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In the room he shares with Thor, there is a window so large it looks like a wall made entirely of glass. It shows the darkness ahead, tiny pinpricks of light slipping by as the ship steadily moves ahead in a slow, nearly apologetic pace. Almost as if it is sorry for what it carries, as if the grief is a whole new lot of cargo that weighs it down beyond what some backwater engineer predicted.
Loki is not overly fond of it.
Still, sometimes he stands right at the edge and looks out, watches the emptiness that stretches on forever, feels the cold clinging to the glass, until his head swims and his chest grows tight; forward is not the same as down, but it makes little sense to think of directions in the void of space.
“You’ll write yourself into a headache,” he says because he needs an excuse to turn around without it feeling like he’s giving up on something and Thor has been at his desk for longer than he’s seen his brother stay still since they were children being scolded by a weary tutor. “And we don’t have medicine to spare on small things.”
The scratching of his pen pauses briefly and Loki breathes in the silence. It tastes like smoke on the back of his throat– like that one moment, right after he places Surtur’s crown on the Eternal Flame, when the fire had flared up hotly and he had the Tesseract in his hands, magic dancing in his fingers and space had opened up for him, anywhere in the universe, any barren moon, at his choice.
"I have to finish this," Thor admits, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, winces when the movement jostles the edges of his wound. His eye, or lack thereof, should have been looked after more closely but, well, they don't have medicine for small things, even for a king. Even Loki's seiðr had been spread thin in those following days, dagger clumsily turned into scalpel. "We haven't addressed the people yet, not properly, and this can't be put off any further."
That's true. What little is left of Asgard is scattered around this single cargo ship, cluttering hallways like forest trails, like if they wander long enough they’ll find themselves out of the woods eventually, but Loki knows grief seldom stays like that for long, that it’ll sour into restlessness soon, into anger, and he doesn’t want to find out how long they can go before they decide they had enough of the royal family, of them tearing the whole world down just to make it hurt.
So yes, Thor should make a proper statement, inspire them, remind them the end of the world came and went and they survived and convince them that matters, that counts for something, that there’s something left, something to look forward to instead of back.
“Suit yourself,” he says, and turns back to stare at the stars, pretends he’s not trying to prove anything. Funny thing, Loki remembers wanting to burn Asgard down. He never thought he’d actually succeed so thoroughly.
*
Another cycle goes by, artificial lights flickering on at the designated time to pretend words like day and night and weeks still mean something, and when Loki wakes up Thor is already gone, bed meticulously made in a way his brother never could be.
It’s only around dinner time after most have already eaten their fill, that he finally steps into the makeshift cafeteria to find his brother at a table with the Valkyrie and Banner, frowning away at his papers while the others chatter mildly.
“The food seems slightly less inedible today,” he notes, sitting down across Banner and pointedly not flinching at the green afterimage that never quite leaves his vision when he looks at the human. This, too, is not about proving anything, really.
“They say people can adapt to anything?” Banner answers hesitantly, wary of his own half-joke, like he expects Loki to conjure the old scepter he had been waving around New York and shoot him where he’s sitting. It’s both flattering and bitter, Loki thinks, and he’s not sure how to take it. You can’t have it both ways, he supposes.
“Indeed,” he snorts, and then, because Thor has not deigned to look up yet, his own plate barely touched, and Loki has never been satisfied with only half an audience, he kicks his brother’s ankle, adds, “would you stop this infernal muttering?”
“I’m trying to finish this,” Thor frowns deeper, huffing, “but it’s not sounding right.”
“On Earth,” Banner says, “most politicians have speechwriters hired to prepare their statements, you know.”
“Midgard sounds baffling,” the Valkyrie makes a face, wrinkling her nose, “are we sure we can’t make it to Vanaheim?”
Loki sighs, rolling his eyes, but draws upon himself to once again explain in excruciating details why exactly they cannot turn to Vanaheim now, or any other Realm Asgard had subjugated in the past, cannot trust them not to see this as an opportunity to turn the tables on them. It’s an old argument by now, barely one at that, more of a resigned back and forth, but Thor is still crinkling his brow at the paper so Loki figures he can waste his time and breath on this in his stead.
*
More and more it’s becoming clear not enough healers have made it on board, only two so inexperienced, wide-eyed and too hesitant when faced with the many injuries that have either boarded the ship or appeared over the course of their still beginning journey. Sometimes, even this soon, barely a week after they started, Loki looks at them and sees something rattling behind their eyes– they have seen too much, too fast. Those few hours after they left Asgard’s ruins, with moaning and screeching people waiting to have their bleeding wounds treated, they will not leave their memory.
Still, it couldn’t be helped. They had needed anyone with a minimum of knowledge and innocence had been a cheap price to pay for it, and even Loki had taken one look at the state of the survivors and resigned himself to the hastily put-together healing ward.
Somehow, that’s something he has yet to extricate himself from. He’s no healer, has never taken more than a cursory study of the arts, just enough to patch himself and Thor’s merry band on their unadvised trips across the realms, not nearly enough to take up the post, but somehow, those bright-eyed, frightened little lambs still look up at him like he should know what to do, like he might hold the answers for any ailment that could befall the ship’s residents.
Fools, all of them, he thinks, washing his hands from the blood of the man he had just finished healing an awful gash at the temple, courtesy of a broken pipe in the engine room. His seiðr is certainly useful for these minor mendings, for taking the pain when anesthetic potions can’t be procured in time for the more ghastly procedures, but it’s not a cure for all.
It could have been, perhaps, if he had dedicated more time to it back when he had an entire library at his disposal. Now, his own personal collection, hidden away in his pocket dimension, has precious little on the healing arts.
“We should look for book merchants the next time we stop for supplies,” he says when he hears the door to their room open, Thor’s heavy footsteps echoing even into the small bathroom.
“Talk with Heimdall,” Thor replies, and his voice is tired, hoarse at the end like he’s spent the entire day talking. Or, maybe, in silence. “He’ll know if we have the money for it.”
Loki sighs. He’s been doing a lot of that, lately. “It’s important, we’ll have to make do.”
“Important is not essential,” Thor shakes his head, sitting down heavily at his desk and immediately looking for his pen. That damned speech must still be giving him trouble, clearly weighing down on him heavier than Loki had given it credit for.
“It might be,” he frowns, turning back to the sink in time to watch the bloodied water swirl away down the drain. His hands are clean, even under his fingernails where it had clung stubbornly before, and there’s no need for a vanishing spell, there’s nothing to vanish. He still casts it, though. Just to make sure. Just in case he’s missed something, he tells himself.
Only then he joins Thor in the bedroom. “People are still hurt and Eir is– she isn’t here. The healers we have aren’t ready for this, there is plenty they must learn yet.”
“You’ve been helping them, have you not?” Thor says and Loki tries not to startle, not to show he’s startled. He hadn’t known his brother had noticed.
“I’m not a healer,” he points out. His seiðr isn’t malleable as a child’s, it’s been taught to be a weapon, and Loki might be a shapeshifter but he isn’t sure he can shift into this.
Thor looks at him and it’s unnerving how he’s grown to be unreadable. It only took Ragnarok for it. Then, he gathers his papers, glancing back down, and Loki thinks he might have smiled. “Talk with Heimdall. And take Bruce with you when you go searching for it. He’ll tell you he’s not that kind of doctor but he is.”
“Midgard is baffling,” Loki echoes the Valkyrie’s words wryly, but takes the victory.
*
It’s a miracle the people have not rebelled against his presence yet, savior or not, and each day he stays in the public eye is another day they’re being reminder what the House of Odin has brought to their realm. Hela might have been the one to bring down the latest, the worst, wave of destruction, but Loki has been there, too.
He’s just never stayed for the clean-up before.
It’s fitting, he thinks, that now that he should leave, he wants to stay. Selfishness is in his nature, though, so Loki knows he won’t go. Knowing his brother, Thor would probably say he’s being brave, facing consequences.
Loki doesn’t think this is bravery. If it was, he would have told Thor about the Tesseract hidden away in his pocket dimension or the thing that won’t ever stop hunting him, no matter which forms he takes, which face he uses. No barren moon for him to hide.
If he was brave, Loki would take this cursed stone and run as far as he can from the one ship full of the only things he learned to care about against his better judgment.
The Warriors Three and Sif were right, though. Loki’s a coward at heart, so he’ll stay.
In time, he’ll tell Thor about the Infinity Stone in his hands, he knows, but that’s not bravery either, it’s too selfish for that. He’ll tell because he’s scared of the Titan, because what are the odds of surviving another apocalypse, because he needs what Banner calls a hail mary.
For now, Loki will stay and politely agree when people tell him the worst is behind them already.
*
Sleeping has never come easy for him, anyway. What’s another late night?
*
“You wrote this for me,” Thor says before Loki can even begin eating what passes for breakfast these days.
“I read your drafts,” he shrugs, “it was just awful. I felt bad for whoever would have to listen to that.”
“It doesn’t sound weird anymore,” Thor wavers, unsure.
“Good. It wasn’t supposed to.”
“You didn’t have to do this,” he insists with the tone that inevitably means Loki is about to hear something he really doesn’t want to, no matter where he tries to hide. No barren moon. “It was a good thing, nice. Like helping the healers.”
“Don’t mention it,” Loki says instead of some nonsense like I’m not trying to be a good person, I’m just trying to be a person or I’m trying to figure out how to go from that elevator in Sakaar or maybe you should just tell me what to do because I’ve been doing a wretched job so far. “No, seriously, if you do, I might stab you.
Thor laughs. “Thank you, brother, I’ll make sure to let everyone know.”
This time, it takes a second for him to remember to conjure a dagger, a fraction of a blink where he thinks a salve might have come easier. In any case, while Thor ducks from his threats, the ship goes on, tumbling steadily towards someplace familiarly new.