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Loki is practised at being unoccupied. Provided he is otherwise amused, or exercising his princely prerogative for idleness, or at least idle at the expense of another, he is satisfied. But if there is one thing he cannot abide, it is unmitigated boredom.
That oft repeated idiom about idle hands proves itself faithful a mere handful of days into their journey. Having acquired a craft and set their course, there is little else to do but wait. What begins as harmless entertainment — some light ribbing here, some barbed comments there — soon morphs into something else. Thor’s responses reveal more than Loki quite bargains for, and he soon loses his appetite for the game.
It’s not that Thor rises to the bait. No. It’s not that at all. Infuriatingly, Thor remains sanguine in the face of Loki’s every attempt to provoke him. So tolerant. So wise. So calm. Instead, Loki’s anger boils over several times to be so thwarted, and when he wearies of having no resistance to rail against he finds he doesn’t miss the suffocating hatred he so recently used to harbour.
And now, in a spectacular turn around Loki may have appreciated for its poetic justice under different circumstances, Thor is starting to drive him to distraction. Where once Loki would have delighted in his brother’s undivided attention, Thor’s solicitous glances, careful phrasing and loaded silences are all now proving… irksome.
Must Thor be so infuriatingly patient?
Loki finds himself rising to it, snapping at the outstretched hand, probing for soft points, jabbing at unprotected flanks.
The wounded looks Thor shoots him at times like these irritate him all the more, Thor’s hurt and disappointment goading Loki to further acts of cruelty. But again Thor takes this in stride. He is forgiving, measured in his responses, so damned mature about it — and Loki finds himself more often than not at a loss. He doesn’t know how to respond to this patient, unflappable, solemn Thor, and the way this has him examining his own motivations is decidedly uncomfortable.
Worse even than this, Loki fears he is losing his edge. Twice now Thor has caught him staring, so preoccupied with his thoughts that he has been too slow to look away when Thor’s glance happened to cross his own. The creeping warmth of his ears and the tight clench of his jaw is vaguely mortifying; the polite turn of Thor’s head is enough to confirm he’s noticed.
It is clear that Thor is altered, too. Gone are the exuberant greetings, the easy displays of affection, the effortless, guileless camaraderie.
Now there is only that unnerving, uneven gaze, mismatching eyes too reminiscent of Heimdall’s otherworldly power to sit comfortably with one who sought to avoid it for so many years.
In complete contrast to all this, the merest suggestion of self-criticism sends Thor into a rage. It had been amusing at first, and of course the nerve had been one Loki had taken pleasure in raking. But his satisfaction soon soured, and Thor’s reactions quickly induced a bewildering sense of embarrassment. Of a joke taken too far. Of a line crossed. Of unworthy words, shameful sentiments and a lack of insight that must be obvious to all but Loki himself. Thor’s is the bitter disappointment of the newly disillusioned. Loki doesn’t have the faintest idea what to do with this.
He needs the resistance to push against, and when it isn’t there it’s like missing a step in the dark. He falls forward suddenly, blindly, without control, and in the instant of panic it takes to wrest himself back he feels a fool. The cruel words he lashes out with lay there between them, naked and ugly, the shame that follows laced with disgust.
He’s never been particularly averse to fighting dirty. But that doesn’t mean he’s entirely without honour. He still has some dignity left, and too much pride besides.
So he takes refuge in silence. He does not like that he does not understand Thor’s moods, and for the first time in his life he finds himself on the back foot of their mercurial relationship. It is not a position he relishes.
The information he extracts from Thor before they reach this point is nevertheless of use. Loki uses his time now to turn it over in his mind, to examine his new situation from every angle he can.
His brother is here for the stones. That much is obvious. He already possesses Space and Time, and Mind they took before they left Midgard behind. He would enlist his wayward brother to collect the rest. Loki imagines that once he has them all he will return to his timeline and use them to set things right. An admirable, if foolhardy, ambition. And one Loki has been persuaded to aid him in realising.
But after this Thor must put them back where he found them. Strictly speaking, he must return one other thing as well.
“Is it to be a jail cell for me when I have performed my duty?” Loki asks him more than once. Thor never replies with more than a pained look, but Loki guesses his meaning all the same.
It is no matter. If Thanos is only to be defeated in a timeline not his own, Loki has made his peace with it.
They go first for the Power Stone. It is laughably unprotected. It would have been easy to find even had Thor not had prior knowledge of its location, gleaned no doubt from his band of plucky future friends. Loki is almost sorry he had not thought to seek out such a treasure for himself before now.
Loki extracts the crystalline gem from the glowing field and the casing that houses it before Thor can finish shouting a warning. It is painful but not unbearable, and Loki cannot resist an opportunity to test himself against such power in its rawest form. The seidr he weaves is enough to protect him from the worst of it, and he grins as he hands it over, watching with amusement as Thor gingerly offers it housing in a contraption encasing his hand.
It is freeing to be so without fear. Loki finally sees the appeal recklessness once held for his brother, though Thor seems to have lost his penchant for it now.
Loki may as well embrace it. For if Thor’s plan is realised, what exactly does Loki have to lose?
When it comes to Malekith and the Dark Elves, Thor hesitates. He balks at the prospect of taking life in cold blood, of the honourless murder of sleeping men, enemies though they are. Loki feels no such compunction. The end he delivers is swift.
With the Aether thus secured, there is but one stone left to collect.
“And now for Soul. Where to, brother? You know its location.”
Thor is sombre. “I know it.”
“Then lead on.”
“Not yet.” Thor turns, his face hidden from view. “Soon. But not yet.”
His next realisation is not one he’s proud of, but were anyone to ask, Loki would answer that he at least possesses enough self-awareness not to delude himself as others have always sought to.
Loki is jealous. He’s jealous of a man he’s never met. Of one who has earned his brother’s regard, his grief and his respect, his thoughtful moments and his wistful reminiscences. Loki is jealous of himself, and he finds he hates himself all the more for it.
More than this is the resentment he nurses, its strength crippling in its intensity when he allows it to rise unchecked. He is caught between it and the hope he wants to feel, its insidious hooks clawing at him and dragging him down whenever he thinks he has surfaced from the deepest depths of his darkness.
Because there is one truth he cannot escape, no matter how he turns the problem over in his mind. It is a poisonous thing, a thorn at the centre of a healing wound, a toxin that cannot be completely drawn out.
Thor needs him broken.
The fight, ill-advised though it is, at least clears the air, though Loki takes little solace from Thor’s response. He’s not sure why he now feels the need to put up resistance, especially having accepted the part he will play in this pointless charade back in that haunted little cell, but Thor’s request when it comes inspires a hurt he’d thought he’d finally put away.
“It is not me you want. We both know that. You wish I were him. Yet you need me. You wish I were broken and fixed at the same time.”
His brother is quick to dispute this. When pressed, Thor is all comfort, all reassurance. But Loki was raised on lies. He knows them as intimately as a lover does, and he will not be lulled by them now.
To pull Loki from the time stream before his suffering would be to cast aside a tool too useful, a prize priceless, a pawn of purest value.
Thor needs him betrayed. He needs him lost. He needs him tortured. Only then could he secure the information he needs.
After all, Thor knows well the location of all the stones. And useful though it may be, it is not Loki’s fighting prowess Thor has really needed from him.
Thanos is what Thor wants.
The futility of it is what galls the most.
Perhaps Thor simply seeks a taste of revenge. The chance to dispatch the Titan, even if only temporarily, would be sweet indeed. Loki can empathise. It’s a plan he can get behind. But Loki would like to think the price too steep, even for Thor. Evidently Loki’s sanity comes cheap.
“You understand the rule of time as I do. You know nothing you do here can change things. Your fate is sealed. As is mine.”
“We’ll see,” is all Thor will say. Loki explains it to him, over and over. He cajoles and he rails. He argues and he refuses. He waits for Thor to leave him, to return to his own time with the gems that he came for, but the hours pass and still he remains. The hours pass and still he asks Loki for the coordinates only he can know.
Still Loki tries one more time.
“You know it is futile. Kill him or don’t, it changes nothing.”
“It will change everything,” Thor growls in return, and finally Loki is persuaded to leave it be.
“So will you do it?” Thor asks. “Will you help me once more?”
And, just as he always has, Loki concedes to Thor’s madness and answers, “Yes.”
The effort is much as it was the first time, the surge of power one that scorches him from the inside out. The difference this time is that he is practised, he is fuelled by a cool, certain anger, and he has the physical and mental strength to withstand the Space Stone’s fierce energy.
Bringing another does however require focus. The journey taxes Loki’s skill, but he is not considered Asgard’s foremost sorcerer for nothing. As Thor takes a moment to recover, Loki is swift to neutralise the only real threat they will face, devoting the remainder of his strength to the task.
Maw may be darkly talented, but even he is no match for the power of Mind.
It is Thor who delivers the death strike.
When the blow is landed, Loki feels nothing. He feels such an absence of anything at all that he makes it a mere five paces before he loses what little he has eaten this day. When he comes back to himself he is on his knees, Thor’s concern a silent presence at his back. But it is done. It is finally, finally, over.
Thanos’s headless body doesn’t so much as twitch where it lies between them, the remains of the Order dead or dying around him.
“It seems you did not need all the stones after all,” Loki murmurs, his mouth half numb in the aftermath.
“Not for this, no.”
But of course. Not for this. Never for this. This has been but a dry run for Thor. A pleasant distraction before the real work must begin.
“Then let us continue,” Loki says, rising and not looking back. “Let us complete your collection.”
Vormir, it is called. A desolate rock with little to recommend it but the mysterious quality of its light. Thor strides ahead to the only landmark, a pillar of rock reaching finger-like for the planet’s thin heavens.
Thor is silent still, as taciturn as he was for the duration of the journey here. How he had navigated the course he has yet to reveal. It is not a place Loki remembers from his long years of study.
The being they meet does not impress Loki with its cryptic messages but is a curious creature nonetheless. Were he not inclined to mock the pretentiousness of the foreboding persona it affects he may have been interested to learn more of its origins.
Thor however approaches both the being and its words with a seriousness it is difficult to ignore. Loki peers carefully over the precipice to the drop beneath, only half-listening to the speech as it concludes, but cannot avoid the final words, delivered as they are with such laughable ceremony.
“You must lose that which you love.”
Loki scoffs, turning to Thor with ready words of scathing, disbelieving humour. They are never voiced. Thor’s eyes when he meets them are liquid with misery. There is no rebuttal. No denial. No expression of the ridicule the statement deserves. Only apology. Apology and a steadfast, unremitting determination.
The mirth in Loki shrivels and dies, a cold certainty settling lumpen and unwanted in his gut. It cannot be. This cannot be happening. It makes not a scrap of sense.
“So was it never to be a cell, but oblivion?” He cannot quite believe it, even with the evidence plain and clear before him.
Thor does not say he is sorry. Loki would not accept such cheap platitudes besides. Instead he approaches Loki at the edge of the descent and damn him if Loki doesn’t take an involuntary step back.
He twists, shifting rocks clattering over the edge as he does, and scans frantically for a way to escape.
“Forgive me,” Thor says as he reaches out.
Thor lays not a finger upon him but instead opens his fist, a vial of something Loki doesn’t recognise falling from his palm. It tumbles end over end in a parody of slow motion, plummeting to its destruction on the rocky floor below.
When he opens his eyes again he finds himself in still water, its silken edges barely registering against his skin. Beside him Thor cradles the final gem in a delicate grip and gazes into its depths, a single tear tracking its way into his beard. For all its value, it appears this treasure has been hard won.
“Now I can never go back,” Thor murmurs, turning to Loki at last. “Now it’s just you and me.”
Loki gapes. It is clear now, clear with a terrifying, sudden clarity just what his brother has done. That vial in Thor’s hand, the precious liquid that he let slip from his grasp, the means he has to return to his right time, his friends, his home, the vial that now lies shattered at the foot of that sacrificial cliff...
Thor raises his arm and stretches his fingers wide, the skeletal gauntlet and the stones already placed there forming once again across each knuckle and span. The force with which the Soul Stone draws itself into its cradle is enough to snatch it from the tips of Thor’s fingers, and when it buries home the energy it releases is enough to knock Loki back.
He rights himself in time to see Thor wreathed in light, the currents of energy swarming and dancing around him. He absorbs it with effort, and when he steadies Loki reads his intention clear.
“Do not,” Loki chokes out too slowly. He moves to rise, lunging towards his brother, though he knows before he does he will be too late.
With a small smile that pierces Loki to his heart, Thor lifts his arm and snaps his fingers.
“No!”
He feels it immediately. The wrongness of it, the push and the pull, the absence and the void that his reality rushes to fill. He feels forced in place, unnatural and resisting, sharp edges catching at him as though at a shape that doesn’t quite fit the space left for it.
The heady rush of it leaves him nauseated and sweating. The screams still ringing in his ears die away, but whether they are his or Thor’s he cannot be entirely sure.
When he can see again it is to find himself exactly as he was, his surroundings unchanged, the only difference he can discern in the currents of his magic that thrum and jump with something not quite right.
Thor lies in the aftermath of his agony, his clothing faintly smoking, his arm a twisted ruin of molten metal and charred flesh. He pants, wincing, still writhing with the after effects of the incredible surge of power he has contained, yet alive. Still, incredibly, alive.
“Oh, Thor. What have you done?”
Thor tries a miserable smile. “Nothing you wouldn’t have tried yourself, were our situations reversed.”
Loki crawls to him, what miserable comfort his lap can afford offered up to Thor’s bulky shoulders. They remain there, Thor breathing through the pain and Loki’s senses settling at last, neither with the heart to voice their fear of what has happened.
Because for Loki, it is fear he feels. He suspects Thor feels it too, though Thor was determined to see this through to its end.
To Loki it is now suddenly, painfully clear. What Thor has done. What he has risked. Loki’s fool of a brother has played with time itself to satisfy his own selfish whims, to recreate for himself a universe in which the mistakes of the past do not exist.
Thor has merged two timestreams together.
Never in his long life has Loki heard of such an undertaking. He would not have thought it possible. Still does not quite believe what his senses tell him, in fact. Yet the feedback he is receiving says it’s so. He feels it in his very bones.
Everything Thor has shown him — their reconciliation, their parents’ deaths, their home’s destruction — none of it will now come to pass as it should. The future Thor has been intent on rewriting has not been saved. It has not been tweaked thanks to borrowed power. It has not been nudged onto a more favourable course. It has been erased. Overwritten.
This course Thor has orchestrated, but it seems Loki was to be the agent of his own demise all along. By aiding his brother, he has sealed the fate of his future self.
The timestreams merged, his other self fades from existence.
Thor has doomed himself too — he can never return to his life as prince, as friend, as Avenger. He must remain exiled, a poor imitation of the version of himself that shines so bright and true.
“You fool,” Loki chides bitterly as he cradles Thor to him, his fingers searching the irreversible damage Thor has done to himself. He’ll live, but at a cost. At a terrible, terrible cost.
“Aren’t you going to ask me why?” Thor murmurs, weak with the pain but seemingly untroubled at last.
Loki cannot form words to ask. He thinks he knows why, but he’s not sure he can bear to hear it. If Thor would only spare him this last cruel certainty. If only he would let him keep this last protective wall.
Thor smiles, the tears running freely now, his good hand lifting to clutch at Loki’s surcoat. “Because I am selfish. Because I could not abide a world in which you were not. Because there was nothing left for me there.”
Loki screws his eyes shut and ducks his head against his brother’s. Anything to avoid that gaze, that painfully earnest gaze.
They remain that way for time uncounted as the light of the star — of Vormir’s sun — bathes them both in its warmth.