Thor
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Thor screamed, collapsed.
Tears were streaming down his cheeks.
Heimdall made to reach out, Banner with him but Loki got to his side first.
He held him by the shoulders, the Casket discarded and forgotten in the face of Thor’s anguish.
“Father,” It came out as a choked whimper, echoed over the battlefield, empty but for the swarming horde with Thanos at the fore.
“We need to go,” Loki murmured, attempting to be gentle. Leant against Thor’s side and slowly pulled him up.
A nod, but the distant look in his eyes suggested he hadn’t heard.
Then, “Odin, I bid you take your place in the halls of Valhalla, where the brave shall live forever,” His breath hitched, but he continued with the prayer, strong and solid, “Nor shall we mourn but rejoice, for those who have died the glorious death.”
Finally, Loki managed to pull him away, felt the weight as Thor leant against him, “It’s alright,” He reassured quietly.
The empty void starting to ache in his chest suggested otherwise. It was odd. Dull and nothing like the sharp, all-consuming emptiness from Frigga's death, or when he thought Thor was dead on Sakaar. But still, that he felt it at all... For Odin?!
No time for that.
Loki summoned the Casket back to his hand and re-centred himself, reaching for the power which would whisk them away somewhere safe.
When the pounding of Chitauri footsteps became far too close.
Looked up, only to see the chitinous face of one of them, cresting the small hill, staff in hand and aimed for Thor.
Loki leveled the Casket without hesitation and a blast of ice slammed into the creature, freezing it solid.
A beam of light flung from Hofund and clacking screams as more were disintegrated under the force of the Bifröst.
Shit.
He needed a group, all close together and still to teleport.
Loki froze, mind whirring.
Which wasn’t good in the midst of a battle against overwhelming odds.
A crackling as he was singed by a flying bolt of energy and Loki snapped out of it, the stench of burnt leather surrounding him as he brought the Casket about, another ray of freezing blue-white shot out and froze his attacker solid.
But they were surrounded. On all sides, clicking war cries as the Chitauri crested the hill. The whining from their charging weapons filled the air alongside their stomping boots.
Around Loki, his companions fought.
Heimdall wielded Hofund with terrifying precision, using it both as a blade and as the enchanted harbinger of the Bifröst’s power.
Brunnhilde flung herself into the fray with abandon, removing limbs and heads and guts without hesitation. Blood coated both her and Tyrfing; from head to toe and hilt to tip.
Even Banner wasn’t completely useless. He held a small knife cautiously. Both hands gripped it tight enough that his knuckles were white and a determined grimace contorted his face.
Thor had managed to stand, but he was stumbling. The light that accompanied him, conjured by Loki, flickered.
Then Loki was hit again, but this time in the shoulder and he felt as the bolt evaporated the thin sheet of ice protecting his injury, where Hela’s blade had pinned him to the floor. It took a moment for the pain to register, but when it did Loki grasped the wound as he doubled over. Seiðr poured into it automatically.
Poured into the hole in his shoulder, away from that little light accompanying Thor.
Loki didn’t see or feel it fizzle out; mind blank from exhaustion and pain.
When he managed to straighten up, stumbling and clutching his shoulder with one hand, the other holding the Casket, dangling from his fingertips at his side, it was to see Thor blind in the darkness. Struggling to see by the sporadic light of Hofund’s beams or the flickering, distant fires that had consumed large parts of the battlefield.
Before Loki could gather himself enough to re-cast the little ball of light into existence, Thor had already taken a knife to his side. Easily avoidable, if not for the darkness.
Then something was flying for Loki.
Time slowed.
It crackled, purple lightning lancing from the tip down it, coalesced about the handle, glowing brightly against the night. A broadsword, blade nicked and hilt worn, it sliced through the air towards Loki.
Until it didn’t.
Lodged in a chest.
Pierced through from the back, tip poking out the front of a torso.
The person was already wounded, a dagger lodged firmly in his side.
Loki stood.
Frozen.
Because the body, standing now collapsing, was Thor.
There had been no Hon Dör to use as a shield, to protect him with. Not this time.
Stock still one second and at his brother’s side the other, he reached out, caught Thor before he could hit the ground, was pulled down with him until his torso was resting on Loki’s thighs.
Face grey, Thor seemed to shiver.
The wound in his chest looked so similar to a matching one Loki bore from Svartalfheim. The scar ached.
“Th- Thor,” Loki found himself babbling. Mouth moving by itself, “Look at me. Focus on me. You’ll be fine.”
A small nod from his brother, “Y- yes.”
“You need a bribe,” The words spilled out, “A bribe. Mother’s apples? I could get you one of mother’s apples.”
“I…” Thor’s breathing was laboured. It must have nicked a lung, “Would like that…”
“Yes,” Loki nodded, too quick, jerky, “Yes. You’ll be fine. All fine-!”
“Lo,” Blood was bubbling on Thor’s lips. It was wet and small flecks landed on his cheeks, “I-... I don’t think I’ll be-”
“No-,” Loki’s voice cut off, interrupted by a dry sob, “Don’t say that. Don’t.”
Seiðr poured into him, through the palms of his hands, into Thor. But his heart was pierced and what little healing took place was torn away by the blood which pooled on Loki's trousers.
A strained smile, “I couldn’t watch you die again.”
“No !” It was meaningless, meaningless, “The sun will shine on us again, brother. I promise. I promise! So you stay awake and-”
Then that little smile faded away.
Whatever it was that made Thor Thor dissolved.
Loki’s world went blank.
♛ ♕ ♚ ♔ ♜ ♖ ♝ ♗ ♞ ♘ ♟ ♙
Bruce stared at the corpse, barely visible in the dark.
He had been somewhat expecting Odin’s death, especially as he fought off an entire army.
Thor?
He seemed indestructible.
And Loki was crouched over him, hands shaking on the shoulders, a blonde and black bracelet visible on his wrist.
If Bruce had held any doubts that they were brothers, that they had fixed whatever had broken so badly between them, that juddering figure destroyed them.
Which was when that prayer started up. In a low, monotone voice, trembling.
“Th- Thor, I bid you take your place in the halls of Valhalla-.”
It paused, Bruce could hear hitching breaths.
It didn’t start again. The whirling of battle couldn’t mask the anguished scream which ripped out of Loki instead of the rest of those hauntingly monotonous words.
And then the shaky calmness exploded.
Loki sprung upright, that icy box in one hand and the other wielding a long, wicked-looking knife.
He turned with a scream that surely rubbed his throat raw and crackling shards of green flung from him, buried into the Chitauri surrounding them, smashed the bodies back as they burst into roaring flames.
There was a wordless snarl as he strode forwards, face tracked with frost, icicles on his chin and extending down his neck. Tears?
A huge figure crested the hill at that moment and was immediately hit with a beam of white. Snarling whips of green-red-blue flung around, lashed out and sliced into purple skin. Loki’s entire body glowed.
Bruce felt frozen as he watched, until there was one of the aliens before him again, an ancient Medieval weapon swinging for him and he leapt back with a yelp. Another swing and he dodged it again, but only just. How did these Asgardians do it?!
Val had just told him to use the pointy end and left it at that. Bruce heaved in a breath and stepped forwards, arms thrust out and when his head didn’t become detached from his body, he opened his eyes, though he didn’t remember squeezing them shut.
The Chitauri let out a gurgling breath and collapsed, his knife still stuck in its throat.
Bruce panted, ‘If I ever have to do this again I’m taking that laser minigun from the ship.’
Val interrupted, was at his side and reached out, her face panicked, “We don’t have time!” She yelled over the howling magic, so loud that Bruce could barely hear her.
Banner agreed with her and there was a hand on his back, shoving him towards them. Looked back - it was the large man, huge sword in hand. Heimdall.
Loki’s wild eyes turned to them. Bruce hadn’t noticed that they were red. Completely, with no whites. Just red, marked only by a pupil. It was unnerving.
Then he sent a final pulse of ice into Thanos and grabbed Thor’s corpse, dragged it to them, straining under the weight.
“What are you doing?!” Valkyrie screamed, already by Heimdall’s side, eyes flicking to the horde of Chitauri only seconds away from engulfing them. To the hulking, purple figure, just grinning at them, the veneer of civility he had maintained before was completely gone. Replaced by bloodlust.
The similarity between his expression and Loki's was terrifying.
In response to Valkyrie, Loki didn't even speak. A snarl, more like an animal than anything intelligent, with bared teeth. Pointed - Bruce couldn't help but note that whatever he was, it was definitely carnivorous.
Then Loki stood with them, knuckles white where they gripped Thor’s limp wrists. Blue-black frostbite spread from his hands.
In the distance, an impossibly huge figure wreathed in flame and with a huge sword swinging from its hand burst from the ruins of Asgard’s palace.
Even in the midst of battle, Bruce stared at it in awe.
Until the lights of the Bifröst took them.
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