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The thing that haunts Thor isn’t even the moment itself, the gun pointed at Loki’s chest, his brother walking backward, hands raised and looking at Thor for help, the sound of air expanding as the laser left the gun’s muzzle, Loki stumbling and crumpling to the floor.
No.
What sticks to him, replaying over and over while they make their way to Asgard, in the short reprieve they get after escaping Sakaar with Loki lying unconscious in their terrible makeshift infirmary, are the awful seconds right after the shooting.
When Loki fell, blood seeping into the leather of his armor, the first thing Thor thinks is how convenient; things start going south and Loki gets hurt. It fills him with guilt now, violently clawing at his own chest, but at the time, all Thor could see was the two times where Loki had fooled him before.
Loki dies, Thor mourns, and then Loki appears again, that’s how it works.
Why should this time be any different?
Anyway, that’s what Thor had been thinking as he wrestled the gun out of the guard’s hands and hit him across the head. That’s what he had been thinking as he crouched by Loki’s side, unimpressed. That’s what he had been thinking as he shook Loki’s shoulder and told him to quit the act, come on, brother, we don’t have the time.
It’s what he had been thinking until minutes had passed and Loki had not said a word besides grunts of pain. Until it had hit him that this is never how it had gone in the past. Loki didn’t die, Loki is dying and this has never happened before, his brother had never given him time to save him before. This doesn’t bring him any advantage. If anything, following their usual song and dance of Thor leaving him to his fake death would put him in a terrible position.
Yeah, that was about the time where the horrifying guilt started seeping in.
*
“It’s like that story,” Banner says, “you know, the boy who cried wolf? Or, I guess, you wouldn’t know because why would you have heard of an intrinsically human fable?”
He’s trying to comfort him, Thor knows, in that awkward way of someone who is also in their makeshift infirmary after passing out from Hulk-induced exhaustion. It’s also not working very well just like their makeshift infirmary that is way too crowded for their makeshift healers.
It’s been a day and Asgard is burning and Loki has not woken up yet.
“Point is,” Banner continues, “you shouldn’t blame yourself. Anyone else wouldn’t even have stayed long enough to figure out it wasn’t a ruse.”
As true as that is, “anyone else isn’t his brother,” Thor sighs, and the chair he’s sitting on creaks when he shifts around, and if Loki were awake, he would have snapped about the noise. He had always been fussy about these things and Thor moves again just to make it creak as if he could somehow annoy his brother into waking up.
“Still,” Banner clears his throat, sliding off his poorly makeshift bed and settling somewhat unsteadily on his feet. “He’ll be up soon, you see. I mean, coming back from the dead it’s kind of his thing at this point, right? So, this shouldn’t be half as hard. Right?”
Thor blinks. His friend really is taking this situation better than he could have hoped– any other Avenger and Thor isn’t sure he wouldn’t have been forced to defend his brother against them too. But, well, he supposes any other Avenger isn’t Banner.
“How did your story end? The one with the crying boy?”
Banner pauses at the door. His eyes go from Thor to Loki and back to Thor, an odd expression on his face. “Very different from this one, I hope.”
*
Here’s the thing: Thor is tired.
No, that’s not right.
The thing is: Thor did not want to be king.
No, that’s not it either. It’s true enough, but it’s not what’s corroding at his bones.
Or, well, it is, but it’s not just that. He’s tired, exhausted, and some little part of him resents the world for it. Once upon a time, he had wanted nothing but the crown, but he knows better now. It’s like Banner said– heavy is the head that wears the crown.
With that, of course, comes the shame to befriend his already bitter guilty, and Thor wonders what his younger self would say if he saw him now. Not that it matters, his younger self was a damned fool anyway.
A fool, yes, but a fool who would not have let Loki get so hurt.
Less than a decade ago and Thor would not have hesitated to help, would not have doubted his brother’s bleeding.
It’s as if all the history between them, the betrayals and the lies and the olive branches, all the moments shared, have clung to him like tar, like molasses, weighing down, slowing him down, making him doubt, hesitate, where he wouldn’t have known to before.
Old Thor would pick up the snake, every time.
Now, Thor knows there’s blame to go all around, no one in their family could ever come out the other side of the story clean, but Loki had been the God of Mischief before he had ever been the God of Lies.
When his brother wakes up again, Thor thinks it might be high time to clean the slate. Asgard is burning, their father is dead, and all of their people can fit in one lone spaceship.
This has to be a new beginning because if it’s not, then how would you keep living?
*
It takes three days for Loki to open his eyes.
And when he does, it is, of course, at the most inconvenient moment, because Loki is nothing if not consistent about being a little shit.
“It’s not infected,” Thor is saying when it happens with Banner wrestling him fiercely while brandishing a disinfectant. It’s a mighty fight and Thor is only a little resentful for not being immediately victorious while Hulk is not out. “It’s just a little sore!”
“It’s clearly infected,” Banner shoots back, the disinfectant tipping dangerously and Thor’s chair creaks ominously, “can’t you just let me look at it?”
“You said you were not that kind of doctor!” He cries, and ducks out of the way of a cotton ball, elbow hitting a glass that they definitely could not afford breaking and sending it tumbling down the metal floor.
“Any kind of doctor can see it’s infected!”
Then, “even I can see it.”
It’s weak and raspy and Thor stills, thinks he’s imagining things again, his wishful thinking spilling over into reality, but–
“Oh, shit,” Banner gasps and the disinfectant tips again, spills on the floor by the glass shards and Thor thinks, nonsensically, that if someone were to cut themselves there, the wound would be already clean.
And because he can’t delay any further, he turns his head to look at his brother and– Loki’s skin is still pale, his face is still wan, and there’s still something sickly about the shadows beneath his eyes, but now he’s. He’s awake.
Thor looks at his brother and for the first time in nearly four days, Loki is looking back.
“You’re missing an eye,” Loki says, voice still rusty and painful-sounding, and now that Banner has shuffled back abruptly, Thor stumbles forward, hands coming to take fistfuls of the sheet.
“You’re awake,” Thor tells him unnecessarily, just to hear it said out loud.
Loki, somehow, manages to rolls his eyes. “And your eye is infected.”
“That’s what I told him,” Banner blurts out and immediately shrinks back, like he hadn’t meant to let that escape. “Sorry, I, uh, I’ll go see if– Val needs something?”
“What is this?” Loki asks, eyes darting around, and a pit opens up on Thor’s ribcage because how is he supposed to explain all that’s happened?
How do you justify destroying a whole realm, your realm?
How is he supposed to tell his little brother everything they knew is gone and it’s as much his fault as it isn’t? The little brother he failed to protect and then almost failed to help?
“It’s a long story,” he says, “why don’t we check your wounds first?”
Loki frowns, hands going to his chest where the laser had pierced through skin and muscle and bone to slice open one of his lungs– Thor isn’t a healer, but he had heard Banner talking with Val; had the laser not cauterized the wound as it went, Loki would have choked on his own blood, dead before Thor could snap out of his foolishness. “I think I should be irritated,” he tells Thor, “but I’m not. Do you remember when you wore an eyepatch because you wanted to be a pirate?”
Something loosens inside him, a knot scrunched up for so long now, tangling up tighter and tighter, that now Thor feels himself fraying with it. He feels guilty, too, because Loki is high on whatever potion they improvised for pain and this isn’t like when they got sick on Asgard. This isn’t him getting his brother back, it just feels a lot like it.
They can’t go back to what it was, Thor sees it now, he really does, and he doesn’t think he wants that either.
“Yes, it’s not as fun as I thought, then,” he smiles, hopes it’s not too shaky, hopes it doesn’t say you were dying and I didn’t know what to do and this time it would be the truth.
Loki hums, pleased. Somewhere down the hall, their only experienced healer is starting out towards them, accompanied by Banner and the Valkyrie, by the sounds of it.
“Everything will be fine, brother,” he says, for the first time since all this mess started, and looking at Loki finally look alive with Banner and Valkyrie just around the corner– Thor thinks, with a little time, he might almost believe it.