"You’ll never win,” Loki says, and Thanos laughs. Thor sighs, and that seems to catch the titan’s attention. Thor is still hanging from his hand, giant purple fingers ready to crush his skull in an instant.
“You are already beaten, children!”
“We should have introduced ourselves first, brother,” Thor rasps out, and Loki rolls his eyes.
“Yes. Like we even had time for that, you imbecile.”
“Loki—”
“Yes, yes, fine. Let us start over, shall we?”
Thanos’ disciples bristle at that, clutching their weapons a little tighter. Thanos himself just lifts Thor up another inch off the ground in warning, then magnanimously waves a hand at Loki, gesturing for him to continue.
Loki bites back the immediate fuck you that leaps to his tongue, and scowls.
“That is Thor. Literal God of Thunder. Ruler of the Asgardian people. I am Loki. Literal God of Mischief. Catching on, yet?”
“You dare—”
“And while your plan is fine and dandy, I must reiterate something; you want to balance all life in the universe. So let me introduce you to our sister. Hela. Literal God of Death.”
XXXXXXXXXXX
It started entirely because of the mural. Loki was fine with the outcome – no one was trying to kill him, and he might actually have a chance to build a decent relationship with his brother thanks to the situation– but the finer details escaped him. Thor had seen the mural, chatted with their sister a bit, then she’d stabbed his eye out.
Thor’s response had been hey, why don’t you rule Asgard?
“What.”
“I really do not want to be King. Father sent me to Midgard to learn to be a good king, and I made friends there. Now that you killed all my other friends, they are all I have. Even if they have not talked to me at all recently, Midgard will always take priority over the – the daily king things.”
She blinked at him slowly, but wasn’t outright attacking him. Thor took that as a good sign.
“Father did wrong by you. I cannot condone your wants, but neither can I condone his actions. Frankly, he is lucky he died before we found out. Loki would kill him. Literally. The whole adoption thing did not sit well with our brother.” If Thor didn’t get to him first. He was…he’d had a lot of time to think, on his way back to Asgard. Maybe it was Loki rubbing off on him, maybe it was the childish glee that he had a sister! or maybe it was something else – he didn’t want to finish his father’s dirty work. He was tired of war. Of bloodshed.
“You are offering me the throne.”
“Well – I do not think you want to do the politic thing either. I am proposing we – you, in charge of the military, Loki, in charge of…something, I do not know, finances? The treasury? And I, in charge of the people – take the throne together. Restore you to our people’s history, and ensure nothing of that nature happens again.”
Hela blinked, bewildered—
“Why?”
“I do not want to kill you, sister. And – this way you will have your wars. Just with…deserving opponents.”
“I slaughtered your people and ran them from their homes, and you are offering me their crown?”
He shrugged.
“The Valkyrie will not be happy with me. But I think it is…the best option for us. I think…I think that it would make Mother proud.”
Hela turned, suddenly, sharply. Put her back to him and pressed a hand to her face.
“She’s dead.”
“Yes.”
“I…had them…show me her memorial.” There was no mistaking the tremor in Hela’s voice.
“Her killer has been brought to justice.” Thor said softly.
“It’s not enough.”
“No.” He whispered, and nodded.
She was quiet another moment, and then turned to face him, no trace of her tears, no trace of her surprise.
“I have a list of personal grudges to handle. They will be taken care of.”
“Loki will know how best to do so.”
“First on the list – I want this planet destroyed.”
Thor stared at her, hard. When he looked away, his gaze caught on the broken pieces of his father’s mural.
He nodded.
“Then I accept.”
XXXXXXXXXXX
So – here was the thing. The infinity stones? Powerful. But even together, they had their limits.
You could, for example, resurrect your dead lover or child. Kill your greatest enemy. Slaughter half the universe.
But you could not go back to the beginning of time and fuck with things there. You could not go back eons and bring to life entire armies when their souls stayed animate in armored bodies. You could not stop death. Even with the Time Stone. Even with all of them.
Especially when your goal was just to kill the living. They were highly dependent on the users’ imagination, after all, and obsessive desires tended to overtake literally all else.
So when Hela came for him, Thanos stood no chance.