Chapter Text
“Something feels off.” Loki catches up to him in the corridor the next morning, not even bothering with a greeting. “Something in the universe is wrong.”
“Good morning to you too, brother. How are you today?” Thor is oddly cheery. He is not going to let anyone ruin his mood.
“It’s not morning, you ingrate, we’re in space. ” Loki grabs his arm and pulls Thor to face him. “I’m telling you. Something is wrong.”
Thor looks around, considers the tone in his brother’s voice and the two Asgardian women walking down the corridor towards them. Fuck’s sake. He drags Loki into the nearest sideroom, which happens to be the pantry. “What.”
Loki settles down on the floor, irritatingly slowly. “I was… doing magic things - look, you wouldn’t understand even if I told you. Something is wrong in the universe. There’s a… presence coming.”
“Brother, you’re really going to have to give me more than that.” Thor sits down on the floor too. There’s nothing really of interest that’s edible around him, but he wishes there was.
“I can’t, okay? Just- look, I don’t actually want our people to die. We need to make preparations if we want to survive the coming days.” And there’s something in his brother’s eyes that is so earnest that Thor wants to believe him.
But he doesn’t know if he can.
Loki is fond of jests, he’s fond of causing trouble and of making a nuisance of himself. Anyone stuck on a spaceship for several months is prone to cabin fever - it’s very likely that he’s just trying to cause trouble.
But there’s something about that look…
His hands shoot out and grab Loki’s wrists, almost without him bidding them to. “Swear on our mother’s life that this isn’t a joke.”
Loki winces and tries to pull his hands away. “Let me go first.”
“No. I can’t worry the Asgardians without cause. Swear to me that this trouble is real. Swear to me.” Gods above, Loki’s hands look so small within his grasp. Have they always been that way? Now is too late to be imagining such minutiae, but he can’t look away.
“Brother, I-”
If he was a more naive man he’d swear that Loki even looks a bit worried. “Swear to me.”
“Fine. Fine! I swear. I swear on our mother’s life that this isn’t a jest. There’s something coming to find us. I don’t know what and I don’t know when, but it’s coming. It’s following us, just waiting to catch up. We need to prepare or we’re both going to die here.” Loki exhales sharply, then says, “... can you let me go now?”
He lets him go, because really, what choice does he have?
Loki’s not lying. He’s known him for long enough to realise that. The thought is… unfortunate. Loki doesn’t get scared by much, but that look in his eyes…
It’s something akin to fear and that’s not a good thing.
Loki rubs at his wrists.
There’s red imprints over his pale skin and Thor feels a little bad for a moment. “Did I hurt you?”
“No, it was just a shock.”
“Loki.”
“No.” The other man’s deflecting, it’s obvious, but there’s nothing he can do about it. “Call a meeting. Inform the Asgardians that they need to be ready to leave whenever we give the word.”
Sometimes he wonders if his brother would have been better for the throne. “Yes.”
“Tell your people. I will be in my room.” And with that, he departs gracefully, as though he’s entirely unaware that he’s just rocked Thor’s world.
Fuck.
-
He goes to Brunnhilde first. She doesn’t seem surprised, though she does seem wary about Loki’s confession. “Figured this paradise wouldn’t last.” She drawls, and starts stuffing things into a bag. “I’ll head up to the cockpit soon. See if there’s a way we can predict this thing that doesn’t rely on magic.”
“Thank you.” Thor says, plainly. There’s nothing more he can really say.
“Thank me when we survive this.”
-
Korg and Miek aren’t so hard to find - they’re sparring, in one of the empty rooms. He lets them know the news, tells them not to panic (even though he’s panicking, just a little bit) and then says much the same to Heimdall. The other man fixes him with a look that suggests he knows more than he appears, but he doesn’t say anything and just begins to pack his belongings away.
Then he goes to Bruce.
Bruce is meditating in his own room, thick incense creating a heady fog in the air. Thor wonders where he got it.
Knowing the Grandmaster, he probably had his own personal supply.
“Banner?” Thor says, quietly, because he doesn’t want to frighten the man.
A frightened Banner means a Hulk, possibly, and he doesn’t need that right now.
“Thor?!” Bruce blinks, bleary-eyed, but he does brighten at the sight of him.
Which is good, considering the news he’s about to get.
“Hi, Banner.” Thor sinks to the floor, so he’s right at Bruce’s level. “I’ve got something to tell you.”
“If it’s about Loki and the grain- that was not my fault-” Bruce starts, but stops at the look on Thor’s face. “I take it it’s not about that?”
“No.” He doesn’t even want to know about that anecdote. “I’m going to tell you something and it would be super great if you could not panic about it, okay?”
Bruce balks at him, paling almost immediately. “You really can’t tell someone like me ‘not to panic’ about something, Thor. Really doesn’t help the constant anxiety. What is it?”
“Something’s following us. Something bad. I don’t know what but we need to prepare for it. We need to get ready to evacuate.”
Bruce’s eyes widen and he sucks in a sharp breath. “Thor, we’re in space. Where on earth do we evacuate to in space? I’ve only just gotten over the ‘we’re in space’ thing! I can’t even think about the fact that we might need to leave this mostly-structurally-sound spaceship without getting a little nauseous.”
Thor leans forward, puts his hands over Banner’s hands on his knees and starts massaging them, rubbing circles into the warm flesh. And yeah, it’s a little awkward, but it actually seems to be doing the trick, because Banner’s posture begins to relax a little. “I need to you not freak out over this. I need you, not the Hulk, okay? We’ve got an entire race to look after and I can’t do that if you’re freaking out.”
“Have you ever met me?” Bruce mutters, “I am the very definition of ‘freaking out’.”
“Please, Bruce, not today.” He presses his thumbs in further, feels the thin bones underneath the surface of the other man’s skin.
He hates that he’s begging, he hates that he’s doing this. He hates that he has to do this. He wishes that he could make it all better for Bruce, teach him that the whole world doesn’t actually want to destroy him, but he doesn’t have the time.
He doesn’t even know how much time they have, and that terrifies the shit out of him.
“I need you to pack up your stuff, be ready to leave whenever we need to. Can you do that for me?”
Bruce blinks slowly at him, obviously lulled into calmness a bit by the movement of his hands. But he doesn’t say no. “Yes… I will. When are you telling the Asgardians?”
“Today.”
He’s got to.
-
He has the meeting, he tells the people, they worry, they panic, but they prepare.
And now, it’s just a waiting game.
Waiting to see if somebody comes.
Waiting to see if his brother is telling the truth.
Waiting to see if somebody snaps.
But six days go by and there’s nothing.
It feels like they’re out of the danger, and like everything’s going to be fine.
Thor joins Loki at one of the viewing platforms on the side of the ship. Space glitters beautifully in front of them - an absolute vista just waiting to be explored.
It feels safe.
“I must admit,” Loki says, staring out into the universe with some wonder, “I expected something to happen by now.”
Thor chortles, although he doesn’t really feel it, and thumps Loki on the back. He's relieved, more than anything, and so, so grateful he has his brother beside him.
“I wouldn’t worry, brother, I feel like everything is going to work out fine.”
FIN.