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Two children, Frigga quickly learned, were three times as much trouble as one alone. Once Loki had learned to walk as well as his brother, no doubt he and Thor would be four times the trouble as a single infant Thor had been. Her own mother assured her that the trouble they brought would only increase in magnitude the older they got.
Frigga’s mother was no seer, but Frigga was, and the words filled her with an unaccountable dread.
Still, there was a seer’s vague dread of things to come, and the reality of a beautiful late afternoon in the gardens with her sons. After waking from his nap, Thor usually wanted to toddle around, and soft grass was his favourite surface for practicing. She would watch while he did, and hold her far more cautious younger son’s hand as he experimented with his own steps. Such a simple thing, and yet it brought her such joy. The only thing that could possibly improve it was her husband’s presence, but unfortunately he was meeting with guildsmen in the city until late.
Thor tore down the last stretch of path ahead of her, from shaded colonnade into sunshine, surer on his feet every day. Frigga followed at a more sedate pace, carrying Loki and fending off his attempts to pull her hair.
She had just settled on a bench beneath her favourite oak tree when there was a spike of strong magic, a potent and heady mixture of energies. Rain and wind, burning ozone, and all overlaid by something alien and vast. Ancient. It screeched like a spell pushed to its very limits, further, so far that even her sons sensed it and looked around in alarm -
- And then it snapped, with a flash of lightning. Thor laughed and clapped his hands as thunder rumbled through a sky suddenly clouded over. Loki made a soft, unhappy noise.
Somewhere ahead of her, on the other side of some flowering shrubs, a man groaned in pain. A man who, though she could not see him, gave off magic that felt like ozone.
Frigga set Loki down by the bench and called Thor back over. He listened, with a last glance up at the sky. “Look after your brother for a second,” she said. Then, cautious of further magic, she headed towards the sound. She was mere steps away when there was a second groan, and the man pulled himself up. And up, and up. Asgardian, tall and strong even for their people. A warrior, too, that was plain by his fine (if slightly battered) black armour, though Frigga could see no weapons on him.
He turned, moving as if injured or impossibly weary. Blood dripped from one hand. When he caught her gaze with his single eye, he gasped aloud, before his features settled into an expression of grief.
“Are you hurt?” Frigga asked. Strange reaction aside, if she could help, she would. She did not need to fear him. Of that she was certain. “I felt the magic that brought you here.” The shattered workings of the spell still splintered off him, even as they bound him to something and somewhere else.
“I-“ he began, then broke off. “No, my lady. Not in a way that can be fixed with a healing stone. Except for my hand, and even that’s not too bad.”
“I see,” Frigga said. She knew enough of war to know the truth of that. “Then, perhaps, could you tell me of the magic you used?”
“It was not my doing,” he replied, “and I don’t know how it was accomplished. I simply provided some power.”
He sounded choked, and his gaze dropped. Frigga found herself believing him. More, she felt her heart go out to him. This warrior was still a young man, after all. He couldn’t be more than a millennium and a half. Too young for such grief and pain. “No matter,” she said. “Rest, then, before that spell whisks you off again.” She was certain that it would. It was meant for travel, of some kind, and it was not so stable a spell that it would let him choose when he left.
The man gave her a second utterly heartbroken look. In the low light, his eye was the same colour as the clouds above. Rain started to fall, and another roll of thunder sounded. “I regret that I cannot,” he said. “I have work to do here that cannot wait.”
Before she could respond, there was a tugging at her skirts. Thor had grown bored, it seemed, and dragged his brother over as well. He pointed up to the sky. “Why?” he asked.
Frigga’s companion barked out a laugh. “Magic,” he said. “Forgive me. It seems I have let it get away from me somewhat.”
“It’s pretty,” Thor said.
“Yes,” the man agreed. “Dangerous, though. Controlling it is my responsibility. Magic is a power that must be respected wherever it’s found.” His eye flicked to Loki, almost entirely hidden behind Frigga’s skirts and Thor both. “A lesson I learned later than I ought.”
Burned by his own lightning, Frigga surmised, torn between amusement and a nagging prophetic feeling that something here was deeply wrong. It was hardly unknown for the warriors of Asgard to scorn their own magic as somehow unmanly. Those with stronger gifts usually paid the price. The power in that storm was not trivial. She nodded her agreement to her son. “He’s right,” she told Thor. “Even the smallest tricks are power that deserve your respect.”
Her elder son looked back up at the sky. In the low light, his eyes were the same colour as the clouds.
Frigga only had time to look back up at the warrior before her before the magical energies he’d brought with him swirled again, stronger and more dangerous this time. She pulled her children back, Loki now crying out in alarm. Her poor dear was sensitive to such things, it seemed. “Thor?” she asked, needing the confirmation.
“Mother,” the grown version of her son replied. He smiled, though it seemed an effort. He’d grown up handsome. And sad. What could have made her boisterous, cheerful boy so sad? “It is - is has been good to see you, even for this short time. But I fear that time is running out.”
She could see the magic in the visible spectrum now, lightning and an unfamiliar green energy combined. Older Thor took a few steps back, just to make absolutely sure that they were clear of the spell. “Please,” he said. “Look after Loki.”
“Why?” she asked, afraid. The wind picked up, and the lightning sparked around him all the fiercer.
Older Thor gave her a look which said nothing so clearly as you know why, but before he could tell her anything more specific, lightning struck, the spell fired, and he was gone again.
Behind her, younger Thor laughed at the display of magic - Frigga wondered what it must have felt like, his own magic used by his future self, whether there was some sort of resonance there - while Loki finally settled. She knelt to embrace him, while his brother poked at the scorchmarks the spell had left.
Look after Loki.
She was Loki’s mother. She would hardly do less. But why would the older Thor entreat her so? What had gone wrong? Frigga shivered, and resolved to speak to her husband.
—
Loki squeezed himself through a gap in the walls in the back corner of the training yard and out into a deserted part of the old Einherjar quarters. Not many people knew about it, but Loki did. He knew lots of ways around the palace. From the narrow passages it was easy enough to get to a little gap underneath some stairs.
Safely tucked away, out of sight of everyone, Loki at last let himself cry.
“Hello there,” an unfamiliar voice said. “Are you well?”
Loki jerked upwards, nearly hitting his head in the enclosed space. He hurriedly wiped his eyes. That was a grown-up speaking. He poked his head out - not just any grown-up, but a warrior. Not one that Loki recognised, but the man’s armour was fine. Darker than current fashions, and in need of repair, but underneath that, fine. He was missing an eye, like Father. Loki would not shame himself in front of any of Father’s warriors. “I am well,” he said.
“You hide under stairs for your own entertainment, then?”
He scowled. That was something like Mother would say when she caught him in a lie. The man even looked a bit like Mother. He had the same hair as she did, though hers was long and pretty, and this man’s was cut shorter than anyone he’d ever seen before. “Yes,” he said.
The man laughed, and Loki flushed. “I can well believe it,” the man said, with a broad smile. “Will you tell me what happened for you to decide to seek entertainment here?”
He hadn’t planned to tell anyone, but the man was listening. So Loki told him, how Thor was going away for three months with the other children training as warriors, and Loki had tried to pass the tests to come along too, but he couldn’t, not without using magic, and Tyr wouldn’t let him use magic, and -
“You must be very skilled with your magic,” the man said.
Loki narrowed his eyes. He’d heard that before. Usually before some mockery. “I train hard too,” he said.
“I don’t mean to disparage any of your skills. Please, continue.”
“There’s not much more to tell,” Loki said. Three months. He wanted to go. “I’m not a baby. I’m almost five hundred. I can too keep up. It’s just that Thor -“
His brother didn’t want him.
“A difficult situation,” the man said. “What did fa- your parents say about it?”
Did this man not know who he was talking to? No matter. It might be useful to hear the man’s advice without the knowledge that Loki was a prince of Asgard. “My father said I must abide by Tyr’s decision,” he said. “And my mother said that I should respect that my brother is not a baby either and his reasons for wanting to go without me are just as important as my reasons for wanting to go with him.”
“A wise judgment,” the man said. “Consider this, too. Your brother is probably every bit as worried about leaving you are you are about him leaving. It’s sometimes easier to pretend you don’t want something at all than to admit a weakness or insecurity.”
“My brother never worries,” Loki said, half-indignantly. Thor was always smiling, and everyone always said how strong he was. There was no possible way he was worried, least of all about leaving Loki behind.
The man laughed again. “A lie, I assure you.”
“You don’t know my brother.”
“Perhaps not. I do have some experience with brothers. They’re difficult creatures at the best of times.” He chuckled, and smiled sadly at Loki. “I would offer to take you on an adventure to make up for the one you’ll miss with yours, but I doubt I’ll have the time.”
Curiosity aroused, Loki asked, “So you have an older brother too?”
“A younger brother,” the man said. “He was a liar, a thief, and a murderer; he was conceited, unreliable, treacherous, he often sharpened his tongue on others, and he had no patience for fools, and I loved him dearly.”
Loki frowned. “If you’ll forgive me, that doesn’t sound like a loveable list of qualities.”
“No,” the man agreed, “But he was many things besides that, and he was my brother. I didn’t have to approve of the things he did to love him. There is little I would not do to have him back. When your brother is grown up enough, he’ll feel that way about you too. Though I hope you never cause the sort of trouble that my brother caused.”
He said it with conviction. Loki didn’t believe him. He tried to keep himself from crying again. The man pretended he didn’t see. “What’s your name?” Loki asked.
The man hesitated. “Call me…call me Banner.”
“Banner,” Loki repeated. “That’s a strange name.”
“But a good one,” the man, Banner-so-called, rejoined. “It is the name of a warrior of Midgard as mighty in mind as he is in body. Shall we go see what we can find in the way of adventure?”
Loki thought about it. Banner didn’t seem hostile. He didn’t have much idea what the man was capable of, beyond the fact he was clearly a trained warrior. He wasn’t armed. Loki felt for hostile magic, like his mother had taught him. Not many warriors could use magic past what it took to summon armour.
Banner-so-called had more. A lot more. It felt like a thunderstorm, and even as Loki tried to work out just what he was sensing, something different spiked through.
Banner sighed. “Time’s up. I wish this was more predictable, but as they say on Midgard, beggars can’t be choosers. Loki, stand back.”
“What is this?” Loki asked, fascinated. It was a spell, he was sure, worked on Banner. It was a more powerful one than he had ever seen before, and it used two sources for power rather than just one. “What’s doing this?”
“Stand back,” Banner-so-called hissed. His hands flickered with lightning, while a different energy started to pick up around his feet. There was a strange smell in the air, like something burning. He leaned in to get a closer look - and a strong hand grabbed his shoulder and hurled him away. Head spinning, Loki sat back up only to see a bolt of lightning hit Banner. When Loki managed to blink away the afterminage, Banner was gone.
He had to work out how that was done. Or what that was. Suddenly, three months without Thor was looking a bit more bearable, if he had a project like this to focus on.
It wasn’t until he was in the library, searching out potentially useful books, that he realised that Banner-so-called had known his name after all. It was hardly unexpected, Loki thought, and went back to his reading.
—
If Loki was well when they found him, Thor would skin his brother himself. This he vowed. And Father called him reckless. (In fairness, Thor knew it to be true.) But his brother. Dangle anything shiny and inscrutable in front of his face and he went haring off after it. Now he, Sif, and the Warriors Three were scattered through a Vanaheim forest in the middle of the night, trying to find the member of their group least able to defend himself.
There was hardly any tracking him, either. If this were a normal forest, Thor wouldn’t be worried about him in the slightest. He’d never let his fastidious nature stop him from travelling. But this wasn’t normal. There were bandits about. That’s why they’d been sent there. A minor test of their skills.
Or rather, a minor test of Thor’s skills, and those of his friends. Loki wasn’t supposed to be here. Loki was supposed to be at home, studying.
Above him, he could feel a storm starting. It felt like his magic, too, and Thor cursed both his own lack of discipline and his brother. Lightning struck in time with the emphasis of his words. Cathartic as it was, his mother would be so disappointed in him. She worked so hard - made him work so hard - to help him control his powers.
He called Loki the foulest name he knew, a massive bolt of lightning splintered a tree six paces away, and a man shouted in alarm. Thor drew his sword. A bandit? The voice wasn’t Loki’s.
“Ow,” the man groaned. He sounded neither very hurt, nor very scared. “What happened this time?”
Thor did not advance. Nor did he retreat. This time he was being careful. He stayed ready, in case this man turned out to be hostile.
“Vanaheim?” the man asked himself, then with a leap, scaled a nearby tree. When he crashed back down, he said, “Vanaheim.” He looked around, no more than a shadow in the night, and stopped on Thor.
No choice now. Thor stepped forward, into a wan beam of moonlight from a gap in the canopy created when the lightning struck, and said, “Identify yourself.”
There was a long pause. Thor wished for some light so he could tell what the other man was thinking, and did not relax in the slightest. “Banner,” the man said. “Of nowhere. I mean you no harm.”
Thor snorted. That sounded like bandit to him. Yet for Loki’s sake, who still might need assistance, Thor held back. If nothing else, a counter-hostage might be useful. “If you mean no harm, tell me, have you seen my brother? Dark hair, lean, a little shorter than me.”
“If I had seen him, I would tell you,” Banner said. “I haven’t seen him. Is he in danger?”
“Is he in danger?” Thor repeated incredulously. “Is he in danger? He is missing, in the middle of the night, in a forest with a bandit camp not two miles from here, and you - an admitted exile without family - ask me if he might be in danger?” One more wrong word, and he’d attack. He was in no mood to be strung along by an outlaw.
There was a heavy sigh. “Fine,” the man said. “As some friends of mine might say, if you’re going to be like that…”
The rain picked up. Thor could feel the magic in the storm. Another bolt of lightning stabbed down, not at his command, illuminating -
Mouth suddenly dry, he said, “Your name isn’t Banner.”
“No,” Older Thor agreed. “But trust me when I say it would be my pleasure to help you find Loki.”
The older version of himself fell into step beside him. How much older? Five hundred years? Seven hundred? “Is there a reason you’ve come back to this time?” he asked, worried. “Is Loki - is he in serious danger?”
“At the moment? Not as far as I’m aware,” Older Thor said. “I’m no expert on time travel. So far I’ve simply been yanked through time and spat out. I get a few minutes, and then I get pulled away again. It’s very frustrating. I would advise you avoid my future just to avoid the nausea from the transit.”
“I see,” Thor said. He didn’t really. The experience was surreal, and he was oddly glad that he couldn’t see his older self very well. “What future is that, then?”
“How old are you?” Older Thor asked. “A thousand? Nine hundred? There’s a lot I could tell you, and none of it you’ll understand. I can tell you to think before you act and to be a gracious guest on other words all I like, but if you’re anything like I was, you’re only going to learn the hard way.”
That stung. “You sound like Loki,” Thor said. “Or Father.”
“I’ve learned my lessons,” Older Thor said. “The hard way.”
They proceeded in silence for a distance, before firelight became visible through the trees. “The camp,” Thor said.
“I see Loki,” Older Thor said. “In the centre. Tied up.” Thor made to rush the camp, but Older Thor stopped him. “Do not underestimate our brother,” he warned.
“I don’t,” Thor said, surprised. “He’s less capable in a straight fight than I am, but ten times the magician and more capable of deception. If he’s truly captured, he could use the rescue. If that’s an illusion, he could use the distraction to spring whatever trap he has in mind.”
Whatever he’d said gave Older Thor pause. “I’ll bring the storm for you,” he said, after a thoughtful pause. “I don’t think it would be wise for me to go into combat with you when I could be dragged away without much warning. You focus on our brother.”
Thor smiled. “My pleasure.”
It transpired that the brother he’d seen in the centre of the camp was an illusion after all, cover for Loki stealing certain objects from the bandit chief. The fight went well, Thor only taking a few minor cuts, and Loki a few cracked ribs. When they were done, Older Thor was nowhere to be seen.
Thor didn’t mention him to Loki, unsure of what to say. He hoped his older self had got what he’d come here for. Whatever that was.
—
Gaols, Loki had decided, were very boring. He’d decided that thirty seconds after they left him alone in his cell. The days and weeks that followed did not induce him to change his opinion in the slightest. Every day, the same routine: he woke up, he was fed, he tried to amuse himself until he was fed next, and so on until it was time to sleep. The only variation from the routine were the visits from his family, and even those went almost to script.
Why did you do it, Loki? Won’t you say you’re sorry, Loki? We love you, Loki, if only you’d believe us. Tedious sentimentality.
“Oh, Loki,” his brother’s voice said.
He had an acid reply starting with why so disappointed ready, when he realised that though it was his brother’s voice, it was not his brother. Not as Loki knew him. The figure that emerged from the doorway had short hair, battered armour, and only one eye. The last Loki had seen that figure, he’d called himself ‘Banner’. “Well,” he said, “That makes a few things clear, doesn’t it?”
“I’d hoped not to see you here again,” the alternate version of his brother said.
“Why?” Loki said, baring his teeth in an expression that some might call a smile. “You did tell me your brother was a liar, a thief, and a murderer. Did you think you could change that?”
The other Thor was silent, and Loki realised. “You did,” he said. “A single conversation a millennium ago, and you thought you could change everything. You thought you could change me, without bothering to change yourself. What unmitigated arrogance.”
“Or so you assume,” other Thor said. “I’ve been spat out at two dozen places in this timeline, and at most of those there’s been precious little I could do. I spoke to you once, and all I hoped to do there was comfort you. If it changed things, so much the better. I am to assume you attacked Midgard?”
“Oh, yes. I definitely did.”
Other Thor sighed. “Did you run afoul of Banner again?”
“Again? My brother, I have not ‘run afoul’ of the beast once.”
For some reason, that made Other Thor smile. “Truly? Then how were you defeated in Midgard?”
He couldn’t help but scowl; it was a bitter memory. “The archer knocked me off my feet with a trick arrow, and your counterpart pinned me down with that blasted hammer. Not how it happened in your timeline, I take it.”
“Not at all. But friend Stark did give you the drink he promised afterwards, and even you had to admit he has excellent taste in spirits.”
“Then my counterpart has all the luck. Where did Stark get spirits from, anyway?” After being defeated by a trick arrow and pinned to the ground like a bug, he could have used a drink. Just the memory of it was enough to make him wish for a drink. That, and having a brother from an alternate timeline confirm that he’d failed there, too.
Other Thor was the one to frown, this time. “Surely you jest. Stark’s own tower was the scene of your defeat in that timeline.”
“Not in this one. While I would have appreciated the opportunity to humiliate the metal man, I attacked the seat of the most powerful government in Midgard. The buildings were not what one could call prepossessing, but it sent a certain message.”
“So…you did not attack the city of New York?”
“As I said.”
And Other Thor broke out into a blinding smile. “Then I have changed things,” he said. “Tell me, how many died in your invasion?”
A change? Of significance? “Several hundred, I believe. Perhaps a thousand. I was denied specific information, so I could not take satisfaction in my crimes.”
“This is wonderful!” Other Thor said, the very picture of sincerity. “In my timeline, you attacked New York, and several thousand humans were killed. Even years later, there was still rebuilding going on.”
Loki scoffed. “A difference of a few thousand meager human lives? That’s all? You’re proud of yourself for that?”
“Were that the only effect of my actions, I would indeed be proud of that,” Other Thor said. “But should I change more, brother, there may yet come a time when you will need the residents of Midgard to tolerate your presence in their realms. Now, since I seem to have caught you in a talkative mood, tell me - what of Thanos?”
Thanos. Loki hadn’t breathed a word. His mouth went dry. “You know of Thanos?”
Other Thor walked right up to him and put his hand on the glass between them. “Loki, my brother. You did not ask why I needed to come back.”
Oh, that conjured up a whole range of terrifying scenarios. “The Mad Titan,” he said. He did not let himself shiver. Thanos might know or reason that he had been defeated, but with any luck he believed Loki dead. He was on Asgard, and whatever else Asgard might be, it was as safe from Thanos as any world could be. “When I fell into the void -“
“You fell?”
Another change? “Yes. I fell.”
“In my world, you let go.”
He let go. Loki could not imagine being so desperate as to let go, not before the void. After, perhaps, he would have made the choice…if he did not by then know what was in the void to torment him. “The world you come from doesn’t seem like a good one,” he said.
“The more I know, the more I may be able to change,” Other Thor said grimly. “I only learned of Thanos minutes before he nearly crushed my head.”
Loki imagined it. It was disturbingly easy. Thanos would do it slowly. He would draw it out. Even Thor wouldn’t be able to withstand him. “Was it him who took your eye?” he asked.
Other Thor shook his head. “It’s not important. Thanos, Loki. I need to know.”
He’d barely got two sentences out of his mouth before he felt the spell that bound Other Thor, catapulting him through time in a desperate and probably ill-fated attempt to change things so that Thanos could be defeated. “Thor,” he said, as the spell became visible. Strangely, it seemed a bit less substantial than he remembered it. “Make him suffer.”
“No,” Other Thor said. “I tried that already. But I promise you, brother, one day the sun will shine on us again.”
Then he was gone, and Loki was alone in his prison. He knew, too, what had happened to him in Other Thor’s timeline. There is little I would not do to have him back, Other Thor had told him when Loki was a child. Fight the Mad Titan. Go back in time and try to save him.
He hoped that in the other timeline, he’d died quickly. Sentiment. It never ended well for him.
—
“So, Loki brought aliens to London this time,” Tony said, as the plane descended. When Thor called for backup to stop the destruction of a major metropolitan area, possibly also the universe, you didn’t hang around. “That’s a change. I would have thought New York. Tokyo maybe. It’s traditional.”
“Ever seen an episode of Doctor Who?” Natasha asked, from her co-pilot’s spot next to Cap. (Read: she was in charge of all the computers, while Steve took care of the flying.) In the back, Clint was preparing his arrows, saying nothing. “London’s traditional too.”
“Any word on Thor?” Tony asked, surveying the chaos below. Hard to tell what was going on there.
“Social media’s lit up. Apparently he was on the Tube.”
“What, in this?” Steve asked.
Tony was way ahead of him. “Got pictures and everything.”
He showed them, and Steve shook his head. “That doesn’t look real.”
“And yet apparently it is.” Tony was saving this picture. It was glorious. “Seriously though. Where’s Loki in all this?”
“Facial recognition has him a little ways away from the main fight. Heading there now. What Thor’s into doesn’t look like something we’re best equipped to deal with.”
“Which is exactly why we’re going to go fight Loki,” Steve said. “We’ve already beaten him once.”
It was orders of magnitude harder to chase down Loki in a city the size of London. It made the invasion of Washington look positively sedate. It took a full hour, by which time the fight-fight had calmed down. Global and/or intergalactic catastrophe avoided, yay for Earth, good thing Thor was around. Fortunately, Loki didn’t seem bent on destruction himself. He ducked and weaved and used illusions, nearly losing Tony at one point, but eventually they ran him to ground.
Even then, he didn’t turn to fight, but simply raised his hands in surrender and said, “Don’t you have anything better to do with your time?”
Tasers at the ready (Thor had told them they were reasonably effective on Asgardians), Natasha said, “I’m pretty sure everyone’s got time for someone who invaded Washington D.C. They just got the Capitol dome repaired.”
“How interesting. Perhaps I’ll visit again.” God the guy was an asshole. Just standing there as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Tony reeeeeally wanted to punch him, but since Loki had surrendered Steve would probably consider it gratuitous. He checked up on Clint, standing on a nearby rooftop, bow still drawn.
Without warning, and for no discernible reason, Loki jerked in surprise. His hands went down - and Barton loosed his arrow.
Tony had just enough time to thin oh, shit, before a truly thunderous clap of thunder split the air around them, close enough for the shockwave to foul the arrow’s flight. Big brother had arrived on the scene.
Only, that didn’t look like the Thor that Tony had just seen photographed on the tube. He didn’t know which was most surprising: the lack of flowing blond Point Break locks, the lack of an eye, or the fact that he was visibly electrified. “You,” Loki said, sounding utterly resigned.
“Uh,” Tony said.
“I second your uh,” Natasha said. She was probably noticing the fact that this Thor had put himself between them and Loki. It seemed significant.
Steve, being the leader and all, kept his head on straight. “Is that you, Thor?” he asked.
“An interesting question,” Loki said. That was the other thing. Thor, electrified, but no Mjolnir. No only-the-worthy-may-wield hammer. Tony had a very bad feeling about this.
The only move maybe-Thor made, however, was to wave a hand backwards at his brother in a shush sort of gesture, sparks fading. There had been electricity in his eye, seriously creepy and painful-looking. “Yes,” he said. “Friends, I apologise, I cannot let you harm him, nor put him in a Midgardian prison.”
They’d worked with each other long enough that they didn’t need to look at each other for their reactions. This was Steve’s to take point on. “I understand he’s your brother, but we let him go with you on the understanding that he’d face Asgardian justice.”
“He’s out under my supervision, to face a graver threat,” maybe-Thor said. He turned back to Loki and asked, “Mother?”
Blank-faced, Loki shook his head, and maybe-Thor’s face crumpled with grief for a second. That was a shitty feeling. Tony stamped on it; they couldn’t afford to feel sorry for Loki, even if his mom had just died.
Maybe-Thor opened his mouth again, but the second peal of thunder interrupted him. That, and Thor with the right blond hair and shiny armour (a bit scuffed up this time), landing next to them. “What’s going on?” he asked, then caught sight of his short-haired doppelganger. “Oh. You.”
“Me.” He smiled. It looked forced. It had to be forced, ‘cause his bro just told him their mom was dead. “Sorry.”
Natasha had clearly had enough of standing back. “Thor,” she asked their Thor, “Who is this?”
“An alternate version of myself hailing from some point in the future, attempting to change events I suspect went very badly for us,” Thor said, eyeing maybe-Thor suspiciously.
“One sentimental moment at a time,” Loki muttered. He didn’t look thrilled at this development.
Maybe-Thor ignored him. “That’s about right,” he said. He made that shushing gesture at Loki again. Someone had got the memo about baby bro finding a hole and digging it deeper every time he opened his mouth. “It’s a bit complicated.”
“Complicated?” Tony spluttered. “How do you exist here - don’t say magic, I can’t stand it, don’t say magic.”
“Magic,” maybe-future-Thor (too long; he and his trendy eyepatch was now going to be Pirate Thor) said, and Tony groaned. “Science too, which your own counterpart in my timeline was responsible for. The end goal, of course, is for me not to exist at all.”
From the rooftop, Clint asked, “Suicide mission?” He had a new arrow nocked, but not drawn. Pirate Thor was still between him and Loki, and Barton was a considerate teammate who didn't fill even sketchy possible imposters with arrows at the slightest provocation, not even when they stood between him and his worst enemy.
“In a sense,” Pirate Thor said solemnly. “But when half the universe is dead, sacrifices are necessary and thought out carefully.”
Half the universe. Half-
“Are you serious?” Steve asked. Which was more words than Tony could get out. They were really hearing this. Their resident Asgardian wasn’t writing it off as nonsense. Even Loki looked as though this was serious.
“Unfortunately. There are artefacts of power out there, like the Tesseract, and there is a being who seeks to collect them, and then use them. We fought, with many brave allies. We lost. Half the living beings in the universe were dissolved into ash with a snap of his fingers. That is what I have come back to prevent, at the earliest stage possible.”
None of them could say anything after that. It felt like half an hour while they all tried to process. It was probably more like a minute. Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, standing in a London alley, contemplating the death of half the universe.
Clint was the first to speak. “And to stop it, you need Loki.”
“I confess my ulterior motives,” Pirate Thor said. “But I do believe Loki is able to contribute to heading this crisis off, yes.”
“Able,” Clint said. “Willing?”
Behind Pirate Thor, Loki hissed, “If I can make him pay for what he did -“ before getting his third shush gesture.
Their Thor said, “I would like to test your word.” He dropped Mjolnir in front of Pirate Thor. The head made a distinct thunk on the pavement. “If you are attempting to deceive us, I doubt Mjolnir will find you worthy.”
“Fair,” Pirate Thor said, and picked the hammer up as easily as their Thor did. He smiled at it fondly for a second, then handed it back. “I have not lied.”
“Then start talking,” Natasha said. “The more we know, the better.”
“I would,” Pirate Thor said, “But I’m out of time for the moment. With luck I will not see you again. Without it, fare well.”
There was a light show then, in which Pirate Thor vanished like he’d never been. Loki said, “The magic is weakening. He’s changed enough history that his timeline is fading away.”
“Yeah, but,” Tony said. “What do we do with that bombshell?”
Six grim faces stared at each other as Steve said, “We work something out.”
—
When they got a moment to take a breath afterwards, Thor asked Loki, “Do you think this happened to my future self? Father, Hela, the destruction of Asgard?” If it had - Thor wished he could have said. He wasn’t sure what he might have done, but he would have done something.
His brother considered the question. “He was missing an eye. It would seem we might have caught up to him, or nearly so.”
Thor stood. He was bone tired, but there was still so much to do. So much to worry about. They had so little, and time was running out. “You took the Tesseract from the vault, yes?”
“Of course.”
He started pacing the room. “We’re vulnerable here. If Thanos decided he wanted to take it from us now, if he has some way of tracking the Stones…I could fight, but even with the Hulk, there’s no way we could win without tearing the ship apart. Can we use the Tesseract?”
Loki considered. What magical calculations he was running, Thor was ignorant of. “To get to Midgard? It would take a lot of energy. Even with your assistance Heimdall and I would be in no shape to fight for some time afterwards.”
“But we would be on Midgard,” Thor said. This was the better way. He was sure of it. “Our allies have been preparing for years. We can fight together. Protect the Infinity Stones, together.”
“I’m all for making Thanos bleed for every gain,” Loki said. “Though your counterpart did once advise me on the desirability of killing Thanos first and spitting on his grave later. Not in so many words, you understand, but he promised me that if we did this, the sun will shine on us again.”
Thor clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Sounds more like something you would say than I, but in any case, start preparing to open the way to Midgard. We can’t have that be an empty promise.”