I’m here

-

“How was your day with those self-righteous avengers you love so much?”

“They’re not self-righteous, Loki. They’re just righteous.”

Loki rolled his eyes and returned to the blank-paged book he had been reading.

“Steve and Tony persist on bickering interminably,” Thor continued, tossing his jacket over the back of a chair and grabbing a beer from the fridge before flopping onto the couch beside Loki, resting his boot-clad feet on the coffee table in a way that made Loki scowl, “They bicker like…”

“Like we used to?”

“Worse.”

A small smile crossed Loki’s lips and he turned another page.

“We are supposed to be training newer Avengers, but without some accord existing between our own people, it is hardly a worthwhile endeavour. They’d be better simply honing their skills alone.”

He took a long drink of beer, draining almost half the bottle without realising it.

“Have you discussed this with them?” Loki asked, leaning now on the wall opposite Thor.

“I have. Admittedly it was not tactful.”

“Meaning you snapped.”

“I lost my patience. Too much has happened for them to allow their petty differences get in the way of the harmony of the team. Far worse rifts were driven between us and we still were able to fight alongside each other, to see past that.”

“We have several centuries more history together than they do,” Loki pointed out.

“And a far closer bond.”

“Despite my having done many truly awful things to you, to the world you love, to our family…you were willing to overlook those things, were you not?”

“Because I saw through them to the reasons for your actions. Because I know you.”

“Or is it because you’d rather soothe your sorrowful mind by recalling me as far better than I was?”

Thor growled and drained the last of his beer, immediately going to the fridge to get another.

“You drink too much.”

“You do not have the right to lecture me, brother,” Thor replied angrily, twisting the cap off and tossing it to the side, immediately taking a sip but not returning to the couch this time, “You do not know the pain I feel. The grief. I will drink as much as I choose and perhaps it will soothe the ever present ache you have left me with.”

“Why do you not go back to her?”

“She dumped me, remember?”

“You are intent on ruling alone then?”

“I’m not alone,” Thor muttered and took a quick drink, “You’re here.”

Loki appeared behind him, reaching out a hand that Thor didn’t feel on his shoulder, “We both know I’m not.”

“Well you damn well should be! I finally had you again and you left!”

“You can manage without me.”

“I can’t!” Thor screamed, throwing the bottle at Loki and hearing it shatter against the far wall, “I can’t Loki and you know it! I need you!”

The storm raging outside drowned out the sound of his screamed words.

No one in New Asgard would hear Thor’s grieving rage.

They never did.

“You only think that because I’m gone,” Loki replied softly, gently, “You think well of me because you have nothing left but memory. When I yet lived I was Loki the liar, the monster.”

“No.”

“A disappointment,” there was venom in his voice now, “Never strong enough, never kind enough, never able to do the right thing,” he laughed bitterly, “Or even the wrong thing the right way. Never staying in my place like you wanted me to.”

Thor choked on tears, “No. That’s not…”

“Your majesty?”

Heimdall.

Heimdall’s voice in his mind.

Thor felt a rush of shame.

Of course Heimdall knew Thor spoke with a Loki who didn’t exist because he saw all. He understood the bond between them and the grief Thor suffered and hid from the world, allowing it to consume him only in the isolation of his home.

Thor knew the watcher was aware of all this, but he still felt horrible humiliation at having been caught in the middle of an outburst. An argument with his own thoughts in the form of hallucinations of his brother.

“You may wish to step outside,” Heimdall continued in his mind.

Thor frowned, curiosity briefly cutting through his depression, but the apathetic despair returned as he looked back to the wall, to the broken glass and splash of beer.

Without replying, without bothering to pick up his jacket again, Thor forced himself to straighten and adopt the mask of severe detachment proper for a king before walking back out the door.

That mask vanished almost instantly.

There was a figure standing in the rain. One Thor would recognise anywhere.

Even though the familiar raven hair was so much longer, matted, and soaked by the heavy rainfall. Even though the frame was horribly thin, revealed by the worn black leggings and shirt usually hidden beneath whatever armour Loki had veiled himself with. Even though the skin was so much more pale.

Thor knew Loki too well for his mind to fail to see who it was who stood there, motionless, beside the rock where Odin had passed on.

That place was now a shrine. Somewhere Thor went to pray to those he had lost.

The rain began to beat harder, but it stopped falling above Loki.

Not daring to breathe, Thor approached the figure.

He didn’t feel the rain on him, nor the sodden grass beneath his feet, nor the cold wind against his skin. He was numb, at once desperate to reach the figure by the rock and terrified of what he’d find.

Just his imagination, a spectre of his grieving mind and nothing more, or the one thing he needed beyond anything else?

Surely he would not imagine Loki like this.

As he drew nearer he saw more detail. How gaunt Loki was, how deeply shadowed his eyes had become, the burns and cuts marring his skin…

Thor wouldn’t picture his brother in this condition.

Thor stopped a breath away, longing but fearing to reach out and touch the form before him.

He swallowed, unable to find his voice.

It cracked when he attempted to speak, and he tried again, still finding his words coming out hoarse with emotion.

“You’re late,” he whispered.

A ghost of a smile crossed Loki’s chapped lips, and he replied in a weak shadow of his usual voice, “You’re still missing an eye.”

Thor felt his own lips twitch into the smallest smile before all his restraint shattered and he grabbed Loki into his arms, hugging him as tightly as possible, cupping the back of his head and holding him close, burying his face against Loki’s shoulder and letting his tears fall.

He could feel Loki’s thin fingers clench in the fabric of his t-shirt, gripping his back desperately as he returned the embrace, and he heard the weak and broken sobs that joined his own.

Thor would gladly have remained as they were for hours, for days, for as long as it took for him to be certain this was no cruel dream.

But Loki’s legs suddenly gave out. There was almost no weight left to him, but there was enough for Thor to feel as he suddenly dropped.

His heart may well have stopped with the sudden surge of terror, his mind racing through terrible possible reasons all of which tormented him with the thought that maybe Loki came here just to die in Thor’s arms.

“Loki?!” Thor let himself fall to his knees, supporting Loki still, his arms more loose around him as he tried to see what had happened.

The familiar, but exhausted, green eyes looked back at him, an impossibly tired smile whispering on his lips, “I’m still here, Thor.”

Thor shook his head, unsure whether he wanted to laugh or cry, as he lifted his brother’s battered form into his arms and carried him back towards his house.

Heimdall was there already, at Thor’s door, pushing it open as they approached.

“Welcome home Your Highness,” Heimdall smiled and bowed his head as he stepped inside to let them pass through.

Thor saw the remnants of Loki’s smile at the watcher as he set his brother carefully down on the couch, grabbing a cushion for him to lean his head back on.

“Should I fetch Dr Banner?” Heimdall asked, and received simultaneous and contradicting replies from the two brothers.

Loki needed medical attention, but he had declined Heimdall’s offer.

Thor wanted to argue, but before he could speak, Loki caught his wrist weakly, looking up at him with an expression that Thor understood.

Loki might be injured, but he didn’t want anyone else to see him this way. He wanted, he trusted, Thor alone.

There had been times before Loki came to Thor for medical help rather than see a healer. If he’d gained an injury doing something he shouldn’t be doing, or because of some act he felt may earn him mockery or anger, or after Odin had punished him severely.

Then he came to Thor and sought his inexpert treatment.

Now Loki wanted the same, although Thor doubted it was for any of those reasons.

“No,” Thor turned back to Heimdall, “Thank you.”

Heimdall inclined his head, “I’ll be on hand should you need anything.”

With that, and a final, genuine, smile to Loki, he left them alone.

It was almost completely unbelievable, that Thor should see Loki sitting there on the couch exactly where his imagined Loki had been lounging to read his empty book mere minutes before.

But this Loki was real.

Thor had embraced him, felt his matted hair beneath his hand, his erratic breaths against his skin.

Three years, nine months, twenty seven days.

That was how long it had been since Ragnarok, since Thor had thought he’d lost Loki forever.

He hadn’t grieved for that long, though. Months he spent expecting, hoping, Loki would appear. Come back to him. Prove that even Ragnarok couldn’t kill him.

But Heimdall had been unable to see him anywhere. When they reached Earth, Thor sought out the wizard and pleaded with him to use his magic to find Loki. He’d known where Odin was after all…but he couldn’t find Loki either.

It seemed that Loki had been killed in Ragnarok. A frost giant against Surtr? Even indirectly, the flames and the explosion…no one could have survived that.

That had been the point.

That had been why Thor sent Loki to the vaults to bring Asgard’s doom back to life.

Thor had grieved then as he was forced to accept the only possible truth. He had never stopped grieving, and now Loki was sitting in his home. Battered, exhausted, but alive.

Not bothering to stop the tears that filled his eyes from falling, Thor knelt and took Loki’s bruised and grazed hands, pressing a kiss to them before bowing his head onto the cool, pale skin.

“How many times must I mourn you?”

One of those hands turned and cupped his cheek, his thumb resting on Thor’s temple, “I’m sorry.”

Thor straightened, smiling although tears still made tracks down his cheeks.

How could he not smile as he felt the familiar sensation of Loki’s magic echoing in the air close by? Had felt the spark of something soothing from the place where his thumb touched his temple?

“After you have allowed me to tend your wounds and rested, you can justify making me suffer once again the agony of losing the person I love most in all the realms.”

Loki nodded silently, tears still shining in his eyes.

Thor smiled softly and leaned up to kiss his forehead.

He didn’t want to leave Loki for even a fraction of a second. He didn’t want to lose physical contact with him, nor let him out of sight, terrified that in that moment, he would disappear and Thor would be faced with the emptiness of the unbearable grief once more.

But he needed to.

Loki needed help. He was alive, but whatever had happened to him since Ragnarok, he had suffered horribly.

Whispering to Loki that he’d be gone just a moment, he stood and hurried to the fridge, taking out a bottle of water.

One thing Thor was certain of was that Loki was dehydrated, possibly suffering heat stroke. 

Tony had shown him and Bruce the video footage from SHIELD from when Loki first came through the portal using the tesseract, and Bruce had pointed out the signs. Thor had wanted to see it after Bruce had started to question how much of New York had been Loki’s own decision, unable to reconcile the Loki he met on Sakaar with the one on Earth.

He had said Loki looked as though he was suffering from heat stroke when he came through the portal, and Tony commented on signs of torture that made Thor feel sick.

Loki looked so much worse now than he had then.

“Drink,” Thor said, removing the lid from the bottle and carefully placing it in Loki’s hands.

He slowly brought the bottle to his lips, hands shaking slightly as he took a small sip.

His eyes fell lightly shut as he swallowed and a broken, breathless laugh passed his lips before he raised the bottle again to take a longer gulp, not caring as some spilled down his chin and onto his chest.

This simple, open, relief in the water hurt.

How long had it been since Loki last drank?

Thor longed to ask.

There was so much Thor wanted to say and needed to ask, but it could all wait. Loki was obviously exhausted and his voice strained with what little he had said already. As long as Loki didn’t leave him, Thor would wait as long as he had to for his answers.

From what he could see, Loki had a lot of bruises and burns, but much of his body was hidden by his clothes. There seemed to be some blood on his visible skin that wasn’t his own, although the rain had washed a lot of the superficial dirt away already. Some of the darker marks that might be bruises could simply be grime that the rain couldn’t shift.

Thor should encourage Loki to bathe so he could properly assess the extent of his injuries, although perhaps he ought to drink more first. Eat if he could manage it.

He was so thin.

“Would you rather eat or wash first?” Thor asked after waiting for him to finish the water.

“Wash,” Loki breathed, something in his voice betraying a sort of disbelief, “I-I’d like to wash.”

“I only have a shower,” Thor said, brushing back some of Loki’s damp hair with his fingers.

“I don’t know that I can stand for very long,” Loki whispered. There was shame in his voice.

“I’ll support you,” Thor replied immediately, holding out his hands.

Loki took them and allowed his brother to help him to his feet, trusting him to take his meagre weight. He manoeuvred them easily around the broken glass on the floor from where he’d thrown the beer bottle, cautious about Loki’s bare feet, and guided him to the bathroom.

Loki lightly tugged at his worn undershirt, but Thor quickly took his hands and lowered them, “Let me.”

He carefully pulled the fabric from Loki’s skin, slipping it up and over his head, down his arms, revealing a seemingly endless array of injuries of different ages and types.

Burns were the most prominent, other than the deep gouges around his wrists and elbows, which must have come from some sort of harsh restraint. But there were deep bruises too, perhaps broken bones hidden beneath the skin, and myriad cuts and fine, deep, puncture wounds.

Loki didn’t bruise or cut easily.

After being smashed by the hulk, he had little more than a few bruises and scrapes, which healed within days.

Whoever, whatever, had done this must have been powerful and brutal and merciless.

Thor had been determined not to ask the questions he longed to, but as soon as he saw the innumerable injuries littering Loki’s torso, his resolve almost crumbled.

He rested one hand just beside a terrible burn just over Loki’s heart and let his forehead lightly drop against his brother’s.

“I’m sorry, Loki. I should’ve…”

“Don’t,” Loki cut him off softly, “Please.”

Thor took an uneasy breath and stepped back.

They could talk later. They had time.

He carefully helped Loki out of his leggings, revealing yet more injuries, including bruised rings of broken skin around his ankles too.

More marks of restraints.

Thor quickly removed his clothes and reached into the shower cubicle to turn on the water, holding a hand under the spray until he felt the cold become warm.

Loki preferred hot baths, but this wasn’t a bath and with those burns, and the heat exhaustion?

“I do not care about the temperature,” Loki said in the quiet, worn shadow of his voice, reading Thor’s hesitation easily, “I just want to be clean.”

“You need not suffer discomfort while you wash,” Thor replied, turning and wrapping an arm around Loki’s waist to help him into the shower now it was at a temperature he felt to be comfortable, “Tell me if it feels too hot or too cold.”

Loki didn’t reply.

He seemed simply to be indulging in the sensation of the fresh, clean, water falling over his body, washing away what dirt and blood the rain couldn’t. Leaning his weight still on Thor, he had tilted back his head to catch the water on his face, smiling slightly as one hand curled to grip Thor’s shoulder as if he needed to ground himself. Needed to feel Thor’s presence as much as Thor needed to feel his.

Taking care to maintain the supporting hold, Thor reached for the soap to start cleaning Loki’s skin properly.

For a time, he allowed it, placidly moving as he needed to so Thor could help him wash, but after his long hair had been shampooed twice, he began to shiver and dropped his head against Thor’s shoulder, his thin hands gripping his back tightly.

Thor wrapped an arm around his waist and reached past him to turn the water off.

He’d liked to have used some conditioner too. In his opinion, conditioner was one of the greatest inventions Earth had come up with, and Loki was sure to adore it too.

But that could wait. He could try it another time. Thor would even buy conditioner in a scent Loki preferred. Something botanical. Apple or sage perhaps.

Thor grabbed a towel from the railing on the door, choosing the softest of the three hanging there, and wrapped it around Loki’s shoulders, then took another to dry his hair, all the time with Loki hiding his face against Thor’s shoulder.

“Brother?” Thor whispered, setting down the towel for his hair once it was at least moderately dry, and gently massaging the back of Loki’s neck, “What is it?”

“I’m afraid this isn’t real,” Loki whispered against his damp skin.

“So am I,” Thor pulled Loki back so he could look properly at him, rubbing his shoulders through the towel, “Shall we be afraid together, brother?”

A smile flickered for a moment over Loki’s lips and he nodded, his eyes betraying a vulnerability he usually kept well hidden.

“I’ll find you some clothes,” Thor grabbed the third towel to quickly, haphazardly, dry himself, “Unless you’d rather conjure something.”

Loki shook his head quickly.

Thor didn’t question why. If Loki didn’t want to use his magic to dress himself, that was fine. Thor actually felt happier with this choice.

”I’m afraid I have nothing a witch would wear,” Thor remarked playfully.

“Only those of a drunk homeless man?”

Thor smirked and would have tossed the towel at him, but he didn’t trust Loki would be strong enough not to be knocked down by it right now.

Helping Loki, clad only in a towel, back out to the lounge, he quickly rummaged in his wardrobe for the softest clothes he could find, absently pulling on a pair of blue sweatpants for himself before returning to Loki with an armful of different options.

He handed a soft pair of underwear to Loki first, setting the rest aside.

“I’m going to clean and dress the open wounds,” Thor said, “Bruce would do it better than I can, however…”

“I want you.”

Thor squeezed his shoulder lightly and went to get the small first aid kit from the kitchen as Loki sat on the couch and idly looked through the clothes with one hand.

Even without any treatment to his injuries, without having eaten or drank anywhere as much as he surely should, simply having washed seemed to make Loki look and feel so much better.

Now Thor could see clearly the injuries he bore, identify those he could treat with his minimal first aid supplies, and those he would monitor over the coming days to ask for aid with if necessary.

The multiple burns he cleaned, applied a cooling gel, and those where the skin had broken he covered with gauze to protect them. The wrists, just above his elbows, and ankles, where the skin was bruised and scored from what had to have been some form of restraint, he also cleaned and bandaged.

There was nothing he could do for the broken bones and fractures he was certain hid beneath some of those bruises, not beyond ensuring nothing happened to exacerbate them.

But that was something he could do. He could protect and care for Loki. He could look after him now he was here.

As Thor finished tending what physical injuries he could, Loki picked out the darkest items from the pile, shakily pulling on the pair of black sweatpants and the black woollen sweater with a V-shaped neck. Both garments swamped his thin frame, the sweater loose enough that the gauze over a burn on Loki’s chest could be seen where it hung low.

“We’ll find some clothes more to your style tomorrow,” Thor tucked a lock of Loki’s matted hair back behind his shoulders, “I have learned how to purchase clothes on the Internet.”

“You seem very proud of that, brother.”

Thor beamed at him.

He was proud. He had started to become quite skilled with computers. He could use the email, and buy things from the computer using a card Tony had given him. He was better with a games console than a computer. Bruce had set it up for him and showed him how it worked, and it had served as the only almost effective distraction from his despair.

Thor stood to go and find a hairbrush, but Loki suddenly caught his arm, tugging him closer and examining the inside of his right forearm.

Examining the tattoo there.

Loki’s name forever branded into his flesh. It was rare for anyone on Asgard to have their skin permanently marked in this way, and seen as inappropriate for anyone who lived in the palace. Neither Odin nor Frigga had known about it.

Loki looked from the mark to Thor.

“I had it done when first I thought you dead,” Thor lowered himself back to his knees so Loki didn’t have to strain himself to look up at him, “And your helmet and name carved into my vambrace. A lock of your hair woven into mine after I believed you died on Svartalfheim…I needed to feel that you were still with me. I know it’s foolish, but…”

Stilling his words with a motion, Loki pulled back the sleeve of his sweater, and briefly allowed his Asgardian glamour to drop. Thor had never seen it before. The frost giant skin hidden by magic, but he was startled by that for just a moment, his gaze instead falling upon the distinct markings on his inner wrist.

Different from the natural ridges that covered all frost giant skin.

A scar. Unnatural. Deliberate.

Thor’s name on his arm.

“I don’t think it’s foolish.”

Blue bled away, Loki’s skin reclaiming its Asgardian colour, but the name remained in place, shown as ink like Thor’s.

Thor’s skin was difficult to permanently mark, Loki’s skin in this form simply couldn’t be scarred. It always healed perfectly.

How many other, more unwanted, marks might be hidden behind the glamour Loki always wore?

Thor traced a finger over the name, raising his one eye to meet Loki’s as he reached the end final rune and lay his hand flat over Loki’s arm.

Countless thoughts and feelings, words he longed to speak, had regretted never saying before, drifted through Thor’s mind, but he said none of them. Not yet.

He couldn’t make his mind focus enough.

“Let me get my hairbrush,” Thor said softly, squeezing his arm and standing.

Natasha had bought Thor a special hairbrush that was good at removing knots. After allowing his hair to grow out again, and without the spells of Loki or Frigga, which had been used before to tidy his hair after battle, it kept becoming frustratingly knotted.

As Thor returned and sat on the couch beside Loki, he shifted to face away from him, more easily enabling him to reach his hair.

“Tell me of Asgard,” Loki tilted his head slightly as Thor swept stray locks of hair back behind his shoulders, “Of our people and this settlement. Of how you live here.”

Loki’s hair was so long now. Much longer than Thor’s, reaching beyond half way down his back. And messy. Badly knotted.

Thor talked as he began to run the brush through the raven hair.

He spoke not of the journey to Earth. The months in space, the few Asgardians who died of their injuries before they reached Earth because The Statesman had no medical supplies and no one on board knew healing magic. Or any magic at all.

Had Loki been there, they might have survived.

Instead he talked of the settlement as it was now. Laid out in a way that echoed Asgard as much as possible with the limited space, time and resources. These houses were low and angular, not the curving spires of Asgard, and made of brick rather than gold and marble.

But they were home now. Everyone had shelter, water, heat, light, and the electricity that was needed for so much on Earth.

Electricity that Thor supplied, charging a few different generators Brunnhilde had built once a month, or more in winter.

The brush Natasha gave him was slowly getting through the knots, smoothing out the raven hair, which naturally began to curl as it dried.

“It is not only Asgardians who live here,” Thor said as he finished his overview of the settlement, “You recall Korg and Miek? They have a house here. And Bruce Banner also decided to make New Asgard his home.”

“New Asgard?” Loki repeated.

“It felt wrong to call it Asgard.”

“It won’t be new forever though.”

“Here mere hours and already questioning my decisions, brother,” Thor smirked, “It will always be newer than the one we lost. Has not New York retained its name for centuries?”

“I always thought that a particularly unimaginative name,” Loki mused, “But I would rather New Asgard than any name that dropped that of our home entirely. What country are we in?”

Thor’s hand stilled, “You don’t know? But you found this place.”

“I found the place where father died. I didn’t know where precisely on Midgard it was, only what it looked and felt like.”

“We’re in Norway,” Thor replied after a moment, setting the brush down.

He realised he had been brushing for several minutes even after all the knots had been removed from Loki’s hair. It had dried too, untangled but wavy until it curled at the ends.

“I like Norway,” Loki murmured, turning back towards Thor and wrapping his arms around himself as he pulled his knees to his chest, bare, bruised feet on the cushions of the couch.

“You’ll stay?” Thor asked, “I won’t look away and then turn back to find you leaving once again.”

Tears suddenly filled Loki’s eyes and he curled himself in more tightly, “It’s been years?”

“Almost four," Thor whispered.

“The whole time, it was this. Coming here, returning to you, that kept me from…that kept me alive," he spoke in a fractured voice as if unsure how to manage so many words together anymore, "I-I don't want to...I have no intention of leaving."

“What happened, Loki?” Thor asked softly, moving closer and clasping the side of his neck with as much gentleness as he possessed, “Where did you disappear to after Ragnarok?”

“You asked…when I attacked Midgard, you asked me, who…who controlled the would be king.”

“There was someone? Someone did control you?”

“Yes.”

Thor had thought it to be the case. He had been sure of it after seeing footage from the attack. But he hadn’t seen it at the time, when it mattered, when he might have done something to help.  He had done nothing to help Loki.  Allowed himself to see him as a villain...

"Who?"

Loki shook his head quickly, and instead of replying, he continued his explanation, keeping his gaze lowered to where his thin fingers toyed with the edge of the bandage around his right ankle, “After I failed him, failed to bring him the tesseract, he hunted me.  He had promised...I knew he'd make me suffer for failing, and I knew he’d come for me and for the tesseract…he needed the tesseract. And other…other stones. He needed them and I knew he’d never stop looking…"

Thor didn't press to know who Loki spoke of.  He'd wait for that information when Loki felt ready to speak of them.

"After I raised Surtr, I-I stole the tesseract from the vault and I…I flew the Grandmaster’s ship away from Asgard, from The Statesman.”

“You lured him away?”

“I hid the tesseract in a pocket dimension. Somewhere only I can access. Without the mind stone, he...he couldn’t force me to give it to him, and he couldn’t kill me or he’d lose it forever,” Loki’s fingers twitched in a sudden, jerky motion before he resumed the more regular fidgeting with the bandage, “He tortured me. Had his…his followers torture me. But they couldn’t kill me so...so I had time. I-I just had to...had to wait until the chance presented itself…”

Thor swallowed down bile, “Why did you not come with us?! We could have fought whoever this being is together, instead you…”

“Because he would have tortured you and I’d have given in!” Loki snapped suddenly, “I’d have handed the tesseract over and one of us would be dead! I couldn’t take the chance. I couldn’t let him get to you. To our people! So I…I did what I had to do."

"You let them torture you," Thor murmured, tears blurring his vision.  He blinked them quickly away.  He wanted to - needed to - see Loki clearly.

"It was the only way.  I waited for an opportunity.  I planned and I waited and I thought of you so I wouldn't break and give the tesseract to him," Loki's lips twisted into a broken smile, "I killed him.  I killed him and his generals...all but one who I...who I turned.  Convinced to help me.  I-I used the tesseract to deliver her to someone she wished to see, then I came straight here. Hoped you’d be here. Needed you to…”

He broke off, shuddering and obviously attempting to reign in his emotions as he drew several slow, shaking breaths.

Thor lightly massaged his shoulders, hoping the touch might help to calm him, but also just needing to touch Loki. To know he truly was real. Just in case.

"But all the rest of those who did this to you, all but this one who aided you, they're dead?"

Loki didn’t reply, bowing his head as he continued to struggle to calm himself.

”Loki,” Thor raised a hand to gently cup his jaw, tilting his head back up, “Look at me.”

Green eyes opened, afraid and questioning and not entirely focused.

Thor brushed tears away with his thumb, “They’re dead. You’re certain they’re dead?”

”Yes,” he breathed.

”Then they cannot harm you again. They cannot get you. You’re home now, and you’re safe,” he murmured, leaning in to press their foreheads together, “I will allow no one to take you from me ever again, brother.”

He shut his eye and brought his other hand up to thread into Loki’s hair, clasping the back of his head.

”I need you, Loki. I cannot exist without you.”

A cold hand touched his cheek, softly slipping back to comb through his damp hair, “Thor, you have me. I’m here.”

He didn’t know if it was those words, if it was the way Loki breathed them like a prayer, if it was just because he couldn’t hold himself back any longer, but without even thinking, Thor closed the space between them and caught Loki’s lips in a desperate kiss.

Desperate, urgent and needy, but far more gentle than any kiss they’d shared before, frantically seeking to satiate a desire at various times over the centuries together. Usually it was rough and combative, a battle as much as an act of intimacy.

This wasn’t.

This was soft and tender, each simply needing to feel each other’s presence as much as possible.

Thor’s hands clasped Loki’s face, holding him close as he kissed him, as Loki threaded his fingers into Thor’s hair to hold him closer and deepen the kiss even more.

It was awkward on the couch, with cushions and a coffee table in the way and only so much space, so with an unspoken understanding passing between them as they parted for breath, Thor lifted Loki into his arms and carried him to the bedroom. There, he lay him reverently on the untidy sheets and immediately knelt over him, chasing another kiss.

xxxxx

Loki’s hands slid down his back, smoothing over muscle, resting just above the waistband of his pants.

His fingers curled, broken nails digging into his skin, as Thor moved to kiss a path down Loki’s bruised neck to his prominent collarbone.

“Thor,” he breathed, bringing one hand up to grip his bicep, “Please.”

Thor lifted himself higher on his arms, looking down at Loki and tenderly brushing a thumb over Loki’s reddened lips, “I fear I may hurt you.”

“I don’t care if you do. I need to feel you as close as possible.”

“I do care, Loki,” Thor whispered, leaning down to kiss him again, “I will be gentle, and please tell me if you’re in pain. Promise you’ll not let me hurt you.”

“I promise,” Loki murmured, and Thor believed him. He had learned to see Loki’s lies, and he knew that Loki wouldn’t lie about that, about this, about something they both longed for so desperately.

Loki pulled him down into another, longer, more indulgent kiss and as Thor took control of it, he slipped his thin hands beneath the waistband of Thor’s pants, tracing a path above the curve of his ass and round to the front of his hips.

Thor pulled away quickly, tugging his pants off and helping Loki out of his clothes, before pressing down into him again with more urgency.

He gasped with pleasure as suddenly Loki’s hand slid between them and he traced a finger along the underside of Thor’s shaft before taking him in his hand.

It didn’t take Loki long to bring Thor to his full state of arousal, his hands as dexterous as they always had been, his knowledge of Thor’s body perfectly complete.

“I won’t last long if you keep doing that,” Thor whispered, pressing a kiss against Loki’s jaw before dropping his head to the mattress beside him as Loki continued to pleasure him.

“The mighty Thor has lost his resilience?”

“The mighty Thor wants to be inside you,” Thor lightly grazed Loki’s neck with his teeth to draw a moan from his parted and flushed lips, before he pulled away to grab an unused bottle of lubricant from his bedside drawer.

It had been a ‘joke present’ he received in something called Secret Santa that The Avengers did. That and a pair of flimsy fluffy shackles and something Thor assumed was for pleasuring oneself.

None had gone been touched since he left them in that drawer, but it seemed not whoever had gifted them had saved Thor the trial of seeking out other lubrications in a moment he didn’t want to be apart from Loki.

Loki could create his own using magic, but as he hadn’t conjured his own clothes nor used magic to get rid of theirs, Thor had to assume he was too exhausted to use it right now.

He did say he had come here almost straight away after killing these apparently powerful and ruthless beings who had tortured him.

“I’m going to prepare you, Loki,” Thor kissed him again then shifted further down Loki’s body, keeping one hand laced with Loki’s, grounding him.

Thor felt frustrated, lust and desire making him impatient, especially as he watched Loki gasp and moan and writhe as Thor took his time preparing him, but eventually Loki cried out in a plea that he needed Thor inside him, and so Thor obliged.

He lifted Loki’s legs onto his shoulders and carefully pushed inside, watching Loki’s face carefully for any sign that this caused him too much pain. As he buried himself fully within Loki, he paused, taking slow breaths to keep himself from moving to seek the pleasure he was so tantalisingly close to experiencing.

He needed to give Loki time to adjust, to relax. He was so tight, tighter than Thor remembered, and his fingers were curled into fists in the sheets beneath him as he took slow, steady breaths.

How many times had they don’t this and Thor simply thrust inside Loki and took what he wanted? But, then, that had been what Loki wanted then, in those moments.

Rough, possessive, violent.

It wasn’t what either of them wanted or needed now.

They wanted, needed, to just be here, as close together as they could be, basking in the depth of their love for each other and in the mere fact each was here, alive.

As Loki relaxed, Thor began to move, slowly, indulgently, kissing Loki again as he began to quicken his pace, chasing not his own pleasure as much as the moans that escaped Loki’s lips.

Thor knew it wouldn’t take him long to find release. It wouldn’t take either of them long.

Loki breathed his name in a pleading whisper as Thor released one of his hands to take his arousal, working him quickly to orgasm, tears spilling down his cheeks as he cried out.

Thor came shortly after, his own cry of uncontained pleasure muffled against Loki’s lips in a kiss he continued as he rode through his orgasm, moving slowly inside Loki until they were both too spent to move anymore.

He slid carefully out, tenderly pressing kisses to Loki’s face and torso and hips before he went quickly to grab a packet of wet wipes to clean them both up.

Peach scented, moisturising wet wipes, which were supposed to be kinder to the skin than normal ones. Something else he had never opened.

Loki dozed, his shadowed eyes lightly shut and a small smile on his lips, as Thor cleaned his skin, and then his own, tossing the used wipes aside and crawling back onto the bed to lean down and kiss each corner of that smile.

“You ought to eat something,” he murmured, “You’re terribly thin.”

“In the morning. Let me just lie with you tonight.”

“In the morning,” Thor repeated, seeking an edge of the bedsheets.

Thor never made his bed anymore, and their sex had only crumpled things even more.

xxxxx

Eventually he gave up trying to wrangle the chaos of bed sheets, and grabbed a spare blanket from the wardrobe, draping it over them both as he lay down beside Loki, wrapping an arm around him as he shifted to lay his head on Thor’s chest.

“Can I sleep?” Loki asked quietly, his hand reaching up to touch Thor’s unshaved jaw, “When I wake will I still be here?”

“Yes, brother,” Thor bent to kiss the top of his head, “When you wake, you will still be here, as will I.”

He repeated those words in his own head again and again and again until he fell asleep. A mantra without which he wouldn’t have dared shut his eyes.

Loki was here. He was home, with Thor.

He was alive and safe and lying in Thor’s arms, and Thor wouldn’t lose him again.

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