Thor, Protector of Midgard. Thor Odinson, Golden Prince.
Thor’s many titles weigh on him.
Before Midgard, he knows he was brash, and arrogant, not yet mature, not yet fit to rule. He'd had little, if any, care for the people. He was violent, bloodlusting, with eyes only for the battlefield, only for honour, for glory.
It was no wonder that Loki had always been the better liked among the peoples.
Loki, with his magic and his talent, his charm and his wit, would have made a better ruler than him. (Somedays he wondered how he had ever wielded Mjolnir in the past.)
But now Loki was gone, lost to Asgard, lost to the world, and he would give up the throne a million times, give up all there was to give, if it could bring his brother back.
He's not blind (at least, now he isn't), Midgard had changed him, Jane had changed him, and he knows how wrong he was, how greatly he had slighted his brother.
But it's too late.
It's too late to change anything.
He remembers those days, so many millennia ago, when he and Loki were but boys, running carefree through the palace grounds, amusing themselves with pranks and mischief, more often than not greatly aided by Loki's seiđr.
They had been closer than anything, more than brothers; they had been the best of friends.
Sometimes he wonders how they drifted so far.
He knows, of all his Midgardian comrades, he has the best childhood of all, favoured and royal, never a thing he didn't want.
Growing up as crown prince of the Realm Eternal had its perks.
So much so that he had never realised what agony Loki had gone through, how the Trickster lived in the shadows, beneath his lies and his illusions, hidden in the dark and forever trapped in Asgard's shadow.
Sometimes he sees Midgardian things, draws parallels to different Asgardian objects and places, sees Midgardian people and draws parallels to the different Aesir.
In fact, the Man of Iron reminds him of Loki, in so many ways that it is eerie, except that the Man of Iron chose the path of change and adaptability, while his brother chose the path of revenge. Both Friend Tony and Loki have so much in common, both have the same overwhelming intelligence, the same quick tongue, the same broken past.
And somedays he wonders if Loki could have been an Avenger, like him, like Friend Tony, like all the other honourable, just and upright people that make up this band of warriors. Broken, shattered, in their own special little ways, but pushing past that to help, to give and not take, to protect and defend. He remembers how the Man of Iron had described their little group (because if we can’t protect the Earth, you can be damn well sure we’ll avenge it), and he wonders if they all really needed that, if that’s all that’s really what they wanted. Something to avenge, something to protect, something to tell them that they aren’t obsolete, aren’t useless and broken and better off dead.
Loki could have been one of them. He believes this.
He knows this. Loki could have been an Avenger. And a spectacular one at that.
Loki would have been a good hero, a wonderful hero. Powerful, strong, talented, intelligent beyond measure. But Thor knows why he turned to the darkness. Has always, somehow, subconsciously known.
It's because of him. Because of Odin, because of Sif, because of the Warriors Three.
Because of Asgard. His home. (You stop this madness. You come home. I don't have it.)
But knowing Loki, calling him brother, growing up with him, fighting him, sparring with him, doing everything with him (when they were younger), that's changed Thor, helped him, and he knows he wouldn't be the man he is today without Loki.
None in Asgard would.