Chapter Text
Loki spots his brother among the debris in the desolate battlefield, and a warmth settles in his chest. A warmth which, apparently, has desperately been missing in there for the last five years.
Huh. So that's what that was.
Naturally, the feeling arrives in company with that ever-unavoidable anxiousness that prickles Loki's insides, these years, every time he's faced with the head of golden hair and piercing eyes (eye? Didn’t you only have one eye?). A gaze which had become increasingly and uncomfortably a little too knowing for his tastes, in the later time the two of them spent together.
More so than ever, right now. A lot of emotion in those eyes (eye ... anyway). Thor stands a little away from a person on the ground leaning against some large break of a building (is that Stark?). More people are gathering around. A woman is speaking to the person, who is probably Stark, and Loki thinks he might have seen that strawberry blonde hair before. (Potts, that's it.) A kid is crying, and someone is holding him in their arms. In fact, a lot of people are crying. Loki decides that he probably could not have chosen a worse time than this one in which to appear.
Then again, it isn't as if there is a lot of choice-in-the-matter as to time and place involved with escaping from the claws of Death herself.
Thor isn't crying, Loki notices as his brother (once-brothers, anyway) draws back further as the others are closing in. That officer of theirs, the star-spangled one who, if a bit obnoxious, also has an admittedly appealing backside, walks up to Thor's side. Thor doesn't look at him. His eyes are fixed on his friend on the ground; by now dead friend, it seems likely to be. He's wearing a slight frown.
The Captain surpasses him, putting a hand on someone's shoulder further ahead.
Abruptly Loki's brother turns his back to the scene, walking away in the opposite direction. Still not crying, Loki notes, following him from the shadows and safe in the distance. Only that frown. It must be difficult, too: they ought to be celebrating, having defeated Thanos finally (they defeated Thanos) yet they must have lost many more than a single man. Evermore the paradox of war.
Thor walks with steady steps. Knowing his brother Loki doesn't think he has any specific destination in mind. A new axe (which is beautiful, if very large) hangs limp in his hand. His back is straight, chin held high but gaze somewhere else. It is odd to see him like this, beside himself as Loki has never seen him before, as if many more than five mere years have passed. But then, of course, that was all rather to be expected.
The changes in his appearance, Loki can't find in himself to deny: it's kind of a look. He loathes to admit it but though that mop of hair is for sure frustratingly neglected, it is ... well, his brother is an even more intimidating figure than usual. Not that Thor especially was lacking in that department but here they are.
Loki looks back at the gathering of people over his shoulder. He's still a good thirty-five feet away from Thor himself, hidden partly by magic shrouding him and partly by just the fortunate effect of lingering debris and dust in the air - it isn't hard to not be noticed. The others are further yet and Loki, deeming now a good a time as ever, speeds up his pacing. He nears the figure from behind and diagonally to the right, dropping any residue of shrouding magic.
His tongue feels heavy but he wills it to move. There is nothing to be scared of.
Maybe twenty-five feet away and slowing down his step, he calls out. “Thor,” he goes for but his voice cracks and is but a croak from disuse, barely audible. He grimaces, clearing his throat. That thing still isn't working properly. Figures, since he only just got an actual, physical body back. He wonders if the bruising is as fresh as the injury feels because he hasn’t had the chance to look in a mirror yet - not that he particularly cares for that. But he imagines it doesn't look especially inviting.
“Thor,” he calls again, voice carrying a little louder this time.
His brother stops, shoulders drawing tense. He doesn't turn and Loki pauses his movement, waiting.
Then Thor begins walking again.
“Thor,” Loki calls again and can hear the slight waver in his own voice. He walks faster, a good twenty feet out to Thor's right side to make himself visible in the peripheral vision (which eye was lost again? Is the new one working or is it just for show?) if Thor won't turn, himself.
Thor stops walking again and so does Loki, irritated with his own inability to just go to his brother already. But he can't help it – something in him is trembling like a damn child afraid in the night. He can feel his knees shaking and his heart beating in his ears as if he's scared, as if he would have to fear his own brother or something as trivial as this, announcing that he's back - that's a good thing, isn't it, it's good and well and Thor will be glad to see him. So Loki doesn't know why this is making him so damn anxious.
Thor still isn't turning to him and Loki sighs. He can hear the shiver in the release of air. He crosses his arms because his legs won't budge, for some reason.
His tongue feels suddenly too heavy to form any words at all and even the set of irritation in his face feels like it's trembling. Like his entire person, everything he thought was stable inside and outside of him is crumbling just from his brother's presence.
The warmth is still there, however. He clings on to it like to a lantern in the dead of night when all he really wants to do is run.
Thor finally turns to him. He's still frowning - that small, unreadable crease.
Loki's face feels like it shatters under his gaze and horrified, he thinks he might cry right then and there just by Thor looking at him. He can feel it threatening to burst from behind his features and for a terrible second, he's absolutely sure he won't be able to hold it back. Just how embarrassing would that be. Then he gets it under control, setting his mouth in a thin line, jaw tight. If he says anything now it will break.
Thor only blinks at him. He cocks his head a little, staying where he is. It's unbearably quiet.
Loki almost wishes someone would turn from the gathering a little while away and notice them. Although they are likely too far by now for anyone to be able to make out that this is Loki, Loki, remember? New York? War-criminal, hated by all on Earth?
He finds himself wishing desperately for punishment, renunciation, for any old grudge to be enforced, anything but this quiet. He thinks he just might run, anyway.
But his feet are locked. His knees are shaking and he's afraid Thor can see it, by now. He tries to get it under control and he can't. He swallows, carefully pressed expression breaking off at the edges, desperate to keep it glued together on his face.
Then Thor takes in an abrupt breath, eyes flashing with something and turning away from Loki again. He is hit by fear like a punch to the stomach that Thor will simply start walking again. He has seen him, he has recognized that Loki is alive and here, he's here, and he doesn't care. He's going to leave Loki in this dusty field of death to find his own way because that is what Loki has brought onto himself, Thor doesn't care anymore, stopped doing so a long time ago, in fact. The last bridge to home burned - and it’s all Loki's own fault. There's no doubt about that, at least.
It feels like being trapped on a sinking ship, cold waters flooding in from everywhere to the last haven in an endless and dark, unkind ocean - alongside a sharp, discordant spike of red-hot flaring anger.
But then Thor turns to him again, taking one, hesitant step closer. Eighteen feet. Thor opens his mouth but doesn't say anything.
His expression is crumbling, too, Loki realizes – just a lot slower than his own chaotic indecisiveness of a face.
Thor glances away, then back at Loki, eyes swimming a little more than moments before, frown a little less confused and a little closer to something Loki isn't sure he can name and also isn't sure he wants to be faced with like this.
“Thor,” he says again and it comes out as very quiet when he meant for it to be demanding. Thor twitches.
And then he begins to walk forward. Loki freezes in place, every survival instinct in his body screaming to run the other way but his heart longing. For warmth, for home, for something that isn’t just lonely and dark and cold and hazy. Some kind of belonging. He stands still, shoulders tense. Thor comes closer yet.
And then suddenly he's only a few steps away, and then right in front of him, and Loki feels like he's been frozen solid expect - he always is frozen solid underneath this skin he wears, isn’t he?
Thor reaches a hand forward, tentative as if he’s not sure whether it will meet anything. With good reason, too. Then his knuckles brush against a cheek.
He manages to catch Loki's gaze with his own despite Loki's seeking everywhere but onto his brother's face.
The trap has sprung, the cage is locked, Loki is caught and now he can't run. He can't move at all.
Thor says, “brother,” with that hoarse rumble and soft disbelief and the shaking in the knees grows so bad Loki thinks he's going to just collapse right then and there.
He doesn't. Instead, he nods (moving) and somehow manages to plaster on a smirk that feels too easy, so casual he thinks it might be the biggest lie he's ever told yet at the same time maybe the most honest he's ever been. He's not too sure. He reaches a cold hand up to his own cheek, clasping it on top of his brother's.
They stand like that for too long. Loki didn't know how he managed the smirk in the first place, and so he's not quite sure how he's supposed to wipe it back off – it stays put, way out of place and cracking at the edges just as the rest of him. He’s afraid the fractures are bleeding into his eyes now, too. Thor's frown grows worried.
He glances at Loki's knees with a raised eyebrow, and surely he's been caught now, before lifting his other hand to his shoulder, dropping it there with a heavy thud. Loki can feel himself buckle a little under the weight before straightening again. It's surprisingly grounding. He finds that the smirk has disappeared while he was focused on the weight of Thor's hand and he's not sure he particularly wants to examine what has taken its place, instead.
“Perhaps you should sit down,” Thor suggests and Loki finds himself nodding, allowing being led by his older brother's hands to a piece of cliff-jut a few steps away. He sits down on it, gingerly, taking careful movements with his legs so they won't suddenly betray him and give out to leave him sprawling in the dust. Thor is on his knees in front of him, his armour touching against his shins and still looking at his face with those eyes, too intense. Different coloured eyes.
Loki for one does not understand what this is supposed to be about and fumes inwardly as his body betrays him outwardly. He is the one returning - Thor was the one who was left behind to deal with Thanos, the end of the world and the loss of his people. Thor is the one whose knees should be shaking, and yet, it is Loki having to sit down like some wimp, trembling out of his own skin and unable to pull himself together to anything even resembling coherent. Unable to manage to string even a single word to speak aloud, he is the one with wet cheeks suddenly and wetter eyes and he doesn't understand.
This isn't about him, nothing is even wrong. All is corrected and back to how it was but still he is so ... so scared, of something, or at least his damned body for some reason thinks he is.
He can't look Thor in the eye. Or, he could, probably, but his face is melting. It feels like it's melting because he can't keep it on the way it's supposed to stay, it's like a wild animal has taken its place and is acting of its own volition.
He looks up, finally, and Thor is still there.
In the end, it is Thor's eyes that get him back out of his own head. Both of them, and Loki doesn't know how that works because his brother only has one eye. But what he finds behind the watery gaze is so heartbreaking, so much and yet endlessly hollow and swimming alongside everything else that is just Thor, it is as if it gathers all the chaos in Loki into one, warm bundle that allows him to move again. Frees his arms from static so he can reach them out and put his hands on Thor's shoulders. Allows his face to form as he wants it to, to for a moment convey the exact right amount of sympathy and presence that he wants to give to his brother. In a set of the eyebrows, one corner of the mouth tugging a little, and his eyes shining the rest of it.
And then Thor is beside him on the rock, pulling Loki into a tight hug with his as ever strong, warm and overwhelming figure. Loki feels his brother's shoulders begin to shake, his eyes dampening Loki's shoulder through the tattered leathers where he buries his head.
Loki is surprised for a moment about his own non-reaction to the sudden closeness, Thor practically flinging himself like a scarf around Loki’s neck, a neck that has been .. sensitive, to say the least, especially since returning to an actual, physical body. For some reason, Thor’s head and arms being so close to it doesn't trigger any real sort of reaction, which is fortunate. So Loki lets his own arms gingerly gather around his brother's upper back, cold leather and colder metal. Holding him close with as much warmth as his own cold heart can muster, hoping it is enough.
He moves one hand to tangle in the golden carpet on his brother's head, running his fingers through it and sorting out knots. He lets himself rest against Thor but keeps his eyes open, staring wide at the dark scenery in front of him. For some reason, his own racing heartbeat won’t slow down, either, embarrassingly insistent on reverberating through both their bodies. His hand keeps working in the wild locks, wild like the pale weeds that grew in the sand by the coasts at home.
The Captain finds them like that, eventually. Loki could've almost been afraid Thor had fallen asleep on him by that time if it weren't for the steady flow of tears on his shoulder and the occasional hiccup.
“Loki?” the Captain calls as he approaches, sounding surprised but too tired to give off even a remote suspiciousness. His voice is harsh like he's been crying, too, which is likely indeed.
Loki keeps at Thor's hair as he nods, yet again on the quest to keep his face in an acceptably schooled expression. Not that anyone else here seems to be bothering with that kind of thing.
“So it seems,” he attempts to say smoothly but ends up wincing at the croak that escapes him instead.
Thor takes a deep breath before straightening up, wiping at his eyes. He nods half-heartedly at his companion, not really looking at him and keeping his side turned. All this is so unlike Thor that Loki honestly considers if he might be drunk. Or on something. And also worries that the Captain will think Loki has bespelled him.
But it does not seem he thinks so.
“Most of the others are leaving,” the Captain says to Thor, glancing back at the gathering which, sure enough, is dispelling. “Pepper is taking Tony. I'm not .. I'm not sure what the rest of us are going to do just now.”
Loki isn't sure who 'the rest of them' is but is very sure he will not be welcome with any kind of group of Avengers and/or friends.
And suddenly he’s so afraid again that Thor will leave. That he’ll leave Loki here on Midgard, alone (he should, he should because his friends are mourning and he needs to be there with them, you are not a child, you can take care of yourself).
But honestly, Loki has rarely felt as lost as he does right now and he isn’t sure he’ll ever get up from here again, if not for following Thor.
Thor nods again, frowning at the ground in front of him as if he seeks something important from it. It doesn't answer him, anyway.
Then the Captain turns, walking back towards the others and Loki doesn't even have the presence of mind to properly admire his ass.
He doesn't come to the funeral. Obviously. Thor doesn't invite him and nor does the Captain who is, as far as Loki knows, the only one of these Avengers who knows about his return. Besides, it's not as if he wants to come. He just doesn't really know what else to do on that day, either. You'd think being dead for five years left a lot to be desired upon a return, but it isn't so. At least, Loki can't seem to find anything inside himself but that vague hollowness and then the overwhelming, childish desire to cling to his brother's side at all times.
But he doesn't. Cling.
Thor sleeps a lot in the days after the battle, staying in a hotel room that Loki got for them with the help of some simple identity theft and illusion-work. It is a city close enough to the location where the ceremony is going to take place in four days.
The first night, Thor goes out without announcing anything as to where or why and Loki stays back, trying to will himself to not care. Thor comes home again late, with the unmistakable stink of liquor clinging to him. He's carrying a duffle bag full of clattering glass soon revealed to be more bottles of the same (and a lot of those) and Loki doesn't know why it bothers him so that both the duffle bag and every bottle of liquor must be stolen, since Thor didn't have any money earlier for the hotel, when that is just the kind of thing Loki himself would do. Steal a buttload of liquor in a foreign realm and drink himself senseless. But not Thor, Thor doesn't steal. Thor is kind and warm and thoughtful and Thor doesn't steal from undeserving strangers, especially not on his precious Midgard.
Loki pretends to be asleep as his brother downs bottle after bottle, eerily quiet for someone so horrendously drunk (you would at least expect him to mutter to himself a little, but there is not a single quip) except for of course a lot of stumbling and clashing against furniture. When Thor finally passes out in the other bed Loki crawls out from under his own cover, still fully dressed. He locks the room behind him, just to be safe, before leaving into the night as well.
For some reason, he can't get himself to go even near any kind of bar or night-open store despite how well-placed a drink would be right then and there. Instead, he ends up on a bench looking over a lake in a park, lying there until the sun rises despite not enjoying neither the view nor being alone in the slightest.
The days following consist of much the same. Loki discovers just how bad a drinking habit his brother has truly developed and avoids interacting with Thor in any kind of state as much as possible. Or maybe it's the grieving, the processing, only right now. Maybe the drinking isn't really that bad.
He walks a lot. He discovers a library, one day, but finds that he can't really concentrate on any of the sentences. He watches Thor when he sleeps, sometimes, and doesn't sleep very much himself – when he does, he wakes gasping not long after, the feeling of an enormous hand tightening on his throat still lingering, still tightening and he can’t breathe. As if the nightmare itself has the power to reach into reality and come true just because it scares him so. At least Thor sleeps too heavily in his stupors to wake from it.
Thor has nightmares of his own, though, and Loki is careful to leave the room every time before he can wake from them.
They talk a little when his brother isn't drunk out of his mind. It seems like Thor does try to stay sober, tries to keep to it. Maybe it is for Loki's sake or maybe not but either way, it mostly just means sleeping instead of drinking and then eventually caving in the evening, anyway. Loki doesn't mention it because he doesn't know what to say. He finds himself being .. uncharacteristically quiet for the duration of those four days, though maybe it isn't really especially uncharacteristic for him to be quiet in Thor's company, after all.
One uncomfortable night he comes back to the hotel room hoping to find his brother sober, just a childish wish that tonight is the night it will be true, but Thor is definitely not. His older brother ends up clinging to Loki and spilling his guts, crying a lot, leaning against him too heavily and too close to his neck, admitting things he would never otherwise (Thor wouldn't) before finally vomiting all over the floor.
Loki leaves because he doesn't know how to deal with it. He finds a bridge a little way out of the city that was once a road but is now overgrown with weeds and grass. Under it, he sits undisturbed for some good hours pastime of bawling his eyes out.
He comes back the next day and the room is clean, not a hint of foul scent lingering. Thor sits on the bed with a guilty look on his face and is squeakily sober.
He wakes sober on the next day, of the funeral, as well.
Loki follows him there and Thor doesn't know it. No one knows, no one has to know. It’s only that Loki didn't know what else he was supposed to do, today - and for some reason, Thor going to see his friends makes him want to cling tighter. Undo all the last days of neglecting Thor and stay closer to him instead. Be a better brother and keep him close.
He watches them from afar as they perform the ceremony by the riverbed, shrouded entirely from sight with a spell. Pushing the bouquet of flowers out onto the water.
There's a jolt of loss, to his surprise, when he realizes that the red-haired spider isn't there.
Another jolt, this one of a slightly different character, when he spots Thanos’ daughter herself standing behind Thor, the scorned yet ever so cruel and creative Nebula. Thankfully, the distance and whole not-being-visible-to-anyone thing provide the safety that keeps Loki calm enough to not freak out about it.
The Hulk is there, too, by Thor’s side and is looking strangely .. not like the Hulk. Not as green, for one, more dressed in clothes than usual. A suit, no less. Loki figures the split personality finally must’ve found a way to merge into something more wholesome, which is applaudable, even if the product then is an honestly strange combination of Banner and Hulk and not quite either of them.
The ceremony is over quickly. Thor looks tired and raw as he rarely has but also strangely .. settled. Less rootless. As if the battle being over and the last few days of processing, however poorly, is slowly coming to piece together a more coherent picture of emotions inside of him. His gaze is more focused and clear than Loki has seen it since he first came back (which, on second thought, he's pretty sure Thor wasn't drunk back then, anyway), planted on the bouquet as it drifts across the water.
The friends and families turn to the house when it disappears from sight, going into the backyard where drink and food are displayed in plentiful yet humble and elegant arrangements. Loki follows, watching from the tree-line.
Thor goes to the drinks table immediately, the blow to Loki’s desire for his brother to stay sober softened a little by the Captain matching the bold choice of two-drinks-in-one-hand and one-in-the-other. Perhaps in solidarity. He starts up a conversation with Thor. There's a girl there, clinging to the red-haired woman, Pepper, the Captain had called her, who looks too young and out of place at a gathering such as this. A daughter of someone, likely.
The hawk is there, too, along with the family Loki had gotten to know rather well through the connection of their minds as partners. Maybe even clung a little too tightly to – once he'd seen a glimpse of the moments shared between the father, his wife and kids, Loki had gotten thirsty. Wanting to experience more of that seamless love and care and belonging, if only through another's mind. A brainwashed, unwilling subject at that.
They are sorrowful, the family, but that very same sense of unity Loki had felt years previous is unmistakable if even stronger. So is the strange pang of jealousy which he can't quite help as it shoots through him.
There are more people, many of whom he does not know the names and his gaze flickers uninterestedly over them. All thoughtful, grieving faces, dressed in black.
Then, suddenly, there is one that’s different. She has red hair, and there is something about her, some feeling. So, Loki fastens his gaze on her and -- he flinches hard, an instinctual reaction to the strong, wild and way too familiar energy standing out from her in magnetic waves. No doubt they are intensified, uncontrolled, from her grieving.
To Loki’s horror, the woman's head jerks at much the same time as he notices her. Her power shoots like hands out towards him, and she looks straight at the forest's edge where he has gotten too close, too close, and on the wrong, exposed side of the tree line. But he is still shrouded, his magic is working just fine. So why is she staring like she can see his every twitch of muscle? Why is her magic reaching for him, entering into his own auric field, why is she walking towards him, now? With such determination and leaving her friends behind to stand confused because they can’t see anything, can't see him ... they can’t, can they?
For some reason, Loki cannot will himself to as much as twitch a muscle. The woman is getting closer fast, still looking at him although his shroud is still in place. Her eyes are hard and hostile. Loki drags the blanket of his shroud tighter around his form but to no avail: she sees straight through it, doesn’t she? It feels like the spell is slipping, too, the other person's overwhelming magic getting more smothering with each step and cancelling everything that is his power, rendering him completely helpless -- it's too familiar and he feels like he might throw up from the sheer force, building up as pressure inside his body. Like it’s crawling in through his ears, mouth, nose, into his skull and tampering with his brain, playing with his thoughts and memories, and he can’t do anything because he’s locked in place -
He blips out for a moment and doesn’t feel himself collapsing. Which doesn’t change the fact that he’s now on his hands and knees on the ground, limbs shaking, stomach flipping as he vomits onto the grass. Tears prickle in the corners of his eyes. The shroud is gone, and he can't get a hold of it again. It slips from his fingers like flimsy seaweed, leaving him exposed and horribly vulnerable there on the ground. The suffocating energy is closer. Too close, smothering, so his stomach flips again and he gags, although there isn't actually anything left to bring up.
He feels a hand on his shoulder and flinches away - because it’s her and her hand is pulsing with the horrid energy. He bites back another bout of nausea and is dimly aware of commotion around him as he can only sit there and clutch at his head. Eyes squeezed shut as if that will dispel the danger (there is no danger, pull yourself together).
Then, there’s a heavy, familiar (in a better sense of the word) hand on his shoulder and the faint scent of worn leathers and ozone. Something in him calms at it, leaning into the touch without thinking. Though the more he returns to his body the less he actually wants to open his eyes to the shitshow no doubt awaiting him. Which he has started, and at someone’s beloved family and friend’s funeral service, no less.
His hearing is dulled as if something has been stuffed in his ears but he can hear her voice through it, deep and melodic as she speaks,
"I didn’t do anything to him, I swear."
There are other voices, many noises from many people, Loki is pretty sure a few clicks of guns and weapons. A deeper version of Banner’s voice, a little frantic. And Thor - Thor is ... oh, Thor is speaking to Loki but honestly, Loki is having a hard time focusing on anything at all with that energy still so close, so he only clutches tighter at his head, attempting to keep the rapidly spreading migraine under control. He realizes he’s not really breathing. That can’t be helping things much.
Thor is speaking with the woman, the girl? urging her to try and take a step back after, apparently, she comes closer again. The noose closes further with it. Loki hears himself give some pitiful sound too alike to a whimper (he didn’t mean to, he didn’t) but then she does move back and in the space freed he can breathe a little easier. Which gives him space to realize that, maybe, it’s not so much her energy actually smothering him, as it is simply his own reaction to the otherwise so ... very lovely memories associated with the specific signature. Just memories. Flashbacks, imagined sensations, perhaps. How embarrassing. Well, it's all a little past embarrassing, anyway.
He takes a deeper breath, with it the sour scent of vomit, and shame curls in his stomach.
“Brother?”
Thor's voice sounds through the thick-feeling air, not quite as muffled as before. A little clearer. Once again, Loki becomes aware of the heavy hand on his shoulder.
He takes a shaky breath, giving a nod.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. He releases his own hands from his head, still bowed, eyes closed, dropping them into his lap and trying to sit a little straighter. It's like his spine is shaking the efforts futile. “I didn’t mean to - didn’t …” his words are slurred and he lets the sentence fade instead of embarrassing himself. Further, that is.
“It’s ... all right,” Thor responds, his voice mostly kind and always with that soft rumble. The uncertainty in it is clear, though, despite his choice of words.
“What are you doing here?” asks another voice, this one harsh and unmistakable, for it has haunted Loki through his worst nightmares. Okay, so maybe not literally, there are worse things than this guy, after all.
Still, he comes pretty damn close, the laughably so named ‘Sorcerer Supreme’.
Loki doesn’t know what to tell him, though, despite having plenty of insults ready on the go. He never meant to be caught, that’s the truth. But he was. He finds he can't quite come up with a lie that won't either immediately get him thrown into some prison or else be just as pathetic as the truth is. And then what is the point.
After a few seconds of not answering, Loki hears something powering up close to his head, sounding like Stark’s iron suit repulsors but that can’t be it. The sound isn’t quite right, either, this is somehow ... softer, more organic. Though by the sense of it also way more powerful.
Curiosity bests him to lift his head and he finds himself looking into a palm glowing blue and golden, attached to a woman he hasn’t met before. It’s her the power is emanating from - great power, currently conveyed into a photon blast aimed directly at Loki’s face.
For some reason, no proper remark on the absurd situation comes to mind. Not except for raising his hands, palms outward in what hopefully looks like a sincere display of surrender. There's a lot of other people, too, standing ready to fight - which is a wholly unnecessary reaction of them, considering the fact that Loki doesn’t think he is currently able to get to his feet and has just thrown up all over their lawn.
To the woman’s right is Fury the director, that old friend, with a gun pointed at Loki’s face. Next to him is the hawk, with two guns cocked and loaded, and behind them, a bunch of people Loki doesn’t know (one with antennas, so that’s curious).
To the woman’s left stands Doctor Strange, for whom Loki doesn’t spare a second glance, the ass of America next to him. Right behind his shoulder stands a kid with brown hair who for some reason is, apparently, equipped to be fighting an enemy on the front lines despite carrying no visible weapons or armour.
Then more people with unknown faces beside and behind him, a man with a metal arm, more guns pointed, a black-haired woman Loki recognizes from Shield, Hulk looking apologetic and puzzled behind them all. Beside him is the girl with red hair and nauseating energy (just energy, it’s just energy, it doesn’t have to be nauseating) and all the way to the left with her arms crossed (jolt) is Nebula. He decides to ignore her presence as much as possible.
Then, of course, there’s Thor crouching next to him, at whom Loki deliberately doesn’t look.
Further behind the frontline of warriors, by the tables with food and drink, he can see the families huddled together and out of danger yet straining to get a good look at what the commotion is all about. There are a few defenders in front of them, as well, dressed in funeral clothes but likely no less able to put up a fight. Not that Loki is especially looking for one. He would personally most like to crawl into the ground and disappear right now if it were up to him - but rarely is it ever.
“What. Are you. Doing here,” Strange repeats, tone flat, and Loki resists the urge to do something dramatic. Such as to roll his eyes and sigh. Seeing as that would hardly be an appropriate display of remorse for interrupting their time of mourning. That really was quite rude.
The magician holds out a hand in the silence, with a single gesture making the puddle of vomit on the grass disappear without a trace. Loki could’ve done that.
“Spying,” Loki answers finally, and honestly, still not able to think of anything better. He keeps his hands up. Strange huffs.
“Planning something, then?” he sneers, and now Loki does sigh.
“Not at this very moment, no.”
His voice is hoarse and he clears his throat again, irritated.
“You were under Thanos’ command,” the woman with photon-blast-hands states with a sort of non-negotiability to her tone and Loki’s eyes wander back to her. Even if it weren’t true, he isn’t sure he would be able to deny her. But fortunately -
“Unfortunately, yes,” he agrees. “Not my best years.”
Everyone is silent, waiting. He blinks at the ground in an attempt at getting the blurry tinge to everything dispelled from his vision. Then he directs his eyes to the red-haired girl beside Banner - or, Hulk. Whatever.
“Your power is derived from the mind stone,” he states, locking eyes with her if only as an act of defiance towards himself and the creeping panic. She nods with a frown. “I do apologize for this overblown reaction,” he continues, not sure if that clears anything up for anyone. Probably not.
But then she takes a step forward and Loki's every instinct takes over with a white panic, falling back from his knees and scrambling away. She stills. He blinks.
“If you could,” he croaks, attempting to get his spasming expression under control, “refrain from coming any closer I would - greatly appreciate it.”
She takes a step back, the puzzled eyes searing as if she’s looking into his very mind (she’s not, he would feel it if she were). Loki can sense Thor’s gaze on him and still doesn’t feel like returning it.
“Fury, this man isn’t dangerous,” photon-lady then says, more like a complaint than anything, and she lowers her hand. Everyone else keeps their weapons drawn. “Look at him.”
Ouch.
“Should’ve been there when he levelled New York some years back, Carol,” Fury responds, eyes fiery on Loki but tone conversational as ever. “I know he looks lanky but he packs a punch if he wants to. Especially with an army on his back.”
“Doesn’t really look like he wants to, then, does it?” she mumbles, eyes narrowed and crossing her arms.
At which Thor sputters, “ah, hey - this is my brother we’re speaking of. He is not going to do anything.” He turns back to Loki, a hand resting on his knee. “And I'm sure there’s a good explanation as to why he is here, now. Right?”
Loki turns his eyes to the sky with a sigh. “There really isn’t,” is all he can think to say.
“Loki was there, after the battle four days ago, too,” the Captain says. Fury turns to him with wide, accusing eyes but Rogers keeps his stand, gaze unwavering. “He and Thor were reuniting. I saw no reason to interrupt and figured Thor would let us know if there was trouble.”
“You -- you saw no reason -” Fury sputters, cutting it off in a huff of outrage. Then he sighs dramatically, re-holstering his gun and throwing out the other arm in surrender. “Fine! Fine, then, you take care of this mess if you’re so sure about that. Then I am going to get back to the funeral we’re actually here for.”
He pushes his way past the others and back to the house, angrily grabbing a drink from a table and sipping it while turned away.
Photon-lady, this ‘Carol’, frowns, looking after him. Her head snaps back to Loki, then back to Fury, and back to Loki - before she finally shrugs and leaves. Loki feels oddly discredited at it but then again, he probably isn’t looking his most intimidating right now. Which is a good thing, of course.
The Avengers left standing (that must be what they are, right?) are looking confused with Fury and photon-lady gone. The Hawk is unrelenting, though, guns still unwavering on Loki, who catches his gaze.
“You know I won't hesitate,” Barton snarls and Loki, for some reason, decides to smirk in return.
Which earns him a slap on the upper arm from his brother. His, as ever, bafflingly strong brother, no matter however much alcohol Thor has been pouring into himself over the last five years, and Loki exclaims an "ow!”, turning to Thor and going to rub at the affected spot. Thor glares in response.
“Be civil,” he says. “You’re not exactly welcome, here.”
Loki shuts his eyes for a second, taking a deep breath and nodding. “Of course,” he manages, despite the words grinding in his throat. He hasn’t done anything wrong. Not right now, anyway.
“It’s good to see you alive and kicking, Loki,” Bruce-Hulk says, stepping forward with heavy thumps of his feet to stand beside the woman from Shield - Hill? - and the kid. There is great sadness in his eyes and Loki finds he can’t quite meet them.
“I am - terribly sorry, about this,” he says in response, still not looking Banner in the eyes but trying to (and that’s what counts), hoping it comes off as sounding sincere. He thinks he does mean it. He’s never really sure with himself, anymore. “I never wanted to interrupt.”
Loki finally manages to meet the man's eyes but then they're studying him so intently that he has to look away again immediately. Banner sighs.
“I think it’ll be okay if you leave us,” he says to the group of people looking increasingly puzzled and restless. “Go back to the service, Thor and I can handle this. Maybe you stay, too, Steve."
The group begins to disperse with the exception of Thor, Banner, the Captain, the Hawk (still with the guns raised), the magician and for some reason the unknown, brown-haired kid, who stays quietly in his place. In addition, to Loki’s regret, the red-haired girl isn’t making any move to leave. Two men, one of them the one with a metal arm, seem to falter when she doesn’t make to move, eventually deciding to stay as well.
“If he is truly dangerous,” the red-head says, still looking at Loki, “then I will stay. It seems the presence of my magic keeps him in check.”
Loki sighs heavily. Banner cringes.
“Thank you, Wanda,” he says. Ah. Her name is Wanda. “I don’t think there’s going to be any trouble, though. Is there, Loki?”
Loki goes for a smile but it doesn’t feel quite as cheeky as he would’ve liked. “I do hope not,” he answers.
There’s silence for a few seconds. Loki would be enjoying the situation present if it weren’t for everyone else looking so very sad beneath all the suspicion. It really doesn’t promise for any fun kind of show.
“Why are you here, Loki?” Thor finally asks, still on the ground in front of him. Loki looks at him briefly before closing his eyes again, scrunching up his face as the headache suddenly returns with full force. He pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Honestly, Thor, I really wasn’t - wasn't here to do anything,” he tries. Being sincere like this, it’s so unlike him, lately. Hard. He’s out of practice after spending five years exclusively lying his way out of the realms of the dead. “Just that I ... had nothing else to do, bored, I suppose.” He looks back up at his brother.
Thor sighs.
“Maybe you should go back to the room,” he suggests.
“Do you think they’ll let me leave?”
“You can just go.”
Loki grimaces. “I don’t think it’s that easy. They might hunt me.”
“I have to agree,” Bruce-Hulk says. “If we just let him go, Fury will be .. well, you know, he’ll be furious. He’ll probably send Carol after him straight away.”
Thor rubs at a temple with his thumb, eyes growing dark. “Well then what do we do?” he grumbles. “We are here to mourn our friend - friends in plural, really. Not clean up after yet another mess of Loki's.”
Ouch. Ouch.
It’s true, of course. But Loki finds he can’t quite control the spasm of his face despite the fact, if only briefly. Then he sets it back in a carefully guarded - and some might say closed off but the point is that it feels safer - expression.
Thor sighs, closing his eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he says. But he did. “Just that - it really isn’t the best time right now.” He opens his eyes again, trying to lock their gazes but Loki can’t quite find it in him to let him. “People are mourning, and you’re ... this is not a place for you.”
He doesn’t understand why it hits so hard when it is only the truth. He did just interrupt a private funeral service of a man who no doubt absolutely hated him. It is one hundred percent, fully and wholly, Loki’s mistake. Which the situation right now really, truly is neither the time nor place for.
Still, it feels as if everything is curling, tangling and knotting inside him at the words. Too hot, burning, in fact, and Thor is too close and this Wanda’s energy smothering, the Captain’s eyes boring into him and Banner’s smile too soft and sad. The Hawk's hateful glare and those men behind the witch are looking at him, too, there are too many eyes on him and he was an idiot for coming here. He swallows back rising nausea, giving a nod in response but keeping his gaze locked on the grass by Thor's feet.
He wants to be angry. Something in him wants to react and throw fire in the face of this whole entire situation but he finds that he can’t quite manage to pull it forth. It is as if something colder, something darker is smothering it. It’s nothing new, of course, that’s just the way it is with Loki - either he’s burning or he’s drowning in icy water, and really there’s no in-between but many, many illusions that will make one think so. Fire is a lot easier, for sure. But the cold will always win in a fight.
“Of course, you’re right,” he says, voice sounding oddly small and far away. “This was a mistake."
Then he pulls at the tendrils he has prepared in all haste, whispering the two-word spell and letting the flow of moving space wash over him. He can almost feel the ghost of Thor's fingers grabbing for his arm, hear his roar echo through the haze as he realizes what Loki is doing - but Loki is gone within less than a second and his older brother never stood a chance.
One moment Loki was kneeling in the yard of a private home at a funeral he wasn’t supposed to be even at, that he should have never even gone near, and the next he’s back in the hotel room. It’s been cleaned up since they left.
He’s not sure why he went there except for it being the most recent location in his memory and imagination (which, honestly isn’t at its creative peak, currently). He already has everything he needs on his person, in the pockets of his jacket and in the subtler kind of pockets folded in the space between universe itself.
He’s just about to leave from there when he spots something on the desk by the window, glistening as the sun peeks out from under the skies for a moment.
A golden buckle, from Thor’s boot - must’ve broken off at some point when he no doubt stumbled into something in a drunken haze. The maid must then have found it on the floor, placing it on the desk rather than throwing it away. Understandable, as it is rather valuable material, gold from the now long-gone mines of Asgard themselves.
The value of the metal isn’t why Loki picks it up, though, stuffing it in his pocket before teleporting away. He leaves the shared room and sunlight behind in favour of something colder and perhaps more appropriate. He goes north.