Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

At least some people managed to get away… At least some people get a chance to start over, even if I don’t. Even if we don’t…

Unless he switched sides, death was imminent for a certain God of Mischief. Death was even more certain for his brother.

Loki had finally found his place - well, sort of. They were working on it. The point is that his chance was gone now. Everything had been destroyed. The Ark, all that remained of Asgard… except for the few ships Valkyrie and Korg had managed to send off, it was all gone. All dead. Nothing left.

Right when he had started feeling like he belonged.

Right when he and Thor were getting along like they never did.

Right when there was a chance, a hope, for redemption, salvation.

All of it was destroyed at the hands of Thanos. And he wasn’t done yet.

The giant monster held his gauntlet to Thor’s head. On the steps, his goons were a moment away from killing him.

“Give me the Tesseract, Asgardian.” Thanos demanded.

Thor was yelling. “We don’t have the Tesseract!! It was destroyed along with Asgard!!” Loki avoided looking at Thor, but of course that didn’t delay anything.

“You are the worst brother.”

Thanos laughed, and looked to Loki with a sadistic grin. “It’s either the Tesseract, or your brother’s life. I’m sure you have a preference.”

“I do. So go on,” Loki waved him off, “kill away.”

Of course he had a preference. Of course that preference was his brother, and not some stupid infinity stone cube he stole out of the vault. Unfortunately, that stupid cube held near-infinite power, and Loki knew that all too well. If Thanos had it, he would be incredibly strong; possibly even undefeatable. He couldn’t let Thanos have it.

Thanos did as Loki said, pressing the gauntlet to Thor’s head and unleashing the power of the infinity stone he had. Thor’s screams echoed off of the walls of the mostly-destroyed Ark, and Loki couldn’t tear his eyes away.

Long ago, this moment would’ve been exactly what he wanted. He would’ve given Thanos the Tesseract and let him kill Thor, so long as he could watch. But now, it hurt him to see his brother in pain. His screams rang in Loki’s ears, swirling around with his thoughts until they all became knives stabbing at his heart-

“That’s enough!!!”

Thanos let up, moving his gloved fist back to his side with a shit-eating grin. Thor was panting, weak at the giant’s side. Loki revealed the Tesseract, and Thanos dropped Thor, who hit the ground with an echoing thud.

“You see, child?” Thanos began. “I have the power here. I have the will to do what is needed, to balance the world.”

“Yes, well…” Loki lowered the arm holding the Tesseract ever-so-slightly and looked up. “We have a hulk.”

He ducked and rolled and grabbed Thor, pulling him and the Tesseract to safety in a corner as Hulk came out from the shadows, pounding Thanos down into the center of the Ark. Thor had caught his breath, and was standing up to join the fight when Loki pulled him down.

“Brother, we must think ahead. We need to get rid of the Tesseract first.” He explained.

Thor was unimpressed. “Maybe if you hadn’t stolen it from the vault in the first place, we never would’ve been hunted down and slaughtered!”

“I thought we might need it!” Loki argued.

“You just wanted it for yourself.”

“Maybe so, but I also thought it would aid our rebuilding as well.”

Thor sighed. “You never change, do you, brother? Listen. I will aid Banner, and you hide the Tesseract. Got it? Great.” And with that he ran back to the front of the Ark, not giving Loki the chance to argue.

Looking over, he saw that it may have been a better idea to let Thor enter the battle earlier; Hulk was already down. Thanos didn’t bother killing him, that’s not what he came for, he wanted the Tesseract, and probably Loki’s head.

Loki pulled Thor aside once more. “Listen to me for once.” He spat. “I have an idea.”

Out of nowhere came the distraction they needed; the Bifrost was activated and it presumably swept someone or something away, drawing Thanos’s attention to Heimdall. The brothers watched as Thanos stabbed Heimdall through the heart with his own sword. There was no escape, not anymore.

One brother went back to hiding in the shadows; the other stayed standing at the front of the Ark, awaiting the moment to strike. He saw his opportunity once Heimdall was stabbed, and he rushed forward to Thanos, yelling a warcry.

Suddenly, he was covered in iron bars. His mouth was covered so he could not yell. He could not move. He could do nothing but watch as his plan was put into action.

Thanos taunted the Asgardian, when suddenly, at his side, was the other brother, holding the Tesseract.

“I, Prince of Asgard, the God of Mischief and Chaos, Loki…” he looked to his brother, trailing off. “Loki… Odinson, pledge my undying fidelity to you.” He bowed. Thanos and his goons were unimpressed. They didn’t notice the blade that appeared in his hand.

Quick as a flash, he took one step forward and stabbed, aiming for the monster’s throat. But his hand was caught. He dangled in the air, helpless.

This was, of course, part of Loki’s plan. But Loki hadn’t realized how strong those constraints would be. He didn’t realize how useless Thor was with a blade. He didn’t realize that he had just doomed them all.

“Undying?” Thanos asked, his other hand coiling around the brother’s neck. “You should pick your words better.” Thanos lifted him off the ground, squeezing the boy’s throat. He kicked and struggled to no avail. His brother screamed, yelled, and thrashed around in his constraints because this was not how this was supposed to go. In their struggles, the disguise disappeared.

One moment, Thanos had Loki in his grasp, choking him to death. The next, Loki was replaced with Thor. One-eyed, short-haired, recently-lost-damn-near-everything, Thor. And held down by tight iron bars and magic was Loki. Loki, who in hindsight realized he had caused all this when he attacked New York. Loki, who finally had a brother. Loki, who was now watching that brother die right before him because of his awful plan.

Thanos laughed. “You two really are a pair of charlatans. How clever of you to switch places, though it obviously didn’t work.”

Thor was struggling as hard as he could, lightning sparking from around his eye and his hands and it was hitting Thanos, it was, but it was doing no good. He was running out of air, running out of time, running out of energy to fight.

“Put him down!” Loki called. “You can take the Tesseract, we don’t care, just let him go!”

Thanos turned to Loki, amused. “You’re right.” He said. “I can take the Tesseract. I will let him go.” Loki was not relieved at all, since in doing this the universe would be all the more doomed, but he had let his brother down too many times. Not again. Never again.

Thanos turned back to Thor with a smile. The God of Thunder was still fighting, but it was much weaker. There wasn’t much time left for him. Thor looked to his brother and struggled against time to give him a one-word message: “Nidavellir.”

Thanos smirked, and snapped Thor’s neck before dropping him.

Loki was sure he was screaming. His throat felt raw and there were hot tears on his face. Yet he heard no noise. Nothing, until Thor’s body hit the floor with a sickening thud, his head facing Loki with pained expression engraved.

Thanos was saying something, but he couldn’t hear. He wasn’t listening, wasn’t watching, just waiting for Thor to stand up and beat the shit out of Thanos. But it didn’t happen. He stayed down.

Thanos entered Loki’s field of vision, wearing a smile on his face and a second infinity stone in his gauntlet. “You’re a clever man.” he said, and patted Loki’s head. “A shame you have to die now. At least you lived longer than your worthless brother.”

In some act of madness, Loki looked up and met the devil's eyes with a determination and pure hatred he hadn't felt in a long time. "You will never be a god." He warned. "And you will pay for this."

Thanos seemed amused, and neither said anything more.

The next thing Loki knew, the iron bars were gone, as were Thanos and his men. He was alone, surrounded by the corpses of his people and his brother. He crawled over to Thor’s body and held him tightly as the ship exploded.

                   ~~~~~~~~

Some time later, Starlord and his merry crew are flying towards a distress signal hoping to help. And get paid. But mostly to help, because they were good people. Usually.

Of course, nothing ever goes right for them. Whatever ship the signal came from had been destroyed. Corpses and pieces of metal floated past, the people almost looking as if they were sleeping. And then one flew into their windshield. Rocket was yelling for wipers to get the guy off, when he opened his eyes.

“Whoever this dude is, he’s pretty tough for surviving, yanno, space. Who knows how long he’s been out there.” Quill had been rambling.

“He couldn’t have been there for longer than a couple of hours.” Gamora reminded him. “No reason for him to be outside before the distress signal was sent.”

Mantis looked sad. “He is upset. Angry, no, furious! And he is sad. Very, very sad. He has lost something very dear to him. He has lost…” she trailed off.

“Well?” Quill poked her. “What’d he lose?”

Mantis opened her eyes, which were rapidly filling with tears. “Everything.”

Chapter Text

Peter Quill wasn’t one to pick up floating strangers from the wreckages of destroyed ships, but if the guy’s alive, he may pay them. And also whatever tried to kill him may come for them and he was not letting his ragtag little family get killed.

But this guy…. he was weird. There was something unsettling about him.

Drax seemed to have sensed it too. “He’s like a serpent. Did you see his eyes earlier? Those are the eyes of a snake.”

“I dunno,” Quill paced a bit. “I was thinkin’ he’s more like a weasel.”

“A weasel?” Drax asked, and Rocket groaned in the distance.

“Yeah, like Pop-Goes-The-Weasel, yanno?” Drax did not know, but Quill continued, “Yeah. He’s like…. an emo weasel.”

“I hate weasels…” Rocket muttered, half to himself and half to Groot.

Quill sighed. “Alright, fun’s over. Mantis, wake him up.”

Mantis did as she was ordered, and the emo weasel awoke with a start, bolting off the table. Everyone pulled their weapons on him as he ran, but he quickly stopped once he realized he was on a spaceship. The man turned around and faced the Guardians.

“....Who the hell are you people?”

“We’re the Guardians of the Galaxy, dude.” Quill announced, not lowering his gun. “Who are you?”

The man stood up tall as his face fell into an icy glare. “I am Loki, Prince of Asgard and King of Jo-”

“Okay, yeah, we don’t care.” Quill interrupted. “What the hell is Ass Guard?”

The glare broke, and was replaced with something along the lines of confusion. “It’s… Asgard. Not… Ass Guard. Asgard.” The man sighed. “Asgard is one of the nine realms, it’s recently been destroyed. Me and my brother have-” he stopped, suddenly tense. He dashed towards the front of the ship.

“Hey, hey, hey!!” the group ran after him. “Don’t touch those or we’ll shoot you!”

The man did not answer. He stared out the window into the vast emptiness of Space. After a long silence, he turned around. “Where is my brother?”

“Who?”

“My brother, Thor.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Thor. King of Asgard? God of Thunder? Kind of an idiot, looks like he’s had a very long day?”

The Guardians, with the exception of Quill, had long since put down their weapons. They were looking at eachother, trying to see if anyone knew what the hell this guy was talking about.

“Look, dude.” Quill finally said. “We just followed the distress signal. You were the only person alive at the scene. If this other guy was on the ship, he’s dead.”

“No.” The man’s voice was cold and harsh. “That other guy, my brother, Thor, is not dead. It was all a part of our plan to defeat Thanos. It… didn’t go as expected, but he is not dead, I assure you.”

“Thanos?” Gamora spoke up, taking a step forward. “What about Thanos, what did he do?”

The man looked up with cold eyes. Like a serpent. “Thanos attacked our ship. We were trying to get to Earth, to save what was left of Asgard. He murdered most of us, took the Tesseract and the Infinity Stone inside it, and left us all to die.” He turned back to the window. “Now he has two Infinity Stones. If he gets any more, we may not be able to defeat him. If he gets all of them, the entire universe is doomed.”

“Whoah, whoah, what?” Quill shouted, grabbing everyone’s attention. “He has two? I didn’t even know there was more than one!”

“He stole one from me, and he murdered most everyone on some planet to get the power stone.” The man looked and saw that most of the group wasn’t following. He sighed. “I had the blue one, earlier he killed people and got the purple one. There are four others, at least one of which is on Earth, or so I’ve heard.”

The second he mentioned “the purple one,” the entire group looked horrified. Gamora knew the names of all the stones, and what they could do, and she was now at the front of the group.

“Loki, was it? If there’s an infinity stone on Earth, he’ll be headed there. That’s where we should go.” she explained.

Loki nodded. “Yes. In that case, we need to split up.”

“Why? Do you know the location of another?”

“Yes. There’s one with the Collector in Knowhere. Also, I need to go to Nidavellir. That means we have three groups.”

“Uh, problem one…” Quill began, moving in front of Gamora in a more protective stance. “We’ve got one pod. We can only split into two groups. And two, there is no way in hell we are going to Earth so fuck that. And three, why do you need to go to Nidadedron?”

Loki looked bored and unimpressed. “It’s Nidavellir. Not that difficult.” Looking back out the window, he continued. “If there’s only one pod than we’ll split into two groups; one to get an infinity stone, whether it be on Earth or in Knowhere, and one to go to Nidavellir.”

“Hey, uh…” Rocket hopped up on the arm of the pilots chair. “Isn’t Nidavellir that dwarf armory? Heart of a dying star and all that? Creates amazing, incredibly destructive weapons?” The more he talked, the more excited he became.

“A crude description, but not wrong.” Loki confirmed.

The raccoon climbed to the head of the pilots chair to become nearly eye-level with the god. “Can I go with you? I can fly this thing, I’m actually the leader here, so. Groot can come too, he’s good help. Usually.”

Loki sighed quietly. “I will need a pilot, seeing as how I don’t know how this…. ancient technology works. You may come.”

“And Groot?”

The duo looked to the tree, who was quietly playing his game a little ways away from them all. Loki turned back to Rocket. “You’re certain he has to come?”

Rocket nodded.

“Fine. Let’s go. This place is dreadful.” He walked to the back of the ship, where he assumed the pod would be.

Quill was basically pouting. “It is not ancient, and it is not dreadful. You hear me? No one trashtalks this ship but me!”

Loki didn’t even acknowledge his yelling, while Rocket just laughed and ushered Groot along.

Before they took off, Loki called out to them. “I thank you for your aid, but I sincerely hope we never meet again. Stop Thanos. Goodbye."

Chapter Text

And so Loki, Rocket, and Groot set off for Nidavellir. With Rocket piloting and Loki navigating, they had little trouble.

Though, admittedly, Loki was annoyed by the bickering between Rocket and Groot, though of course he couldn’t understand half of it. Thor was the one who took Groot as an elective, not him. He focused on magic. Illusions.

Look where that got him.

They couldn’t get to Nidavellir quick enough. When they landed, Loki stretched and looked around. The place was abandoned, the star all but gone out. Worse yet, the place looked as though it had been… ransacked. Attacked.

He barely had time to question why it was in such disarray when he was promptly hit by something and flung across the room.

“Loki!! You are not welcome here!!” Came a booming voice.

Oh. Eitri. The dwarf king towered over the God of Mischief, who just had the wind knocked out of him and couldn’t quite get up yet, and raised his foot to step on him.

“Wait, wait!” Loki managed to sputter out, scooting away from his foot. “I come in peace! We need a weapon! You…” he stopped himself before he could insult him. “Your. Highness…?”

“Yeah, man!” Rocket called from the other side of the room. “We need somethin’ to beat Thanos!”

That stopped Eitri in his tracks. He looked over his shoulder. “Beat Thanos?” He paused. “Impossible.”

“Not impossible.” During that moment he was distracted, Loki had managed to stand up. “Not with the right weapon. We need you to make one for us.”

The dwarf king kneeled in front of Loki, silent. Then, he revealed his hands, which had previously gone unnoticed. They were covered in metal. Completely unusable.

“Thanos held us captive. Threatened to kill us all, unless we made him something to contain all six infinity stones.” Eitri looked almost ashamed. “To save everyone, I made the Infinity Gauntlet. Once it was completed, Thanos forced my hands into the uru, causing this… saying that I only worked for him.” The king’s breath caught. “And then… he killed everyone anyway.”

Rocket and Groot were somewhat distressed about this. Loki barely had time to process it before he was being glared at again.

“And it’s all your fault.” Eitri growled.

“What?” Loki stepped back. “I know I’m responsible for a lot, but this, that, that was obviously Thanos.”

“You started this war, Loki. You started it when you went to Earth.” Eitri stood up. “I could make a weapon, if the star were active. But even if it was, I wouldn’t make it. Not for you. ”

Eitri walked away, and Rocket and Groot finally regrouped with Loki.

“Uh,” Rocket called after him. “Would ya make it fer me and Groot?”

“You would not be worthy to wield such a weapon.” Came Eitri’s response. “Only for Thor. He is the only one worthy. Bring him, and then I’ll make you your weapon.”

Rocket sighed and went to look around the armory, muttering something about making one himself. Loki stayed where he stood.

“Thor is dead…”

Eitri didn’t even look over. “Speak up, boy.”

“Thor is dead!” Loki screamed, his words echoing off the walls of the abandoned armory. “Thanos killed him, and most of what remained of the Asgardians! He was killed, right in front of me. His neck was snapped , Eitri. And he told me, with his dying breath, to come to Nidavellir. To get a weapon. To stop Thanos!” He took a breath. All eyes were on him.

“Maybe I’m not worthy to wield a weapon made of uru, but damn if I’m going to deny my brothers last wish by not at least trying.”

The room fell silent, and part of Loki was certain he was about to be crushed by a giant dwarf, but mostly he just felt numb.

He had said it. And in saying it, he had forced himself acknowledge it.

He came to Nidavellir naively hoping that Thor would meet him there, that they would defeat Thanos together. But no.

Thor was dead. Loki had to accept it. But he couldn’t. He’d come back, Loki was certain.

But deep down he knew he was lying to himself.

“Thor is dead.”

He wasn’t sure who had said that, himself or Eitri, but he nodded.

The stronger, better, more loved, the worthy son of Odin was gone, and wasn’t coming back. And Loki, of all people, was left to fill his shoes.

Eitri sighed. “I will make you a weapon.” He began. “But first, we must start by reactivating the star.”