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He probably should not have been out of bed. Almost certainly should not have been - exhaustion dogged him, he felt dizzy and weak, and his burn still throbbed under the bandaging. But the restlessness in him would not be suppressed by something so simple as physical injury.
Loki heard Thor approaching behind him, but held still, giving no sign that he heard him. He’d sought out this corner of the ship to be alone, and yet knowing he wouldn’t be alone for long. He’d even expected it to be Thor to find him.
He wasn’t even unhappy that he had. Some part of him still felt the need to grab onto Thor, to place a hand on his chest to feel his heartbeat and know, for certain, that he was alive.
“May I speak with you?”
“I suspect you will, whatever I say,” Loki said. It came out harsher than he meant it to, and he almost heard Thor’s wince. “I don’t mean...you may need to sit down, though. I don’t think I should try standing for very long.”
Thor huffed. “You probably should not even be out of bed.”
The echo of his earlier thought was positively uncanny. “No,” Loki said. “Probably not.”
Thor sighed, but he came over and sat down next to Loki. He turned his head slightly, still startling a little. He couldn’t see the patch over the eye that Hela had taken, but he knew it was there, and it made him feel vaguely ill. That Thor should be so wounded...defied some sense of what was right in the world.
Just as it had been when Loki had heard that Thor was dead. He almost reached for Thor, then, to grab his wrist and press his fingers against his pulse and know that he was still warm, still alive, still here.
Thor seemed to notice him staring and turned his head away, clearly self-conscious. “I fear Hela has spoiled my stunning good looks,” he said, and if it was a joke Loki could hear the truth in it.
“Hardly,” Loki said, summoning a quick half-smile. “Such a thing would be impossible. It is...rugged. Distinctive.” He almost said, the words on the tip of his tongue, you wear it better than Odin ever did, but that wound was still too fresh, too raw. For Thor, certainly. For Loki...it felt like the severing of something that had been numb until it was gone, its absence a fresh ache.
Thor smiled, but it was weak, and faded quickly. He stared outward instead, expression pensive.
“You’ve spoken with Steve, haven’t you,” Loki said, with resignation. He was almost relieved, in truth. The prospect of having to explain everything to Thor had filled him with nothing but dread - though it looked like he might end up having to do it anyway.
Thor dipped his chin in a nod. “He told me of all that has happened, since I went away. It is...a grim accounting.”
Loki eyed Thor carefully. “What did he say?”
“Too much.” Thor inhaled slowly and deeply. “Thanos…” Loki twitched, and Thor adjusted. “The Mad Titan. He was able to take control of you.”
Loki’s stomach burned. He folded his hands in his lap, twisting them together. “Yes.”
“Did you know…”
“That he could?” Loki’s voice sounded brittle in his own ears. “Are you asking if I knew, and intentionally said nothing? If I was hiding the truth from you?” Thor said nothing, and Loki’s guts twisted. “I told Steve that - I did not believe it was possible. I knew that...there was a connection between us. But I did not think he could reach me.” He laughed, bitterly. “Or perhaps I hoped he could not.”
“A connection,” Thor said. “Because of the Mind Stone?” Loki swallowed, licking his lips, and said nothing. “Loki,” Thor said, lower, “this is important.”
“I know. I know. But...no. Not the Mind Stone. He has...he is able to…” Loki felt sick, and kept himself from rocking by effort of will. “Once someone has...psychically invaded a person’s mind once. It is easier to do it again.”
“Ah,” Thor said, and Loki slumped with relief that he did not have to say more than that. Would not have to describe how it had felt to have that vast power plunge into his mind, dig through his thoughts and memories, plunder all his deepest secrets.
Quieter, Thor added, “oh, Loki.”
He twitched. “The android purged him. At least temporarily. I do not know if it is...possible for him to do it again. I have been training Wanda - the witchling - in how to...stop me. If it should come to that.”
“Stop you,” Thor said. “You mean, free you from Thanos’s control.”
Loki shook his head. “No, Thor,” he said quietly. “That isn’t what I mean.”
He could feel Thor’s eyes on him and did not turn to look. “Does this witchling know that is what you are teaching?”
He hadn’t said. Not in so many words. He couched it in other terms. Carefully. He feared that if he said it outright - said this is how you can burn out my mind so Thanos cannot use me - she would refuse to learn.
He heard Thor exhale harshly. “Two things, Loki,” he said, and his voice was startlingly hard. “The first: if this Wanda Maximoff is your friend now - and by the way you say her name, I would venture she is - then she deserves to know what you are training her to do.”
Loki knew Thor was right. Knew, and it left a bad taste in his mouth. “And second?”
“And second,” Thor said, “I ask: have you sought other solutions? Or did you jump first to means of destruction rather than looking for ways to save yourself?”
Loki closed his eyes. “I always plan for worst case scenarios, Thor.”
“And too often you go straight to the most drastic plan,” Thor said. Loki glanced toward him, and found Thor’s expression tight. “Father is dead. Asgard is gone. Everything I thought I knew is in tatters. I will not lose you as well.”
Loki bowed his head, almost humbled. “I do not want it, either,” he said quietly.
He heard Thor exhale. “That, at least, is a relief to hear,” he said. Loki was not certain he was meant to hear it. He stayed quiet, and after several moments Thor cleared his throat. “So Amora came crawling out of whatever cave she was hiding in.”
“Yes,” Loki said. She attacked us in...in Latveria.” He heard Thor suck in a breath.
“Was she...did, somehow…”
“No,” Loki said grimly. “Doom remains dead. At least for now.” He was proud of himself for managing Victor’s name without so much as a wobble. “She meant to claim the empty throne he left. When we--”
“We?” Thor interrupted. He was looking at Loki with something odd in his expression, like he had just noticed something unexpected. Loki almost flushed.
“Yes,” he said. “I...went with them. Because magic was involved.”
Thor seemed oddly satisfied, and nodded. “Go on.”
“When we thwarted her,” Loki said, “she detonated - do you remember, on Alfheim?”
Thor’s expression was grim. “I see.”
“After that,” Loki said, “she...vanished for a while.”
“Until she came for you.”
Loki’s throat closed, briefly. “Yes,” he said. “Until she came for me. She - attacked Steve. Used him to...persuade me to follow her. And sought to…” He trailed off.
“Steve said she intended to give you over to...the Titan.” Loki heard the catch over the name, and was ashamed.
“To Thanos,” he forced himself to say. “Yes.”
“What stopped her from doing so?”
Loki’s stomach clenched. He wished...he could not decide if he wished Steve had explained further, or if he was glad that he had tried to elide it. He could probably step around it, but there seemed little use in doing so. “She wanted me broken, first.” Thor’s silence made his shoulders hunch. “She failed. Obviously.” Barely. “And she is dead, now.” His lips curved in a grim smile. “Wanda buried her alive.”
“A deserved end,” Thor said savagely. Loki glanced at him sidelong, wondering what memories Thor still bore of his own encounters with Amora. It had been a long time. But maybe you never forgot.
“At least,” he said, “she is one enemy we don’t have to watch for.”
“There are too many we do.” Thor rubbed his forehead. “Njord? The Svartalfar?”
“I don’t know,” Loki said. “Steve and I ran. I doubt Njord survived, but not having seen a body I cannot be certain. The Svartalfar are a remnant of a remnant. If any of that clan, at least, lived through that scrap, I don’t think it will be for long. Either they will disperse across the galaxy, or they will be destroyed by larger and nastier predators.”
Thor nodded. “The Nine dwindle,” he said. “What is left of Asgard fits on a ship. The Svartalfar are diminished to almost nothing. The Jotnar are failing.”
Loki’s lips twisted up at one corner. “All fallen, one could argue, to one sword.”
Thor looked down, his jaw tightening. Without his hair to mask his face, the expression was starker, harder. Or maybe that was just Thor: sharpened and tempered by what he had suffered. “You seem to accept it so easily. That we...that the history we learned was never true.”
“I have some experience with falsified history,” Loki said, but he went on quickly. “I have always been more of a cynic than you, Thor. Power always comes at the cost of someone else’s. We knew that Asgard brought Jotunheim to its knees; that Bor slaughtered almost every Dark Elf on Svartalfheim, chasing the few remaining into deep space.”
“Yes,” Thor said, “but…”
“But those were justified,” Loki said. “If I have learned anything from reading of Midgard’s history - it is that everyone believes their wars always are.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I thought mine was.”
Thor’s expression remained troubled. Loki sighed.
“I do not think it is a weakness,” he said. “It...speaks well of you. You believed the best of Odin. And of your home.”
“It was our home,” Thor said. Loki opened his mouth, but Thor shook his head. “No. Exile or not - I intended, when I was king, to reverse that edict. As soon as Odin made it, even when you convinced me not to fight him over his action - I determined that when I sat on Asgard’s throne, I would give you back your name.”
“I have my name,” Loki said. “Loki Odinson.”
The look Thor gave him was startled. Loki shrugged. “I hated him. I loved him. I do not think I will ever forgive him. But perhaps that doesn’t matter.”
Thor hesitated. “You were there when he died,” he said. Loki looked away.
“I was.”
“What did he say?” There was something desperate, yearning, in Thor’s voice. Loki’s chest ached and he wanted to say something - something comforting. Something reassuring.
“Very little,” Loki said. “He was...weak. He said farewell. To me.”
Thor was silent. When Loki looked back at him, his eyes were closed and he looked as though he might weep.
“I am sorry,” Loki said, awkward and uncertain. Thor shook his head.
“You needn’t be,” he said. “I am...I am glad that you had the chance to say goodbye.”
Am I? Loki wasn’t sure. He didn’t know exactly what he felt about Odin, now. About their final meeting. The resolution he would never have. He stayed quiet.
“How do you do it?” Thor asked, quietly. Loki glanced at him sidelong.
“Do what?”
“Cope with…” Thor waved a hand. “Everything you knew falling down. All the things you were certain of swept away.”
Loki forced a weak laugh. “I think I can definitively say that I did not cope with anything. If you recall, my initial reaction was to murder my birth father and attempt to destroy Jotunheim. Followed by picking a fight with you.” And then trying to die. He left that off.
Thor gave him a look, no less sharp for being one-eyed. “Yes, then. But...since.”
“I find denial highly effective,” Loki said lightly. Thor said nothing, and Loki sighed. “I do not have an answer, Thor. I suppose...the best thing I can say is that when your foundation is ripped away, you find a new one to build upon. And you...you are still just who you always were. You are not Asgard. You are Thor. Great-hearted, brave, steadfast. The God of Thunder. Which...speaking of which, when did you learn how to control your storms without Mjolnir?”
“Quite recently.” Thor flexed his right hand open and closed. “I still feel...naked.”
You look it, Loki almost teased, but that wound, he thought, was still too raw.
“It was hers,” Thor said. “Before it was mine.”
“Hela’s,” Loki filled in. Thor nodded.
“Just so.”
“A weapon is not its wielder,” Loki said quietly. Thor gave him a slightly startled look, and Loki half smiled. “That is what you are thinking, isn’t it? That you are somehow stained, just by holding the same hammer as she did?”
Thor looked sheepish. “It is still - concerning, how well you know my thoughts,” he said. Loki smiled faintly.
“I do know you fairly well.”
Thor sighed. His shoulders fell, and they were both quiet for some time.
“Steve did tell me something else,” Thor said. Loki tensed, trying to think of what it might be.
“What was that?”
“Really?” Thor said. “You cannot think of any other news that I might be interested in knowing?”
Loki knew a trap of a question when he heard it. He raced through every calamity that had happened since Thor’s departure, glancing nervously sideways. And saw that he was smiling.
He dropped his head forward to hide a smile of his own, and just kept himself from reaching to touch his ring. “Ah. I suppose there is that.”
Thor let out a loud laugh and shook his head. “‘There is that,’” he said, shaking his head. “Norns, Loki.”
“I take it Steve already told you.”
“That you are to be wed? He did mention it.” Thor clasped Loki’s shoulder and squeezed, and when Loki looked at him more directly he saw that his eyes were shining. “Amid all the ill news...it was more than welcome to hear. Brother...congratulations.”
Loki’s chest felt warm, his heart overfull. “Thank you,” he said, the only words he could manage to coherently summon. Thor shook his head.
“Stand up,” he said, fitting his own action to the words. Loki frowned at him, and Thor gestured. “Come.”
Loki pushed himself to his feet, slowly, and barely had time to straighten before Thor dragged him into an embrace that felt as though it would crack his ribs. “Thor-!”
“I could not hug you properly down there,” Thor said, though he released Loki, one of his hands moving instead to settle on the back of Loki’s neck, squeezing lightly. Then he paused, drawing back, expression sobering. “You waited for me,” he said.
Loki opened his mouth to say of course we did, you would have strangled me if we hadn’t, but he couldn’t squeeze the words past the lump in his throat. “Of course we did,” he said, and his voice sounded rough. “It wouldn’t have been right without you there.”
Thor’s soft, warm, smile loosened some knot in Loki’s chest. “Thank you,” he said. Loki made a dismissive gesture.
“No need to thank me for that.”
“I feel the need.” Thor rested his forehead against Loki’s. “I am glad,” he said, “that in spite of everything, you have found this happiness. And that it is with him.”
Loki had to swallow hard before he could speak. “I am...unbearably fortunate.”
“It is fortune you deserve.” Thor pulled away slowly. “Hogun and Volstagg would like to see you. If you would see them.”
“Would they,” Loki said. Thor gave him a reproving look.
“Any grudge they might have held against you is long gone now, Loki. Particularly after Sif told them the whole tale of your daring rescue. Volstagg would have gone to you direct; Hogun was the one to counsel against it.”
Loki looked away. “I would be intruding upon their grief.”
“You would be sharing in it.”
Loki twitched. It wasn’t untrue. Fandral had always been friendly to him. Quick with a laugh and a smile, brash and bold and foolish. But with Hogun and Volstagg, he would be too aware of himself. Too conscious of his own emotions, trying to perform what they would want, or else enacting the worst they would expect.
He shook his head. “Not now.”
Thor seemed disappointed, but he nodded. “Thor,” Loki added, impulsively, “I am sorry.”
Thor frowned. “For what? Not going to see them?”
Loki shook his head. “For your loss. Your losses. I know something of how it feels, and I...for what it is worth, I am here. To listen, should you wish it.”
As I wish someone had been to listen to me, some part of him thought, faintly bitter, but it was...faint. Maybe some part of him, somewhere, had almost wanted Thor to know what it was like to feel what he had. But as so often with his ill-wishes, its truth was anything but satisfying, and this...it had been a long time since he would have wished Thor anything like this.
Thor crushed him in another hug, tight enough to make his ribs ache, the bandages chafing on Loki’s burns. He kept quiet despite the pain, reluctant to push Thor away even for an instant. “I never doubted it. You came to find me across half a universe, after all.”
“And I would do it again,” Loki said, with perfect sincerity.
“I do not doubt it,” Thor said. Loki was glad his face was pressed to Thor’s shoulder, where he could keep his stupid-feeling smile to himself.
“Oaf,” Loki mumbled. His eyes burned. “I have missed you.”
“And I you,” Thor said. “It seems without my eyes on you you found even more trouble than usual. Even with Steve there as well.”
“Says the man who was trapped in a slave pen I had to get him out of,” Loki said. Thor’s laugh rumbled in his chest.
“Ah, Loki,” Thor said, with a fondness that warmed Loki through to his core.
“Ah, Thor,” he echoed, curling his fingers into Thor’s back like he could hold on tighter, a piece of his heart slotting back into place.