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Chapter:1
"Wait!"
Rocket's paw paused on the contraption Stark had made. He looked up meeting Thor's gaze curiously, "what?"
"I..." Thor glanced towards his mother than back at his small companion, "I -I can't go back," he stuttered.
"What?" Rocket repeated this time in confusion.
"I can't go back," Thor asserted more firmly.
Rocket frowned, "We need you!"
Thor shook his head, "No, you don't...you have the Reality stone. Everyone else would have already gotten the others, Stark will make a gauntlet and...Banner can snap his fingers and bring everyone you all love back..." Thor hung his head for a moment and sighed, "Everyone I love is here."
"What about New Asgard?"
"They don't need me-Val's been leading them," he looked up into Rocket's eyes. "Please Rabbit-don't make me go back," Thor whispered brokenly.
Rocket's shoulder slumped and he gave a sorrowful nod. Thor knelt and silently offered Rocket the device. Rocket shook his head and curled Thor's hand back around the small gadget, "keep it- you never know...you might wanna come back or just drop by or something," he gave a little smile.
Thor smiled in return; the tension in his large shoulders eased for the first time in years, "Thank you sweet Rabbit!" Thor hesitated for a moment, "Don't...don't bring it back...please," Thor implored his friend glancing over at his mother for a moment. "I beg of you."
"Thor..." Rocket cautioned with uncertainty.
"All it's ever brought is pain and death," Thor pleaded.
Rocket looked down at the device that held the reality stone in its liquid form and sighed gazing up into the mismatching eyes of the thunder god, "all right," he yielded.
"Thank you," Thor breathed, voice thick with relief.
Thor rose as Rocket prepared to make the time jump, "you look after yourself and...well you know..." Rocket trailed off.
"I will," the big blond nodded, "I have a lot to lose," he grinned looking out at Asgard and over to his mother.
Rocket smirked, "in more ways than one."
Thor chuckled, "indeed." He paused for a moment becoming serious once more, "Tell the others...Thank you... and that I'll miss them."
"I will- we'll miss you too Thor...I guess this is goodbye..." Rocket supposed, "Maybe you'll come across other me in this reality..."
"I do hope so Rabbit-good bye my friend."
And with that, the two companions parted ways with a gentle wave before Rocket vanished.
Thor turned looking imploringly at his mother, "you won't make me go back?" His voice trembled.
Frigga walked up to her son; clasping his bearded face gently between her hands, "I could never turn away my son."
Thor grinned and enveloped her in his arms, "Thank you, mum," he murmured into her hair, "I missed you, so much."
"I'm here my son"
For a time they simply held each other in the halls of Asgard's palace. Home, Thor thought-he was finally home. Home where everyone he loves was alive- his mother, his father, his friends...and his brother, "Loki!" Frigga looked questioningly up at her son, "Loki's alive! He's here!"
The queen of Asgard smiled benignly, "Go," she urged simply.
Thor grinned and hurried back down to the dungeons sneaking passed the guards once more and coming to a stop in front of his brother's cell.
Loki faced away from him with a book in hand and halted when he sensed the other's presence, "Thor after all this time and now you come to visit me. Why? Have you come to gloat? To mock?" at that he turns to snarl at the blond but froze with what he saw. His face shifted suddenly to utter confusion. He leaned forward with narrowed eyes, "Thor?"Thor grins; releasing the barrier and subsequently racing into his brother's cell before Loki can move and gather him into a bear hug. "Thor! Unhand me you great big oaf!" when Thor didn't release him Loki summoned a dagger thrusting it into the blonde's side.
Thor laughed joyously, "How I have missed you brother!" Setting his younger sibling down and then yanking out the small blade.
"I'm not your bother," Loki glared.
Thor smirked, "and yet I will always be yours."
Loki shifted uncomfortably before he turned to scrutinize his brother's from, "did my absence upset you so much you let yourself go?" Loki snickered.
"More than you know," Thor said solemnly.
The brunette scoffed, "It's only been a year-"
"Not for me," the blonde shook his head.
Loki looked up into Thor's eyes- his, in turn, widened, "your eye...you seem...older..." his eyes narrowed once more assessing, "what did you do?" Loki deadpanned.
Thor gave a great sigh, "It was bad Loki...everything fell apart..."
"Thor," the blonde cringed at his brother's tone.
"I'm from the future," Loki sighed but Thor continued, "but not from your future...seeing as my presences has changed things for you so-"
"I'm aware of the theoretical logistics of time travel. The moment you came into the past you created a divergent timeline from that moment on running alongside your original. You can't change what you, yourself have already experienced," Loki summarized quickly.
"That was so much easier to understand than how Bruce explained it," Thor huffed.
Loki chuckled, "I've had over a thousand years experience of simplifying things for you," the younger snickered as the elder gave a bemused glare and a gentle shove.
"And it's not theoretical anymore," the elder teased.
The raven-haired god rolled his eyes, "obviously." Thor snickered in response.
Loki tensed after a moment, "what was so terrible that you had to screw around with time?" Thor could see the answer in his brother's eyes. He dreaded it but he knew deep down what was coming.
"Thanos," Thor bit out; voice catching on the single word. Loki flinched.
"He did it," Loki concluded mournfully, shoulder's slumping.
"I killed him...it was too late...but I killed him," his voice trembled, "he destroyed the stones but we found a way to find them...it took five years for something to come up but they'll be able to get everyone back..."
Loki frowned, "they?"
Thor shook his head, messy long blond locks swinging around his bearded face, "I won't go back-I can't-everyone I love is here."
Loki's face stilled, "did he kill us all?" his voice was stiff.
Thor sniffled, "a lot of things happened, not just Th-HIM. We were down to so few by the time he got to us...and then he..." Thor's watery gaze met his little brother's.
"He killed me," Loki summarized in a flat voice.
Thor nodded, "in front of me and I... I couldn't save you," a tear slid down his cheek, "I failed you Loki-I failed everyone. I was a terrible brother and a no-good king... in barely a day I destroy Asgard and got half of what was left of us killed-you included. Then I didn't do what I'd set out to do...I should have gone for the head but I didn't and then after when I did none of it mattered-I failed! I failed Asgard, my friends, the whole damn universe and you...I failed you!" Thor rambled; the guilt and shame that had built up over the past five years kept coming to the surface today-first with his mother and now with Loki. The memory of his last words to his brother came to the for front of his mind like a slap to the face, “By the Norns I failed you brother! How could I say that? It’s not true-I didn’t mean it!” he slapped his hands over his mouth as if the very action would force the horrid words back in and shook his head, pleading beseechingly with mismatching eyes.
“What Thor? What did you say? I don’t follow?” Loki queried befuddled.
“I…I said…that you were the worst brother! And you replayed with reassurances that we’d make it…the sun would shin on us again” he whispered the phrase wistfully, “and when I was bound and couldn’t get to you…couldn’t SAVE you…you…you tried to save me…in your own silver tongued way…but he saw through it in the end…” Thor couldn’t get the image of the purple beast holding his little brother by the throat in a crushing grip. He visibly flinched as his mind brought back the echoing SNAP of his only family’s neck. The thunderer bit back a sob.
His vision blurred with tears as he felt a hand at the back of his neck. “I…I forgive you,” the immense weight on the thunder god’s shoulders easy just a little. Blinking away the tears in his mismatched eyes Thor gazed sadly at the raven hair god, "I'm here," Loki assured softly, "I'm here.... brother." His brother's words jolted his mind back to the moment on the Statesman and Thor crushed the younger to his chest in an all-enveloping hug. Loki shrieked disgruntled, "Thor! You smell like a bilgesnipe carcass that's was drowned and now rotting in a lake of mead!" the elder released his younger brother after a moment more a little abashed, "when was the last time you had a bath?"
The big blond just shrugged not looking at his brother. Loki sighed. There was a lot to take in today. Loki stood awkwardly really not wanting to deal with a distraught Thor but knowing he was the only one to be able to fix this. He had thought that his brother needed some humbling but this...this goes beyond that-his glorious, shining older brother torn asunder -his light gone dark.
"Well come on, we'll go to my chambers-mother would have made sure to keep everything as it was," Loki said starting towards the edge of his cell.
"But you're supposed to be in prison," Thor scolded in exasperation.
As Loki stepped down from his cell he gestures behind Thor, "It'll be like I never left," he pronounced with a smirk. Thor turned and there a duplicate of the raven-haired god lounged reading his book.
The blond sighed rolling his eyes, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips and followed his brother down the corridor. In an instant Loki places an illusion over both of them to look like guards as they follow the halls all the way up to the royal's private wing unnoticed. Once inside Loki's chambers, the illusion faded.
For both of them, it had been an age since they had been within these walls that they were silent for a moment. As Loki had expected nothing had changed, all was pristine and everything was in its place. In such a short amount of time, he had changed and as he gazed around his quarters there was a part of him that mourned the innocence of the boy that used to live here.
Thor too was remembering when he had last entered these walls. When Loki had died the first time; he wept into his brother's pillow for months, longing to be with his brother. It was the only place where he felt like he didn't have to be strong and brave; where he didn't have to be around people who were quietly pleased that the second prince was dead. The second prince that was too odd with his love of books and magic, with his slim, willowy stature and his too-pale complexion...too different from them...too other. Thor knew they deemed him weak-deemed him less. Such whispers were reserved for the shadows and all talk would stop when he came near but he knew. He was not as oblivious as some thought...not now...not anymore, "I spent months sleeping in your room when I thought you died the first time...I wanted to be close to you...the seconded time you died, being in Asgard... hurt too much," with both the loss of his mother and his brother there were too many memories- he couldn't run away fast enough, "I've mourned you three times now."
Loki shifted uncomfortably glancing at his brother awkwardly, "I'm... honored?" Thor gave him a dubious look and they fell into an awkward silence. Loki shifted again, "Ahh Thor?"
"Hmm?"
"Bath," Loki stated plainly.
"Oh! Right," Thor turned towards Loki's bathing chamber but hesitates with a hand near the door, "you won't disappear-right? You'll be here when I finish?" There was a pleading to the blonde's voice as his hand trembled, hovering above the doorknob.
Loki huffed rolling his green eyes, "Of course, I can hardly leave you in the...state that you're in. You might go off and do something stupid."
Thor turned towards his brother and gave him a smile, "Promise?"
"I promise-now go!" Loki smirked and shooed him away to the bathroom.