Chapter 2
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Thor woke feeling happy for the first time in years.
Ever since his failed coronation in a realm that no longer existed, he had experienced only fleeting moments of joy or pleasure. Glimpses of sunlight amidst an ever growing darkness as his world crumbled piece by piece around him, plunging him ever deeper into an inescapable despair.
And then Loki returned and it felt like all the darkness had sunk away. Not entirely gone, but pushed back, pierced through by his relief and joy and, for the first time in too long, hope.
Now, he was warm, cosy in his bed, and the one he loved above all else was held close against him, wrapped in his arms and sleeping soundly.
It had been real.
All of it.
Loki was truly here, truly in his embrace and truly alive.
Weak and injured, suffering the consequences of years of brutal torture, but alive. Thor could feel each breath, and the soft warmth of his body, so much cooler than Thor’s own but not as cold as death.
His bruised, pale, skin seemed to glow in the bright morning sunlight that filtered through a gap in the curtains. Softly illuminated like the marble walkways of their mother’s garden, but the smooth perfection here was broken by myriad injuries. By marks of the torture he had endured.
Endured and survived. Endured because that was the only way to survive.
It sickened Thor to think of what he might have suffered, what instruments or hands had caused such extensive injury to one so difficult to injure, but he couldn’t allow his mind to wander that way too much.
He didn’t want to fall into a pit of melancholy or anger when Loki was alive and here with him now.
Thor’s anger was only for beings now dead. Loki had killed the ones responsible, so there was no one to seek revenge against, and Loki wasn’t in danger anymore. He wasn’t suffering anymore.
He was safe in Thor’s arms.
Thor shifted to press a soft kiss to Loki’s shoulder, and as he heard him hum contentedly, leaned over to kiss his temple.
“Good morning, Thor,” Loki murmured, his voice hoarse but strong enough to be heard in the peaceful near silence of the morning.
“Good morning,” Thor replied, smiling softly, “You’re still here.”
“I’m still here,” the smile that had crossed Loki’s cracked lips became a playful smirk, “Losing an eye has made you no less observant.”
Thor grinned and kissed Loki’s cheek before laying back down and hugging him close.
“How do you feel?” Thor asked, running his thumb up and down Loki’s shoulder.
“Happy,” the reply was quiet as if he dared not admit the emotion, and he shuddered as he continued, “Afraid.”
“That it’s a dream?”
“And I may wake back there any moment.”
“You’re awake now, brother.”
“I don’t know that I could take it if I’m not,” his hand found Thor’s, fingers gripping lightly, “To find you and lose you again is a torture I’m not sure I could endure.”
“Nor could I,” Thor whispered, closing his eyes against Loki’s head, “But we surely are awake, brother. You and I. We are awake and we are here. This is no dream.”
They were words Thor needed to hear aloud for himself as much as he needed to speak them to Loki. He needed his mind to believe Loki truly was alive and with him now, but after so long of imagining him, each time more vivid than the last, it was easy for his mind to trick him into believing it was all a lie.
Thor let his hand trace a path down from Loki’s shoulder, lightly over the gauze and avoiding undressed wounds, to his ribs, far too prominent beneath the skin.
“I should like to stay here for hours or days, but you had ought to drink more and you must eat today,” Thor said softly, hugging Loki more tightly as if that could undo the damage caused by the years of torture and captivity, “What would you like? I have little here but we can have something delivered.”
“Something sweet,” Loki murmured.
“As you wish,” Thor kissed the back of his neck, “Would you like me to bring something?”
“I’d rather join you,” Loki replied, but instead of moving as though he might get up, he raised one thin arm towards the sunbeam filtering into the room, twisting it about and revealing a glimpse of Thor’s name still on his skin, “I haven’t seen sunlight since before.”
The bandages around his wrists and elbows were spotted with blood. Thor would need to clean and redress the wounds again today, but the bleeding was clearly not prolific so he could wait until they were up and Loki had eaten.
“There are days, sometimes many on end, when we see very little sun here,” Thor said, extending his own arm to gently hold Loki’s as it trembled with the effort of remaining extended, “Not today, it seems.”
Loki withdrew his hand, bringing Thor’s arm back down so it wrapped around him, making a soft sound of contentment.
“Don’t go back to sleep, brother,” Thor touched his forehead to the back of Loki’s head, “Not until you’ve at least drunk more water and eaten something. Your body needs nourishment to heal.”
Letting out a small breath, Loki rolled onto his back, a slight tightening of his features in pain passing over him before he relaxed again, “I must look awful.”
“You don’t look well.”
Loki smirked slightly, “Rude. You’re not supposed to agree with me.”
“You’re still beautiful,” Thor amended, smiling fondly and brushing his fingers through Loki’s hair, “But within those parameters, you do look awful. Is that better?”
“It’s a little clumsy, but it’ll do.”
“Good,” Thor pushed himself up onto his elbow and leaned down to kiss Loki’s forehead, “Now, time to get up. We may return to bed anytime you choose.”
“Surely as king you have duties.”
“I can delegate to others. There’s nothing pressing that demands my attention at present,” Thor let his fingers graze Loki’s jaw softly, “I wish to remain here with you at all times until I can be certain this isn’t a dream or a state of grief-driven madness.”
Loki drew an uneasy breath and shut his eyes, leaning into Thor’s touch.
“If I have you to myself long enough to know the same, I wouldn’t object.”
Thor bent to touch their foreheads together just because he could and he wanted to, then stood to quickly get dressed, grabbing up the sweatpants he’d discarded the night before and pulling them on.
Loki had pushed himself unsteadily up against the headboard to watch, a small smile playing on his lips.
“You’re staring.”
“Another illustration of your expertise in observation,” Loki replied quietly, “Your trousers are on the wrong way around.”
Thor frowned and had already begun to remove them before he looked down and saw that his pants were definitely not. The logo and tie were both where they should be on the front.
Smirking and tugging them back up he grabbed the clothes Loki had been wearing from the floor and stalked back over to ruffle Loki’s hair lightly, “Hilarious, brother.”
“I have much to make up for.”
“I do not doubt you’ll find plenty of opportunity for mischief now you’re home,” Thor handed him the sweater and watched as he slowly pulled it over his head.
It took some time for Loki to dress fully. He seemed to struggle to hold himself upright without support, and couldn’t stand on his own at all this morning. The consequences of his injuries seemed to have set in even more during the night, or maybe it was overexertion the day before. Loki had said he came to Thor almost immediately after killing his captors.
But there was no rush. No need for Loki to dress in haste, or even dress at all, save for the fact it tended to be cold indoors in the mornings.
They had time to take it slowly, for Thor to help and for Loki to take a moment just to sit and breathe through pain or exhaustion as he needed. When finally he was dressed, Thor helped him through to the main room of the house, supporting him, holding him steady as he took faltering steps.
Thor did have a small dining area in the kitchen, but he only used it to dump things he couldn’t be bothered to tidy away, and it was a mess. The kitchen chairs were too uncomfortable anyway, so Thor was content to set Loki down on the couch instead.
He quickly went to get a bottle of water from the fridge, making a mental note of what he had in there.
Not much.
Thor didn’t exactly eat well. He didn’t know how to cook, and mostly ate things that came ready to eat from a packet or whatever was being consumed at a meeting with the council or the Avengers. At the moment his fridge contained only half a pack of grapes, three apples, several bottles of water, even more bottles of beer, and some mouldy bread.
“Here, drink,” Thor instructed, returning and handing the water to Loki.
He waited to see him take a sip, to be certain he had the strength to manage that, before going back to look in the cupboards for anything else Loki might like, “I have apples, grapes, pop tarts, chips, peanut butter…not very much else…”
“Grapes,” Loki said, which was the answer Thor expected, but it really wasn’t very much at all. Loki needed more than that.
Still, it was a start.
Thor pulled the half finished packet of grapes from the fridge and placed it on the couch beside Loki, leaning down to lightly squeeze his shoulder, “Try to eat as many as you can. We’ll buy some more food today. When did you last eat?”
“I think Sakaar,” Loki replied absently, eating a couple of grapes in quick succession, more focused on the food than his words, “I must have eaten something at one of the grandmaster’s parties, but I honestly don’t remember.”
Thor clenched his jaw, hands pausing part way to getting himself pop tarts.
That was hardly surprising in any way given Loki’s condition and what he had said happened, but it still made him feel sick.
Almost four years without sustenance.
They were gods. They could survive such things, but even gods grew weak, thin, fragile without food and water. Even gods felt fatigue and pain from hunger and thirst. Not allowing Loki any food or water would have been just one additional torture above everything else. One more thing intended to break him.
Loki hadn’t broken. He had said it was thoughts of Thor and of coming here, coming to find him, that kept him from doing so. All that time, Thor had not stopped thinking of Loki either, but his thoughts had been the sort to lead him ever closer to madness in his unbearable grief.
Part of him would have gladly descended entirely into insanity if it meant his mind truly believed he had Loki back.
Had that not now happened?
No.
Heimdall had seen Loki too. And, looking back towards the couch and his brother, Thor reminded himself that the phantom Loki he imagined had always been healthy. Always dressed in leather armour with gold accents.
Never thin, battered, unhealthily pale. Never wearing Thor’s too big clothes and never with his hair so long.
This Loki was real.
All of this was real.
Thor grabbed the pop tarts from the cupboard and his phone from where he’d thrown it at some point last week, before joining Loki on the couch, sitting close enough beside him that their shoulders pressed together. So that he could feel the physical presence of his brother.
Loki had consumed perhaps a dozen grapes quickly and was now eating more slowly. But he had drunk all of the water, which was definitely good.
“There’s something we ought to discuss,” Thor began, sending a burst of electricity into his phone to charge it back up, “I feel I must tell Brunnhilde and Bruce of your return so I can ask them to cover for me with the council and Avengers for a while. Is that alright? No one else need know until you’re ready.”
Thor was well aware that Loki would prefer his presence kept secret until he was strong enough to at least create and hold an illusion that he was fine.
But Loki seemed surprised by the question, frowning slightly at him for a moment as he finished slowly chewing a grape.
“Will Banner tell your Avengers?”
“Not if I ask him not to,” Thor squeezed his shoulder gently, “No one will be allowed to know of your return until you wish them to. You can remain hidden here for as long as you wish. I won’t ask anything of you that you’re not ready for, Loki.”
Loki smiled hesitantly, looking down at his battered hands, “Then yes. Tell Banner and the Valkyrie if you must.”
Thor didn’t really like using his phone, and only turned it on occasionally when he needed the Internet.
He had preferred a computer since it actually had reasonable size and resilience, but he had broken the one he’d been given months ago, punching through the screen in a wave of inconsolable grief.
He hadn’t told Tony about that to get it repaired or replaced. He didn’t want to explain why he’d done it. That he had done it as his imagined Loki reminded him that he was alone. That he would always be alone because Loki was dead and never coming back. That Odin and Frigga and Loki were all dead, that Thor had failed to protect them, that Thor had sent Loki off to start Ragnarok and never gone to save him from the raging fires Surtr created.
So Thor used his phone for the internet now, and it was annoying but it worked.
It was also easy to message Brunnhilde and Bruce because Bruce had made a ‘group chat’ for them and named it ‘Revengers’. It was useful but the name made Thor sad every time he saw it. Loki was a Revenger too. He should be in the chat…
If Thor got him a phone, he now could be.
That thought drew a smile to Thor’s lips, and he shoved a pop tart into his mouth as he began to type a message to the only two people he tended to ever message.
Bruce and Brunnhilde were both part of Asgard’s council, so he needed to talk to them regularly, and what’s more, they seemed to have understood his grief.
The Avengers didn’t understand.
They saw Loki as a villain, and Thor resented them for that as much as he was infuriated by their refusal to stop squabbling, and jealous of their loved ones, of their families and friends and all those people they still had alive.
Thor had not been well the past few years.
He saw that now through the eyes of someone who had no longer lost everything, someone who was sitting beside the one they loved most of all, feeling his body lean against him, and seeing the small, soft smile on his lips as he watched Thor type.
T: Loki is alive and here
T: He was held captive before now and escaped only last night
T: Brunnhilde please manage council matters in my place for a time I wish to remain at home with him for now
Loki was still smiling in a gentle contentment as he watched and slowly ate another two grapes.
Thor turned, intending to kiss him, but Loki pushed a grape into his mouth, smirking playfully.
The phone in Thor’s hand buzzed as he chewed and swallowed, but he finished the intended kiss to Loki’s lips before looking at the screen again.
Bruce had replied.
B: Can I help? Is he injured?
“Brother, may I explain your condition to Bruce? It would make me feel easier to have his advice on treatment. He’s a healer.”
Loki’s playful attitude suddenly dampened by the prospect of his infirmity being known, but he nodded.
T: Please speak nothing of this to anyone else particularly the avengers
B: Of course.
T: He was tortured
T: I think he has heat stroke and has not eaten for a long time and has burns and deep puncture wounds
T: Perhaps broken bones also
B: Puncture wounds? Like from injections?
“No,” Loki supplied quietly, “Just impalement. Nothing was injected.”
Thor swallowed down his nausea and rage. There were dozens of those wounds over body. Some seeming to drive up under his ribs, others piercing into his neck, or beneath the tendons of his arms.
Part of him wished Loki hadn’t killed the ones responsible so Thor could do so himself.
T: Loki says nothing was injected
B: Ok. Leave it with me. I’ll write you a list of recommendations for handling that sort of injury. Is it alright if I come by later with some supplies? I can leave them outside your door if Loki’s not up to seeing anyone yet.
T: Please do thank you Bruce
B: Np
“What’s np?” Loki asked, looking curiously at the phone screen.
“No problem,” Thor smiled fondly at Loki’s confusion, the same as Thor had the first time he saw that abbreviation, “The people of Earth like to type using different shortened forms of phrases.”
“Of course they do,” Loki said dryly, “You haven’t had any trouble with the beast?”
“No. The Hulk has emerged a few times, but Brunnhilde is very skilled at calming him, and once calm he is not destructive to any but his enemies.”
Loki made a small sound of acceptance and curled closer against Thor, setting the unfinished bag of grapes aside and bringing his knees to his chest.
The phone buzzed again.
V: Tell His Highness welcome home. Who captured him? Are they dead?
The subtext was clear. If not, she’d gladly kill them.
She and Loki hadn’t exactly got along. The opposite in fact. They’d been as friendly towards each other as most people were to Loki when first meeting him, unless Loki had actively sought to woo them.
But she had been witness to glimpses of Thor’s grief over losing him, and perhaps because of her own lost loved ones, had a deep sympathy for it. She had been kind and patient, while seemingly enjoying building herself a new life. A new home.
T: They are dead
“Brunnhilde says welcome home,” Thor nudged Loki, who had shut his eyes tiredly.
“That’s oddly amicable of her.”
“She’s a nice person.”
“She’s an angry person.”
“Grief can make you angry.”
Thor knew it well. As did Loki. Thor had seen his cell after Frigga’s death. A death he had been forced to mourn alone, because Thor hadn’t been there.
“Thank her for me,” Loki said after a pause.
Thor related Loki’s thanks then closed the chatting application, finished a second pop tart, and brought up the Internet to purchase some food, but Loki’s voice distracted him.
“What in Ymir’s name are these?”
Thor frowned, following Loki’s gaze down to the pair of Crocs under the coffee table. He had slipped one onto the end of his foot and was staring at it.
“Crocs,” Thor pushed his foot into the other one, “They’re the most comfortable shoe I have ever known.”
“They’re an affront to eyesight.”
“They’re comfortable and practical.”
“They’re hideous.”
“I’m sorry, brother, what is it you wore during your five decades of dedicated magic scholarship?”
A point where Loki had grown frustrated with his slow progress in learning to control his magic and hidden away in a temple, dressed in loose green robes and black shoes that looked like the slippers people wore on Earth.
“I needed something comfortable and easily removed.”
“Those were an affront to eyesight.”
“They had a simple elegance to them,” Loki argued, “These…”
He shook his head at the crocs.
“Please tell me you don’t wear them outside.”
“I wear them where I wish to wear them,” Thor nudged Loki playfully, taking care to be more gentle than usual, “They’re cool and many people of Earth agree.”
“That hardly recommends them.”
Smirking, Thor returned to his phone, “If you’re quite finished mocking my aesthetic sense, which a considerable number of humans admire…”
“It’s not your clothing they’re admiring, brother.”
“…perhaps you’d like to help me choose what groceries we ought to buy. I wanted to show you conditioner. It would be great for your hair, especially now it has grown so long…”
He went first to the page that showed hair products and picked a conditioner that was said to be good for wavy hair.
He had already looked at it several times over the years, thinking of how Loki would like it, as a nonexistent spectre of his brother sat beside him and cruelly reminded him that the one he wanted to get the conditioner for didn’t truly exist.
“They have cucumber, apple, mint, and tropical scents. And silk, but…”
“Silk has no scent.”
“I know,” Thor pursed his lips, “The humans do have a tendency to claim strange things such as that in their hair products and soaps. But of the sensible scents?”
“Apple,” Loki said.
“Apple,” Thor repeated, adding the conditioner and a matching shampoo to his cart before going to search for any very gentle soap he could find.
Something that would be kind to Loki’s skin.
“What was wrong with lanolin soap?” Loki asked, slipping one leg over Thor’s, moving himself closer, and prompting him to wrap an arm around his shoulders, still able to hold the phone with Loki looped in his embrace.
“I don’t know. I haven’t found any thus far. Would honey and oat do?”
“For bathing or eating?”
Thor smirked, “I’ll just get a few options. Soap lasts for a long time anyway.”
He randomly added three different soaps for ‘sensitive skin’ to his basket then moved onto foodstuffs.
“Do you know how to cook, brother?”
Loki tilted his head against Thor’s shoulder, “I can set fire to things.”
“Loki, that’s arson, not cooking.”
Loki shrugged indifferently and relaxed into Thor’s embrace more, “Do you know how to cook?”
“No,” Thor hummed, “Perhaps we had ought to learn. In the meantime can purchase some prepared meals.”
“Do they keep? I-I’m not sure I can manage much at present. I don’t feel hunger anymore.”
“They keep,” Thor set his phone down to hug Loki fully, burying his face against the soft raven hair.
He no longer felt hunger. Starved for so long.
There had been times Loki hadn’t eaten for a long time before. During punishments, when he was imprisoned after Thor brought him back to Asgard…on at least those former occasions Thor had been with Loki after, his appetite took a while to come back. That happened with starvation. You had to build back up to eating properly again.
“We have time, Loki,” Thor whispered, hugging him tighter.
“Time for what?”
“For everything, now you’re here. Now you’re back,” Thor pulled away only to clasp Loki’s face in his hands and touch their foreheads together, “There is no rush.”
Hugging Loki quickly again, Thor sat back and retrieved his phone but without letting his other arm lose its protective hold around his brother’s shoulders.
“Now,” he said, forcing his voice to sound light, “I shall order several prepared meals, which we can freeze or eat as we choose. Some items for the cupboard, such as pop tarts and biscuits, and then much fruit and juice. Some honey, perhaps? And, have you ever tried chocolate, brother? I mean the recent chocolate, not that of centuries ago?”
“No,” Loki tapped the phone screen, over an image of yellow packet of small round chocolate pieces, flinching slightly when it went to the page for that item, “I’d like to try it. This one.”
Thor added a few to the cart then browsed for his favourite to add that too, then went to find more general items that would keep. He’d eat anything, so they could have many options and if Loki didn’t like something or feel capable of eating it all, Thor would have it.
As he browsed through freezable prepared pastries, Thor became aware that Loki was starting to doze off. Adding a few items of fruit and some juice, he checked out, arranged delivery for later that afternoon with instructions for it to be left outside the door, and set his phone aside.
“Would you like to sleep?”
Loki hummed quietly.
“Shall we return to bed?”
“Comfy,” Loki murmured, huddling closer against Thor, “Don’t want to move.”
“Very well. Then sleep here.”
Thor turned to kiss Loki’s hair softly, holding him close and feeling his body start to relax more as sleep came over him.
Nearly four years without nourishment, being tortured, and no doubt lacking any truly decent rest…it was incredible that Loki lasted so long, and no wonder that he should be tired now.
He needed to rest, and Thor needed to hold him as close as he could until his mind stopped trying to make him believe it was all a dream or a hallucination.
It might be months or more before he could escape that haunting fear.
Thor grabbed the remote for the television, switching it on and turning the volume off. He might not have mastered technology but he knew how to operate the television.
At least, sort of.
He couldn’t get it to go to all of the different places that it was supposed to be able to, but he just wanted background shapes and stories to keep his thoughts from meandering towards fears over whether or not this Loki was real.
The constant touch he kept up on Loki’s hair, brushing his fingers through the soft waves and curls, helped. Helped remind him that Loki was here. And perhaps it helped soothe Loki too.
Thor hoped it did.
Loki deserved all the comfort Thor could possibly offer right now. He deserved every comforting gesture imaginable after what he’d suffered.
With no sound on the television and relative quiet around Thor’s house, it wasn’t necessary for the person who came to his door to knock. Thor heard them approach - the rustle of bags and the footfall of shoes.
His phone screen lit up with a message.
B: Brought some stuff. Should I leave it outside?
T: Wait Lokis sleeping
T: I’ll come out
Thor quickly but carefully shifted, laying Loki down on the couch as gently as he could so as not to wake him, and hurried to the door, glancing once more back at his brother before opening it.
Bruce was a few paces away outside, a couple of shopping bags at his feet, and an uneasy expression on his features.
“So, heat stroke?” he murmured, quiet and anxious, “Like before?”
Thor nodded solemnly, “I believe so. The one who took him this time was the same who did so before. Who made him attack Earth.”
“We were right then? He was mind controlled? And tortured?”
Again, Thor nodded.
Bruce sighed and removed his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose, “Damn. And we…Thor, I’m sorry.”
Thor smiled, a touch of sadness to it because of what his brother had suffered, but overwhelmingly a joy because a day ago he thought Loki dead, and he wasn’t. He was alive and here with Thor now.
“He’s alive and the ones who did this to him are dead,” Thor said, keeping his voice hushed to not wake Loki, “He will recover.”
“Yeah. And, about that, I brought several isotonic drinks. They’re the recipe I use for Asgardians, which I don’t know if Loki will…I mean, is he…”
“His physical form is Asgardian.”
“Then I guess it should work. Helps with dehydration. They’re in that bag,” he nudged one bag with his foot, “The other has basic medical supplies. I put instructions on everything, and a list of recommendations for handling the starvation and malnutrition, as well as what to do in case of an infection.”
“Thank you for doing this,“ Thor smiled warmly and clasped Bruce’s shoulder, “And for-“
Thor tensed at a broken cry from Loki inside the house, quiet but audible.
“Forgive me,” Thor said quickly to his friend, hurrying back into the house and kneeling beside where Loki was half sitting up on the couch, one hand gripping the back of it, the other clawing at the skin of his neck.
His breathing was erratic. Short, sharp gasps as he stared with wide unseeing eyes ahead.
A nightmare. That was obvious.
Thor shifted to sit in front of him and gently pulled his hand from his throat, clasped the side of his face with the other.
“Loki,” he said gently but with an urgency he couldn’t keep from his voice, “Loki, brother, it’s alright. You’re safe. Whatever you just saw, it wasn’t real. A nightmare. Nothing more.”
Loki choked on a sob as Thor’s name fell from his lips, and Thor pulled him into a tight hug, one hand wrapped around his back, the other stroking through his hair.
It was incredibly rare that Loki betrayed any fear. He had learned to hide it, to hide all his emotions, even better than Thor. As princes, the ability to veil emotions had been a vital part of their education. Odin had scolded them when they failed to do so.
But now, here, Loki had lost that well honed skill and his terror was laid bare.
“It’s alright, Loki,” he whispered against Loki’s ear, “I promise you’re safe. You’re safe. No one will harm you here. I’ll protect you.”
Loki continued to hide his face against his shoulder, his body trembling, and Thor continued to hold him, speaking softly and soothing him as slowly his sobs subsided.
But his body never fully relaxed in Thor’s arms, his hands never loosened their tight grip in his t-shirt.
“Thanos,” Loki breathed, voice catching on the syllables and growing angry as he continued, “That’s who…who took me. Tortured me. Twisted my mind with that staff when I refused to bow to him. He wanted to…he thought he could be a god.”
There was true venom in Loki’s voice now.
“I showed what a real god is capable of.”
Lifting a trembling arm, Loki’s magic rippled over the kitchen table, and a massive purple head appeared from nowhere.
Loki pulled slightly away from Thor to look at it, smiling darkly in a way Thor knew well. It was the smile that accompanied particularly fatal tricks and spells against enemies Loki despised. It was a smile that often accompanied an act of great intelligence, power or both.
If the being had eyes before, it no longer did. Both had been gouged out. The features of the head were twisted in a fixed expression of agony.
Thor couldn’t help but echo Loki’s smile.
He had always found delight in demonstrations of his brother’s abilities or the dramatic flair he added to everything. The same delight he knew Loki found in Thor’s displays of strength and skill in battle.
Whatever Loki had done, it had to have been an act of incredible, beautiful, power. And here was the prize from that act. The proof of his abilities and the vengeful violence he was capable of.
Here was the head of the one who tortured him, poisoned his mind so Thor almost gave up on him, and then tortured him once again. This was the one who truly took all those lives on Earth when Loki attacked. This was the one who tormented Thor with years of unbearable grief.
“What will you do with his head?”
“Keep it,” Loki glared at the unseeing face of his tormentor, “If his head is in an inaccessible, inescapable, pocket dimension, I know he can’t come back.”
“Would he be able to? Come back, I mean? Where’s his body?”
“Incinerated. After I killed him, his generals, his army, I incinerated the entire damned sanctuary,” his resolved, dark, calm fractured just slightly, “If all parts of him were incinerated, however…”
“You fear he might be able to return?”
Loki nodded, shuddering as he conjured the head back to its pocket dimension, out of sight.
“He has to remain dead.”
Thor softly brushed some of the hair that had fallen into Loki’s face back behind his ear, “Most beings do. You’re something of an anomaly in that respect, brother.”
Loki’s lips twitched in a slight smile, “I do detest normal.”
Thor smiled fondly at him, clasping the side of his neck, “Normal would suit you ill.”
He looked past his brother to the doorway, shut now, and the bags Bruce had brought sitting just inside, the human having silently left.
“Bruce brought some items to help you recover,” he said, nodding to the bags so Loki knew where he was going before he stood, so he knew Thor wasn’t leaving him, “Will you drink one of his hydration drinks? They’re quite good. He makes everyone have them after training or battle.”
“I thought he was a scientist more than a healer,” Loki mused, watching as Thor went to retrieve one of the bottles from a bag, “I knew he had been on Earth working as a healer in a rural area for some time, but was he not a researcher of physics?”
“He was, but he is now New Asgard’s chief healer.”
Loki frowned and took a small sip of the drink, “We had none of our own?”
“Hela killed them all. As well as most of the soldiers, all the Einherjar…”
“The same strategy for conquering hostile civilisations as Odin taught us.”
Thor bowed his head, and outside there was a quiet rumble of thunder, “Kill the king, the soldiers and the healers. Leave the civilians with no defence and no means to survive illness or injury. Force them to subjugate themselves to survive.”
Silence fell between them. Soft, not uncomfortable, burdened with the trauma and grief they shared.
Loki’s hand found Thor’s.
“Have you thought much about her? About why Odin never told us?”
“I try not to,” Thor swallowed and shut his eyes, “I don’t know how to feel about it. About the lies he told us all our lives.”
“Perhaps that’s for the best,” Loki whispered, twisting his hand so he could lace his fingers with Thor’s, “I allowed myself to feel rage and fear at the truth, and it consumed me. Led me to…to what I did.”
Attempting to massacre the frost giants, attempting to commit suicide. Acts of madness, driven by the devastating truth he had just discovered.
“What do you feel about it now?”
“I don’t,” Loki whispered, “I don’t allow myself to feel anything about it now.”
Bruce had talked to Thor and Brunnhilde about grief, about emotions, about handling trauma. He suggested burying these things wasn’t good.
Thor had allowed himself to feel, but only in private, only when he had no one but his imagined Loki for company. Other than that, his negative emotions only ever came out as rage.
Loki had always been better at burying every emotion than Thor was. It was no surprise he should choose to bury these ones.
“I was angry with father at first,” Thor said softly.
Angry about so many things.
About casting out his child and erasing her existence from record. Would he have wanted to do the same for Loki in time had he not been usurped? Had there been other options for how to handle Hela, and Odin just took the easiest - get rid of the problem, let it fester, leave it for his sons to handle later?
And he was angry with Odin for lying about Loki. About his parentage. And even more so about his decision to teach them both to hate and revile the frost giants, and for his falling into the Odinsleep immediately after Loki found out. He had put it off so long already, he could have surely delayed it long enough to bring Thor back so Loki didn’t have to face that truth without his brother.
He was angry and upset, but he couldn’t hate his father even slightly. He had never been able to hate him. He never would be able to.
“I was angry,” Thor continued quietly, “But I understand he was no more infallible than the rest of us. That he did what he thought best. What he thought he had to do,” he squeezed Loki’s hand lightly, “And that for all his faults and for all the pain he caused us, he did love us. He and mother loved us, and they would be proud of all we survived and all we achieved.”
“They’d certainly be proud that we’ve been in each other’s company almost a full day and not yet come to blows.”
“I don’t fight with the injured.”
Loki smirked and took a long sip of the electrolyte drink, “Then I had best recover promptly so we can resume our usual violence. I should hate for you to grow bored of my company.”
That would be impossible.
Thor had never grown bored of Loki’s company. Frustrated or infuriated at times, but never bored. Even if there had been times when he pretended otherwise to impress warriors, his friends, Sif - people who mocked and shamed Loki. People he should have - would have had he been more mature, had he been braver - stood up to.
He was more mature now. He was braver now. He would stand up to and oppose any who spoke against Loki now.
Thor gently took the bottle from Loki’s hand, setting it down on the coffee table, and leaned in to press his lips against Loki’s. Deep, indulgent, but still cautiously gentle.
“I will never tire of your company, brother.”
Loki’s hands shook as they briefly brushed through Thor’s hair before he dropped his head down onto his brother’s shoulder, hugging him tightly.
”Please don’t,” he whispered, almost too softly to be heard.
But Thor did hear, and he returned the embrace desperately.
”I won’t,” he murmured, “I promise I won’t. I will never leave you and I will never let you go. Never again.”
Loki nodded against Thor’s shoulder, tears soaking into his t-shirt, “Sentimental oaf.”
Thor chuckled lightly and turned to press his face into Loki’s hair, luxuriating in the impossible perfection of having Loki close once more.
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