Destiny arrived
"Loki?"
The man looked up from the map of the jump points he had conjured in front of him. A few hours ago he had decided that he wasn't able to get a reach to any comms since there were to many and his magic would be depleted by the time he got through a quarter of them.
So he decided to take an educated estimate of possibly how far the Asgardians were from Midgard and find the closest comm to try and contact them there. If they were even alive that is. The conference table that the Avengers had gathered at a few hours ago was littered with dozens of papers all with runic writing on them with various numbers.
Looking up from the paper he was currently writing coordinates on, Loki watched as Stark stared at him in confusion.
"What." Stark raised his eyebrow, walking closer to him and coming to stop a seat away from him. He gave Loki a once over, taking in the dishevelled state he was in, the god hadn't even tried to clean up the dried blood and dirt on face. His hair was messed up, the strands sticking up in places. Not to mention the eye bags.
"What are you doing? It's like 5 in the morning." The engineer picked up a paper from the table and furrowed his brow, clearly not understanding what was written.
Loki sat up, looking around to find the display of numbers above the front door. 5:14 AM. Loki truly thought it had been around five hours since they had arrived, but much to his dismay, it had been twelve.
Twelve hours and he still didn't have a single idea where the Asgardians could be. Loki didn't understand how he was going to find them, he didn't even know what he would do once he did find them.
"Who's that?" Stark pointed to the little hologram a few inches away from the mess of papers. It was a hologram of himself, Thor, Bruce and Brunnhilde in the commodore when they were on their way to Asgard. The Valkyrie pressed a button as she placed a disk down and told them to gather around and pose.
It was like a photo, with Loki and Thor in the back, Brunnhilde with her arms around his and Thor's shoulders and Bruce in the front grinning. Thor was mid yell since the Valkyrie messed his hair up and Loki watched with an eyebrow raised. It was a cute little memory. He didn't say that out loud though.
"That's Valkyrie." Loki answered, he assumed that he was asking about Brunnhilde, since he already knew everyone else.
"She's your girlfriend or something?" Loki looked away from the photo to the Man of Iron.
"No." Stark raised his hands in surrender, dropping the topic from the glare he received.
"Whatever you say, Rudolph." A few more minutes passed in silence, Loki scribbling away in silence, and Stark situating himself on top of the table and looking through Loki's papers. He clearly didn't understand any of it.
A few more minutes went by.
"So are you gonna go to sleep or..." Loki didn't even spare him a look and Tony took that as a hard nay. "Okay..." Tony pursed his lips. "What are you doing exactly?"
Loki let out a sigh, he clearly would not get rid of this man soon. "If you must know, I'm trying to find the Asgardians ship. If there's any chance they are alive, I have to find them." He let out another deep breath, unconsciously fiddling with the green fabric tied around his wrist.
"Wait, so they could be anywhere in our galaxy?" Stark asked, curious.
"Not just this one but any that are near the nine, and that is if they didn't accidentally take another jump outside then nine." Stark's mouth fell open at his words.
"Woah, so this basically proves that there's other galaxies out there that have other living breathing creatures on it? Like not just a few but you can confirm like millions of them right?!" Loki tilted his head.
"Well, yes, I thought Midgardians already knew that."
"Oh my god, this is a big scientific discovery! How would we know?! Nobody is gonna believe me... I mean we knew we had a few considering that, well, you guys exist, but million, hell, trillions of other ones..." Stark got up from his seat and began pacing back and forth muttering to himself. Loki rolled his eyes and went back to writing.
"I can't believe this, millions of other galaxies with life on them, that's amazing.." Stark stopped pacing around and rubbed his face, seemingly digesting the news. "Next thing I know, you're gonna tell me that there's like cool magical badass women in space too. Cool space women, can you imagine that? That would be so kickass."
Loki sat up straight so quick that Stark flinched.
"What did you say?"
"Kickass?"
"No before that!"
"Magical badass women?" Stark looked confused as a grin appeared on Loki's face.
"Stark I would never say this to anyone, let alone you, but you are a genius." Loki shoved passed him, grabbing papers to the left of Stark.
"Well, I mean, I already knew that, but why am I a genius now?"
Loki placed his hand on the table, palm facing up, a small disk in his hand. An image of a woman with shoulder length blonde hair suddenly popped up.
"Carol, I need your help."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course, I'm sure. When am I not sure?"
"Right now, right now you're not sure."
Loki rubbed his temples, looking back up at Carol's hologram. "I'm sure enough. Go to these coordinates and see if you can find the Asgardians refugee ship. From my estimations they should be about twenty-seven jumps from Asgard and roughly forty from Midgard, or Terra, whatever you call it. " Carol nodded, putting in her own cords.
"Even if I rush there it would take me a bit to get there. I'm over fifty jumps away from them and I couldn't take more than fifty without harm being inflicted."
"You have to be quick though, I dont know how much longer they would stay there." Loki ushered.
"Ill get Nova on this too. With her help we should get to the Asgardians quicker." Carol tapped and typed a few things on her side and turned back to Loki. "Should I mention your here as well? She might not help if she knows you're here, considering your attack on their grounds when you were under Thanos." She raised an eyebrow at him.
Loki stopped scribbling on his notes. "Shit, I forgot that happened..."
"You're not exactly known for remembering those things..." Carol joked.
"You know exactly why, and no, don't tell her I'm here." Loki sighed, going back to writing.
"Alright, I'll contact her, I'll keep you updated."
The Avengers watched this interaction from the other side of the room, Loki was still on the conference table. It was about seven in the morning and they had come into the room to find both Loki and Stark on the conference table, speaking to a blonde woman on a hologram.
Stark was speaking with Bruce and Bruce explained the story of how they left a planet called Sakaar and how Loki and he were gladiators, then went on to explain how Asgard had been blown up.
"Wait so you're telling me, lanky over there, almost beat you as Hulk?" Bruce nodded, making Clint let out a exasperated laugh. "So he's more of a threat then, why not lock him up?"
"There will be no locking up of no person, Mr Barton. As long as Loki remains on Wakandan soild and is fighting against this new threat, he is to be treated with most respect." King T'challa spoke up, seemingly popping up from nowhere.
"It doesn't matter either way, we need his help to kill this Thanos guy." Bucky spoke up, getting looks from the others he continued. "he knows more then all of us combined, we wouldn't even know about Thanos if he didn't show up." The Captain agreed with him, nodding along with him.
They all continued speaking about Bruce's frightening experiences, that was until a loud thud came from outside.
Loki, Bucky and Steve were up in an instant, walking towards the windows, looking out as loud thudding came from the outside.
"Somebody is attacking Wakanda. The force field is being hit." King T'challa spoke, eyes wide as he looked up at the sky.
"Is it the same guy that attacked us in front of the Sanctum? " Bruce asked, walking up the window cautiously, along with the other Avengers. The atmosphere had become more tense, everyone holding baited breaths.
"No, this time it's Thanos himself." Loki answered, not taking his eyes off of the horizon where he saw and entire army of the Chitauri trying to claw through the force field. His heart was beating so fast and so loud that for a minute that all he heard and not the Avengers panicked voices.
He was going to die.
There was no way Thanos would still keep him alive, not only had he betrayed him countless of times but Thanos would definitely want to kill him after he had managed to escape the Statesmen.
Loki wasn't going to give up though, as much as he wanted to run away and just hide, drowning away in his self-pity, he wouldn't. Thor wouldn't.
But you're not Thor!
But I'm all that's left.
"What do we do?" Wanda asked, her voice small, eyes wide. She had fought Robots, but Aliens, space lords, something out of her pocket.
"We fight." Steve said, his eyes determined. "Everyone suit up."
There was a tense silence before everyone began to move.
"Somebody get this man a shield!"
"How much longer," She grabbed the blaster, hitting the chitauri over its head, "is this gonna last!" Natasha yelled, barely dodging another blast from a soldier. She flung her legs underneath it and stabbed her baton in the centre of its chest, electrocuting it.
"Not sure! We just need to keep them away from Vision for now!" Steve yelled back, blocking a hit with his shield and punching the chitauri back right after the hit.
The battle had been going on for a while, neither side faltering but it was clearly evident that the Avengers were growing tired from the continuous fight. The chitauri seemed to be never ending. By the time they killed one, three more came at them.
Tony flew overhead, aiming his repulsors at the aliens and getting rid of a few with his blasts. Tony landed launching a small missle right in the centre of a group of soldiers. They went flying with the blast.
"Sir, you have a message coming from Doctor Stephan Strange, should I put it through?" FRIDAY asked her polite tone a stark change from the growling from Thanos's army.
"Kind of in the middle of something here."
"I believe the matter is urgent, sir."
With a deep sigh, "Fine put Harry Potter through."
"Certainly, sir." Tony flew back up in the air, blasting off a Chitauri that was clawing at his arm.
"Stark! Maw took the time stone! Whatever you do, you cannot let him get the Mind Stone! That's the last one left!"
Tony's eyes widened, well shit. They had to protect Vision at all costs until that stone was out of his head and hopefully they could destroy it.
"Guys, Strange sent me a voice message. Squidward got the Time Stone. " Tony spoke into the earpiece. He waited for the information to register.
"Fuck!"
"Shit."
"Are you fucking kidding me?!"
"Why did we leave it there in the first place?!"
"What now?!"
"Guys!" Steve's voices was loud and clear. "Our priority right now is Vision. Wanda, how are we looking?"
There was silence, nobody on the comm answered, waiting for Wanda to respond.
"Wanda!" Steve tried again.
A loud yell caught their attention as Wanda landed right behind Steve, her eyes and hands glowing red. Steve automatically backed up to be out of her range. He made the right choice because moments later red tendrils wrapped around the looming ships and Wanna brought them down with a yell.
The ships came tumbling down on either side of her, taking down multiple Chitauri soldiers, crushing them underneath the ship.
"Vision is safe, for now." Wanda whispered, out of breath. Captain gave her a smile, and a nod, turning back to soldier and uppercutting it before moving onto the next soldier.
"We should have started with her on the front lines..." Tony muttered, looking at all the Chitauri Wanda killed.
Loki was so tired.
His breaths came in deeper as every breath he took came in harsher.
Loki forced his eyes to take in the damage around him. The battle was in their favour so far, they were getting closer to getting to Thanos. Looking around, he saw the Widow at the receiving end of Proxima's spear.
He pulled out his axe from the Chitauri he had stabbed a few seconds ago. Stalking towards Proxima he called out.
"Pleasure seeing you again!" Proxima's head snapped up at his voice.
"Brother, or can I even call you that, you traitor." Loki grimaced at the term, she was not his sister, that was a long time ago. A very long time ago.
"I would honestly preferred if you didn't." He answered with a shrug, snapping his ax outwards into two.
"Well then, brother, just know, this could have all been prevented if you just did what you were supposed to do!" She wasted no more time flinging the Widow to the side and running up to him, her trident colliding with his Ax.
"I will never fall to his command!" He yelled back, pulling his ax back and kicking her square in the abdomen. "You could leave him too! He never did anything good for you Midnight!" Proxima huffed on the ground, Loki could have even thought she was considering his offer. That was until she jumped back on her feet with a grunt.
"Never!" Her spear was thrown at him but before it could make contact, red tendrils stopped the spear and flung it far away.
The witch landed behind Proxima, a few steps behind her was the Widow standing with her batons in her hand.
Wanda wrapped her magic around Proxima and made her rise in the air. Proxima yelled, trying to break free. Loki wasted no time, calling on his own seidr, a green blast exploded from his hand, sending Proxima flying with green and red tendrils wrapped around her.
Loki turned to speak to the witch but stopped in his tracks.
The hairs on his neck stood up.
He heard thunder in the distance. it couldn't be...could it?
Loki searched the sky, his mind buzzing with hope.
Nothing.
Was it just his imagination? Was his grief so deep that he had begun to hallucinate things?
oh you truly are pathetic, you can't even keep your head straight in a battle! Even if Thor was alive do you truly think he would come here, near you?! You, a monster cast out by Asgar-
The sky erupted in a multitude of colours, leaving imprints on the ground, a large rainbow beam. The bifrost.
And out came Thor hurtling out of it, lightning and Thunder in his wake.
"Bring me Thanos!"
He landed, hundreds of lightning bolts targeting soldiers, bringing them down in an instant.
Loki's breath was caught in his throat, he couldn't even bring himself to blink away the dirt collecting in his eyes from the Bifrost. A raccoon and Tree followed after Thor, running into battle but Loki didnt pay them any mind.
He was alive.
Thor.
Thor was alive!
"Thor!"
Thor turned around, looking around for whoever called his name.
"Thor!"
Everything stopped.
Thor's eyes widened, "Loki?!"
Loki came running to Thor, his ankle rolled and struck him in pain, but Loki didn't even stop for a second before he was right in front of his brother. He had sprinted across the battlefield, killing any soldiers around them.
He looked at Thor and Thor looked at him.
"I can't believe you are alive..." Loki breathed out, his hands shaking as he closed his ax.
Thor's eyes brimmed with tears close to falling before he raised a shaking hand to his mouth, rubbing his beard in a way of comfort.
"Loki, I'm sorry, I'm sorry I threw you into the Bifrost with the Hulk, I had to get you out of there, I didn't want you to die, not again. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Thor rambled, his voice shaking.
Loki wasn't paying attention because it didn't matter. Thor was right here, infront of him and alive. That's all that mattered.
Thor was still talking and Loki was distantly aware of all the Chitauri soldiers coming up at them. Without a thought, Loki conjured a green dome around him and Thor, keeping them safe.
keeping Thor safe, a part of his mind corrected.
Loki was at a loss of words. He thought he would never see Thor again. Before he could apologize or say anything, a strong force engulfed him, practically cutting off his air supply. Thor held onto him tightly.
"I'm so sorry, Loki." Thor muttered into Loki's ear, Thor's hair tickling Loki's bare neck.
Loki clutched onto his brother as if he would disappear.
"I'm sorry, Thor. I'm sorry for everything."
"I see you have copied my beard!" Thor shouted out to Steve who smacked a soldier with the butt of his shield.
Thor and Loki, after their shared moment, had gone back to the fight. fighting side by side, bringing back old memories of how the two brothers were famous in Asgard for the way they simply existed in each other presence during a battle and no coordination was needed.
Time didn't seem to exist, one chitauri went down another came up, they took that one down and another popped up. It seemed endless. Loki and Thor moved in a coordinated dance.
Neither having to look away from their opponent. One brother took a hit and the other covered for them.
No words were needed.
They just were.
Every now and then they would assist one of the Avengers but never strayed too far from one another, coexisting with each others presence.
.....
Someone was shouting....
Someone was screaming....
who?....
Who?
Vision!
Loki ran, two paces behind was Thor.
Loki could see Thanos from here.
Fuck, Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK
Blood dripping.
His screams echoing.
The mind stone shining in Thanos's hand as he came closer towards Loki, he couldn't get away with the chains holding him.
He struggled.
He cried.
There was just blue.
Blue.
Blue.
BLUE.
BLUEBLUEBLUEBLUEBLUEBLUEBLUEBLUE!
"NO!"
Wanda cried as Thanos ripped the mind stone out of Vision's head.
Vision's lifeless body fell back with a thud that echoed across the field.
Loki stopped just behind a tree, out of breath, he realised he ran across the entire field, looking behind him Thor was gone.
He turned back to Thanos, seeing both Tony and Steve coming out from the trees, the other Avengers who weren't currently fighting the army joined them, Thanos was outnumbered.
It didn't matter though.
Loki saw the gauntlet and his heart stopped.
All the stones were place perfectly in their respective slots.
All except the space stone.
oh no...
"Put the gauntlet down, Thanos. You're outnumbered." Steve commanded. Fool, Thanos wouldn't even bother shooing him away, they were just little pawns to Thanos. Nothing more than little flies attacking him with all the power he held now.
"Oh, you just don't seem to understand do you? I could kill all of you in an instant. Be careful of your next words." Thanos grinned, the air around him thrumming with power, suffocating Loki.
"If you wanted to kill us, you would have done it by now, Ballsack." Tony dared, stepping closer to Thanos.
"You're right, I would have. I won't though, I just want....Balance.." Thanos answered, gauntlet gleaming with the answer.
Loki stepped out from behind the trees. "No, you don't. You just want a throne for yourself." Thanos smiled, almost warmly at him. Loki wanted to throw up.
"My son."
"I am not such."
A few Avengers looked sharply at Loki at Thanos's words. Loki paid no mind.
"You are though, no matter how much you try to run it is in your blood and destiny. We both know destiny arrives all the same. Dread it....run from it." The words took him to the refugee ship. The dead Asgardians under his feet as Thanos came to him with his brother's head clutched in his hand.
"Give us the Gauntlet, Thanos." Thanos sighed, almost sadly.
"You still have a chance, Loki, join me." Loki shook his head. "join me now, and all debt is repaid." His breath shook.
No,
No
No.
"Give me the Tesseract, this is your final chance..." Loki could not give him the stone, he couldn't.
Thanos understood. Letting out a breath, he raised his gauntlet. "Fine, if you don't want to...I'll make you."
That was the last thing Loki heard before he heard Iron man's repulsors blast and the tendrils of the mind stone reaching back into his mind.
The Avengers were fighting Thanos.
Thanos was controlling him.
No, No. No, No, No, No, NO
It was all BLUE.
"Loki, snap out of it!" Nat yelled, whacking him in the face, Loki raised his hand, shadows emerging from the ground and grabbing Natasha stomach and holding her to the ground.
Loki's face remained emotionless as he raised his hand, the tesseract gleaming, the blue light shining over his face. He bowed on one knee, presenting the stone you Thanos as if he was nothing more than his servant.
Wanda Tried reaching for the stone, using her powers to push Loki's hand away and steal the stone before Thanos could grab it, the effort was useless, an invisible force stopping her from getting close to Loki.
"Thank you, my son." Thanos grabbed the Tesseract, crushing it until nothing was left but the stone inside, placing it carefully in the gauntlet. "Take care of them, Loki."
Loki rose, turning towards the Avengers, from then all hell broke loose
Tony ran towards Thanos, shooting his shot again and again. It did nothing. The Avengers were divided. Half fighting Loki, the other trying to get the gauntlet from Thanos.
Steve heard a snap and turned and duck a second before an Ax was swiped across where he was standing, Loki's eyes were bright blue. Eerily empty .
"Loki! This is the mind stone. Break through!" Steve shouted. Wanda ran up to Loki, using her magic to somehow break through the mind stones power, Loki used his magic to blast her off before she got too close.
Rhoedy powered up his repulsors aiming at Loki, a green shield protected him before the blast made contact.
Thanos laughed.
Thunder rumbled.
Lighting struck.
And so did an Axe.
Thor landed, his eye bright with lightning dancing between it.
The axe is planted into Thanos's chest.
Thanos coughed blood, giving Thor a smile full of teeth and blood.
"You should have gone for the head..."
Thanos's arm raised, the stones burned brighter.
"NO!"
SNAP!