the middle of the night with a loud gasp, shoulders shuddering and stomach roiling violently. He put a hand over his mouth and swallowed heavily, throat bobbing and eyes streaming. Violent shakes took over his body as the nebulous nightmare faded from memory, but not his emotions. Inhaling harshly through his nose, Loki fought valiantly against reflexive nausea while tears poured soundlessly down his face. He clamped one hand over his mouth, both hoping to keep himself from being sick and to keep himself quiet. He was acutely aware of the wounds on his less physical self in the dark of night, with no distractions. Like a twisted dejà vu, the world around him screamed that something fundamental was terribly awry, and the skin of his back crawled. Loki suppressed a gag.

            “Brother?” came Thor’s voice, rough with sleep.

            Loki nearly yelped, his whole body jerking in surprise. Get out, he wanted to hiss, go away, get away from me, don’t touch me! but Thor was drawing him into his arms and holding him close. Loki sobbed.

            “Ssh, I have you, you’re safe,” Thor whispered. His arms around Loki felt like indifferent shackles, then snakes, cold and scaled and trying to choke him to death. He shook so hard his teeth clacked together, trying weakly to get Thor’s hands off him. The contact felt wrong, with Thor’s skin being too hot one minute and too cold the next, and it only made the feeling of wrong grow.

            “Don’t touch me,” Loki tried, forcing the words out mostly coherent. “Get... away.”

            “It’s okay,” Thor murmured. His breath brushed against Loki’s ear, and the silvertongue gagged again.

            “Stop touching me!”

            At last, Thor seemed to hear the desperation in his voice, and he pulled back. He said something Loki didn’t catch over the sudden ringing in his ears, and the lights came on in the room, but faintly. “Tell me what you need,” Thor said, just far enough away for them to not be touching. “What can I do?”

            “Nothing,” Loki gasped. “Just... side effects. Magical injury. It’s... common. Wait it out.”

            “There’s nothing I can do?” Thor asked anxiously. Loki didn’t know whether he’d be touched or annoyed at the worry gleaming in his brother’s single blue eye, but he was too distracted to care. The blankets against his skin felt like razor blades suddenly, and he threw them back. The air felt worse, cold and unforgiving against his skin, like the burn of frostbite. He pulled them back and tried not to move too much, so it wouldn’t scrape against his skin. “What’s going on, brother? You look...”

            Loki smiled grimly when Thor trailed off. It lasted only a moment before a violent tremor stole his breath away. He tried his best to piece together an explanation while trying not to look at the ceiling, which had begun to churn above them, looking rather like a whirlpool wanting to devour him. “It’s... a reaction to... damaged seiðr,” Loki said as quickly as he could. “Senses going... haywire. Body is... panicking... trying to find a problem... it can’t fix.”

            “Contact hurts,” Thor surmised, watching Loki trying not to squirm. “Doesn’t it?”

            “It’s... Not pleasant.” Loki gave another rough smile. “I’m alright.”

            Thor scoffed. “Sure.” Loki wanted to snap back, but Thor wasn’t done. “Loki, if there’s a way I can help you, then tell me.”

            Loki’s first instinct was to clam up, insist Thor leave so he could deal with it on his own. He bit down on his lip until the fervent urge to lash out faded. “You could... talk?” the trickster offered begrudgingly.

            When Thor’s eye lit and a relieved smile spread across his face, Loki tamped down on the rising irritation in order to smile back at him. “How about I find something to read to you?”

            “Fine,” Loki muttered, sitting back and crossing his arms. Still, the relief on Thor’s face didn’t ebb.

            “I have a book with me, but it’s not very interesting. I can go get something else.”

            “Wait,” Loki blurted as Thor started to stand up, “it’s fine. I don’t care. Might as well read what you have.” His cheeks flushed slightly, and he looked away at Thor’s knowing smile. For all he had wanted to be alone just minutes before, suddenly the thought of being alone was a horrifying one.

            “Alright,” Thor said smoothly, settling down cross-legged on his cot and reaching for the book. “I’m just going to start from where I left off, if that’s okay. Now, in the sixteen hundreds...”

            In spite of his attempts to focus, the words sailed over Loki like leaves tossed by the wind, brushing up against him and then quickly passing by, and he hardly knew what he was hearing, even as Thor changed the cadence of his voice to move with the book’s rhythm. Gradually, Loki relaxed further, though he still held his whole body as tight as a bowstring. Thor’s voice was slightly warped by the ringing in Loki’s ears, but still familiar enough to soothe some of the clanging alarm bells in his head, enough that he was able to close his eyes. The more Thor read, the closer to sleep he slipped, until it was oblivion at last.

* * *

            Following a jaw cracking yawn, Thor lifted the mug of coffee to his lips and drank deeply, nearly clearing all of the liquid in one gulp. Loki had woken up three times in the night, and Thor stayed up with him until he fell back to sleep and that wasn’t even taking account how hard it was to sleep on the floor, even if it was a mattress on the floor. He considered texting Brunnhilde, but it was seven in the morning, and he had too much of an imagination to risk waking her before nine at the earliest. Even if he did give her alcohol. Coffee would help even less, though Bruce was trying to convince her to switch from spirits to caffeine. Thor really didn’t see that ploy working at all.

            With a sigh, he flipped contacts, finger hovering over Bruce’s name. He would no doubt mind it less than the Valkyrie, but there was really no purpose to waking him other than to complain. FRIDAY had given him the okay when it was time to give Loki more medication, and his brother had fallen asleep again finally, after lying awake for nearly an hour. Thor hoped he would stay asleep for longer than two hours at a time, finally. The stop-and-start nature of his sleep hadn’t been doing him any favors. Loki was almost looking more wiped out than he had been when he went to sleep. Thor refilled his coffee and drank it all down black, again. It also probably would have burned the mouth of a mortal since he didn’t let it cool at all before starting to drink it, but, well... Caffeine.

            Clicking out of the contacts app, Thor paced in an aimless circle that brought him straight back to the coffee machine. Again, he got a refill, but this time stopped himself from downing it all at once. Thor meandered to the seating area with it and flopped down into one of the velvet-like upholstered armchairs. He nursed the cup quietly as his thoughts drifted back to his little brother. There was really only one person that could do anything for him, and Thor really had no qualms about waking him up in the early morning. He opened his phone again and selected the wizard’s contact number. 

            “Have you found a spell to fix him yet?” Thor asked the minute the phone picked up.

            “And hello to you too,” the wizard hummed, sounding aggravatingly awake. “For your information, I’m currently searching for a spell in the library of Kamar-Taj.”

            “At six in the morning?”

            “Were you hoping to wake me up?” Thor could hear the smirk on his face and gritted his teeth. “It’s late afternoon where I am, I’m afraid. Sorry to disappoint you.”

            “I’m not disappointed,” Thor said, remembering somewhat after the fact that wanting to wake someone up in order to annoy them wasn’t a responsible, kingly thing to do. He was just in a hurry, was all.

            “Keep telling yourself that. I’ll come over at noon, your noon, that is, with what I’ve found. Have a good morning, your majesty.” The line clicked, and then a tone sounded.

            I will not throw my phone at the wall. I will not throw my phone at the wall. Thor growled and moved to hurl his phone, but stopped short of actually letting it fly. The action helped only marginally. “Stupid wizard.” Thor finished his coffee, and then went back to Loki.

* * *

            Loki woke up sometime around ten, restless and irritable. Thor finally managed to weasel out of him that he was suffering body aches after several long minutes of persistent questioning. His fever seemed to have leveled out to a steady 100.6 over the night, and he seemed fully cognizant, if grumpy. “I’m going to get you some breakfast,” Thor said, keeping his expression smooth when Loki dodged the hand he tried to set on his younger brother’s shoulder. “Anything you want specifically?” The others had been kind enough, or else someone had instructed them to (Thor would bet Bruce), leave the brothers alone downstairs. Thor had asked FRIDAY to let him know if anyone approached just in case, but he was fairly confident that they would be left alone. Up until the wizard came over of course.

            “Whatever,” Loki grumbled. With him looking down, Thor was able to sneak in a kiss to the crown of his head. The mischief-maker squawked.

            “Just shout if you need anything, alright? I’ll—”

            “Be a few rooms over, yes,” Loki thumped his head back against the bed and raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Do stop hovering.”

            In the kitchen, Thor got to work fixing breakfast for the both of them. He started a pot of water boiling, for tea this time, and rifled through the cabinets for a couple of plates. With one hand, he dug his phone out of his pocket and set it on the counter, unlocking it with his thumb and opening Google. “Crêpe s,” Thor hummed to himself, typing in the search. Bruce had made some before, and it didn’t seem too hard. Plus, they could be sweet, which meant he could bribe Loki. And maybe get him to stop being such a grump. Loki when he was crabby was the worst kind of Loki. Pricklier than a porcupine and with a temper as hot as Nidevellir. When Loki was in the mood, he could drag everyone around down into the depths of Helheim with him. Thor hoped, probably in vain, to head his attitude off at the pass.

            While the first of his crêpe s was frying, Thor searched for a filling recipe. A bit of deliberation later, and he settled on peach. He worked on the filling in between creating a small mountain of crêpe s, and then pulled the boiling water off the stove and threw in a couple of teabags. Once the crêpe batter was used up, he placed a crêpe on a plate, added a generous helping of the peach filling on one half, and folded the other side over to make a half-moon shape. He assembled two crêpe s for Loki and five for himself, finishing them off with a messy drizzle of chocolate sauce and pouring out a mug of tea for each of them.

            Thor balanced the plates on the flat of his arm, holding one mug of tea in his hand with the other pinned up against his chest by his forearm, and carefully made his way back to Loki.

            “You’re going to drop those,” Loki spouted the moment he caught sight of Thor, a scowl flitting onto his face.

            “You want me to drop them, so you don’t have to eat,” Thor said dryly, walking in and setting the dishes down on the side table. “I’d just make something else you know.” He stabbed a fork into one of the crêpe s and stared at Loki. “Eat. It’s sweet, brother.”

            “Your pitiful attempt at coercing me isn’t going to work.”

            “I could always shove it down your throat.” Loki’s glare could cut steel as he very deliberately sawed off the tip of a crêpe and took a bite. “Thank you.”

            Despite everything he’d said, Loki finished the first crêpe fairly quickly, and half of the second one before he shoved the plate away. It was actually better than Thor had hoped from him.

            “Did I eat enough?” Loki asked pointedly.

            “Yes, you did. Thank you.” Thor polished off the last of his final crêpe and pushed the table aside. “I’m sorry for pestering you, brother, but you really do need—”

            “Yes, I know, I know,” Loki snapped, turning slightly red. “You can stop lecturing me, Thor. I know.”

            Somehow, Thor managed to muster a mostly genuine smile around the frustration and worry. “Allow me to be concerned about you when you’re sick, Loki. I’m pretty sure that’s my job, being your older brother and all.”

            “So, I’m just a job to you?” Loki mumbled without much heat, unresisting when Thor drew him into a hug and guided his head to rest on the thunderer’s shoulder.

            “Now you know that’s not true,” Thor chided softly, nosing into Loki’s matted raven curls. He’d be horrified if he could see the state of himself, and Thor would be lying if he said it didn’t gall him slightly, though for different reasons than Loki’s upset would be. To see his fastidious brother so thoroughly rumpled could only mean something was wrong. Thor pulled in a long inhale of Loki’s scent, rubbed a hand over his back, and then leaned away enough to look him in the face.

            One of Loki’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Did you just sniff me?”

            “No,” Thor denied even though he knew the blush he could feel heating his cheeks betrayed him. “I’m gonna go get a brush, okay?” he said, pointedly changing the subject.

            “Why,” Loki asked slowly, lifting a hand up toward his hair. Thor caught it and gave him a smirk.

            “You don’t want to know, really. Let me fix it. I’ll be back in a minute.” As Thor should have expected, when he returned with the brush Loki was craning his neck to try and make out his reflection in the glass. “Stop it,” Thor ordered, sitting down on the edge of the bed and pulling Loki flush against him. “Now be still so I can brush your hair. No wiggling.”

            “You’re going to make it worse,” Loki complained.

            Thor had to smile at how normal Loki sounded with that sentence, like it was any other day, like none of the past decade had even happened. His throat tightened at the thought, and Thor’s eyes stung when he swallowed. “Hush,” he said, a touch of roughness to his voice.

            “Don’t get sentimental on me now,” Loki groaned.

            Thor laughed softly. “I’m going to be as sentimental as I want, brother. Do you want your hair fixed or not?”

            “Yes.”

            Poking him in the shoulder, Thor allowed a smile to spread across his face. “Then sit still.”

* * *

            The wizard showed up in the bedroom at exactly noon, whooshing in through an amber portal that closed behind him just as quickly as it had appeared. “I found a few spells to try,” he announced without preamble, cloak fluttering dramatically down behind him in the slight drift the closing of the portal caused and flaring up again when he walked forward.

            “And we all know how well that works,” Loki said drily, the sarcasm clear in his tone. Silently, Thor agreed. Loki had insisted on being ‘presentable’ for the wizard’s return. He’d made Thor run back and forth to fetch different articles of clothing for at least an hour (“this would be much easier if you’d just let my conjure them here,” Loki wheedled sweetly) before deciding on a sleek navy hoodie under a white t-shirt and gray leather vest, pants made of angular patches in varying shades of dusky gray, and a silver strip of fabric tied around his throat. He’d had Thor pull half his hair up into a bun while leaving the rest down, but Thor had put his foot down on getting Loki any shoes. If he gave Loki shoes, his brother would walk out the minute Thor turned his back. The lack of desire to walk around barefoot was one of the few things that actually kept Loki confined to bed when he didn’t want to be there.

            Though the outfit was probably meant to make him seem casual and in control, Thor didn’t have the heart to tell Loki how it really looked. While normally, it would likely convey exactly what he wanted to, instead it only made his already pale skin look more washed out and heightened the hollows of his eyes and haggard cast to his face. He didn’t look in control, he looked tired and sickly.

            “None of these spells can possibly harm you,” Strange insisted, drawing Thor out of his thoughts and turning his gaze away from his younger brother and towards the wizard. “But I can demonstrate them first if you wish.”

            “We’ve heard that before.”

            “Do you want my help or not?”

            The expression on Loki’s face clearly stated the not even though they both knew there really was no other choice. “Test them on me,” Thor cut in before an argument between the two could ensue.

            The wizard gave him a hard look, then a curt nod. “Now, I assume?”

            “The sooner, the better.” Thor folded his arms and widened his stance. “Test your spells, wizard.”

            “I’m not a wizard.”

            “You’re a wizard,” the brothers said together.

            For a few seconds, Strange looked like he sorely wanted to argue, but to Thor’s surprise, he only inhaled and began the first spell. Spell after spell through, at least twenty in various shades of red, yellow, and orange, before the wizard stopped. “That’s all of them,” he announced. “I trust that little test was satisfactory?”

            Thor gave a little nod, head spinning a touch from the bombardment of spells, but it soon settled again, and he nodded more decisively. “Do it, then.”

            Again, the wizard began his spellcasting, this time on Loki. The first two spells he tried had no effect, but the minute he started the third one Loki gasped loudly and jerked upright. “Stop—” Thor started to say, but Loki held up a hand.

            “It’s... helping,” he gasped, tone somewhat surprised. “Don’t... don’t stop.”

            Thor gritted his teeth and stayed where he was, rocking slightly on the balls of his feet. The silence stretched on and on as the wizard worked with flying fingers and honey golden glyphs. Nerves began to build up, mounting every second as the wizard’s work dragged on. Just when Thor was about to speak up, demanding to know what was going on, Strange cut off the spell. “It’s done,” he announced imperiously, with an added dramatic swish of his cloak.

            “How do you feel?” Thor asked anxiously, rushing over to Loki but stopping a few steps shy of the bedside, fearful of crowing him. “Better? Worse?”

            “Better,” Loki said, starting to swing his legs over the side of the bed.

            “Absolutely not,” Thor barked. “You may be better, but you still need to recover.”

            “My seiðr has been healed,” Loki said flatly, giving Thor a hard stare.

            Inhaling deeply, Thor stared back. “But you’re still exhausted. Your body needs to recover, too. Stay in bed.”

            “I told you I’m healed!”

            “Did you not hear what I just said?!” Thor roared back.

            “I think I’ll leave you to it,” the wizard said, sweeping out of the room.

            The irritation that Thor felt watching him go was quickly buried by his fury when he turned around to see Loki trying to wobble to his feet. “For the last time, stay in bed or I’ll tie you down in it.”

            Loki started at him, eyes hard and nostrils flaring. He exhaled in a huge burst of air and swung his legs back up onto the bed. “Happy?”

            “Yes,” Thor said, “now stay there.”

            “How can I go anywhere with you hanging over me all the time?” Loki asked caustically.

            “I’m going to go get lunch,” Thor said, stubbornly choosing to ignore the barb. “You stay here. Get some rest. Understand?”

            “Yes, yes,” Loki mumbled. He flapped his hand toward the door. “Go, then.”

            Thor sighed, worry making a fist around his heart as he studied his little brother’s face. “Alright.”

* * *

            Loki fell asleep almost the minute he was alone. The aches and pains he felt were nothing compared to the soul-deep exhaustion and blessedly, he slept without dreaming. When he woke next, the shadows in the room had moved. Loki surmised perhaps two hours had passed. To his surprise, mingled with relief and a quiet disappointment, he was alone. The blinds were drawn closed, allowing for at least a moderate sense of privacy, though the windows were uncovered. Loki found he didn’t mind having them open. The cliffside view of the ocean was peaceful. It reminded him, for an aching moment that stole away the breath in his lungs and left his eyes stinging, of Asgard. And, in the moment after, of the cliffside where his father had passed. Important things seemed to happen by the ocean.

            Shaking off his momentary lapse into sentimentality, Loki closed his eyes and pulled in a long breath. Sleep was calling him, and the prince was ready to give in to it. He was just on the edge of falling into oblivion, the discomfort washing away under gentle waves of sleep, when… “Loki?”

            Loki’s eyes snapped back open, and he was halfway to sitting up before he placed the voice that had spoken. “Thor,” he said tonelessly, trying to calm him racing heart.

            “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” his older brother said with a slight smile.

            You didn’t startle me, the mischief-maker grumbled internally.

            “It’s good you’re awake,” Thor went on, either not noticing or ignoring the scowl on Loki’s face, “I was just about to wake you up. It’s time for your medication, and you should eat lunch too.”

            “Yes, yes, yes,” Loki sighed, raising his eyes to the ceiling. “Get on with it, then.”

            “You’re grumpy.” Loki almost hissed, but didn’t, because he wasn’t grumpy. Okay, maybe he was but the constant hovering was only grating on his nerves. “Definitely time for food, and the pain meds, I think.”

            “Shut up,” the silvertongue said halfheartedly, narrowing his eyes at the plate Thor set down in front of him.

            “I don’t plan to,” Thor hummed. He nudged the glass of water he brought towards Loki with one finger. With a roll of his eyes, Loki took it and accepted the pills Thor dropped into the palm of his hand. He swallowed them all in one go, then drained the water. The thirst he hadn’t been aware of until he’d drunk the water was only slightly sated. Thor, annoyingly enough, picked up on the way he was eyeing the glass longingly and plucked it from his hand. “I’ll get you some more water. You start eating. No funny business.”

            “No funny business,” Loki mocked, derisive. He snorted.

            If Thor’s goal was to stuff him with food until he exploded, the prince thought his brother had made a good start at it. He pinched the provided fork between thumb and forefinger while studying the plate. A ridiculously huge cut of steak, slathered with a sickening amount of gravy, an equally large and gravy-laden mound of mashed potatoes, a heap of steaming macaroni and cheese, and an amalgamation of steamed vegetables adorned his plate. “Where did you even get all of this?” Loki asked with Thor returned, dropping the fork to make a grab for the cup of water he was bearing.

            “Ordered out,” Thor said, watching him down the water with a half-amused quirk of his lips.

            “You know there is no way I’m going to eat all of that, yes?” Loki poked at the steak suspiciously with one of the fork’s prongs.

            “I can hope, can’t I?” Flashing his best charming grin, Thor thumped down into the armchair positioned by Loki’s bed. He propped his chin in his hands and stared with widened eye.

            “That face is the opposite of encouraging,” Loki told him. “Truly, Thor. If you don’t stop making that face, I’m going to remove your remaining eye with this.” He brandished the fork threateningly.

            Thor raised his hands in surrender, leaning back a bit. “No longer making ‘that face,’” he professed. “Please stop pointing that at me. Also eat.”

            Loki hummed and speared one of the vegetables. “Bossy.”

            “Eat.” A spark popped by Thor’s shoulder.

            Loki shut up and ate. Or tried to, anyway. He made at least a dent in everything Thor had brought before his stomach flatly refused to take any more. “If you make me eat another bite, I will vomit everything you just made me consume directly in your face,” Loki informed the thunderer politely.

            Sighing, Thor took the plate. “You ate something, I suppose.”

            “A good deal more than that, I think.”

            Thor returned quickly after sweeping away with the still quite-full plate, having done who-knows-what with it. Loki studied his face with furrowed eyebrows when he returned. His demeanor had changed. He was thinking about something, likely something Loki wouldn’t like. Accordingly, his shoulders tensed up. “The wizard is here,” Thor said slowly.

            “Is that why you look like that?” The trickster elaborated before Thor even opened his mouth to ask. “Like someone is holding a sword to your neck. Out with it, brother.”

            With a shake of his head and sigh, Thor took a seat again, this time on the edge of the bed. “Bruce and I thought it would be a good idea to talk, all of us, you, me, him and Brunn and the wizard, about what we can do about your...”

            “Little problem?” Loki finished sweetly.

            The skin around Thor’s eye tightened. “Something like that. Please don’t be difficult, brother.”

            Define difficult. Loki sighed and dipped his head.

            “We thought it would be a good idea to wait until you’d had lunch.”

            “So, call them in then,” Loki said before Thor had time to stumble through whatever he was going to say to try and break the proposal gently. Because he was so delicate and needed to be sheltered. Unconsciously, Loki’s lip curled. He inhaled sharply and dropped his shoulders, letting his expression smooth.

            “Alright.” Thor’s inhale shook the slightest bit. His smile was awfully forced. “Alright.”

* * *

            “How are you feeling, Loki?” Bruce asked as soon as he walked in through the door.

            “Tired,” Loki told him with a half-smile. “But otherwise, fine.”

            “I think you’re lying to me, but I’ll take it.” He adjusted his glasses on his nose and leaned against the wall. “Did you take the medicine?”

            “I made sure he did,” Thor said.

            “Good, that should help with the pain and don’t you dare tell me you’re not sore all over after a seizure, Loki.”

            “Fine, fine, fine,” Loki grumbled quietly. He was growing quite tired of everyone asking him that. Brunnhilde strolled in before anyone else could speak and took a seat on the edge of the bed.

            “Feeling alright, Lackey?” she asked. Loki nodded. “Cool.”

            “All we need now is the wizard,” Bruce said.

            Thor made a half-derisive noise in his throat. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he kept us waiting.”

            “On the contrary, I’m right here.”

            Loki’s amused snort nearly covered up the sound of Thor’s yelp. “Well then,” the thunderer said quickly, “let’s get down to talking, shall we?”

            “Of course.” The wizard sat down gracefully into a stuffed scarlet armchair that hadn’t been there the minute before. “Go right ahead.”

            Though he was eager to get on with it, there was something Loki felt the need to ask, “where are the others of your Avengers? Are you sure we won’t be interrupted?”

            “Yup,” Thor pronounced. The proud way he enunciated the Midgardian slang nearly made Loki snigger. “Stark and Rhodes are doing government things—”

            “Government things?” Loki interrupted incredulously. “This, from the king of the once-foremost world in the Nine. Norns, Thor.”

            “—and I told the others to stay out of here until dinner to give you your space,” Thor finished, ignoring him.

            “You what?” The silvertongue shook his head, momentarily aghast, but then let it go. “A simple yes would have sufficed, brother.”

            Thor shrugged.

            “Now that that’s out of the way... I do have to advise that we wait at least until tomorrow to try anything towards remedying your life-force issue. In the case that it does go wrong, it would be better to give you some recovery time first,” the wizard said smoothly, starting Loki directly in the eyes with a spine-crawling intensity.

            “You have the Time Stone, do you not?” Loki pressed. “You could reverse all the damage you did right now, leaving us free to try something new.”

            Strange’s eyes hardened. “I swore an oath to protect this Stone and not use it for frivolous purposes. I bent the rules by using it for that failed spell, already. You’re asking me to use it again to fix some minor injuries.”

            “Actually, that’s not a bad idea,” Bruce interrupted. “Reverse time on Loki’s body, so that energy that was supporting him is still there.”

            “That’s not a viable solution. I’d need to keep doing it every time the magic drained out again.”

            “You two are magic, can’t you figure out some way to keep it from draining out?” Bruce shrugged. “Just throwing out ideas.”

            “No, I think that could work,” Loki said slowly.

            “Rolling back time on a specific living being and I assume without erasing their memories of everything that has happened since the moment I push them back to, is a tall order. I have no reason to help you, anyway, do I? You attacked my planet,” the wizard looked to Loki pointedly, “and I have no obligation to any of you, except perhaps Banner as a citizen of Earth.”

            Thor jumped to his feet, lightning dancing between his fingers. “You dare—” he started in a low growl as Brunnhilde grasped the hilt of her ever-present sword.

            “Wait,” Loki said, heart hammering loudly in his ears. He refused to flinch when they all looked back to him. “Thanos,” Loki spared a half second of pride, his voice hardly shook on the name, “is coming to attack your planet. Your duty is to defend it. My interests, meanwhile, are towards seeing him dead. We have a common goal. Would it not be advantageous to have one more defender against him?”

            To Loki’s shock, the wizard smiled. “You make a convincing argument, Odinson. Fine, I’ll use the Time Stone—” Loki’s shoulders dropped, and he exhaled heavily in relief, “but not until tomorrow. I do have duties to attend to as the Sorcerer Supreme, and in the off chance this does go wrong—”

            “You’re not a sorcerer,” Loki interrupted. Thor and Brunn nodded.

            Affront flashed over Strange’s face as he reared back slightly. “I beg your pardon.”

            “You’re not a sorcerer,” Loki asserted. “You’re a wizard.”

            “Aren’t those both magic things?” Bruce asked, brow furrowing.

            “No!” all three Asgardians said at once.

            “There are differences. Mortals can’t be sorcerers only wizards.”

            “Or witches?”

            Shaking his head at the scientist, Loki corrected him. “Witches are something else.”

            “I thought witches were female wizards.”

            “No,” Brunn said slowly, side-eyeing Bruce like he was mad. Loki agreed with the sentiment. “Witches are witches and wizards are wizards.”

            With a nod to her, Loki proceeded to explain. “Thor is, technically, a witch, though he never bothered to do anything with the power and it’s basically worse than useless. I am a sorcerer, and you—” he pointed at the wizard, “are a wizard.”

            The man blinked a few times, seemingly stunned. “We prefer Masters of the Mystic Arts.”

            Loki sniffed. “As long as you don’t go around calling yourself Sorcerer Supreme. That’s misleading and grossly arrogant. Wonderful Wizard, perhaps?”

            “Did you just?”

            Tipping his head to the side, Loki allowed a slow smile to spread over his face at the wizard’s clear shock. “I have no idea what you mean,” he said sweetly.

            “Sure, you don’t.” Strange shook his head and stood up, the chair once again vanishing as soon as he was no longer in contact with it. “I’ll be going then. Until tomorrow.” He muttered something under his breath as he cast the spell required to open his portal.

            Having gleaned what Strange had said, he was a sorcerer, thank you very much. Loki felt compelled to yell, “Wizard!” as he stepped through the portal.

            Once the portal closed Thor let out a sigh. “Do you have to antagonize him?”

            “You heard what he calls himself.”

            “If calling him a ‘sorcerer’ instead of a ‘wizard’ will keep him helping you then does it really matter?”

            “Of course it does,” Loki replied, folding his arms across his chest then wincing when the action pulled at his bruises. “If he doesn’t go by his proper title then he’s nothing but a charlatan.”

            “Question,” Bruce interjected before Thor could reply, “what’s the difference?”

            The three Asgardian’s shared a look. Brunn shrugged, “Not my department.”

            “A sorcerer is someone who’s magic is inherent and while they are able to use and modify spells, they don’t actually require them in order to use their magic,” Loki explained. “A wizard, on the other hand, is someone who does require spells in order to cast their magic.”

            “Is that why…” Bruce made random gestures mimicking what they’d seen Strange do.

            “You mean why he looks like he’s playing an invisible yet complicated game of Cat’s Cradle whenever he casts a spell? Then yes.”

            “And you don’t?”

            “Correct.” He called forth a few simple witchlights and was glad when the pain previously associated with using his seiðr was no longer present.

            “Your seiðr was just healed,” Thor chastised, “don’t overexert yourself.”

            The look he shot his brother conveyed to him just how unimpressed he was with Thor’s continued fussing. “Two words brother, ‘mother dragon’.”

Chapter Text

Seventeen

            Staying in bed was boring. Loki had known this, of course, but the knowing was doubly reinforced when Thor would. Not. Let. Him. Up. He was allowed to leave bed to relieve himself, but anything else was deemed “too strenuous,” and “you need to rest, brother.” If he hadn’t been so tired and sore, Loki would have long relived Thor of his remaining eye and also possibly his intestines, but as it was such things would take far too much effort when he could be sleeping. Which proves Thor’s point, a small part of him thought. Loki told that part to shut up.

            After a lengthy nap that swallowed the remainder of the afternoon and a quick session of being poked and prodded by Bruce, Thor stuffed dinner down his throat and ordered him to rest. Loki intended to stay awake, just to prove that Thor was being overzealous and idiotic and there was no need for him to fuss so. That plan very quickly fell through, when between one blink and the next Loki was watching the sun set through the windows and then looking out on the moon while Thor snored on the floor. He leaned over the side of the bed to look at Thor, scrunched up on a cot on the floor, mouth open with a trail of drool leaking onto his pillow. An uncomfortably warm feeling grew in Loki’s chest as he watched. Blinking slowly, Loki eased back down and let sleep wash over him once more.

            In the morning, Loki was much refreshed, enough to argue his way out of bed to have breakfast in the kitchen. Bruce maintained that he should spend the day ‘resting’ up until Strange came to try his spell, and Thor marched him back into bed after he ate. This time, however, he returned to the room that he and Thor had been sharing, that was, technically, only Thor’s, after Bruce agreed there was no more reason to keep him under such close medical observation. Once Thor was satisfied that he was not going to be leaving the bed on pain of death, barring the need to use the facilities, the silvertongue managed to shoo him out so he could be alone. After a lot of whining, pleading, and threats of stabbings.

            By himself at last, Loki stripped down to his underthings and stood in front of the mirror to inspect the faint remains of bruising. If this was a decade ago, Loki would expect them to be gone within a couple of hours of initial injury. But they were no less healed than they had been after Signild’s work. He sighed, looping one hand aimlessly over a particularly dark bruise on his hip and ignoring the stinging pain he provoked by putting pressure on the sensitive skin. How long would it take to heal? Loki had no idea, but he wouldn’t wait around to find out. And now that his seiðr was no longer injured, he could do something about it.

            The second he brought up his magic, Loki dropped it again with a yelp. He shook out his stinging wrists with an irritated huff, then traced two fingers gently from the palm of his hand up to his shoulder, following the trail of the sudden, stinging pain. Hurt pulsed behind his eyebrows as a headache began to build. The aches, which had been minor, were starting to again flare. Loki reached down with a grunt of pain to rub at the ache in his side. A similar thing had happened when he last tried a healing spell, a few days before, Loki recalled suddenly. He shook his head rapidly, despite the increase in pain the action caused, and sat down on the edge of the bed. Summoning a jar of healing salve instead, Loki rode out the frustrating surge in pain that followed before beginning to apply it. The remnant bruises faded to nothing rapidly when he applied the potent healing cream, he didn’t have much of it, and had been saving that particular blend seeing as several of the ingredients could only be found on Alfheim, but he was irritated enough that he decided to throw caution to the wind. He applied the paste to the steady soundtrack of the pounding headache that now plagued him. When every bruise had been covered up, he sealed the jar and tossed it aside, falling asleep before he could even crawl back into his clothes.

* * *

            “Loki.”

            The trickster groaned.

            “Why are you in your underwear?”

            Loki bolted upright with a small gasp, a blush coloring his cheeks. He looked to the side and quickly held up the jar of salve towards his older brother. “Healing cream,” he explained. “I must have... fallen asleep.”

            Thor nodded slowly. “You look better. I’d say it helped.”

            Nodding back rather dumbly, Loki plunked the jar down on the side table for later use and wobbled to his feet. “I assume the wizard is here?” Thor dipped his head. “Then leave and allow me to change.”

            There was a burning knot of pain under his sternum. Loki rubbed at it absently while he rifled through his clothing. One pair of artistically ripped slate gray jeans and a coal-colored button-up later, Loki strolled out of the bedroom while pulling his hair up into a bun.

            Thor was on him in a second. “Let me help,” he offered, already removing the hair tie from Loki’s wrist and finishing the updo.

            Loki shoved him away with a snarl. “I can put my own hair up, Thor.”

            “Aren’t naps supposed to make people less cranky?” Brunnhilde asked from the kitchen, a glass of something amber at her lips. Loki growled. She raised her hands. “Just a comment, Lackey.”

            “Let’s just get this over with. Where’s the wizard?”

            “Shouldn’t we eat lunch—” Thor began.

            “I’m right here,” the wizard interrupted. Loki spun to the side, to see him lounging against the wall. But he didn’t look much like a wizard. Dressed in faded old jeans, the world’s ugliest loafers just a shade off from mustard, and a beige cardigan, he looked more like a homeless man than any wizard of acclaim. It looked especially odd with the deep scarlet cloak still on his shoulders.

            “Are you sure that’s the wizard and not just his bargain-brand look alike?” Loki dragged his eyes scornfully up and down the man’s body. “I wasn’t aware that wizards went dumpster diving for their clothes.”

            Strange lifted one eyebrow. The amusement in his eyes made Loki want to stab him. Hard. Multiple times, probably. Too bad mortals couldn’t take a little stab wound without bleeding out all over the place. You probably can’t either. Not anymore. “Smart idea, antagonizing the man you want to cure you.”

            Sneering, Loki paced closer. “Oh, you pretend like you’d pull back, refuse aid. But you’re nothing but a third-rate wizard desperate to prove his righteousness to himself by fixing the poor, pitiable monster that attacked New York.” He smiled, all teeth. “You’d never let an opportunity to tout your own altruism pass, would you, wizard?”

            “Loki!” Thor snapped, sounding scandalized. Both magic users paid him no attention.

            “Maybe once,” the wizard said, meeting Loki’s eyes. His face was totally calm, though there was a slight upwards quirk to his lips. “I’m not that kind of man anymore. At least, I hope not.”

            The laugh Loki forced was low and rough, drifting closer to an animalistic growl than a noise of humor. Green eyes flashed as he sauntered even closer, getting right into the wizard’s face and looming over him, backing him against the wall. “Oh no,” he whispered smoothly. “You’re not any different than you ever were. You think it’s possible to change? You fool yourself, wizard. No, you are as you were and ever will be. A selfish, self-obsessed upstart too enraptured by his own perceived magnificence to look around him and see the truth, that he is pathetic and cowardly. Surrounding himself in acclaim and riches so he doesn’t have to look in the mirror and see the truth of his own inadequacy.”

            Strange cocked his head, staring up into Loki’s snarl without a hint of fear. He almost seemed like he wanted to laugh. “If I’m still a selfish, self-obsessed upstart... what does that make you?” he drawled.

            Loki reared back, keeping his face blank to hide the satisfaction that bubbled up when the wizard’s attack hit its mark. Giving a bitter laugh, he spun away. “Well played, wizard. Well played.”

            “Thanks, I do try. Now are we doing the spell or not?”

            With his expression satisfactorily under control again, Loki once again faced him. “Do it.”

            “Fine.”

            The wizard switched back into his pretentious attire before doing the spell. The process was rather intriguing, though Loki would never admit it. Rather than a more obvious switch with a shimmer of magic, his clothes simply melted from one outfit into the next. Surprisingly uncomplicated for a man with such gaudy, showy magic. “Was the wardrobe change really necessary?” Loki pursed his lips. “It is a dramatic improvement, I suppose. Better to be an entertainer at a children’s party than a grave robber.”

            “Loki,” Thor scolded.

            “Spare me the righteousness, brother,” Loki spat as he took a seat on the couch. “Well, wizard?”

            Strange took a seat on the coffee table. Sitting across from each other that way, their knees were all but brushing. Loki studied the wizard’s legs venomously. He didn’t need legs to do magic. He could probably just use the Time Stone later if Loki cut them off.

            “Loki,” Thor sighed. “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.”

            Giving the wizard his fangiest smile, the prince tipped his head to the side. “Are you terribly fond of your legs?”

            Strange looked back evenly. “As it happens, yes. Would you prefer to do the spell now, or should I wait a while so you can keep being difficult?” He paused. “To answer your question, no, I don’t need to change clothes to do magic, but it did bring me this.” His expression went smug as he revealed the Time Stone. “So?”

            “Hurry up before I lose my patience, and you lose something a little more vital.”

            “Alright then. Let’s begin.” The wizard’s smile was slightly smug. It unnerved Loki just the slightest bit. He was about to say something scathing when Strange slammed the heel of his hand against the mischief-maker’s chest, and the world shifted. His awareness had moved, parted from his body. The currents of magic surrounding him were stronger than ever. Nearly overwhelming. The natural waves of magic, the very fabric of the universe buffeted him like he was nothing but another scrap of natural magic to be twisted to a wielder’s whim... because he was, Loki realized, staring at his own unconscious body.

            The words he said then were not fit to be in the mouth of the most repulsive Ravager in the lot, much less a Prince of Asgard, but Loki said them anyway. With feeling. At quite a volume. Possibly some threats were mixed in, Loki was a little busy being furious to truly pay attention to what he was saying.

            The second Strange’s soul parted from his body to join Loki in this curious state of half-existence, Loki had him by the throat. He wasn’t sure it would work, with him being incorporeal, but apparently incorporeal beings could touch other incorporeal beings. He filed that bit of knowledge away for later use. “What did you do to me,” Loki demanded roughly.

            “Separated your soul from your body,” the wizard said. Loki scoffed, clearly, but the wizard wasn’t done. “Do you want me to put you back in? You can lose your memories of the last few months along with the regeneration of the Casket’s magic, if you really want.”

            “Oh.”

            “Oh.” Strange patted him on the shoulder. “I’m going to do the spell now. Don’t worry, I’ll come get you as soon as I’m done.”

            “You’d better.”

            With the rage now drained away, curiosity could take its place. And he was curious. Very curious, in fact. Loki’s lips curved upward without his knowing as he basked in the flow of seiðr. He could feel it, always, but this was more than feeling it. He was a part of the flow of magic, the weft and weave of the universe. At first it threatened to sweep him away, but he quickly learned how to navigate, let the currents pass through him instead of pushing him along. Alone as he was, Loki let himself laugh, high and youthful, with a kind of joy he hadn’t felt in a good while, he realized. Melancholy threatened, but he shook it away in favor of playing with the raw seiðr that he could now mold with bare hands.

            Green light washed over everything. Even in another plane, perhaps especially, the magic of the Time Stone was unmistakable. The magic of this strange existence bent to allow it its way, moving in ways contrary to the natural way of things. Utterly, utterly fascinating. Loki moved closer to watch the spell take place. The magic of the Time Stone gathering around his body. It adhered tight to each individual atom and no further, from every strand of his hair to the tips of his fingernails. Apart from his body, Loki couldn’t feel it... but watching the process was utterly entrancing. Loki might deign to forgive the wizard with this kind of view of an Infinity Stone at work. A knot of green of a different shade pulsed under his sternum in reaction to the Time Stone; his seiðr. Reaching his fingers through his own chest, Loki brushed up against it, and shivered at the little tingle it gave him.

            Once the magic was tight against his body, but touching nothing else, which didn’t take long, Loki thought his perception of time must be slowed currently, the true fun began. Watching his own cells unwind was incredible. Bruises darkened again, then vanished. Lesions formed on his seiðr, only to melt away again. And still the clock turned back, and back, and back. His skin took on a healthier flush, the shadows under his eyes lessened, he really had been looking a mess, Loki realized when looking at a healthier version of himself. Time unwound, and unwound, and unwound. At last, a little spark of silvery-blue magic formed in Loki’s chest. The magic of the Casket of Ancient Winters.

            That was about when things began to get fuzzy. Very fuzzy. Colors began to blur together, and his thoughts tangled up into a blurry haze. Numbness crept up on him as color began to bleach out from his sight. It was odd. Hard to think. Like... like tangled skeins of yarn. The world wobbled, and Loki wobbled with it. There was a pushing, against his... himself. A tug. It was gentle. Comforting. Loki wanted to go with it. So, he did. Awareness faded out as a bubbly warmth rose to greet him, rivers of magic pulling him out to sea...

* * *

            Thor didn’t realize anything was wrong until Strange started sweating. And then swearing. “No,” he said wildly, doing something odd with his hands as green magic continued to move. “No, no, no, no, no. No.”

            “What’s happening,” the thunderer demanded dully. His heart was hammering in his chest as he stared at Loki’s slowly graying face. Another place, another time drifted behind his eyes. Svartalfhiem. “Is he dying?” Thor choked out.

            “Not if I have any say in it,” the wizard growled. “Do me a favor and shock him if his pulse stops, would you? Thanks.” With that not-at-all alarming instruction, he closed his eyes.

            “No, you don’t—” Thor yelled, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him back and forth. The wizard’s head flopped limply around. “What are you, get back here, you—”

            “Thor,” Brunnhilde hissed. “Watch your brother, you moron.”

            Bruce was already at Loki’s side, two fingers on the inside of his wrist and two at the pulse point under his jaw. “It’s very faint, but there,” he reported. “Thor, get ready to be a defibrillator on my say so.” They waited in tense silence. Every shallow rise and fall of Loki’s lungs felt like another breath closer to his last. Please, please, please, Thor begged mentally. Don’t take him from me, not him, please. Take anyone else, take me, just not him.

            Strange sat up with a gasp the same moment Bruce gave a shout. “Shock him now!” both doctors barked. Thor slammed hands filled with lightning against his brother’s chest, held them there for a moment as Loki’s back arched and his body twitched, and then pulled back.

            The trickster pulled in a loud gasp of air, but still Thor didn’t feel he could breathe until Bruce sat back, saying, “we got him,” and wiping his brow of sweat.

            Thor allotted two heartbeats to feel relief, to drink in his baby brother’s face. Then he had the wizard by the throat, up against the wall. The cloak around his neck tried to pry Thor’s hands off, but in his rage he gave it about as much notice as a gnat. “What did you do to him.” He gave the human a shake, letting his head slam back against the wall again. “Answer fast and well. I can stop hearts just as well as I can start them.”

            “It didn’t work. Like trying to shove a baby back into a mother after it’s been born it didn’t work,” Strange said, admirably calm for a man in a stranglehold.

            “But you could do that with the Time Stone, couldn’t you?” Thor hit him against the wall another time. “So why didn’t you do it for him.” A thought occurred to him, and Thor tightened his grip. “Did you sabotage the spell? Was this all a ruse to kill him?!”

            “If it was... I wouldn’t have... saved him... now would I?” Thor wanted to argue. Desperately, desperately, desperately wanted to argue. He didn’t. The wizard went on. “The magic of the Casket... fought back. I’ve never seen anything like it before, but it did. I had to reverse what I’d done, but then his astral form had come untethered. I figured he’d need a shock when he reconnected with his body. Looks like I was right.”

            Thor let him go, turning to follow his line of sight. He swallowed and moved closer to Loki. “Is he...”

            “He’ll be fine,” Strange said, voice slightly hoarse but still gentle. “I promise.”

            “If that didn’t work,” Brunn said, now crouched at Loki’s side and running a hand over his hair, “what are we going to do?”

* * *

            Strange reassured them several times of the lack of need to call any healers, and after taking Loki’s pulse and listening to his breathing, Bruce said the same. “I know that was terrifying, it scared the crap out of me, too, but he’s okay now. We know what happened, we know why and he’s bound to be sore when he wakes up, yeah, but I think bombarding him with healers is the last thing he needs right now.”

            Thor nodded mutely, watching Loki’s face. They’d settled him on top of the bed for when he woke. “What do we do next?” Thor asked quietly, ever so carefully tracing his fingertips over Loki’s cheek. “If the Time Stone failed...”

            “We’ll figure it out.” With a pat to his shoulder, Bruce left the brothers alone.

            Meandering over to the armchair in the corner of the room, Thor’s eye never left Loki’s face as he sat down to wait and watch for him to wake. He didn’t have to wait long, within minutes, Loki began to shift and make small, near-waking noises. The second his eyes opened; Thor flew across the room to his side. “How are you feeling?” he asked. “Does anything hurt? Should I call a healer?”

            Loki yawned. “What... happened, Thor?”

            Thor looked away. “What do you remember?”

            “I was watching the wizard perform the spell,” Loki replied immediately. “After that, things grow a bit... unclear.”

            For a moment Thor hesitated, wanting to break it to his little brother gently, but he was tired and heartsick and he didn’t know what to say, so he simply blurted it out. “Your heart stopped.”

            Loki blinked. Blinked again. “Well,” he said, voice growing airy, “good thing that didn’t stick.” Instead of starting to yell, Thor clenched his fists and gave a small nod. “I assume it failed, then.” Thor nodded again, but Loki didn’t even seem to see it. His face blanked, grew distant.

            “We’ll find another way,” Thor told him desperately, grabbing his hands and giving them a gentle squeeze. “Don’t… don’t worry. We’ll fix it. I’ll fix it. I swear to you, brother, we’ll figure this out.”

            The smile Loki gave was frail, and didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m going to sleep now. My chest is... quite sore, though I suppose that must be a given. And I am... quite tired, really.”

            “Let me help you change, first.”

            “Fine.” While Thor hunted for his nightclothes, Loki got to work unbuttoning his semi-singed shirt. When Thor turned back around with a loose gray sweater and soft pants in hand, his brother quickly pulled the two halves of the shirt back together. Not before Thor saw.

            “What was that,” he asked, voice choked and heart in his throat.

            “Nothing, it was nothing—” Loki started, but Thor was striding forward and pulled his hands away, opening the shirt back up to reveal branching red lines crisscrossing his chest. The pattern of wounds was one achingly familiar to Thor. Electricity scars, red and angry, and everywhere.

            Thor was going to be sick. Right then and there, all over the bed and possibly his brother. He darted away and buried his face in the trash can with a loud retch, stopped for a minute to gasp for breath, and then retched again. Nothing came up, but the dry heaves were still painful. Harsh pants ripped from his throat as Thor tried to get himself under control. Then a gentle hand settled on his back. “You should get back in bed,” Thor said roughly. He still clung to the bin but turned his head a bit to try and get a glimpse of his brother.

            “I’m fine, brother,” Loki said. He took a seat on the floor at Thor’s side, hand still resting on his back. “Truly.”

            Thor barked a harsh laugh. “I hurt you.”

            “You saved me,” Loki countered softly. “This I’ll heal from.” With a slight flippancy to his tone he added, “I couldn’t heal from death.”

            How could Loki even think to joke about something like that. “You—” Thor gasped, “you are a jerk.”

            “Am I now?”

            Feeling steady enough to sit up again, the thunderer did so, and turned to face his younger brother. “Don’t say things like that,” he ordered roughly, clenching his hands so he wouldn’t reach out and rattle Loki around by the shoulders. “That is... not funny.”

            The smile on Loki’s face was gentle, tentative, but his eyes were much more serious as they searched his brother’s face. “You just have a boring sense of humor.”

            “You don’t take anything seriously,” Thor snapped. It was a bad time to start an argument and he knew it, but the anger was boiling in his blood and it needed somewhere to go. Even if it was straight back at the person who least deserved it, who he was angry on behalf of. “For once in your life can you not make light of everything?!”

            He saw the exact moment the caution and concern in Loki’s eyes turned to anger. “Would you rather I blew everything out of proportion, like you?”

            “I would rather you took something seriously!” Thor’s eyes blazed with anger, and his hands clenched into fists.

            “I’m not going to be an accessory to your self-pity,” Loki said stiffly. “If you want someone to help you wallow, then go somewhere else.”

            “And leave you alone right after your heart stopped?!”

            Oh, now Loki was really angry. “Because I’m so pitiable and frail? Because I need you to protect me?”

            “Maybe so! You’re certainly not going to protect yourself now, are you?”

            The mischief-maker hissed. “I can take of myself, you slug-faced, arrogant toad! Don’t you dare imply otherwise!”

            The laugh that escaped from Thor’s throat was rough, derisive. “Is that so? Recent evidence suggests not.”

            Loki made a sound like an enraged cat and lashed out, slamming his fist into Thor’s gut. The thunderer caught the next punch he threw and pushed him back. Landing hard on his back with a sudden exhale, Loki said a few words their mother would have washed his mouth out for if she were still alive, of-age-adult or no. “Get out.”

            “No.”

            “Take your stupid hero-complex and your self-righteous savior delusion and get out of my room!”

            “Your room? This is my room!” When Loki jumped to his feet, Thor did as well.

            “Not anymore! Now get out.”

            “I’m not leaving!”

            “Oh, you are absolutely leaving. Right now.”

            “And if something happens?” Thor growled.

            “If something happens, I will deal with it myself. I don’t need you.”

            “I think you do.”

            Loki barked a laugh. “Not every problem can be solved by yelling at it until it goes away, Thor, contrary to what you assume. Also contrary to what you assume, not everyone needs saving all the time, just because you like to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong and play the hero.”

            “At least I care about people outside of myself.”

            Again, Loki laughed. “Really? And here I thought it was just a ruse to feed your ego, taking care of all the helpless little damsels in your path. Oh, it makes you feel good to have a weakling brother to hover over, doesn’t it?” He changed the pitch of his voice mockingly, “look at me, the Mighty Thor. See how I deign to debase myself and consort with my helpless, fragile little brother.”

            “That is not what I think and you know it!”

            “Isn’t it?” Loki demanded. “Isn’t that what you’ve always done? Isn’t everything just another excuse to pump up your own superiority complex?” Thor flinched, stung, but he wasn’t done. “All you do is stomp around, causing problems for everyone else and thinking yourself so wonderful for it when you claim to fix the problems you caused. Case in point, smothering me, no, demanding that I do nothing more than rest and sleep is not helping, at all! You cannot take any choice I may have on the matter away from me then complain that all the choices you are making for me are not improving my condition. Do you think I should be grateful? Well, terribly sorry I’m not going to bend over and kiss your boots, my king, I don’t need you. So get out.”

            “Fine,” Thor snarled. “I’ll be back when you finally get it through your skull that you need me.”

            “Not likely! If anything, it’s you who needs me!”

            Not designing to dignify that with any sort of answer, no matter how much the truth behind those words stung, Thor stormed from the room slamming the door as he left.

* * *

            Brunnhilde took one look at Thor’s face when he ran into her on the ship and sighed. “You fought, didn’t you.”

            “How did you know?” Thor flushed. So much for denying it.

            “You have that look,” she said flatly. “Like a kicked dog, except guilty also. It’s really obvious.”

            “It is?” Thor moaned, dragging his hands over his face. “Wonderful.”

            She grabbed him by the arm and tugged him into a nearby storage closet before he had time to protest. “Alright, what was it about?” Thor blinked. “You don’t really think I’m going to let you keep wallowing, do you? Moron. Now fess up. Why did you fight?”

            “I... yelled at Loki for not taking things seriously.”

            Pressing her lips together, Brunn motioned for Thor to take a seat on one of the nearby storage crates as she did the same. Once they were both seated, she spoke. “Not a good move, majesty. Then what?”

            “He yelled back.”

            “Duh. Details?”

            Thor shifted on the uncomfortable crate, hoping he wasn’t getting splinters in his behind. “I implied he couldn’t take care of himself and he accused me of making everything I touch worse. He said I was smothering him and that I’ve been making decisions for him. Which...” Thor had thought about the things that had happened recently and his reactions to it, “he’s not entirely wrong about that.”

            Brunnhilde smacked him. “No. Stop that. No self-pity.” Glaring, Thor tried to smack her back. She dodged, giving him a smug look. Her expression sobered moments later. “Seriously, enough pity party. Okay, you fought. You both probably said things you now regret. How long has it been?”

            “A couple of hours,” Thor responded slowly.

            A nod. “He’s probably cooled off by now at least some. Go talk to him. You’re not going to be any use to anyone moping around like that.”

            “Rude.”

            “True. Now go apologize to your brother and make up already.”

            In spite of himself, Thor laughed. “I’m going, I’m going.”

            “You’d better be.”

            He headed back for his room, hoping this time when he spoke to his brother cooler heads would prevail.

* * *

            Loki was asleep when Thor tentatively crept into the room. “Brother?” Thor whispered. He mentally hit himself in the forehead and said it again, louder.

            “What do you want.”

            Inhaling sharply, Thor went for it. “I wanted to say I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said any of the things I did and I don’t think you’re weak and—”

            “Please shut up.” Thor’s mouth snapped closed. A heavy sigh. “I forgive you. And I... suppose I am sorry as well. You don’t make everything worse.”

            Relief flooded the king’s veins, his knees nearly growing weak with it. In the wake of reconciliation, he felt bold enough to come closer and take a seat on the bed. When Loki didn’t react in any way suggesting displeasure at the action, Thor placed the palm on his hand on the side of his skull. “How are you feeling?”

            “Nng. Tired.”

            “You should eat something.” A grunt, neither in agreement nor denial. “And get those burns looked at.”

            “I’m fine right here, thank you.”

            “Please?” Thor plead. “For me?”

            “You play dirty.” After a long, drawn-out groan, Loki pushed himself up. An unruly onyx waterfall dripped down over his face, concealing most of his features and casting the rest into shadow. “Fine then. Let me get into something more presentable first, at least.”

            “Alright,” Thor agreed readily. He reached out and brushed away the curtain of curls hiding Loki’s face, his fingers glancing against knife-sharp cheekbones as they passed. Frowning, Thor pressed the backs of his fingers first to Loki’s cheek, then his brow.

            “Thor,” Loki complained in a warning tone.

            “You’re feverish,” the thunderer said over him. Worry made a fist in his gut. “Come on, we’re going to the healers.”

            “I’m barely dressed,” Loki argued.

            Ignoring him was easy with the fire of concern lit in his chest. Thor tugged him out of bed, paying no heed to his protests. He hated that he was only proving Loki’s earlier point about Thor making his choices for him, but they couldn’t risk his fever becoming worse or the burns getting infected. “You have clothes on, that’s dressed enough. Come on.”

            “Thor,” Loki said again.

            “We’re going,” Thor said sharply, in a tone that brokered no argument. Accordingly, Loki fell silent. “Thank you.”

            “You don’t need to worry so much, you know,” Loki said as they were halfway across the lawn. Thor looked at his glazed eyes, the sweat shine to his face, and the slight trembling in his shoulders and stalwartly refused to say what he was thinking. From the way that Loki looked away, he could tell even without Thor giving voice to his thoughts.

            The medbay of the Statesman was a poor replacement for the healing halls of Asgard-the-place, but still far more advanced than anything that Earth could offer. Thankfully, it was rather quiet when the brothers entered. They’d been unable to avoid the attention of any citizens in the halls, but no one seemed to sense that anything was amiss. In the medbay, there were only three healers in the main room, and no current patients. Both women looked up, the closer standing and trying to usher them into one of the little berths, but Thor held up a hand to stall her. “Could we get a private room?” he asked with his best charming smile.

            “Of course, my liege,” she said. “Right this way.” The room she brought them to was in fact equipped with two beds, but there was no other patient so Thor supposed it was the best they could get. It was quite cramped, probably having been meant for only one patient bed, but space was not something they had in much abundance while traveling. Anything that could be done to free up space was done. Loki took a seat on the edge of one of the beds, looking deeply uncomfortable but saying nothing. “What is the problem, your highness?” she asked, doing something with the tablet tucked in the crook of her arm.

            Loki stubbornly stayed silent and sullen. “Brother,” Thor warned, giving him a hard look. “Show her.” A long sigh, and Loki reached for the hem of his sweater. As pale flesh was exposed, the thunder had a quarter of a second to panic, the injury painted a clear picture, and in a sudden rush of shame Thor wanted to take it back, before the silvertongue dropped the shirt neatly on the bed beside him and fixed the healer with a blank look.

            Shock and horror flashed over the healer’s face before she managed to hide it with an admittedly impressive mask. Her body language continued to give away her reaction even as her face went utterly expressionless, but she played rather nervously with a lock of chocolate hair as her shoulders tensed up. “If I might inquire as to how the injury happened?”

            “His heart stooped, and I had to restart it,” Thor said quickly, almost before she finished the question. If anything, the answer seemed to appall her further.

            She coughed. “I... see. And we were not informed of this, why?” Fully aware that he was making a stupid expression and unable to stop it, Thor stared at her as her impassive mask devolved into open irritation. “No one thought to inform we, the healers of Asgard, that our prince’s heart had ceased to beat? That this might not be information we needed? What else has been kept from us?!”

            “My apologies, Lady Vera,” Loki cut in smoothly. “The transition to Midgard has had everyone off balance.”

            The now-named Vera cast a sharp eye towards her monarch. “We will be speaking of this later.” Threat made, for Thor was very sure that it was a threat, she turned her full attention onto her patient. “You should have come much earlier,” she muttered crossly, inspecting the burns on Loki’s chest. “Infection has set in,” Vera pronounced finally, stepping back. “If you had brought him by even an hour earlier, we could have healed him right away. As it stands, with proper treatment the infection should clear swiftly, at which point we can heal him.”

            “Can you not simply heal the infection and then treat the burns?” Loki asked, brow furrowing.

            “Ordinarily, yes. But your body is in no state to endure a spell to burn out the infection. Taking potion might be slower, but the effect will be the same.”

            “Why don’t you heal the burns now?” Thor asked, genuinely confused. Both of the other occupants of the room turned utterly aghast looks on him. The king fervently wished he had stayed silent.

            “She could heal the burns, yes,” Loki agreed slowly, “therefore trapping the infection to fester and grow and eventually kill me.” Thor blanched.

            “Basic healing knowledge really,” Vera hummed quietly. “If you could leave the room and give me some space to work, my king, I can have these wounds cleaned and wrapped in short order.” Seeing no other option without starting a fight, Thor obeyed, returning to the main room to wait. What was probably only five minutes but felt like an hour later, Vera exited alone. “Your brother rests. I thought we could have a brief chat on informing your healers of medical developments when they happen and not much after the fact?”

            He wasn’t going to get away from this one unscarred. Thor dipped his head and followed Vera for what was sure to be a sound tongue lashing.

Chapter Text

Eighteen

            The Lady Vera lectured Thor for quite some time, with several other healers helpfully joining in once they’d gotten a grasp of the situation. Thor was at a loss as to how the women could be so perfectly polite and yet so frigid at the same time. And all were quite adamant about being informed on the state of their prince. The thunderer was unaware that Loki had inspired such a fierce loyalty in some of their healers, but it was plain to see, and in truth rather gratifying to him. Knowing that Loki had the love of at least some of their people was a relief, and something that his brother sorely needed.

            “Are you done accosting my brother, your king?” Loki asked, starting Thor and the gaggle of healers surrounding him. He clung to the doorframe with a half-smirk pasted on his face, eyes lidded and face flushed.

            “My prince,” one of the healers objected, “you should be resting.”

            Loki waved a dismissive hand. “I’d much rather rest in my own room, and besides, I wouldn’t want to take up any space here that might be needed for patients.”

            “If you’re going to insist on running off,” yet another healer said, “at least remain on the ship. It would be best if you were close should you need any further assistance.” The rest of the healers echoed their assent, and Thor nodded along with them.

            “I’ll take you to our room,” he offered, striding closer to his brother.

            Loki glanced from face to face, then sighed. “If I must.”

            “You must,” Thor said staunchly, folding his arms. Sensing Loki’s rising irritation, he softened his tone. “Brother, please. It would make me feel better to know you’re near healers who can help while you’re not well. Once this infection clears, you can stay in the compound again and our quarters aren’t far, anyway.”

            Whatever the silvertongue said under his breath, Thor was fairly certain it was unkind. “Fine,” he groaned, letting go of the doorframe and taking a few unsteady steps into the main room of the medbay, finally allowing the door to hiss shut behind him. “Lead the way.”

            The Medbay was located on the top level of the ship, as was the bridge and the captain’s suite that the Revengers had shared during the duration of their journey. Unfortunately, the presence of the bridge, which had become a sort of all purpose room, used for meals, meetings, and the throne room, meant the floor was heavily trafficked. Which meant that there were plenty of citizens around to see Loki’s state as Thor led him to their room. The gossip would be in the mouths of every citizen by the end of the day; Thor had no doubt. If it hadn’t already been spreading that was, as well, it might have been after Loki had fainted a few days before. The trickster kept his head ducked down and expression stony, walking as quickly and with as much purpose as he could likely manage. No one approached them, but Thor had no doubt he’d be plagued by curious Æsir the minute he was alone again. He didn’t look forward to it.

            Thor typed in the code to the captain’s quarters on the little keypad and quickly ushered Loki inside. His brother flopped onto the bed almost immediately, staring up at the ceiling. “If there hadn’t been any rumors before, there certainly are now,” he said tiredly, throwing a lazy hand over his face. “I hope you’re prepared to deal with the questions heading your way, brother.”

            “Maybe I can stay in here with you?” Thor tried hopefully. Loki twisted his head to give him a flat look. “Is there anything I can get you?”

            Stretching like a cat, Loki sat up long enough to pull his legs onto the bed before laying back down again, this time sprawling face down over the entirety of the not moderately sized mattress. “Clothes would be nice, if you insist on my staying here. Real clothes, not like the sleepclothes you made me walk around in front of the citizenry in.”

            “You’re wearing a sweater, brother. That’s not sleepclothes. Calm down.” Thor paused. “What about food?”

            Loki groaned. Loudly. “You have a one-track mind.”

            “You haven’t had lunch yet,” Thor countered. “So, what do you want?”

            “You think of something. I want to sleep.”

            “Wait,” Thor said suddenly. He brandished the potion bottle he’d forgotten he was carrying when Loki lifted his head and turned to glare at him. “The healers said you need to take this to clear your infection, remember?”

            “Right.” Flipping over onto his back, Loki eased himself up and reached for the bottle.

            “Only a third of it,” Thor reminded as he handed it over.

            “Yes, yes, then the next third before bed and the final third in the morning, I’m aware.” Loki opened the bottle, tipped his head back, and let the thick purple liquid pour down his throat. He pulled the thing away from his mouth and wiped his lips with the back of his hand as he closed the bottle again. “Can I rest now?”

            Thor watched him for a long moment, narrowing his eye very slightly. He sighed. “Yes, but you’ll have to eat.”

            Loki had already burrowed his face back into the pillows. He toed his shoes off and kicked them across the room to smack into the wall. “Go, then. Stop hovering.”

            “Going, going,” Thor promised. He made his way into the little kitchenette that was paired with a sitting area and rifled through the cabinets hoping there was still something there he could cobble a meal out of. A box of pasta caught his eye, and Thor resisted crowing so Loki wouldn’t yell at him. For once, Loki was resting voluntarily. Though that was also rather worrying, if he was feeling unwell enough that he wasn’t trying to get out of taking a break. Thor found a pot and filled it with water, then set it on the stove to boil. Setting the pasta out on the counter, he turned his attention back to the cabinets. If there was something he could use as sauce, or maybe a broth... Thor frowned, only for his face to light up as he spotted a packet of instant pasta sauce. He pulled it out and set it on the counter, then turned back to the water, which had begun to boil.

            When Thor dropped the pasta in, the box dissolved away to nothing, leaving the noodles floating in the water. Leaving that to cook, he found a bowl and dumped the instant pasta sauce in. Exposed to oxygen, the flaky orange dust quickly swelled to a healthy amount of semi-chunky, bright marigold sauce. “Do you want tea?” he yelled over his shoulder.

            “Shut uuuup!”

            Thor took it as a yes and started hunting for the tea kettle. He was honestly surprised he’d found anything to make a meal within their little kitchen — none of them felt comfortable holding food in their own quarters when there might not be enough to go around for the people. Tea, however, had become a bit of a ritual for all of them, or at least all of them except Brunnhilde. Thor had developed a taste on the trip, and he suspected she had too, even if she would never admit it. At the very least, she had come to appreciate sitting around the table as a group, nursing cups of tea and talking with one another. Thor was certain of that.

            The tea finished just as Thor was satisfied with the pasta. He turned the heat for the kettle off and pulled the pot off the burner. Steam blew up into his face as he carried it over to the sink, setting it down inside to hunt for the strainer. If they had a strainer. They probably didn’t have one. Drat.

            Sure enough, he didn’t manage to find a strainer and had to settle for carefully pouring out as much of the water as he could into the sink. He used a fork and spoon as improvised tongs to move a helping of pasta onto two plates and poured a generous amount of sauce over both. “Lunch,” Thor announced cheerfully, poking his head into the bedroom and waiting until Loki sat up and looked at him to withdraw. He heard the sound of the bedcovers rustling, and Loki slumped his way into the kitchen moments later, taking the seat Thor had pulled out for him and staring blankly at his plate.

            “You can’t eat it with your eyes,” Thor reminded him, setting a glass of water next to the tea he’d poured for his brother.

            Grumbling under his breath, Loki picked up the fork. He stirred the pasta rather than eating however. The prongs of the fork screeched lightly against the plate, and Loki winced every time it happened. Headache, Thor guessed.

            “I think you’ve mixed it, now,” Thor prodded gently at last. He’d made it through a third of his plate by then, and only that little because he’d been eating at the pace of a snail. Loki had yet to actually ingest anything, though the sauce was now very thoroughly mixed in with the pasta. The silvertongue gave him a death glare, but he speared a noodle and put it into his mouth, at last. Thor would take it. It was ingesting something, and that was an uphill battle with his brother. “Thank you.”

            They ate in silence for a bit longer before Loki broke it by dropping his fork and burying his head in his hands. “Loki?” Thor asked, half rising to his feet.

            “Fine, fine. Just... headache.”

            Thor didn’t fight the frown that crawled across his face, standing up and circling the table. He set a hand on the back of his brother’s neck, and his frown deepened at the heat he felt radiating off him. “Drink your water,” he instructed quietly. “It might help.”

            Loki groaned, but he picked his head up long enough to drain the glass, before dropping it back into his hands.

            Thor moved the hand on his younger brother’s neck to his cheek and set the other on top of the mischief-maker’s head. “Anything else bothering you? How are you feeling?”

            “Mm. Sore. Hot.”

            “Okay. Do you want to get back in bed?” Thor’s hand shifted with Loki’s nod. “Okay.” He pulled the chair out and helped his brother up and allowed Loki to use him as a crutch on the way back to bed. The minute they were close enough, Loki fell onto the bed face first with a long moan. Thor watched him in silence, lips twisting with worry. Carefully, he approached, setting a hand on his younger brother’s back as soon as he was close enough. Even through the thick, knit fabric of his sweater, Thor could feel the pulsing heat of fever. The thunderer leaned in and dropped a kiss to the back of Loki’s head. “I’ll be right back.”

            He wet a washcloth in the sink and wrung it out, and brought it back to Loki, along with his untouched cup of tea. Loki hadn’t moved at all in the time he was gone, still half-sprawled on the bed with his feet dragging on the floor. “Sit up,” Thor prompted quietly, setting the still warm mug of tea down on the bedside table as Loki groaned as turned himself over, then eased his way up. He felt Loki’s forehead with the back of his hand and then replaced it with the cool cloth he’d brought. The tense set to Loki’s shoulders eased slightly when it made contact. “Are you... alright?”

            “I’m fine,” Loki sighed, leaning backward and shifting most of his weight into the heels of his hands.

            Hesitantly, Thor brushed a curl away from his cheek. Most of Loki’s hair was still pulled up into a bun, but some stray tendrils had escaped to frame his face. “You’re so...” Thor paused, searching for the right word. “You seem worn,” he settled on. You’re never this docile. Never this... meek. It was worrying. More than worrying, terrifying. “Are you in pain?”

            Loki smiled. The expression was tepid, weak, lips stretched too tight and eyes gleaming. Worry formed a knot in Thor’s stomach. “Just tired,” he assured. “Tired and a bit sore. It’s not bad, I swear. Don’t flagellate yourself over it.”

            Thor bit his lip, staring intently. “You don’t seem well, brother.”

            His explanation was poor, worse than poor, but Loki understood all the same. Face softening, Loki reached for Thor’s wrist, loosely circling it in a delicate grip. “I’m fine. I only have a lot on my mind. Stop fretting.”

            The thunderer eyed his little brother in silence. It could be that Loki was lying to spare Thor’s feeling but he didn’t think so. As much as he hated to acknowledge it, Loki had endured far worse than some minor burns, even infected ones. Which meant his reticence stemmed from mental turmoil. And there was really only one thing that could be causing it. “We’ll figure this out,” Thor promised, leaning to rest his forehead on the crown of Loki’s head. “We’ll find another way.”

            Loki drew away, pulling his legs up onto the bed and shifting into the center of the mattress in a clear move of avoidance. Thor’s stomach sank to see it. “How?” he asked. “If an Infinity Stone can’t fix me...”

            Then what hope is there? Thor’s traitorous mind finished. “Oh, Loki,” he breathed unthinkingly, climbing onto the bed to pull the younger prince into his arms. “We’ll find something. You’re clever, brother. Don’t tell me you haven’t already thought of ten different things to try?” He pulled back enough to get a look at Loki’s face, only for his heart to drop when his little brother wouldn’t look at him. “No,” he said sharply. “You’re not going to give up, brother.” Mindful of Loki’s injuries, Thor gave him a gentle waggle. “Come on. Use that brain of yours.” Tapping the side of Loki’s head with a finger, he gave his brightest smile.

            Loki didn’t smile back, but he looked a bit lighter. That was enough for Thor, and he pulled Loki close again. While his brother thought - because Loki was mulling it over now, there was no way he wasn’t - Thor focused on soothing his fever with the wet cloth and rubbing steadying circles into his back. He was content to wait in silence until Loki was ready.

            “Jötunheim,” Loki said suddenly. Thor didn’t ask for any elaboration, but he knew he wouldn’t need to. “The magic of the Casket had to constantly be replenishing itself as it drained out, and the proximity of it allowed for that to happen. If it wasn’t steadily draining out overtime, we wouldn’t be having this problem. Jötunheim has been without the Casket, the Heart of their world, for a thousand years and yet they’ve survived and were still formidable - we fought them. They must have done something to replace the magic of the Casket. We need to...” he trailed off suddenly, stiffening in Thor’s arms.

            “Go to Jötunheim,” Thor finished quietly, when Loki didn’t.

            “Yes,” Loki agreed wearily. “That.”

            From Loki’s now rigid posture, the idea of going to Jötunheim was not a peasant one. “I’m sure we’ll find an answer there,” Thor said, trying to put as much reassurance in his voice as he could.

            Loki was silent for a moment, worrying at his lip. Finally, he said, “Maybe although, given what I did to Laufey, I wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if they refused.”

            Thor managed to hold back most of his wince. The last time their two realms had met neither side had been left unscathed. He refused to let that dampen his hope. “We will find the answers we’re after,” because he refused to accept the consequences should they fail.

* * *

            Thor left his brother to sleep sometime later, after promising to bring up Loki’s idea with Brunnhilde and Bruce. He already seemed much more hopeful by the time Thor left, to his great relief. The little bit of buoyancy it added to his heart gave him the extra fortitude he was going to need to handle the coming questions without electrocuting someone.

            He hardly left the rooms and began walking down the hall before he was stopped by a young woman of butter blond tresses and sharp, eager eyes. “Your Majesty, is the prince well?” she asked almost breathlessly, nearly shaking with her hunger for some kind of gossip to carry back to her friends. Thor smiled weakly and attempted to keep walking, but she stepped in his path. “He hasn’t been seen in several days, only to be brought to the healing rooms. Is something the matter?”

            Several passing citizens had slowed their pace in order to listen in. “He’s fine,” Thor said with a tight smile, stepping around her and hurrying on his way. Unfortunately, that encounter was only the first in an overwhelming tide of them.

            By the time Thor found Brunnhilde, he had been stopped no less than fifteen times, thankfully in a fairly quiet corridor. “Find Bruce and Heimdall and meet me in the lounge,” he ordered, hurrying off before she could ask any questions of him.

            “Thanks for the explanation!” she yelled after him. Thor picked up his pace.

            At least Brunnhilde wasn’t mad enough to disobey his instructions (or else too curious to ignore them), because he didn’t have to wait too long for her to show up with Bruce and Heimdall in tow. He was sitting on one of the narrow couches in the little room the de facto leaders of Asgard had claimed for their own, drumming his fingers frantically on his knee as he waited, when the door hissed. Thor was on his feet and turning to face them within seconds, shoulders tensing against his will as his friends and advisors filed into the room.

            “Why did you want to talk to us?” Bruce asked. “Did something happen?”

            “No, no,” Thor assured absently, shaking his head. “I just... thought we should talk.”

            Heimdall raised an eyebrow. “What about, my king?”

            Thor flushed. “Loki.”

            Brunn’s expression changed rapidly from anger to concern veiled as anger. “Did something happen?”

            “Nothing happened, but... there are some things we should discuss. What to tell the people, for one. They’re asking questions.”

            “And many rumors are spreading,” Heimdall agreed. Not that Thor hadn’t known, but it was still disheartening to hear.

            “We gonna stand around and talk or get comfortable?” Brunn flung herself over the length of the longest couch. She rolled over onto her back and propped her boots on the armrest. Bruce and Thor followed her lead and took a seat, if more sedately. Heimdall stayed standing. Thor had never seen the man sitting down in his life. He wasn’t certain that Heimdall did.

            “Are we talking about this without Loki?” Bruce asked.

            “He’ll gut you if you make a statement without consulting him,” Brunn added. “And I wouldn’t stop him.”

            Thor sighed. He dragged a hand down over his face with a lengthy sigh. “No, we should discuss anything we tell the people with him, and anyway, that wasn’t really what I wanted to talk about.”

            “Then what?” Bruce questioned reasonably, adjusting his glasses on his nose. Thor was getting used to seeing him with them on again. He hadn’t been able to get a pair while traveling in space. The thunderer wasn’t sure how he’d gotten them, but he’d started wearing glasses again almost immediately after they landed on earth. Stark’s handiwork, Thor thought.

            “Loki had an idea for something we could try to... fix him.” Fix him. Thor swallowed. To need fixing meant he was broken. Thor mentally shook his head. “Fix him” was a poor choice of words. Loki didn’t need fixing he needed healing. They were going to find a way to heal him.

            “And?” Heimdall prompted.

            “We’d need to go to Jötunheim.” At the three pairs of incredulous eyes snapping to him, Thor flushed. “The Jötuns must have done something to survive without the Casket.”

            “We’d have to leave in the middle of settling on earth, and discussions on Thanos,” Brunnhilde said slowly. Relief surged in Thor’s heart when she didn’t immediately rebuff the idea.

            “With the prince’s worldwalking abilities, I think you would not be gone long,” Heimdall offered.

            Hope welled further in Thor’s chest. “So... Jötunheim?”

* * *

            World walking couldn’t be attempted until Loki was well, obviously. When Thor went back to check on him with dinner, his mood had significantly improved, even if he still seemed somewhat grouchy, and Thor blamed it on the fever easily enough. After they ate, Thor coxed Loki into letting him change his bandages.

            “You still need to get real clothes for me,” Loki complained, arms raised to allow Thor to unwind the bandages wrapping his torso.

            “Can’t you conjure some yourself?” Thor frowned. “Is your seiðr still hurting you?”

            “Of course not,” Loki scoffed. Thor couldn’t tell whether his affront was true or manufactured to cover his tracks. “Don’t be an imbecile. It’s more fun to make you do things.”

            The next layer of bandage Thor unwound finally revealed a strip of milk-white skin. The thunderer was shamefully grateful to be sitting behind his brother, he didn’t have to see the work his lightning had wrought. He was disgusted with himself a moment later, even as the feeling persisted. “Brat.”

            “I’ll conjure them if you insist.”

            “At least wait until I’m done.” It took only a minute longer to pull the last off, exposing the whole of Loki’s torso to the open air. “There.”

            Within moments, a set of sleepclothes shimmered into being on the bed. At the same time, Loki slumped backwards into Thor’s awaiting (if surprised) arms. “Loki?”

            “Fine, fine,” his brother said, shuddering. “Just... a moment.”

            “If your sedir is still—”

            “I’m fine!” Loki snapped shrilly, yanking himself out of the thunderer’s hold only to nearly faceplant on the mattress, catching himself with his forearms at the last moment.

            “That doesn’t seem—”

            “Fine!” Loki insisted again, this time in a throaty growl. Fearful and not knowing what to do about it lest he trigger Loki’s fearsome temper, Thor watched in silence as he panted for breath and collected himself, at least sitting up again and seemingly composed, but for the tense set of his shoulders. “See? I’m fine.”

            Thor sighed and let it go, as much as it pained him too. “I know it’s not a good idea to try and heal your burns right now, but I brought you something.” He reached into the pocket of his jeans and brought out a little tube filled with translucent green gel, holding it out in front of him so Loki could see without turning around. “This is aloe vera, it’s a human thing they use to ease the pain of burns while they heal. I can put some on for you, if you want.”

            Loki looked over his shoulder, meeting Thor’s carefully steady gaze. Sage eyes narrowed in thought, and he bit the edge of his lip. “Alright,” he said at last, turning fully around to face Thor, the bed groaning as he moved. “Fine. Do it.”

            Smiling softly, or trying to at least, Thor reached out a hand to cup his brother’s cheek. Still feverish, but he thought, or hoped in any case, less so. “Thank you.” Thor flipped the cap open and squeezed out a quarter-sized circle of the gel into the palm of his hand. “This might sting at first,” he warned, rubbing the fingers of his other hand through the aloe vera until they were coated. When he swiped the first bit of gel onto Loki’s chest, the trickster jolted, and Thor apologized reflexively. “Do you want me to stop? Or you could—”

            “You’ve already started,” Loki dismissed brusquely. “Might as well finish it.”

            “If it hurt—”

            “It didn’t hurt,” Loki said and Thor could detect no deceit in his voice, “I simply wasn’t expecting it to be cold.”

            “Okay.” Biting the inside of his cheek so he wouldn’t smile fondly at his little brother and draw his ire, Thor continued to spread the gel on the swatch of angry red skin on his chest. It radiated heat when he made contact, and Thor wondered whether the burn, the infection, or the fever were the source of heat. Or all three. Loki stopped jolting every time Thor’s fingers made contact, but his shoulders kept getting progressively more tense until he noticed and made them relax again. Thor worked as quickly as he could manage while still being gentle, the actual gel may not have hurt but simply touching the wounds probably did, and ended up using over half of the previous unused tube. He set it on the side table when he finished, just in case, and went to rinse the rest of the gel residue off his hands.

            Returning, Thor found Loki already re-bandaging his own chest. He passed the roll behind his back and circled it around his front, tipping his head when he noticed Thor watching. “I can put bandages on myself, you do realize.”

            “I know, I know.” Thor wandered over to the bed and sat down on the edge, watching Loki work.

            “I don’t appreciate being stared at,” Loki said mildly.

            Where else am I supposed to look? Thor almost asked, but he held himself back. Loki was baiting him, he knew, perhaps not even intentionally. After the day they’d had, Thor didn’t want another fight. “Sorry,” he said instead, looking up at the ceiling.

            He was alerted to Loki’s finishing when the bed shifted, and Thor looked down to see him reaching for the nightshirt he’d conjured earlier, which he swiftly slipped over his head. “Can I have some privacy?” Loki asked, reaching for the trousers. Thor sighed, got up, and wandered out of the room. “Done!” Loki yelled not a minute later.

            The silvertongue was settling himself on the bed when Thor returned, sliding his legs under the covers and leaning back against the headboard. “Potion,” Thor remembered suddenly, looking at the faint flush to Loki’s high cheekbones. He dashed into the kitchen, finding it on the counter where he’d left it earlier, and hurried back to give it to his brother. Loki rolled his eyes performatively, but he drank all the same, capping the bottle and setting it on the night table next to the aloe vera when he finished. “I suppose this is goodnight, then. I’ll see you in the morning?”

            Thor frowned. “What?”

            “Well, you’re going back to your room,” Loki said, reasonably, like he was pointing out some obvious fact. “And—”

            “I’m staying here,” Thor blurted. He coughed. “I’d rather stay. I mean. If you’re alright with it.”

            Loki shrugged. “If you insist.”

            Thor nodded at him. His lips twitched, and he clapped a hand over his mouth, but not before a chortle escaped. And then he was laughing, full on, letting his hand fall away from his mouth because there was no point in hiding it. When he at last recovered himself, he looked at Loki nervously, expecting to find him seething for his pride having been insulted. Instead, Loki watched him with soft eyes and a small smile on his lips. Though he covered it quickly, the sight still made Thor’s heart sing. “You’re an idiot,” Loki said, fondness curbing the bite he tried to inject into his tone.

            “I know,” Thor shrugged. He threw himself onto the bed, re-rumpling the covers that Loki had carefully smoothed, and soon settled with his back against the headboard as Loki was, though he didn’t put his legs under the covers. “I talked with the others. They think it’s a good idea, though Brunn will come with us, I think. And we’ll have to wait till you’re healed. But—”

            “Thor, stop, stop,” Loki said. He nudged the thunderer with his elbow. “I get it, brother. Honestly.”

            “Just making sure.” Thor slung an arm around Loki’s shoulder and tucked the silvertongue into his side. “I’m sorry that it... didn’t work. Today. And I’m sorry for—”

            “If you apologize for restarting my heart, I’m going to stab you,” Loki promised, jabbing Thor in the ribs with a finger.

            “I’m sorry I burned you,” Thor continued staunchly. He grinned. “Didn’t apologize for restarting your heart.”

            Loki poked him in the ribs again. “You know what I meant, idiot.”

            “No idea what you’re talking about.” Another poke. “Absolutely none. No clue. Not an inkling.” A persistent, savage poking punctuated his speech, with more strength behind it every time. “Ow, ow, okay, wow.” Thor bumped Loki’s shoulder with his own. “You don’t need a knife if you can poke like that.” Before his brain caught up with his mouth Thor continued on, “how can you jab that hard when you—” his jaw slammed shut, heat rushing to his face. “Never mind.”

            “When my strength is diminished?” Loki didn’t sound angry, but that really wasn’t reassuring. Almost the opposite.

            Thor cleared his throat. “Er. Yes. That.”

            “Pressure points, Thor.”

            “Ah. That makes sense.” A slight shake of his head, and Thor tentatively turned to look at his little brother. “You know I didn’t mean...”

            “I know, brother.”

            “Right, right.” Thor inhaled. He gave Loki a soft squeeze and withdrew his arm. “I should probably tell Stark what we’re going to do. Just in case it takes a while. You rest and don’t worry, I’ll bring clothes back with me. Is there anything else I should get?”

            “No, I’ll be fine.” Loki elbowed him again. “Now go.”

            “Going, I’m going.” Thor stopped halfway to the door. “Do you have your phone?”

            “No, I didn’t think to bring it.”

            Thor frowned. “I’ll bring it back with me. If you need something, just call for Heimdall and have him let me know.”

            “Thor,” Loki said. “Stop worrying. I’ll be fine. I’m just going to sleep.”

            “Okay. But if you need me—”

            “I know,” Loki snapped. He looked as though he wanted something to throw but sighed. “Go.”

            One last look over his shoulder, Thor did.

* * *

            He found Stark in the lab, where FRIDAY had directed him, working on a sort of triangular, blue object. Thor didn’t know what it was for sure, but it reminded him vaguely of the arc reactor. “You wanted to talk to me?” Stark said, without looking up from his work.

            Thor shuffled his feet. “Yeah. I, uh, you know how Loki’s been sick?”

            “Mhm.”

            “Well, uh, it’s because of this whole thing, with life force—”

            “I know,” Stark said.

            Thor paused. “You... know?”

            “I, ah,” Stark ran a nervous hand over his hair. “Kind of listened in. Later. Audio tapes. Heard the explanation.”

            “You—” Inhaling deeply, Thor shook his head. Not right then. “Well, everything we’ve tried so far hasn’t worked, though you probably saw all that—” calm, calm, not the time, “we’re going to try to go to Jötunheim. To find a fix.”

            “Go to... you don’t have your bridge thing anymore though, right? How are you gonna get there? It took you almost a year to get from Asgard to Earth, didn’t it?”

            “Loki can transport small groups of people from planet to planet,” Thor explained. “Still, we might have to be there a few days before we find something. So, I figured you should know.”

            At last, Stark set down the gadget he was fiddling with. “We’re leaving for Wakanda in three days. Can you postpone it?”

            Thor looked at him, long and hard. “Loki’s sick,” he said. “If... if Rhodes were sick, or Pepper, really sick, would you be okay with postponing getting them help for... for political convenience?”

            Stark sighed. “I get it. But Thor, this is more than political convenience. This is the fate of the universe.”

            “You think I don’t know that!” You think I care? “I’m not asking for your permission, Stark. I’m letting you know what we’re going to do so you can plan around us.”

            “No.” His hands slammed down on the table and Stark pushed himself to his feet. “No. You can’t go running off when we need you. When the planet — the universe needs you. You can’t do that. You can’t run away from people who need you just because you feel like it.”

            Thor’s rage bubbled over at last. “Feel like it? My brother is sick!”

            “Your brother is a war criminal!”

            What. A growl began, low in Thor’s throat. “Did we not talk about why he did what he did? Did your own Vision not tell you he was being influenced? And still, you call him a criminal?!”

            “Because he is one!” Stark jumped to his feet, his chair scraping harshly on the floor as it was pushed back by the motion, only to tip over and hit the ground with a clatter neither of them bothered to acknowledge. “He was hurt, okay. But he’s still a criminal. There is blood, innocent people’s blood, on his hands. I should have called the government the second you guys landed, you know that? Lock him up, call for a fair trial, the nations could deal with all this stuff and if he was really being influenced, maybe get a lighter sentence. But I didn’t. Because I understand the importance of this, so don’t you dare back out on me now after everything I did for you!”

            “If this is how you treated Rogers, no wonder he didn’t trust you,” Thor snapped back. Sparks popped around his fingers, growing in number with every passing second. A bolt of ice blue arced up over his forearm to disperse at his elbow. “After everything you did for us? You just threatened my brother, who is innocent, and you expect me to thank you for it. The only thing you have to give us is money and connections. Anyone else with those on this planet could do the same thing. You’re not so special.” Thor stalked around the table that separated them, single eye never leaving Stark’s. Fear shone in the other man’s brown eyes, hidden behind defiance, and Thor was sickeningly satisfied to see it. Yes. Let him know fear. “Listen here,” he ordered lowly, making a conscious effort to stop sparking so he could jab the man in the chest with a finger. Stark stumbled back a step when Thor’s jab hit his sternum, and the fear in his eyes flashed all the brighter for a moment before being hidden again.

            In the dark depths of those eyes, Thor could see his own face reflected back, shaded and lined with rage and twisted in a ferocious snarl. “My brother is sick. And you want me to throw him away when he needs help?” Thor scoffed, loudly. “Yes, I can easily see why Rogers left now. You really don’t care about anyone outside yourself, do you?”

            Stark’s shoulders fell, and he gaped. But then he stiffened and took a step forward until they were all but nose to nose. “No, you don’t care about anyone outside yourself. I’m the one trying to keep the team together. I’m not the one putting the lives of innocent people above that of a war criminal, just because that war criminal happens to be my friend!”

            “If Rhodes was accused of some crime he didn’t commit, you would just let people the hated him and wanted a scapegoat to take him and do what they would?” Thor challenged. “That uncaring, are you? Or are you just a coward?”

            The thunderer’s words seemed to pass by Stark entirely, as he kept speaking, voice rising steadily in pitch and losing in composure. “You’re an Avenger. You’re supposed to be a hero. So, when it comes down between a war criminal and the blood of innocent people, I would hope you’d chose the right thing.”

            “I’ve already made my choice,” Thor said. Unlike Stark’s rage, his yelling, Thor’s ire was now quiet and pointed. The strike of lightning versus the roar of thunder. “I choose my family. If you know what that word means.” On his way out the door, Thor stopped. A hard smile turned his face to stone, and he looked over his shoulder, back to the inventor he once called a friend, who stood with shoulders locked and fists clenched and fire burning in his eyes. “For the record, Loki can ferry us back and forth as needed. We can come and go whenever we’re required. I’ll be there for the people who need it, family and otherwise. Don’t you tell me I don’t care. I thought you were smarter than that.” Thor dug in the last knife of his words, giving a savage twist of the hilt. “I know how to save people who need it without it being at the expense of people I care about. Too bad you can’t say the same. As far as I can tell, you never save anyone at all.”